In my body, the wiring of my immune system is all awry. The green wire is evidently connected to the black, the white wire is connected to the blue, and the red wire is just left bare and exposed. The result? I have a very, very hard working immune system - but it puts all its energy in the wrong places. Basically, it can't tell friend from foe - so it ends up attacking my own healthy cells as vigorously as it would attack a foreign threat. The way I've explained it to my nieces is to imagine two armies facing off in battle: the invading troops have all their guns pointed at their opponent, but the "home team," with all their guns, turn and aim at one another! What would the result of that war be? Total annihilation of the home team!
Welcome to my body.
So how are autoimmune diseases treated? The most common way is to disable the immune system, or at least to cripple it. (Basically, the guns are taken away from the army. They are left with pocketknives to fight a war.) With different levels of severity, medications are given that shut off the body's ability to fight -- the same medications that are given to organ transplant patients to prevent Graft Vs. Host disease. The good part about that is my body quits attacking healthy cells (OK, so it reduces the amount,) but unfortunately it means I'm also less able to fight off real threats, like the chicken pox and pneumonia that hospitalized me this year.
So it's a lifelong game of walking a balance beam, trying on one hand to minimize the amount of self-attacks, but at the same time leaving some kind of arsenal for my body to fight off the true threats.
But there's another body I have seen that suffers from the same autoimmune disorder.
And that is the body of Christ.
❝For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.❞
--Eph 6:12
Or, at least, we should be.
But what I see happening with startling prevalence is that we do fight flesh and blood -- and to the heartbreak of our Lord, we too often fight one another. We war within the very body of Christ.
We erect a building and we call it a church, and then we hang a painted sign over the door with a name that we feel designates us to be the right ones of God. Or we meet in a living room and feel spiritually superior to those who don't. And heaven help those who meet under a different umbrella!!! We grab onto a piece of doctrine and claim that those who don't subscribe to our brand of doctrine (which of course is THE right doctrine) are not as close to God as we are.
But this isn't new.
Jesus scolded his disciples about this very thing. Once, 'The Twelve' told Jesus about something they had done, undoubtedly proud of it and expecting kudos from the Lord. "Teacher," they said, "We saw a man using Your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he isn't one of our group." Can you hear the pride in that statement? He isn't one of our group. Can you see the Twelve fist-bumping each other for their brilliant move and holding out their fists to Jesus, expecting Him to fist-bump them back? But He rebuked them. "Don't stop him!" Jesus said. [Imagine the shock on the disciples' faces right about now.] "Anyone who is not against us is for us." [BAM.] Jesus then went on to say that it would be better for anyone who causes someone to lose their faith in Him if they'd had a 130-lb rock tied to their neck and they were thrown in the sea. Wow! Can't you see the disciples' egos deflating like an untied helium balloon?
Ever since the beginning, followers of Jesus have had to fight the temptation to view the world in terms of "us" and "them." Instead of berating disciples for doing something differently, might Jesus want us to encourage them for following the Lord?
We put being right above being loving.
But this isn't new.
Two thousand years ago, Paul of Tarsus had to deal with believers in Galatia who were being nasty to each other. He encouraged these believers to "serve one another through love," reminding them that the entire Law and every prophet's message could be distilled down to one thing: Love. "But," he warned them, "If instead of showing love among yourselves you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another." So we should live according to our new life in the Holy Spirit!
"What horrible people those were way back then! I'm glad we're not like that today," we say.
HA! OK, so what does autoimmune disease in the body of Christ look like today? As I said above, one major symptom is the sign hung above the door of the building some call churches. Within 5 minutes of meeting another believer, I can almost guarantee the question, "Where do you go to church?" will be asked. There is only one purpose of these titles and names: To divide ourselves. What is a denomination, other than a portion being denominated (divided) from the whole? Oddly enough, there are even certain groups who say that they are not a denomination. (If that's not an oxymoron, I don't know what is!) They come up with definitions of a denomination with only the traits they don't possess; for example, a common one I've heard is that you're not a denomination if you don't have a central governing body (such as the regional, national and international chains of command). But having a hierarchy outside a local group is not the definition of a denomination. Being divided from the whole is the definition of a denomination!
Other ways we see spiritual autoimmunity is in spreading gossip about one another, by not helping one another when we have the means to help, by not becoming invested in one another's lives - you know, being a true community and family! Instead, we go about our everyday lives without connecting with each other in meaningful and sacrificial ways. The picture of the earliest church is an astoundingly beautiful one, but unfortunately it is all too uncommon in our day.
It is long past time that we drop all the walls of division among believers. What would happen if we truly took seriously Jesus' prayer in the garden before His arrest? Imagine you are God made flesh, standing on the earth for the last time as a free man, before your arrest and execution. You have only a short amount of time to talk to your Father in heaven. Don't you think that what that prayer includes would be some mighty important stuff? I do! And that's why the fact that Jesus uses this time to pray that the people who believe in Him would be united in the truth by the Spirit is no small thing. Yet it seems like we are continually inventing new ways to divide from one another and attack each other!
Jesus showed no partiality when He walked the earth 2,000 years ago. He loved, served, and taught those within His circle and those outside of it. By example and by word, He taught His disciples to do the same thing - and then He told those disciples to teach & show others how to do the same. At every turn, Jesus and His apostles tried to nip division in the bud -- yet it flourishes today.
Jesus said, "Love each other. Just as I have loved you, love each other. Your love for each other will prove that you are My disciples."
Yet Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
Read that quote again, and let it break your heart.
If we, as those who bear the name of Jesus Christ, cannot truly love each other, how can we love unbelievers? How can we even claim to love God?
If we cannot stop biting and devouring one another, how can we expect to have anything appealing to offer the world?
We must remember that other believers - yes, even those who think differently - are not the enemy. ("He who is not against Me.....") If we are not a source of healing & love for the other members of the same body we are a part of, how could we ever help heal others? We also need to remember that the enemy is not the people outside of the church. Because we are a priesthood, our job is to intercede to God on behalf of those people! (Think of Abraham & Moses who pleaded that God would not destroy the people because of their disobedience.)
So as I will be doing, I would highly encourage you to go before our Advocate, Jesus Christ, and ask Him to reveal the ways in which you & I could improve in the way we show love for one another. Not in word, but in action. In the kind of way that would rock the foundation of our society, because love like this cannot come from any natural source. A love like this is truly supernatural, and I believe the world would sit up and take notice if they saw this kind of love in action. Instead of adding fuel to the enemy's fire, let us kindle a holy love between one another that would spark into the hearts of others.
Our God in heaven is the Great Physician, and He has the power to heal this spiritual autoimmune disease that is running rampant in the body of His Son. What is the treatment? An overflowing and constant dose of LOVE. Love for Jesus, love for His Body (which is Jesus in the flesh, a.k.a. the church), and love for others. Are we willing to submit to this treatment? (There is no danger of overdose!) My final thought for you is from 1st John (which is an excellent source of encouragement in this area):
❝Let us love one another, for love is of God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God ... if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another ... if we love one another, God abides in us ... God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God ... If someone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar.❞
What are some practical things we can each change in our own lives (with the emphasis on introspection, not jumping right back in the U.S.S Criticize-Your-Brother ship) that will help heal this systemic disease and repair the damage?
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Evidence Isn't Everything
Speaking from a scientific and medical perspective, is there any shadow of a doubt that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health? I would dare say that the answer is "no." So why then do people still smoke? Because our decisions are influenced by so much more than just the facts. Not even rock-solid evidence is enough to keep some people from continuing in harmful behavior.
And to be more specific, sometimes that evidence isn't enough to keep me from harmful behavior.
I have driven when I was way too tired. In fact, I've driven while under the influence. I've eaten McDonald's chicken nuggets even after learning about the ghastly pink slime. And I insert Q-Tips all the way inside my ear because the annoyance of a wet ear canal is evidently worth the risk of permanently damaging my hearing. For every single one of these decisions, I knew better at the time.
So what?
Well, I used to believe that *if* Jesus really WAS the Son of God like He claimed (and that was a big, gigantic IF), then surely there would've been compelling evidence of his other-worldliness while He walked the earth, and every single person within thousands of miles would've been His followers by the time He died. (And all the more so if the resurrection was true. Surely that made the cover of first-century newspapers, right?)
Instead, even the Bible tells us that within just a couple days of Him being executed, virtually all of His closest friends and so-called "disciples" had scattered like cockroaches in the light and were doubting what they once believed about Him being God-on-earth (as we plainly see by them saying things like, "We had hoped He would be the one...."). I mean, if Jesus really was God, then wouldn't there be so much proof of it that everyone could easily tell that Jesus "wasn't from around here"?? If He really did create the universe, then surely He could come up with enough proof to convince people. Surely it would take a few hundred years for the awe to wear off and people to stop believing in Him -- instead of the numbers going in the opposite direction.
So doesn't the fact that there weren't thousands upon thousands of die-hard believers in Jesus by the time He died prove that there wasn't very convincing evidence for His claims? In fact, not only did He not have multitudes of loyal followers at that point, but He couldn't even keep His few closest friends around. What kind of God can't even keep a dozen guys convinced?? There must not have been much evidence to back up His claims. Right?
Well, if that logic is true and we hold to it, then there shouldn't be a single cigarette smoker alive. Not a single meth user. No one would ever drive drunk and McDonald's would be out of business in a week. But yet we all continue to make decisions that we know aren't beneficial .... for some reason.
But why?
Because every one of us uses more than "just the facts" to make a decision. We consider what it will cost us and what we would gain. We consider how difficult it would be to change accordingly. (Admit it, quitting cigarette sounds like no fun at all.) The more we have to lose (friends, money, reputation, etc) and the more difficult the change, the less those facts are enough to impact us.
And make no mistake about it, Jesus wants nothing less than everything from you and me.
If we take Jesus at His word, then He wants to be absolutely first in our lives.
So what's the flip side of that coin? Why would I possibly want to hand over my entire life to Jesus? What could I possibly gain from that? Well, nothing less than immortality. Being forgiven of every bad thing you've ever done in your life - to have it all wiped clean. The constant presence of the Spirit of God who will actually make His home inside you, and then an eternity in the presence of Love Incarnate.
But too many of us (myself included, for too many years) chose to let such things as pride and immediate gratification take precedence over the proof and logical "cost/benefit analysis" of the equation. This is exactly why a large crowd could watch Jesus bring a guy that had been dead for many days back to life right in front of them - and yet many of those people never became His followers. They loved the approval of people and their status in society more.
So at the end of the day we each choose freely whether or not we will follow the Son of God, but let none of us say that it is only based on historical evidence.
And to be more specific, sometimes that evidence isn't enough to keep me from harmful behavior.
I have driven when I was way too tired. In fact, I've driven while under the influence. I've eaten McDonald's chicken nuggets even after learning about the ghastly pink slime. And I insert Q-Tips all the way inside my ear because the annoyance of a wet ear canal is evidently worth the risk of permanently damaging my hearing. For every single one of these decisions, I knew better at the time.
So what?
Well, I used to believe that *if* Jesus really WAS the Son of God like He claimed (and that was a big, gigantic IF), then surely there would've been compelling evidence of his other-worldliness while He walked the earth, and every single person within thousands of miles would've been His followers by the time He died. (And all the more so if the resurrection was true. Surely that made the cover of first-century newspapers, right?)
Instead, even the Bible tells us that within just a couple days of Him being executed, virtually all of His closest friends and so-called "disciples" had scattered like cockroaches in the light and were doubting what they once believed about Him being God-on-earth (as we plainly see by them saying things like, "We had hoped He would be the one...."). I mean, if Jesus really was God, then wouldn't there be so much proof of it that everyone could easily tell that Jesus "wasn't from around here"?? If He really did create the universe, then surely He could come up with enough proof to convince people. Surely it would take a few hundred years for the awe to wear off and people to stop believing in Him -- instead of the numbers going in the opposite direction.
So doesn't the fact that there weren't thousands upon thousands of die-hard believers in Jesus by the time He died prove that there wasn't very convincing evidence for His claims? In fact, not only did He not have multitudes of loyal followers at that point, but He couldn't even keep His few closest friends around. What kind of God can't even keep a dozen guys convinced?? There must not have been much evidence to back up His claims. Right?
Well, if that logic is true and we hold to it, then there shouldn't be a single cigarette smoker alive. Not a single meth user. No one would ever drive drunk and McDonald's would be out of business in a week. But yet we all continue to make decisions that we know aren't beneficial .... for some reason.
But why?
Because every one of us uses more than "just the facts" to make a decision. We consider what it will cost us and what we would gain. We consider how difficult it would be to change accordingly. (Admit it, quitting cigarette sounds like no fun at all.) The more we have to lose (friends, money, reputation, etc) and the more difficult the change, the less those facts are enough to impact us.
And make no mistake about it, Jesus wants nothing less than everything from you and me.
If we take Jesus at His word, then He wants to be absolutely first in our lives.
So what's the flip side of that coin? Why would I possibly want to hand over my entire life to Jesus? What could I possibly gain from that? Well, nothing less than immortality. Being forgiven of every bad thing you've ever done in your life - to have it all wiped clean. The constant presence of the Spirit of God who will actually make His home inside you, and then an eternity in the presence of Love Incarnate.
But too many of us (myself included, for too many years) chose to let such things as pride and immediate gratification take precedence over the proof and logical "cost/benefit analysis" of the equation. This is exactly why a large crowd could watch Jesus bring a guy that had been dead for many days back to life right in front of them - and yet many of those people never became His followers. They loved the approval of people and their status in society more.
So at the end of the day we each choose freely whether or not we will follow the Son of God, but let none of us say that it is only based on historical evidence.
Monday, April 1, 2013
One Sentence that Could Change the World
Once upon a time a group of highly religious people callously threw a woman, guilty of sexual sin, in the dust at the feet of Jesus. She had knowingly acted in a way that was against God's design. According to the design of God - according to the very nature of God, who by nature cannot be in the presence of sin - the wages of her sin was a death sentence. And the crowd who had brought her to the feet of Jesus - who claimed to speak for God Himself - was chomping at the bit to have that sentence carried out right then and there; they held the weapons in their hands that would be used to execute the woman. This moment was an incredibly combustible face-off between two of the most powerful forces of the day: in one corner stood the religious elite - the people who held the title of God's chosen race and holy nation, the people whose charge it was to represent the great I Am to a world outside of that covenant and who did not know God; what the world knew about God was what they learned through observing this holy nation of chosen people. And in the other corner stood Jesus, who claimed to be the very Son of God Himself. Not only did He speak exclusively for God, but He was God.
They asked Jesus again and again and demanded an answer.
But Jesus just sat down and started doodling in the dirt.
As you can imagine, this didn't make the mob happy. Finally, after much pestering, Jesus stood up and faced the angry mob of the religious elite. He looked them in the eye and instructed the woman to be stoned -- as long as the stoning began by the person in the crowd who had no sin throwing the first rock.
One by one, oldest to youngest, every single person in the angry crowd left. Soon only Jesus and the woman remained.
Upon noting that no one was left to condemn the woman, Jesus told the woman one single sentence - one that just might change the world. "Neither do I condemn you," Jesus said. "Now go your way and sin no more."
The woman walked in expecting to be executed - and she walked away a free woman. After one meeting with Jesus, her life was forever changed.
There's four things about this event that I believe are absolutely pivotal.
◆ Jesus refused to get caught up in the emotion of the moment. He wouldn't jump on the bandwagon of hate and condemnation towards the woman, and yet He didn't act hateful towards the self-righteous either. He kept His cool.
◆ Jesus reminded the religious elite what they had evidently forgotten: that they too had fallen far short of the glory of God. They had no room to treat the woman as if they embodied God's law perfectly -- regardless of whether or not they had ever committed the same sin that this woman stood condemned for, they had nonetheless sinned. And if you were guilty of breaking one part of the law, you were guilty of the weight of the whole law.
◆ The fact that these people were guilty of sin did not excuse the behavior of the woman. Jesus then addressed her - but He did so in love and with compassion; He did not demean her or belittle her. In fact, He forgave her. He did the unthinkable and said that He did not condemn her.
◆ Far from excusing what she had done and the gravity of the situation, Jesus addressed her sinful life head-on. After forgiving her and wiping her slate clean, he told her to "go and sin no more." He recognized that what she had done was sin, and that she should never do this again. Because of the love she received from Him, He expects her life to look differently. She had been given a charge by the Son of God to change her life -- and I would think that being given the chance to walk away from death row would emblazon that on her heart in a way that made her think long & hard about that advice and her choice of lifestyles.
So why is this so important? Because frankly, in most conversations about sin I hear (and worse, what I see in the media), people ignore #1, have forgotten #2, refuse #3 and skip over #4. If we act like #3 and #4 are an either/or buffet; we either focus on excusing people of their sin, or we take it upon ourselves to campaign for everyone else to "go and sin no more." Typically that involves a lot of finger pointing and quoting our favorite "clobber verses." God's Word should be used as a healing balm, and not as a way to cauterize an open wound we just inflicted.
If we emphasize only #3 (Jesus' statement that He did not condemn the woman in sin) while neglecting #4 (the second half of Jesus' sentence warning her not to sin any more), we have perverted Jesus' message and are in danger of endorsing what has been called "cheap grace." But the flip side of that coin is just as dangerous! If all we talk about are the laws and "Thou Shalt Not's," then God becomes nothing more than a supernatural bully who is eagerly waiting for each of us to trip up so He can strike us with lightning and the full power of His wrath. That is not the God I know! That is not the God of the Bible! That is not Jesus!
I recently read an interesting blog post about some disturbing trends among Christendom today, and I thought the author made one especially poignant observation. Even though 80% of youth will leave "church" by the time they hit 30, the reasons they give for leaving - such as the experience of Christianity being shallow, or the church being antagonistic to unbelievers - "[U]pon heavy scrutiny [of their reasons for leaving], none of this remotely sounded like Jesus, so He wasn't the problem, which was a relief because when having a faith crisis, you don't want to discover your Main Character is a fraud. As far as I can tell, Jesus is still the easiest sell on earth, because if you don't love a guy who healed lepers and pulled children onto His lap and silenced the religious elite and ate and drank with sinners, then you just don't know Him."
The GOOD NEWS is that when we are humbly at the feet of Jesus, He will not condemn us. He will help us to our feet and dust us off. When Jesus encounters a person caught up in sin, He doesn't jump on the bandwagon of those who ignore their own sin while accusing others'. Instead, He extends love to the person, and He then adjures that person to change their life.
Is that what happens when you or I encounter a person caught up in sin?
God is love, so the only way we can accurately represent Him is by loving others.
"By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another."
--Jesus
They asked Jesus again and again and demanded an answer.
But Jesus just sat down and started doodling in the dirt.
As you can imagine, this didn't make the mob happy. Finally, after much pestering, Jesus stood up and faced the angry mob of the religious elite. He looked them in the eye and instructed the woman to be stoned -- as long as the stoning began by the person in the crowd who had no sin throwing the first rock.
One by one, oldest to youngest, every single person in the angry crowd left. Soon only Jesus and the woman remained.
Upon noting that no one was left to condemn the woman, Jesus told the woman one single sentence - one that just might change the world. "Neither do I condemn you," Jesus said. "Now go your way and sin no more."
The woman walked in expecting to be executed - and she walked away a free woman. After one meeting with Jesus, her life was forever changed.
There's four things about this event that I believe are absolutely pivotal.
◆ Jesus refused to get caught up in the emotion of the moment. He wouldn't jump on the bandwagon of hate and condemnation towards the woman, and yet He didn't act hateful towards the self-righteous either. He kept His cool.
◆ Jesus reminded the religious elite what they had evidently forgotten: that they too had fallen far short of the glory of God. They had no room to treat the woman as if they embodied God's law perfectly -- regardless of whether or not they had ever committed the same sin that this woman stood condemned for, they had nonetheless sinned. And if you were guilty of breaking one part of the law, you were guilty of the weight of the whole law.
◆ The fact that these people were guilty of sin did not excuse the behavior of the woman. Jesus then addressed her - but He did so in love and with compassion; He did not demean her or belittle her. In fact, He forgave her. He did the unthinkable and said that He did not condemn her.
◆ Far from excusing what she had done and the gravity of the situation, Jesus addressed her sinful life head-on. After forgiving her and wiping her slate clean, he told her to "go and sin no more." He recognized that what she had done was sin, and that she should never do this again. Because of the love she received from Him, He expects her life to look differently. She had been given a charge by the Son of God to change her life -- and I would think that being given the chance to walk away from death row would emblazon that on her heart in a way that made her think long & hard about that advice and her choice of lifestyles.
So why is this so important? Because frankly, in most conversations about sin I hear (and worse, what I see in the media), people ignore #1, have forgotten #2, refuse #3 and skip over #4. If we act like #3 and #4 are an either/or buffet; we either focus on excusing people of their sin, or we take it upon ourselves to campaign for everyone else to "go and sin no more." Typically that involves a lot of finger pointing and quoting our favorite "clobber verses." God's Word should be used as a healing balm, and not as a way to cauterize an open wound we just inflicted.
If we emphasize only #3 (Jesus' statement that He did not condemn the woman in sin) while neglecting #4 (the second half of Jesus' sentence warning her not to sin any more), we have perverted Jesus' message and are in danger of endorsing what has been called "cheap grace." But the flip side of that coin is just as dangerous! If all we talk about are the laws and "Thou Shalt Not's," then God becomes nothing more than a supernatural bully who is eagerly waiting for each of us to trip up so He can strike us with lightning and the full power of His wrath. That is not the God I know! That is not the God of the Bible! That is not Jesus!
I recently read an interesting blog post about some disturbing trends among Christendom today, and I thought the author made one especially poignant observation. Even though 80% of youth will leave "church" by the time they hit 30, the reasons they give for leaving - such as the experience of Christianity being shallow, or the church being antagonistic to unbelievers - "[U]pon heavy scrutiny [of their reasons for leaving], none of this remotely sounded like Jesus, so He wasn't the problem, which was a relief because when having a faith crisis, you don't want to discover your Main Character is a fraud. As far as I can tell, Jesus is still the easiest sell on earth, because if you don't love a guy who healed lepers and pulled children onto His lap and silenced the religious elite and ate and drank with sinners, then you just don't know Him."
The GOOD NEWS is that when we are humbly at the feet of Jesus, He will not condemn us. He will help us to our feet and dust us off. When Jesus encounters a person caught up in sin, He doesn't jump on the bandwagon of those who ignore their own sin while accusing others'. Instead, He extends love to the person, and He then adjures that person to change their life.
Is that what happens when you or I encounter a person caught up in sin?
God is love, so the only way we can accurately represent Him is by loving others.
"By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another."
--Jesus
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Living with April Showers, May Flowers, and Fertilizer
Earlier today I was driving in a light rain down a road called Garden Highway. It's one of the few streets with a fitting name; it winds through beautiful stretches of orchards and agriculture. While driving through the drizzle I was enjoying looking at the gorgeous trees covered with bright pink blossoms and all the flowers peeking their heads out of winter-worn flower beds. I thought how the brightly colored blooms seemed to not fit with the darkened grey sky; their beauty deserved the rays of sunshine classic of springtime postcards and computer screen savers. While I personally enjoy rainy days and puddles and mud, I thought of how many people complain when it rains and are miserable on days like this; I always feel they are missing out on the beauty of a rainy day. However, I've yet to meet a person who doesn't like spring blooms and trees covered in blossoms and the symphony of returning songbirds chorusing in their backyard! (Not counting people with bad seasonal allergies, that is - and even they enjoy the beauty if it weren't for the sneezing.)
But then something struck me -- while we all love the days and seasons in our lives that are full of proverbial flowers and songbirds, very few of us are thankful for the storms in life that make those lovely days possible! Think about it - as soon as any kind of hard time hits us or someone we love, what is the first thing we do? If we are praying people, then we call all our friends to pray hard for this person that their affliction is lifted. "Lord, please make them healthy - restore their job - heal their marriage - remove the trouble with their kids ---- make the hard times go away." If we aren't praying people, then we send them well wishes and healing energy and loving thoughts. We all commiserate with our friends and tell them we would take this away from them if we possibly could.
But should we?
What if we prayed that there were no dreary, rainy days in spring? Where would the flowers be? Where would the harvest be?
When there are times without rain, what do we have to do? What if there's no natural nutrients or fertilizer? Well, we have to pipe in the rain artificially. We turn on the sprinklers and apply the store-bought fertilizer. And the longer we go without rain, the more we have to turn to artificial means to hope for growth. But even with these artificial means, if the rain is absent long enough - if the drought is severe enough - then eventually even our irrigation channels will run dry. (In fact, for some people it requires a drought for them to appreciate the rain.) And life is no different. When I think about it, when growth is not happening naturally -- through mentoring, for example, where the people who are more mature have taken the younger under their wings and helped them grow by investing in their lives and teaching them day by day -- then artificial means have to be employed. Bring on the self-help books - the intellectual studies about how to build character, the workbooks about how to "be the best you you can be."
I don't know about you, but when I look back on my life it is almost solely in times of trial that I have really grown - that's when I have learned anything of substance, whether it's about myself or God or others. Very, very rarely does monumental growth happen for me when life is hunky-dorey. What about you? How much do your muscles grow when they are at rest? Don't they require resistance to grow? And from what I understand, the muscles have to tear ever so slightly in order to grow stronger. Where's the strongest part of a bone? Isn't it where was once broken and has since healed? The strongest part of a piece of metal is where it was soldered or welded. Unless, of course, the welding was done poorly, or the bone healed improperly. When there is trial and we try to heal artificially, instead of becoming the strongest point, it instead becomes the weakest point.
So how do I know whether or not the hardship is precisely what is needed to strengthen me? What if all our prayers were answered and every hardship was lifted - where would that leave us?
If it weren't for the hard times and afflictions in life, the rubber would never meet the road. The gold would never be refined. And who wants gold filled with impurities? We all want to be pure gold, but we never want to be refined. Often times the best possible thing that could happen in our lives is a healthy dose of rain and fertilizer.
So my mindset is changing. Instead of praying for every hardship to be lifted and for every refiner's fire to be snuffed out, I instead am learning to pray for perseverance, for faith, and for the wisdom to recognize the lessons in the trial facing me. In other words:
But then something struck me -- while we all love the days and seasons in our lives that are full of proverbial flowers and songbirds, very few of us are thankful for the storms in life that make those lovely days possible! Think about it - as soon as any kind of hard time hits us or someone we love, what is the first thing we do? If we are praying people, then we call all our friends to pray hard for this person that their affliction is lifted. "Lord, please make them healthy - restore their job - heal their marriage - remove the trouble with their kids ---- make the hard times go away." If we aren't praying people, then we send them well wishes and healing energy and loving thoughts. We all commiserate with our friends and tell them we would take this away from them if we possibly could.
But should we?
What if we prayed that there were no dreary, rainy days in spring? Where would the flowers be? Where would the harvest be?
When there are times without rain, what do we have to do? What if there's no natural nutrients or fertilizer? Well, we have to pipe in the rain artificially. We turn on the sprinklers and apply the store-bought fertilizer. And the longer we go without rain, the more we have to turn to artificial means to hope for growth. But even with these artificial means, if the rain is absent long enough - if the drought is severe enough - then eventually even our irrigation channels will run dry. (In fact, for some people it requires a drought for them to appreciate the rain.) And life is no different. When I think about it, when growth is not happening naturally -- through mentoring, for example, where the people who are more mature have taken the younger under their wings and helped them grow by investing in their lives and teaching them day by day -- then artificial means have to be employed. Bring on the self-help books - the intellectual studies about how to build character, the workbooks about how to "be the best you you can be."
I don't know about you, but when I look back on my life it is almost solely in times of trial that I have really grown - that's when I have learned anything of substance, whether it's about myself or God or others. Very, very rarely does monumental growth happen for me when life is hunky-dorey. What about you? How much do your muscles grow when they are at rest? Don't they require resistance to grow? And from what I understand, the muscles have to tear ever so slightly in order to grow stronger. Where's the strongest part of a bone? Isn't it where was once broken and has since healed? The strongest part of a piece of metal is where it was soldered or welded. Unless, of course, the welding was done poorly, or the bone healed improperly. When there is trial and we try to heal artificially, instead of becoming the strongest point, it instead becomes the weakest point.
So how do I know whether or not the hardship is precisely what is needed to strengthen me? What if all our prayers were answered and every hardship was lifted - where would that leave us?
If it weren't for the hard times and afflictions in life, the rubber would never meet the road. The gold would never be refined. And who wants gold filled with impurities? We all want to be pure gold, but we never want to be refined. Often times the best possible thing that could happen in our lives is a healthy dose of rain and fertilizer.
So my mindset is changing. Instead of praying for every hardship to be lifted and for every refiner's fire to be snuffed out, I instead am learning to pray for perseverance, for faith, and for the wisdom to recognize the lessons in the trial facing me. In other words:
And because I have a hope that extends far beyond my circumstances -- far beyond this life, I can say from my heart, "[W]e rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit..." and therefore: "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. It is good for me that I was afflicted -- in faithfulness you have afflicted me."
Note: While I was in the process of writing this post, a friend unknowingly caught me in my own trap! I had posted in a Facebook thread about how much I dislike the wind, and this was my dear friend's comment: "[I'm] not exactly a fan of the wind either. However, I find it interesting that the wind can help scatter seed in the windy season even if I think that the wind is frustrating at times. Likewise, when I get frustrated about spreading God's word to people thinking that my breath might be wasted and no one is listening, it helps to realize that seed is being scattered in the process and He knows where it will fall." I am so grateful for friends who help put things in perspective for me!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Losing & Finding My Way - Again (Part Two)
{Continued from "Losing & Finding My Way - Again (Part One)"}
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one {more} traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
But then something slowly changed.
And I didn't notice it changing.
And I didn't notice it changing.
I think most of us have heard the story about the poor little frog and the boiling water; if he's put in lukewarm water and then it's heated to boiling, he won't jump out and it will kill him - but if you try to plop him into water already boiling he'll jump right out and save his life. Isn't that so true in life?
Just like I didn't realize how weary I had become when I first tasted true healing, I didn't realize just how much things had changed in the years since I'd turned my life to Jesus. Have you ever been carrying a super heavy backpack and then when you set it down, you immediately feel like you're going to float right off the ground? Isn't that the weirdest feeling?! That's as close as I can explain the feeling when you realize that Jesus has taken your load of bricks off your back - your soul floats and soars. (And if you are where I was, believe me - I understand how hokey that sounds.)
Well, somewhere along the line I never realized that my yoke was no longer easy and my burden was no longer light. But why? It has taken me years to realize why.
I'm not here to go into the ins and outs of everything that made me realize what I have come to realize, but I would like to share a few things. First, the most important thing I could stress right now is:
I am on a journey back to the beginning. Back to when the yoke was easy. Sometimes that means taking a turn off the road most traveled and most popular, and onto a road few understand or agree with. For too long I got caught up majoring in the minors and auditing the majors. I've learned there is a monumental difference between intellectually studying about the history of Jesus, and in pursuing a living, breathing, tangible, change-the-way-you-live-your-life relationship with Jesus, by living through the power of His Spirit. Francis Chan said it well when he said that the majority of lives of believers are indistinguishable - they "make sense" - to unbelievers. In what ways am I living by faith in such a way where if God does not come through, I'm hosed?? For years I have sung - and heard crowds singing - words such as, "Living by faith in Jesus alone" .... "Though none go with me, still I will follow" .... "We place You in the highest place, above all else" ......... and frankly, many of us haven't meant it. The first thing many consider when it comes to following Jesus is how popular that move would be with the church. (And if it's not popular, well then.......). And the fact is, in my life and many others', God has been anything but "above all else."
So here's where I am with all of this now. For the first time in my life I truly understand the old cliché about "the more I know, the more I know I don't know." I'm stripping things down to a living, breathing relationship with Jesus and am pursuing knowing Him - not knowing about Him. To the best of my ability I will help anyone I can to draw close to Him as well, but not to hand them my conclusions. I will help show them what I've learned about how to pursue Him so they can get their conclusions from Him, not my feeble little mind. I believe one of the reasons that His way is described as narrow is because it really is very simple. Seek to know Him, and Him crucified. There's so much else we try to add to the path that are distractions at best, detours at worst. Let's stick to the straight and narrow, my friend, and along the way we can help to remind each other that His way is easy and His burden is light. Let's not accept any counterfeits.
Well, somewhere along the line I never realized that my yoke was no longer easy and my burden was no longer light. But why? It has taken me years to realize why.
I'm not here to go into the ins and outs of everything that made me realize what I have come to realize, but I would like to share a few things. First, the most important thing I could stress right now is:
If the yoke is not easy and the burden is not light, then it is not from Jesus.
There are many, many people who are peddling heavy burdens in the name of God that are not from God. Just like when Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago, there are an overwhelming number of people who have changed what God has commanded into their own religion. How could Jesus defy so many Jewish laws and yet claim to be of God, when God Himself established the Jewish religion? Because over the centuries, Jews had added their own stipulations on top of what God had given - and yet they claimed it was all a mandatory part of the faith, and they would harshly judge and condemn anyone who did not keep their religion as they had come to define it. [Sound familiar?] For example, when God told the Jews to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, the Jews added countless laws down to how many steps could be taken on the day. Did you know they even made a law saying you could not heal someone with mud & spittle on the Sabbath?? So, when Jesus came and healed a man born blind on a Sabbath using mud & spittle, was Jesus breaking the law? Yes. And no. He was breaking the law the Jews had created, but not the law of God.
I believe if Jesus were to walk the earth in the flesh today, He would make a lot of Christians very mad. Why? Because He would no doubt break many such laws that we have added over 20 centuries in order to show us what God had intended for us all along. Why else does the Christianity we see all around us today look almost nothing like what we read about in the pages of the New Testament? Today we see a multi-billion dollar industry called "religion"; when Jesus walked the earth, helping the orphan and the widow in their affliction was called "true religion." "Organized religion" in their day might've meant multiple followers of Christ working together to feed those orphans; today a majority of Americans say they hate organized religion (for good reason) - because of what it's come to mean in our vocabulary. The differences are endless between how we see early followers of "the Way" acting with each other and their world, and what we see today.
There is one thing I am not interested in doing:
Giving you my conclusions about what those differences are.
I am on a journey back to the beginning. Back to when the yoke was easy. Sometimes that means taking a turn off the road most traveled and most popular, and onto a road few understand or agree with. For too long I got caught up majoring in the minors and auditing the majors. I've learned there is a monumental difference between intellectually studying about the history of Jesus, and in pursuing a living, breathing, tangible, change-the-way-you-live-your-life relationship with Jesus, by living through the power of His Spirit. Francis Chan said it well when he said that the majority of lives of believers are indistinguishable - they "make sense" - to unbelievers. In what ways am I living by faith in such a way where if God does not come through, I'm hosed?? For years I have sung - and heard crowds singing - words such as, "Living by faith in Jesus alone" .... "Though none go with me, still I will follow" .... "We place You in the highest place, above all else" ......... and frankly, many of us haven't meant it. The first thing many consider when it comes to following Jesus is how popular that move would be with the church. (And if it's not popular, well then.......). And the fact is, in my life and many others', God has been anything but "above all else."
So here's where I am with all of this now. For the first time in my life I truly understand the old cliché about "the more I know, the more I know I don't know." I'm stripping things down to a living, breathing relationship with Jesus and am pursuing knowing Him - not knowing about Him. To the best of my ability I will help anyone I can to draw close to Him as well, but not to hand them my conclusions. I will help show them what I've learned about how to pursue Him so they can get their conclusions from Him, not my feeble little mind. I believe one of the reasons that His way is described as narrow is because it really is very simple. Seek to know Him, and Him crucified. There's so much else we try to add to the path that are distractions at best, detours at worst. Let's stick to the straight and narrow, my friend, and along the way we can help to remind each other that His way is easy and His burden is light. Let's not accept any counterfeits.
Losing & Finding My Way - Again (Part One)
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
----Robert Frost
Several years ago ... nearly 10, to be exact ... I turned the direction of my life on its tail and nothing has been the same since. I had been confident in my worldview and more than a bit cocky, because I "knew" what few others seemed to grasp - and yet it was so clear to me: All we are is all we are. There is no magical supernatural being over us or in us; the only part of the Bible I agreed with was some part about coming from dust and ending in dust. Period. End of story.
Although I had this grasp on a "truth" that seemed to escape the masses, there eventually came a point when I was forced to admit that my life was digging itself deeper into a ditch - a ditch that those masses were seemingly avoiding. What was the difference? In my early 20's I finally took to heart the old maxim, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over and expecting different results." I had been making decisions the same way over & over and was getting the same downward-spiraling results over & over. It was time for a change.
But what needed to change? I wasn't sure - so everything was up for reexamination. Turns out that my entire life was put on an anvil by which I was being forged into something completely different - what I believed, how I thought, who I spent time with, what I did for a living, what I did for recreation - all of these things were up for reevaluation. This was the most important thing I ever did in my life, and I hope that I never take any piece out of the "Able To Be Re-Examined" category again.
By that point in my life I was weary. Weary of running so hard and so fast in one direction only to realize, a hundred miles down that road, that it was the wrong road. I was weary of living according to the way that every logical neuron in my brain said was right, and yet it ended in disaster time and time again. I was weary of having no hope; I was weary of thinking that the here & now was the best it would ever be. "But I am a realist," I continued to tell myself. You don't believe in something that's not true just because you want it to be true; just because it makes you all fuzzy inside. That's the 'opiate of the masses,' right? But I was ... so ... weary.
"Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me - and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Have you ever heard something that soothed a nerve deep inside your soul that had been rubbed raw? Maybe a raw nerve you didn't even realize you had? This was it for me. I don't know that I realized at the time just how weary I was, until I tasted of this salve for the first time. Somewhere in my subconscious - that part where you know it, but you won't admit it to yourself - I had been trying to treat my own raw nerves in several ways for a long time. It was as if deep in my soul I had a bundle of raw nerves - like copper wires stripped of their protective coating - and as painful as each one was, they were outright dangerous if one bare wire touched another. So I would wrap each raw nerve in whatever I had in my tool belt (which, as an atheist, wasn't much), so I wrapped each nerve as if in an Ace bandage of alcohol, or partying, or just the constant noise and busy-ness around me so that I would never be left alone in the [sober] quiet company of my own raw nerves. But what I had come to learn was that these bandages of partying and distraction were actually just as conductive as a bare wire; although it might take a delay of a short amount of time for the electric shock to travel, the punch delivered was sometimes worse than it would've been without the delay.
But then I started to experience a genuine salve - a true solution for my raw nerves instead of the poor & temporary fixes I'd been attempting. A single drop of hope applied to a raw nerve is more soothing than a hundred bottles of alcohol. The more I sought to learn more about this "easy yoke" and "light burden," the more that one drop of hope turned into a small, steady trickle from a faucet. Each drop peeled back a layer of my own shoddy bandaging and applied a sincere remedy - and unlike my other attempts, this one wasn't wearing off a few hours later to only reveal more corroded wire. Unless I went back in after the salve had been applied and stripped the wire raw again on my own, it stayed healed. I'd never experienced such a thing before -- and it made me crave more of it.
Little by little and day by day I realized that Jesus - yes, this same Jesus whom I had debated endlessly about and whom I had denied my entire life - was standing right in front of me, knocking persistently at my door and imploring that I let Him heal not just one or two of my raw nerves, but every single raw nerve I had. Ones I didn't even know I had. He would gladly take the bag of bricks I'd been accumulating off my back, set them down and forget them, and hand me a yoke that was truly a resting place for my soul. I was finding that Jesus was not some historical event to debate or some overlord desperate to condemn the world -- He was living and breathing and calling me, all in a way I couldn't explain. How could someone who lived 2,000 years ago be active in my life today?? Skeptical, thinking it was too good to be true, I eventually took Him up on His offer. And you know what? Every raw nerve is healing and my soul is at rest. This sure doesn't mean I don't have problems - it simply means that the fountain of hope & living water from which I now freely drink is enough to give me a contentment and a peace that goes well beyond whatever temporal problems I have -- and that, my friends, is rest for my soul.
{But then something changed. Please see Part Two}
But then I started to experience a genuine salve - a true solution for my raw nerves instead of the poor & temporary fixes I'd been attempting. A single drop of hope applied to a raw nerve is more soothing than a hundred bottles of alcohol. The more I sought to learn more about this "easy yoke" and "light burden," the more that one drop of hope turned into a small, steady trickle from a faucet. Each drop peeled back a layer of my own shoddy bandaging and applied a sincere remedy - and unlike my other attempts, this one wasn't wearing off a few hours later to only reveal more corroded wire. Unless I went back in after the salve had been applied and stripped the wire raw again on my own, it stayed healed. I'd never experienced such a thing before -- and it made me crave more of it.
Little by little and day by day I realized that Jesus - yes, this same Jesus whom I had debated endlessly about and whom I had denied my entire life - was standing right in front of me, knocking persistently at my door and imploring that I let Him heal not just one or two of my raw nerves, but every single raw nerve I had. Ones I didn't even know I had. He would gladly take the bag of bricks I'd been accumulating off my back, set them down and forget them, and hand me a yoke that was truly a resting place for my soul. I was finding that Jesus was not some historical event to debate or some overlord desperate to condemn the world -- He was living and breathing and calling me, all in a way I couldn't explain. How could someone who lived 2,000 years ago be active in my life today?? Skeptical, thinking it was too good to be true, I eventually took Him up on His offer. And you know what? Every raw nerve is healing and my soul is at rest. This sure doesn't mean I don't have problems - it simply means that the fountain of hope & living water from which I now freely drink is enough to give me a contentment and a peace that goes well beyond whatever temporal problems I have -- and that, my friends, is rest for my soul.
{But then something changed. Please see Part Two}
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)