I've been reading/studying the book of Acts recently. For those unfamiliar, the book of Acts details the experiences of the early church including it's persecution and explosive expansion after the resurrection of Christ. Most recently, I've been in Chapter 8 which takes place as the early disciples fled Jerusalem due to persecution and the gospel spread to where ever they went.
In addition to reading the actual passages of Scripture, I also have been using my spiffy new Study Bible notes to get a deeper understanding of the text. And though I generally love my Study Bible, the note I read today really got stuck in my craw. Here it is:
Persecution forced the believers out their homes in Jerusalem, and along with them went the gospel. Sometimes we have to become uncomfortable before we'll move. We may not want to experience it, but discomfort may be best for us because God may be working through out hurts. When you are tempted to complain about uncomfortable or painful circumstances, stop and ask if God might be preparing you for a special task.
I don't know that I take issue with the whole note. Because parts of it are right, you know. Like I enjoy comfort, if I am comfortable I am not likely to uproot my life and move. Certainly the discomfort of facing persecution, literally forced these people from their homes. So in some sense, this note is true.
I don't know... I just get this bad feeling in my stomach when two things happen: (1) when we explicitly or implicitly place God as a author of suffering and (2) when we make suffering into a "teaching moment."
Specifically, it seems to me that God did work out the expansion of the church through the dispersion of the early disciples (i.e., persecutions ultimately facilitated godly aims). But I don't think it is a fair read to say, God inspired persecution to make these brandy new believers uncomfortable so they would get off their duff and move. Nor do I think God was trying to teach them a lesson. Or prepare them for a task. Ultimately, I don't think it was about THEM at all. It was about God. It was about bringing about God's kingdom to the Earth.
What I believe is that when we surrender our lives to God, we say "God, my life is Yours. Use it to bring about Your purposes. Use it at You see fit." Thus, God was using each of their lives (surrendered to Him of their own volition), as they dispersed from Jerusalem to bring His message with them.
Sometimes I think we (DEFINITELY MYSELF INCLUDED HERE) see suffering from such a self-centered lens. If I am suffering it must be because I am being punished or I need to learn a lesson or I am being developed. When I am pretty sure if God allows suffering, especially suffering of the magnitude of persecution, it is because of aims far bigger than any one of us. In the case of the early church, this is suffering for spreading of the message of hope and redemption, of God's unconditional love for the world and everyone in it. Not whether or not Sally Disciple was "ready" for some task or not.
I mean don't you want to know that the suffering you face/have faced has more meaning than just you?? Cause some of the sufferings that exist and are endured cannot be accounted for on selfish, self-centered terms (i.e., how does my suffering work out to benefit me). Instead, it can only be understood in the context Christ's kingdom coming. Specifically, if we will turn over our lives (sufferings an successes) to God, He will weave them into the story that spells Redemption for the world. That's right...THE WORLD.
Not just you.
Not just me.
The World.
His kingdom coming to The World.
If we could just remember that God has a plan for The World (all of creation) not just us. That He has a plan for us, but not ABOUT us. That we have a part to play, but not THE part to play.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Forgiveness is the lynch pin
I recently went over my old, unposted posts here on the blog. Most of them were half written, incomplete meditations or things that ended up feeling too raw to share in this forum. But I also happened upon one about forgiveness. It was during a season when I had been thinking a lot about forgiveness. Examining it from a variety of angles (i.e., personal, psychological, historical, theological, etc.) - it seems like I understood something for a minute there. Something I was glad to be reminded about.
Below is the post (edited a bit). I hope it resonates for you.
I've been thinking about forgiveness a lot lately. I remember when this current meditation started. I was at the Christmas Tea at Calvary Chapel Spring Valley and the speaker was talking about the importance of slowing down and reflecting on the Christmas story rather than running around completely distracted. It was a good talk, but in my case at least, she was preaching to the choir. I want to have SLOW DOWN tattooed on my heart. So I was tuning in and tuning out - but then she said something that really stuck out for me. She was making the point that Jesus was the perfect gift and she said something like, "If our problem was a lack of knowledge, He would've sent an academic. If our problem was financial, He would've sent an economist. If our problem was political, He would've sent a politician. But our problem is sin, and so He sent forgiveness in the form of a savior."
This really got me thinking because my tendency is to see the world's problems as so multifaceted as to be nearly unsolvable. You know... I tend to think that war, starvation and injustice are the result of socioeconomic factors, historical pressures, unequal distribution of wealth, corrupt politicians, physical conditions, biological differences, etc - I do not typically see them as all tied to a singular root, much less the single root of sin and un-forgiveness. Yet this is what she was saying... and so I started spinning it around in my mind. Thinking about my life, thinking about my clients lives, my friends lives and trends between cultures and times.
And I gotta tell you - the more I think about it, the more I think forgiveness is the lynch pin in the whole redemption plan.
Think about it like this - sin and un-forgiveness are intricately tied such that to some degree every sin is tied to an unhealed (and most likely unforgiven) wound. Since the first sin, there has been a (generally) uninterrupted pattern of broken (sinned against) people hurting (sinning against) other people.
To make this personal, when you are sinned against - you are hurt. Without forgiveness, that hurt drives you to act on your own behalf to either (1) get revenge or (2) insure that "never happens to me again." Problem is revenge immediately hurts the other (sin as a reaction to sin - increasing rather than decreasing our overall problem) and trying to insure that it "never happens again" still eventually hurts others.
How exactly does that happen you might ask? How does protecting myself from being sinned against actually cause me to sin against others?
I think when ever we resolve to completely avoid taking one relational role we necessarily take it's complementary role. So for example, if we resolve to never be the victim again, we become the perpetrator.
The way this really resonated for me was through a conversation I had with a Jewish girlfriend of mine this past week. She was talking about how she and her husband had parted ways with Jewish tradition because they couldn't understand the unmasked hatred toward the Palestinian people. She also shared some of her experiences growing up Jewish where the motto was "never again" referring to the losses in the Holocaust and Russia due to genocide. Specifically, she described the Jewish people as determining to prevent their own oppression by building up physical (a huge and elite armed force), intellectual (a large number of highly educated people), and financial (accumulating wealth) power. Power they will now use to scare, manipulate or buy their safety. Sadly, this plan "to protect" looks eerily like the plan originally used to by their oppressors.
From my perspective, the cost of unforgiveness in this situation is incredibly high - without forgiveness the only choice was to become (or at least resemble closely) that which they hate.
And I don't think this plays out on only a political level either. I am pretty sure it boils down to the personal level as well. By seeking to avoid being abused, you become an abuser - to avoiding being controlled, controlling - to avoid being rejected, rejecting. And perhaps its not always so clean and parallel but it seems highly likely to me that all the wounding comes from wounds.
Thus, what did we need - an economist? an academic? a therapist?
No, we needed to start forgiving each other. A reason to start seeing each other as broken people in need of love, wounding us out of a place of brokenness.
We needed Jesus. We needed someone to model and live a life of radical love and forgiveness. We needed some one to say, "You have heard it said: 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." But more than that, we needed someone to LIVE IT! A man that would carry a cross for nothing. Who would be "pierced for our transgressions" and still say "Father forgive them, the know not what they are doing."
We still need Him. I need Him every single day. I need Him so that I can remember why I need to forgive. I need Him so that I have a prayer of remembering even when I am persecuted, even if when I am diminished, even if when I am aching that it is NEVER my job to make sure it doesn't happen again. It is my job to forgive.
Below is the post (edited a bit). I hope it resonates for you.
I've been thinking about forgiveness a lot lately. I remember when this current meditation started. I was at the Christmas Tea at Calvary Chapel Spring Valley and the speaker was talking about the importance of slowing down and reflecting on the Christmas story rather than running around completely distracted. It was a good talk, but in my case at least, she was preaching to the choir. I want to have SLOW DOWN tattooed on my heart. So I was tuning in and tuning out - but then she said something that really stuck out for me. She was making the point that Jesus was the perfect gift and she said something like, "If our problem was a lack of knowledge, He would've sent an academic. If our problem was financial, He would've sent an economist. If our problem was political, He would've sent a politician. But our problem is sin, and so He sent forgiveness in the form of a savior."
This really got me thinking because my tendency is to see the world's problems as so multifaceted as to be nearly unsolvable. You know... I tend to think that war, starvation and injustice are the result of socioeconomic factors, historical pressures, unequal distribution of wealth, corrupt politicians, physical conditions, biological differences, etc - I do not typically see them as all tied to a singular root, much less the single root of sin and un-forgiveness. Yet this is what she was saying... and so I started spinning it around in my mind. Thinking about my life, thinking about my clients lives, my friends lives and trends between cultures and times.
And I gotta tell you - the more I think about it, the more I think forgiveness is the lynch pin in the whole redemption plan.
Think about it like this - sin and un-forgiveness are intricately tied such that to some degree every sin is tied to an unhealed (and most likely unforgiven) wound. Since the first sin, there has been a (generally) uninterrupted pattern of broken (sinned against) people hurting (sinning against) other people.
To make this personal, when you are sinned against - you are hurt. Without forgiveness, that hurt drives you to act on your own behalf to either (1) get revenge or (2) insure that "never happens to me again." Problem is revenge immediately hurts the other (sin as a reaction to sin - increasing rather than decreasing our overall problem) and trying to insure that it "never happens again" still eventually hurts others.
How exactly does that happen you might ask? How does protecting myself from being sinned against actually cause me to sin against others?
I think when ever we resolve to completely avoid taking one relational role we necessarily take it's complementary role. So for example, if we resolve to never be the victim again, we become the perpetrator.
The way this really resonated for me was through a conversation I had with a Jewish girlfriend of mine this past week. She was talking about how she and her husband had parted ways with Jewish tradition because they couldn't understand the unmasked hatred toward the Palestinian people. She also shared some of her experiences growing up Jewish where the motto was "never again" referring to the losses in the Holocaust and Russia due to genocide. Specifically, she described the Jewish people as determining to prevent their own oppression by building up physical (a huge and elite armed force), intellectual (a large number of highly educated people), and financial (accumulating wealth) power. Power they will now use to scare, manipulate or buy their safety. Sadly, this plan "to protect" looks eerily like the plan originally used to by their oppressors.
From my perspective, the cost of unforgiveness in this situation is incredibly high - without forgiveness the only choice was to become (or at least resemble closely) that which they hate.
And I don't think this plays out on only a political level either. I am pretty sure it boils down to the personal level as well. By seeking to avoid being abused, you become an abuser - to avoiding being controlled, controlling - to avoid being rejected, rejecting. And perhaps its not always so clean and parallel but it seems highly likely to me that all the wounding comes from wounds.
Thus, what did we need - an economist? an academic? a therapist?
No, we needed to start forgiving each other. A reason to start seeing each other as broken people in need of love, wounding us out of a place of brokenness.
We needed Jesus. We needed someone to model and live a life of radical love and forgiveness. We needed some one to say, "You have heard it said: 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." But more than that, we needed someone to LIVE IT! A man that would carry a cross for nothing. Who would be "pierced for our transgressions" and still say "Father forgive them, the know not what they are doing."
We still need Him. I need Him every single day. I need Him so that I can remember why I need to forgive. I need Him so that I have a prayer of remembering even when I am persecuted, even if when I am diminished, even if when I am aching that it is NEVER my job to make sure it doesn't happen again. It is my job to forgive.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Fear of God
David and I have been on the road a lot the past two weekends. We left Miss Syd with my brother in Marion for a week, which required us to make the trek ourselves four times in total. We talked about a lot of topics over the rides to and fro. We also listened to a lot of good music... and some not so good music. You see, David loves Rick Springfield.
Yes... I mean "You know I wish that I had Jesse's Girl" Rick Springfield. I am also perfectly aware that it is not 1985 or even 1993. Still, the man likes what the man likes. And as a supportive wife, I bear through 3-4 minutes of sound pollution (ok, I am exaggerating) to demonstrate my love.
One Rick Springfield song I found particularly offensive, was called Like Father, Like Son. And in the chorus was a line I found particularly unsettling "Fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise a good boy."
Yuck - bluck - spitting feeling in the mouth gross. I am picturing Tom Hanks wiping his tongue after he eats caviar in Big. "Nuh-uh!" I want to say, "Fear of God and the feel of the rod does not raise good children. It raises future therapy clients."
And that is how I have felt about fear of God in a nutshell for the vast majority of my life. Fear of God damages people, it interferes in their relationship with God. The phrase "fear God" in the Bible is better translated "stand in awe of God." Done. Settled.
Accept.... it's not.
Ironically, after I had my disgust reaction to Rick Springfield I found myself in a long conversation with my brother and nephew about the Church in America. About it's supposed political marriage with issues of intolerance, oppression and greed. About my rage, at the sheer hypocrisy of so many folks - that folks who publicly identify as my brothers and sisters refer to the poor as leeches or make racial or sexual slurs. Not to mention the endless supply of pastors who get caught cheating on their wives, using drugs or embezzling church funds.
I found myself saying things like - "You know... I am not talking about folks outside of the church. I am talking about people who claim to take the idea seriously that there is an Everlasting, Eternal, Holy, Righteous, Omniscient and Omnipotent God. How can you spit in His face?!? How can you so egregiously disregard His Word?!?" Which at the end is really... They ought to fear God.
We ought to fear God.
Not just in the "WOW isn't He big, like the ocean" kinda way. If we confess to be Christian, we ought to fear Him.
Now here's the problem - people fear God for all kinds of wrong reasons. For example, We ought not to fear him because He is mean - because He is kindness. We ought not to fear Him because He is punitive - because He is merciful. We ought not to fear Him because He is unloving - because He is love.
So what is to fear? Well God sealed my understanding on this issue by directing me to the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5: 1-11.
You see Ananias and Sapphira thought they could pull one over on God and everybody else. They sold a field and thought they would look super generous by giving "all the money" to the church. Accept it wasn't all the money. They lied. The Bible is unclear about why they lied; but we can guess that personal accolade was a huge motive. "Won't we look so big and bad to all of our friends at the church."
And do you know what happened. They were both struck down dead.
Whoa... *deep breath*
Holy crap! God just struck people down dead! In the New Testament! Whoa!
Why?!
Well, hear is my take. God sees us. I mean it - there is no, No, NO b.s.-ing Him. He is also capable of revealing that true nature at any time.
This was true for Ananias and Sapphira... God saw them and what he saw was their true selves: spiritually corrupt and destitute - DEAD. Here they were trying to come off as super-spiritual, pillars of the Christian community and God saw what was going on in them. And, in this case, He exposed them both through knowledge (i.e., Peter saw and announced their deeds) and in their physical consequences (i.e., you are not alive but dead).
So... Fear God. Why? Because He sees you and He can (and eventually will) expose you. We ought to fear God because He is Truth and we - well - we are often liars.
Dearest Creator God,
You are Truth. This is a scary fact, when I have bought into deceit, when I have perpetrated deceit. You are Light. This is a scary fact, when I want to hide in the darkness. Push me forth. Compel me. I renounce my alliance with deception. Forgive me. I offer my heart to the Truth. Help me to lead a life of transparency and clarity, so that I have nothing to fear in You, Author of Life.
Amen.
Yes... I mean "You know I wish that I had Jesse's Girl" Rick Springfield. I am also perfectly aware that it is not 1985 or even 1993. Still, the man likes what the man likes. And as a supportive wife, I bear through 3-4 minutes of sound pollution (ok, I am exaggerating) to demonstrate my love.
One Rick Springfield song I found particularly offensive, was called Like Father, Like Son. And in the chorus was a line I found particularly unsettling "Fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise a good boy."
Yuck - bluck - spitting feeling in the mouth gross. I am picturing Tom Hanks wiping his tongue after he eats caviar in Big. "Nuh-uh!" I want to say, "Fear of God and the feel of the rod does not raise good children. It raises future therapy clients."
And that is how I have felt about fear of God in a nutshell for the vast majority of my life. Fear of God damages people, it interferes in their relationship with God. The phrase "fear God" in the Bible is better translated "stand in awe of God." Done. Settled.
Accept.... it's not.
Ironically, after I had my disgust reaction to Rick Springfield I found myself in a long conversation with my brother and nephew about the Church in America. About it's supposed political marriage with issues of intolerance, oppression and greed. About my rage, at the sheer hypocrisy of so many folks - that folks who publicly identify as my brothers and sisters refer to the poor as leeches or make racial or sexual slurs. Not to mention the endless supply of pastors who get caught cheating on their wives, using drugs or embezzling church funds.
I found myself saying things like - "You know... I am not talking about folks outside of the church. I am talking about people who claim to take the idea seriously that there is an Everlasting, Eternal, Holy, Righteous, Omniscient and Omnipotent God. How can you spit in His face?!? How can you so egregiously disregard His Word?!?" Which at the end is really... They ought to fear God.
We ought to fear God.
Not just in the "WOW isn't He big, like the ocean" kinda way. If we confess to be Christian, we ought to fear Him.
Now here's the problem - people fear God for all kinds of wrong reasons. For example, We ought not to fear him because He is mean - because He is kindness. We ought not to fear Him because He is punitive - because He is merciful. We ought not to fear Him because He is unloving - because He is love.
So what is to fear? Well God sealed my understanding on this issue by directing me to the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5: 1-11.
You see Ananias and Sapphira thought they could pull one over on God and everybody else. They sold a field and thought they would look super generous by giving "all the money" to the church. Accept it wasn't all the money. They lied. The Bible is unclear about why they lied; but we can guess that personal accolade was a huge motive. "Won't we look so big and bad to all of our friends at the church."
And do you know what happened. They were both struck down dead.
Whoa... *deep breath*
Holy crap! God just struck people down dead! In the New Testament! Whoa!
Why?!
Well, hear is my take. God sees us. I mean it - there is no, No, NO b.s.-ing Him. He is also capable of revealing that true nature at any time.
This was true for Ananias and Sapphira... God saw them and what he saw was their true selves: spiritually corrupt and destitute - DEAD. Here they were trying to come off as super-spiritual, pillars of the Christian community and God saw what was going on in them. And, in this case, He exposed them both through knowledge (i.e., Peter saw and announced their deeds) and in their physical consequences (i.e., you are not alive but dead).
So... Fear God. Why? Because He sees you and He can (and eventually will) expose you. We ought to fear God because He is Truth and we - well - we are often liars.
Dearest Creator God,
You are Truth. This is a scary fact, when I have bought into deceit, when I have perpetrated deceit. You are Light. This is a scary fact, when I want to hide in the darkness. Push me forth. Compel me. I renounce my alliance with deception. Forgive me. I offer my heart to the Truth. Help me to lead a life of transparency and clarity, so that I have nothing to fear in You, Author of Life.
Amen.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Breathing
God has been talking to me lately. It's nice, because for awhile I felt like I was deaf again. Or more accurately, I felt like I was on hold...paused, halted, stopped.
In psychology we talk about our response to danger as "fight, flight or freeze" - me... I was frozen. As if all of the crap going on in my world might just stop happening if I stop moving, breathing, thinking, speaking.
I prayed this prayer a week ago in church:
Dearest Father,
I feel like I have been holding my breath for years now. Only you know if that is real or a just a figment of my perception, but it certainly feels real to me... [I feel] bound up and anxious. ... I am tired, Lord. Holding my breath is exhausting. I think I have been holding my breath with You. It's like I am afraid to breath.
Please give me breath, Paula
That afternoon, while I changed out laundry, I suddenly sighed a breath of relief. My Jackie was outside happily dissertating under a tree in the shade. My Sydney singing gleefully in a cool bath. My David lounging, reading the new Ted Dekker book Forbidden. My Dad sounding lighter and less bound up then he has in years. My Seth appreciated by his employer, taking a full weekend off and My Duarte smitten and risking in romance.
[Breath in] Oh thank you Jesus,
[Breath out] they are all ok.
[Breath in] They are all going to be...
[Breath out] ok.
I was holding my breath for them. I was holding my breath for me.
You see, I can see now how much my own well-being is intimately and intricately tied to my love for other people. How my heart lurches up and down with their moods, their worries, their pains. And though to some degree this is defining for me (i.e., God made me this way and I like it), it is also unhealthy when I let it rule my life instead of God (i.e., letting whether or not you breath rest on the whims of other people's emotions or decisions is unwise and frankly a roller-coaster).
So what I think now, is if I would like to breath regularly (as opposed to once every few months), I am going to have to submit myself more to God's authority and rule in my life. No more "Things will only be ok if [insert important persons name here] is ok." Because the truth is, every important person in my life is not likely to always be ok.
And honestly, I am not sure that God has any desire for me and anyone I love to be "ok." He wants us to be victors, warriors, lights in a dark world. He wants us to be healed and whole, vessels of His power and glory. And that is going to involve more than a little "not ok." It's going to involve suffering and trials and drama.So if I am going to breath, it's going to have to be in faith an trust to a constant, loving, miraculous God.
[Breath in] "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord
[Breath out] "plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
[Breath in] plans to give you hope and a future."
In psychology we talk about our response to danger as "fight, flight or freeze" - me... I was frozen. As if all of the crap going on in my world might just stop happening if I stop moving, breathing, thinking, speaking.
I prayed this prayer a week ago in church:
Dearest Father,
I feel like I have been holding my breath for years now. Only you know if that is real or a just a figment of my perception, but it certainly feels real to me... [I feel] bound up and anxious. ... I am tired, Lord. Holding my breath is exhausting. I think I have been holding my breath with You. It's like I am afraid to breath.
Please give me breath, Paula
That afternoon, while I changed out laundry, I suddenly sighed a breath of relief. My Jackie was outside happily dissertating under a tree in the shade. My Sydney singing gleefully in a cool bath. My David lounging, reading the new Ted Dekker book Forbidden. My Dad sounding lighter and less bound up then he has in years. My Seth appreciated by his employer, taking a full weekend off and My Duarte smitten and risking in romance.
[Breath in] Oh thank you Jesus,
[Breath out] they are all ok.
[Breath in] They are all going to be...
[Breath out] ok.
I was holding my breath for them. I was holding my breath for me.
You see, I can see now how much my own well-being is intimately and intricately tied to my love for other people. How my heart lurches up and down with their moods, their worries, their pains. And though to some degree this is defining for me (i.e., God made me this way and I like it), it is also unhealthy when I let it rule my life instead of God (i.e., letting whether or not you breath rest on the whims of other people's emotions or decisions is unwise and frankly a roller-coaster).
So what I think now, is if I would like to breath regularly (as opposed to once every few months), I am going to have to submit myself more to God's authority and rule in my life. No more "Things will only be ok if [insert important persons name here] is ok." Because the truth is, every important person in my life is not likely to always be ok.
And honestly, I am not sure that God has any desire for me and anyone I love to be "ok." He wants us to be victors, warriors, lights in a dark world. He wants us to be healed and whole, vessels of His power and glory. And that is going to involve more than a little "not ok." It's going to involve suffering and trials and drama.So if I am going to breath, it's going to have to be in faith an trust to a constant, loving, miraculous God.
[Breath in] "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord
[Breath out] "plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
[Breath in] plans to give you hope and a future."
Friday, January 13, 2012
What God Calls Me
If you've talked to me much about my faith, you probably already know that there are a few topics that immediately excite me. They speak to something very deep and old within me. When I am open my mouth to speak of them, immediately a tear jumps to my eyes and my heart fills with passion.
One of these topics is redemption. The idea that no matter who or where you are, or how deep a pit of sin and filth you have made for yourself there is always, Always, ALWAYS hope. God is always interested and capable of restoring you. That there really is grace enough for the whole human race. But today's post is not about redemption - well I guess it is in some sense, I mean every story that involves broken people and God is going to involve some aspect of redemption. But it narrowly focuses on one aspect of God's redemptive work - the assignment of a new name.
You see there is a theme through out scripture of God re-naming people. For example, God re-names Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Isreal, Simon to Peter, Saul to Paul. These changes are not simply superficial they reflect something deeper - Abram (a fatherless old man married to a barren widow) renamed Abraham (the father of many nations), Jacob (a liar, thief and coward, with a name that means supplanter) renamed Isreal (God wrestler - nothing cowardly about it!).
And what is so profoundly moving about this theme to me, is that in most cases God calls us by our new name PRIOR to our change. He calls Abram, Abraham long before nations are born from his line. He calls Gideon "mighty man of valor" while he is still the scrawny runt of his family. He calls Simon, Peter (or Rock) while he is still an emotional, impulsive and unstable man.
Why? Why does He do this?
He does this, because He knows who we really are. He is not thrown off by our sins, hurts or mistakes. He is not confused about where we have been or what we were made for. He knows. HE KNOWS! And He speaks our name so that we will know. Because we don't know who we really are. We are totally thrown off by our sins, hurts and mistakes. We are confused about where we have been and what we are made for.
Revelation 2:17 says this:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. "
This passage is speaking to us. God will give us a new name, a name that reflects who you really are. A name that tells you who you really are. It is not based on where you have been. It is not based on how you have failed. It is not based on a realistic assessment of where you are now. My name (your name) is who I was born to be and who, with God's grace, I will be again.
So the question is... do you know your name?
I believe I know what my name is. And I cannot wait, to hear him call it.
One of these topics is redemption. The idea that no matter who or where you are, or how deep a pit of sin and filth you have made for yourself there is always, Always, ALWAYS hope. God is always interested and capable of restoring you. That there really is grace enough for the whole human race. But today's post is not about redemption - well I guess it is in some sense, I mean every story that involves broken people and God is going to involve some aspect of redemption. But it narrowly focuses on one aspect of God's redemptive work - the assignment of a new name.
You see there is a theme through out scripture of God re-naming people. For example, God re-names Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Isreal, Simon to Peter, Saul to Paul. These changes are not simply superficial they reflect something deeper - Abram (a fatherless old man married to a barren widow) renamed Abraham (the father of many nations), Jacob (a liar, thief and coward, with a name that means supplanter) renamed Isreal (God wrestler - nothing cowardly about it!).
And what is so profoundly moving about this theme to me, is that in most cases God calls us by our new name PRIOR to our change. He calls Abram, Abraham long before nations are born from his line. He calls Gideon "mighty man of valor" while he is still the scrawny runt of his family. He calls Simon, Peter (or Rock) while he is still an emotional, impulsive and unstable man.
Why? Why does He do this?
He does this, because He knows who we really are. He is not thrown off by our sins, hurts or mistakes. He is not confused about where we have been or what we were made for. He knows. HE KNOWS! And He speaks our name so that we will know. Because we don't know who we really are. We are totally thrown off by our sins, hurts and mistakes. We are confused about where we have been and what we are made for.
Revelation 2:17 says this:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. "
This passage is speaking to us. God will give us a new name, a name that reflects who you really are. A name that tells you who you really are. It is not based on where you have been. It is not based on how you have failed. It is not based on a realistic assessment of where you are now. My name (your name) is who I was born to be and who, with God's grace, I will be again.
So the question is... do you know your name?
I believe I know what my name is. And I cannot wait, to hear him call it.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
God with us
I've spent a lot of time recently talking to people about loneliness and abandonment; about suffering and loss. Of course, this is a regular part of my profession. It is my comfort (or at least my occasional comfort) with such topics that has lead me to this role. I think most people really struggle to look at this stuff dead in the face. They don't want to see it.
Today alone, I have heard about or experienced examples of the ways we deal (or really don't deal) with these pains. We loose touch with reality (through lies and pretense and dissociation), we harden our hearts (through bitterness and unforgiveness), we delude ourselves (through the illusion of control), we run away. It's all such utter nonsense.
And when we are there, forced by circumstance or choice to look these things in the face, we often find ourselves very much alone because the rest of the world is totally not on board. I cannot tell you how many times in this very week I have heard the following phrase: "I just wanted someone to be with me." From the mouth of a divorcee, a longtime single, the victim of rape, someone coping with death, someone facing death - "I just want someone to be with me." Not someone to fix it, to minimize it, to run from it, to delude me about it, to encourage me to be bitter or entitled, not someone to know exactly how I feel or say exactly the right words but "someone to be with me."
And it strikes me that God chose two names for his son:
Matthew 1:21
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
and Matthew 1:23 (as well as Isaiah 7:14)
Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, God with us.
So the God's son shall be named "God saves" and "God with us". God saves.... God with us.
I don't know about you, but when I generally think of saving or rescuing I think of escaping. You know, a train barreling toward you and you are saved by the person who leaps into you, pushing you out of the way of the train. You've escaped.
When we think about Jesus, I think we can get stuck in this same kind of reasoning. Jesus saves by leaping onto the cross, just in the nick of time before our sins run us over. We've escaped. We've been rescued. Whew - now that's over.
But this is not my experience of Christianity. That's not to say it might not be an accurate reflection of some spiritual event I couldn't fully experience, I don't know. But what is certain, is that I have never felt the pressure of sin bearing down upon me and Christ narrowly carrying me out of danger. Nor was I immediately twinkled out of every desperate sin and ditch I had dug for myself when he came into my life. Something is very different about the way Jesus goes about saving.
In fact, it seems very clear to me that God does not save by sending a rope down from heaven with an evacuation plan. Cause look around dudes, we are all still here. And so was Peter and Paul and Mary and Martha and John.
So what's the deal God! Do you save? Yes - but the clue is in his other name. Because it is not just "God saves" but "God with us."
So Jesus doesn't push us out of the way of the train, He stands with us staring at the train and somehow this saves us.
Suffering.
God saves.
Someone to be with me.
God with us.
Today alone, I have heard about or experienced examples of the ways we deal (or really don't deal) with these pains. We loose touch with reality (through lies and pretense and dissociation), we harden our hearts (through bitterness and unforgiveness), we delude ourselves (through the illusion of control), we run away. It's all such utter nonsense.
And when we are there, forced by circumstance or choice to look these things in the face, we often find ourselves very much alone because the rest of the world is totally not on board. I cannot tell you how many times in this very week I have heard the following phrase: "I just wanted someone to be with me." From the mouth of a divorcee, a longtime single, the victim of rape, someone coping with death, someone facing death - "I just want someone to be with me." Not someone to fix it, to minimize it, to run from it, to delude me about it, to encourage me to be bitter or entitled, not someone to know exactly how I feel or say exactly the right words but "someone to be with me."
And it strikes me that God chose two names for his son:
Matthew 1:21
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
and Matthew 1:23 (as well as Isaiah 7:14)
Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, God with us.
So the God's son shall be named "God saves" and "God with us". God saves.... God with us.
I don't know about you, but when I generally think of saving or rescuing I think of escaping. You know, a train barreling toward you and you are saved by the person who leaps into you, pushing you out of the way of the train. You've escaped.
When we think about Jesus, I think we can get stuck in this same kind of reasoning. Jesus saves by leaping onto the cross, just in the nick of time before our sins run us over. We've escaped. We've been rescued. Whew - now that's over.
But this is not my experience of Christianity. That's not to say it might not be an accurate reflection of some spiritual event I couldn't fully experience, I don't know. But what is certain, is that I have never felt the pressure of sin bearing down upon me and Christ narrowly carrying me out of danger. Nor was I immediately twinkled out of every desperate sin and ditch I had dug for myself when he came into my life. Something is very different about the way Jesus goes about saving.
In fact, it seems very clear to me that God does not save by sending a rope down from heaven with an evacuation plan. Cause look around dudes, we are all still here. And so was Peter and Paul and Mary and Martha and John.
So what's the deal God! Do you save? Yes - but the clue is in his other name. Because it is not just "God saves" but "God with us."
So Jesus doesn't push us out of the way of the train, He stands with us staring at the train and somehow this saves us.
Suffering.
God saves.
Someone to be with me.
God with us.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Itchy Ears
I just finished a book a few weeks back by Rob Bell called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Boy, oh, boy is this a controversial book.
As you may or may not be aware, folks in the evangelical community are all up in arms because the perception was that Bell was taking a universalist position on the afterlife. For those unaware, the church has been fighting back and forth for centuries about the nature of the after life (i.e., who goes to heaven, who goes to hell; what exactly is heaven, what exactly is hell). For at least the recent past, three positions have been articulated: exclusivism (i.e. only Christians get in), inclusivism (i.e., Christians and some other people get in) and universalism (i.e., everybody gets in). Now, I am totally uneducated about who has held the majority position over the course of church history, but I do know a two things: (1) the loudest group of Christians presently endorse an exclusivistic perspective (I was gonna say majority of Christians, but I am not sure if that is true) and (2) there have been people in all three camps throughout the course of church history.
Now before some of you get all angry about exclusivists being the loudest, and possibly majority, group, I want to say something. I am pretty sure that a good number (if not the majority) of exclusivist Christians are exclusivist not because they really like the idea that most of the people who have been born and will be born are going to burn in hell. I am pretty sure they are exclusivist because their read (or the read of people they deeply respect and trust) is that, that is what the Bible teaches. In their view inclusivism and universalism are attempts to compromise the gospel to make it more palatable to the world. They take very seriously the warnings across the new testament about false prophets and manipulation of gospel. Warnings like 2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
And I will tell you something true, Mr. Bell's book did scratch my itchy ear. You see for a very, very long time I could not stomach Christianity. I could not stomach it because it seemed very much like a country club with ridiculous entrance standards; specifically, like what we like, dress how we dress, think how we think or burn in hell for all eternity. Of course they wrapped their invitation in words about love and acceptance but I saw through that bull to the purple kool-aid. And let me tell you what, I was not about to drink it.
So Mr. Bell's writing, his invitation to draw near to the gospel without having to draw the same conclusions as the people I knew was unquestionably part of my path to God. Certainly the existence of universalism at all, provided me a path toward God. But the question then is: Am I actually drawing closer to the real God? The Creator of the Universe? Or am I drawing closer to a god that I am fashioning from concepts I already like? Can I "put up with sound doctrine" or am I "gathering teachers" to scratch my itchy ears?
And here is my take. At the center of the Bible is a tension - a tension between who God is and what He wants and the apparent outcome. On the one hand, you have an omnipotent, omnipresent, omnipowerful God, Creator of the Universe, who is love and wants every person who ever lived to return to Him. On the other hand, you have mention of hell, judgement, wheat and chaff, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and of a rebel army that fights with Satan in last war in Revelation. These two things are very, very difficult to reconcile. If you reconcile them by saying - "Oh well, God is all powerful, his love is unending, he will pursue people until he gets them even into the after life" you are over looking some very explicit warnings about how you live this life, the image of judgment and the clear picture that not all will come to the party. If you reconcile them by saying - "Clearly, I can tell you that "those people" who didn't do or say this or that thing, in this or that way are lost and going to burn" you are over looking who God is, and minimizing Him into a genie or mechanism that acts right in given circumstances. I think we ought to realize that if God says He wants something, there is a good chance He is going to get it.
So what I think is that the itch we all have is for reconciliation of that tension. We don't want to sit with dissonance - we want some preacher to resolve it for us. We want a prayer or book or philosophy or an approach to resolve it.
So be careful brothers and sisters. Be wary of people who tell you what you want to hear! Who have bumper sticker phrases which claim to resolve tensions that the Scriptures leave open. God is complicated! Or more accurately God is deep and rich and broad and wide and incomprehensible in His fullness. Yes, take seriously His warnings about this life and life to come. Take seriously His commands to obey and to reach out and tell others about Him. But also hold on to the knowledge and the hope and the truth that He is mysterious and all-powerful. That compassion and mercy are His to determine. As it says in Exodus 33:19
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Doesn't leave much room for us to decide who is in and who is out, does it?
As you may or may not be aware, folks in the evangelical community are all up in arms because the perception was that Bell was taking a universalist position on the afterlife. For those unaware, the church has been fighting back and forth for centuries about the nature of the after life (i.e., who goes to heaven, who goes to hell; what exactly is heaven, what exactly is hell). For at least the recent past, three positions have been articulated: exclusivism (i.e. only Christians get in), inclusivism (i.e., Christians and some other people get in) and universalism (i.e., everybody gets in). Now, I am totally uneducated about who has held the majority position over the course of church history, but I do know a two things: (1) the loudest group of Christians presently endorse an exclusivistic perspective (I was gonna say majority of Christians, but I am not sure if that is true) and (2) there have been people in all three camps throughout the course of church history.
Now before some of you get all angry about exclusivists being the loudest, and possibly majority, group, I want to say something. I am pretty sure that a good number (if not the majority) of exclusivist Christians are exclusivist not because they really like the idea that most of the people who have been born and will be born are going to burn in hell. I am pretty sure they are exclusivist because their read (or the read of people they deeply respect and trust) is that, that is what the Bible teaches. In their view inclusivism and universalism are attempts to compromise the gospel to make it more palatable to the world. They take very seriously the warnings across the new testament about false prophets and manipulation of gospel. Warnings like 2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
And I will tell you something true, Mr. Bell's book did scratch my itchy ear. You see for a very, very long time I could not stomach Christianity. I could not stomach it because it seemed very much like a country club with ridiculous entrance standards; specifically, like what we like, dress how we dress, think how we think or burn in hell for all eternity. Of course they wrapped their invitation in words about love and acceptance but I saw through that bull to the purple kool-aid. And let me tell you what, I was not about to drink it.
So Mr. Bell's writing, his invitation to draw near to the gospel without having to draw the same conclusions as the people I knew was unquestionably part of my path to God. Certainly the existence of universalism at all, provided me a path toward God. But the question then is: Am I actually drawing closer to the real God? The Creator of the Universe? Or am I drawing closer to a god that I am fashioning from concepts I already like? Can I "put up with sound doctrine" or am I "gathering teachers" to scratch my itchy ears?
And here is my take. At the center of the Bible is a tension - a tension between who God is and what He wants and the apparent outcome. On the one hand, you have an omnipotent, omnipresent, omnipowerful God, Creator of the Universe, who is love and wants every person who ever lived to return to Him. On the other hand, you have mention of hell, judgement, wheat and chaff, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and of a rebel army that fights with Satan in last war in Revelation. These two things are very, very difficult to reconcile. If you reconcile them by saying - "Oh well, God is all powerful, his love is unending, he will pursue people until he gets them even into the after life" you are over looking some very explicit warnings about how you live this life, the image of judgment and the clear picture that not all will come to the party. If you reconcile them by saying - "Clearly, I can tell you that "those people" who didn't do or say this or that thing, in this or that way are lost and going to burn" you are over looking who God is, and minimizing Him into a genie or mechanism that acts right in given circumstances. I think we ought to realize that if God says He wants something, there is a good chance He is going to get it.
So what I think is that the itch we all have is for reconciliation of that tension. We don't want to sit with dissonance - we want some preacher to resolve it for us. We want a prayer or book or philosophy or an approach to resolve it.
So be careful brothers and sisters. Be wary of people who tell you what you want to hear! Who have bumper sticker phrases which claim to resolve tensions that the Scriptures leave open. God is complicated! Or more accurately God is deep and rich and broad and wide and incomprehensible in His fullness. Yes, take seriously His warnings about this life and life to come. Take seriously His commands to obey and to reach out and tell others about Him. But also hold on to the knowledge and the hope and the truth that He is mysterious and all-powerful. That compassion and mercy are His to determine. As it says in Exodus 33:19
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Doesn't leave much room for us to decide who is in and who is out, does it?
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