Tag Archives: religion

  • bird1

    His Eye Is On the Party Sparrow

    July 11, 2016

    3 Comments

    Last night when I sat down for my bedtime prayer/meditation, the face of the chaplain who runs the chapel at the local truck stop  came to mind very clearly and I heard God say, “I want you to go talk to Tim.” (Tim’s the name of the chaplain.) So I was like, “ok, but tomorrow’s Monday and Tim’s not going to be at the chapel.”

    God says, “don’t worry about it. I’ll arrange everything.”

    Well, alrighty then. So I continued with my prayer/meditation time wondering why God wanted me to go talk to Tim. When I was done and about to go to bed, I realized that I hadn’t gotten around to putting gas in my car that day. Long story, but there’s no cash in the house and only one card for the bank account which my husband was going to be taking to work with him in the morning. And I have a broke kid who needs to be at his own job the next day. I had just enough gas to drive to the gas station and that was it. Because I’m super responsible like that. It was around midnight, but if I didn’t go put gas in the car before going to bed, it was going to be a messy situation.

    So, I grab the card and load the dog up to be my bodyguard and headed to the truck stop. Normally I’d go to the gas station across the street, but I figured maybe Tim was pulling a late nighter or something and that was why God told me to go talk to Tim. Well, Tim wasn’t there, but there was this kid sitting on the ground outside the truck stop. He looked awfully young to be a hitchhiker, but drugs are a hell of a thing, so I ignored him. It’s not like I was going anywhere anyways. Continue reading →

  • scify plants

    Of Strange Gardens and People Living Underground

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    About 5 years ago, I had the same vivid dream, three nights in a row. It took place in a world which was being watched over by a totalitarian power which monitored your every move and word. There was a lot of fear and tension because getting caught saying or doing the wrong thing could get you reported which result in you being hunted down and punished. Moving about out in the open was risky, so when I found a couple of orphaned, abandoned children out on the streets, I basically gathered them up and took them with me in order to protect them.

    In the dream I was shopping for a home. I had a realtor who was showing me various homes that had “for sale” signs out front. I was looking for a home suitable for setting up a meeting place where I could share knowledge and information that I had been entrusted with without drawing undue attention from the totalitarian authorities. At the back of each home I was shown there were large gardens. I am a gardener myself, so I was pleased that there were gardens, yet when I walked through them, I was puzzled to discover that the plants growing there were angular and unnatural looking, like something from a bad sci-fi movie. I have a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of garden plants, so encountering so many odd plants that I couldn’t identify was rather mystifying.

    Inside many of the homes, I discovered a hidden door. The door lead to a cavernous underground area filled with people. There were more people than I could count and the room was so large that I could only see a small portion of it. The people there spent their whole lives underground. Nevertheless they were clearly enjoying themselves. There were giant video screens where people were watching sports, movies and other entertainment. Other people were playing video games, eating, talking, romancing and just hanging out. When I entered the underground area, the people close to the entrance turned and cheered as I entered, welcoming me and expressing pleasure that I had arrived. I still had work to do on the surface, so I wasn’t staying, but they let me know that they were looking forward to receiving the information I had been entrusted with when the time was right. I was able to find several families who were happy to take in the children I had brought with me. I remember being pleased to find so many people living in these underground areas, which was quite a contrast to the surface where I met very few people, most of them scared.

    So that was my dream. I really didn’t know how to make heads or tails of what it might mean, but the fact that it was so vivid and repeated three nights in a row lead me to think that it might be significant. I headed over to my trusted dream dictionary to see if I could work it out. It still didn’t make sense, so I asked the man who wrote said dream dictionary and has been studying dreams for decades to take a crack at it. And that didn’t really help. So finally, I asked someone close to me who has some unusual spiritual gifts to meditate on it and see what he came up with. After a few months, he came back to me with what he felt he had been told my dream meant.

    He said that the authoritarian power in my dream was religious hierarchies that claim for themselves the right to control what people are allowed to believe, think, say and do. Continue reading →

  • A Word About the Pakistani Church and God’s Terrible Advice

    November 11, 2015

    2 Comments

    I got serious about writing this blog about 4 years ago. And as shocking as it sounds, it was not the instant success one would imagine. Incredible, but true. So I went to God and asked in my best plaintive wail, “what should I dooooooo?” And I kid you not, every time, I got the same response: “let them come to you.” And I would be all like, “but that’s really terrible advice, God! Why are you always giving me such terrible advice?” But, seeing as there’s just only so much a person can do to control the universe, I went with it. I would do my thing and people would come.

    Well, the darndest thing started happening. Occasionally, seemingly random people would show up and announce, “I feel like I need to reach out to you.” And then I was all like, “well, I guess I’ve been expecting you. Howdy!” Cuz there’s a reason why I follow God’s advice, even when it’s really bad.

    Well, a couple of months ago, a Christian man from Pakistan showed up and started pestering me. My curiosity was piqued by his persistence and lack of come-ons, so I was like, “what the hell do you want?” (I’m sure I was much more polite than that in real life, of course.) And he was like, “I dunno. I just feel like I need to talk to you.” And I was like, “well, howdy. I guess I’ve been expecting you.”

    So the next morning I was meditating on Romans 12:2:

    And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

    because . . . Well, I don’t know why. It’s just one of those things I do. I had just said to my husband that I suspect that the verse refers to the fact that Christianity is basically a reprogramming system for the human mind. Because not only do I do weird things like meditate on random bible verses just cuz, I think weird things about them.

    So I get up from my weird pondering to check my facebook account and there’s a message from my Pakistani guy sharing his testimony of coming to faith. He tells me that seeing the words of Romans 12:2 written on a church wall started him on his journey to Christ. Because, again, there’s a reason I follow God’s really terrible advice.

    Anyways, the reason I’m sharing all of this with you is so you will all know how cool I am. I’m not sure how well that’s going, but fortunately for us all, there’s also another, more serious reason I am sharing all of this. As some of you may know, On October 27th, Pakistan was hit by a powerful 7.5 earthquake. Nearly 400 people died and thousands of homes were destroyed.

    My Pakistani friend happens to be in a position where he can advocate for Christians and coordinate assistance for those who are in trouble. Fewer than 2% of the population of Pakistan is Christian and the persecution Christians face there can be intense. (Along with the kidnappings, murder, bombing, open discrimination and the like, I hear that the coffee shops there don’t even switch to using red paper cups during the holiday season.) So he tends to be in the thick of things.

    After the recent earthquake, my friend learned of two Christian families near Faisalabad whose homes were destroyed by the earthquakes. Six family members needed medical care, but the local government hospital initially refused to treat them because of their faith. They were eventually treated, but one of the victims, an 8 year old girl I’ll call K needs surgery on her shoulder to prevent permanent disability. Continue reading →

  • einstein-quote

    Explaining God to a Child

    May 28, 2015

    2 Comments

    A lot of Christians have a strong desire to ensure that their children follow them in the faith. And to that end, a great deal of energy is expended in teaching them what to believe. Which, to a certain extent is OK. Our faith is not endlessly malleable and there are core beliefs that have been carefully passed down through the millennia for a reason. Yet knowing what to believe about God is very different from actually knowing God. And ultimately, it is knowing God that makes a person’s faith stick. So that’s what I want for my kids and what I focus my attention on when it comes to passing on the faith.

    Of course, anyone who has tried explaining God to a child knows that there’s a very good reason we tend to fall back on explaining doctrines and telling stories. God is not very easily put into words. So, as someone with a bit of a way with words and a couple decades of experience trying to explain God to children, allow me to share what’s worked for me. Feel free to steal as you see fit.😉

    What is God?

    God is not a thing. Usually we say that God is spirit. Can you imagine what a person would be without their body? That’s a bit like what it means to be a spirit. Except God is much more than just one person. Try to imagine if you could take the spirit of every person and put it together to make one spirit that included every person’s spirit in it. God’s like that, except with the spirit of everything that exists added in. And then a bit more because God is bigger and more than everything that exists even.

    The bible says that God is love. So you love me and I love you. Here – let’s look into each other’s eyes and you think how much you love me and I’ll think about how much I love you. Do you feel that? That’s God right there between us.

    On God’s Omnipresence

    God is like air. Air is all around you and it’s all around me and every other person alive. In the bible is says that “in God we live and move and exist”, just like we live and move and exist in the air that’s everywhere. I breathe air in so there’s air inside of me. And you have air inside of you. But the air in me doesn’t take air away from you. It’s all the same air, but there’s still plenty of air for all of us. And that’s what it’s like with God as well.

    Sometimes we notice air. When it moves we feel it. Most often, we don’t even think about it. But it’s always there. And it’s always keeping us alive. In fact, it was keeping people alive for a long time before people knew what it was or why we needed it. And God is the same way.

    On God’s Omnipotence

    Now, air is a thing. It’s made of little bitty atoms and molecules. But air isn’t alive. So far as we can tell, it doesn’t feel or think or know what it’s doing. God, on the other hand, is alive. God does think and feel and know what he’s doing. So imagine if the air was able to know and feel and watch everything it touched. It would know what was happening on the outside and on the inside of everything. That’s kind of what it’s like to be God.

    On Prayer

    Even though God is everywhere and knows everything, God isn’t rude. God’s not going to come barging into your head without a very good reason. Instead, God waits for an invitation. And that’s what happens when you pray – you invite God in to hear what you have to say and think. And then if you get quiet and listen, sometimes you’ll even hear something back from God. It’s a little weird and sometimes you’ll feel like you’re just talking to yourself. And that’s OK. God made you to be an awful lot like him, so talking to God isn’t always going to be all that different from talking to yourself. But sometimes, you will know that God is speaking to you. Usually because what you hear touches your heart or surprises you or even takes your breath away. And when that happens, try to remember it. Because sometimes God is pretty quiet and when that happens, it helps to remember what was said before.

    Who is Jesus?

    Remember how I said that God is spirit? That’s kind of confusing, isn’t it? Even if we pray and think about these things, it’s still awfully hard to understand. God knows this. So, when the time was right, Jesus was born. Jesus was a human being just like us with a body and a family and a mind that worked just like ours. But his spirit – what we are when we don’t have a body – was God. Jesus shows us what it looks like when God lives as a human being. So we can see what God looks like, acts like and cares about when he exists not as air or spirit, but as a human being.

    Jesus shows us the truth about God. Because of him, we have a way to examine God. Let’s say that you tell me that you prayed and found God to be mean, harsh and angry. And I say that I pray and found God to be kind, gentle and loving. How can we know which is right? Well, we can look at Jesus. Sometimes Jesus was angry and harsh. But mostly he was kind, gentle and loving. So maybe there are times when God seems angry and harsh, but mostly we can expect him to be kind, gentle and loving.

    Or let’s say that someone tells you that it’s really important to God that we dress a certain way or not listen to certain music or not spend time with people who aren’t like us. And they even have a bunch of bible verses to show you that this is true. Well, you can look at Jesus and see that he never showed any interest in how people dressed or what they did for fun and he spent time with all sorts of people. So even though someone might have a bunch of bible verses that they are using to tell you these things, you can be pretty sure that they are confused. Because of Jesus.

    Not only that, but have you ever thought that maybe God didn’t really understand what you are dealing with? Like maybe God’s on the outside looking in but doesn’t really get how hard life is sometimes or what it’s like to really struggle? I think that sometimes. But Jesus went through all the things that we go through. He was called names and got sick to his stomach and felt alone and misunderstood. He got hungry and crabby and was treated unfairly and wasn’t always allowed to do what he wanted. So we know that God actually does know what it’s like. He really can understand what we go through. And now we know that because we know that Jesus went through all those things as well.

  • Why You Should Always, Always, Always Listen to Your Heart

    May 4, 2015

    2 Comments

    keep-calm-and-listen-to-your-heart-35One of the things that I learned while researching the bible verses that say that “the man is the head of the woman as Jesus is head of the church” is that in the days when Paul and the rest of the bible’s writers were living, no one really knew what the brain was for. It was widely believed to be some sort of cooling system. But there were cases where brain damage caused changes in people’s behavior and abilities and no one could quite figure out how damage to the cooling system could cause the problems they were observing. So no one knew quite what to make of that. There was even one school of thought on the brain which had sperm being produced in the brain and transported to it’s destination through the nervous system. It wasn’t until the 2nd century AD that Roman physician Galen popularized the idea of the head as controlling the body and storing memories, and thus thought.

    Prior to that, it was believed that the seat of thought, emotion and will was the heart. Which actually makes sense because if you’ve ever paid attention, we feel emotions in our bodies – particularly around our chest. Thoughts quickly follow from emotions and our will is determined between the two. Today we think of the heart as symbolic of our emotions, but in the Egyptian, Greek and Roman worlds, the heart was the center of not just emotion, but of thought and will as well.

    So there’s your completely pointless history lesson of the day. Use it well. I’m sure you’ll be able to fascinate people at your next dinner party with it. (Make your donations to support this amazing ministry today by clicking HERE.)

    Anyhow, I actually do have a point. My point is to explain to you why you should always listen to your heart. Here’s the thing about your heart: Continue reading →

  • friend in christ

    How to Recognize a Brother or Sister in Christ

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    I have met some of the coolest people while writing this blog. One of these days, I’m going to have to share the story of how God sent some of them to help catch me at the end of my fall last summer. Based on my experience with my readers, I have to assume that if you are reading my blog, you’re probably a pretty amazing person. Or at least, I would think so. And really, isn’t that all that counts? (That was a joke, btw. Hopefully you laughed. The test audience in my head found it amusing.)

    But for today my point, such as it is, is that I’ve met some amazing brothers and sisters in Christ out here in the far reaches of the internet.

    Now, brothers and sisters in Christ is one of those overused phrases that Christians have destroyed. Which is a damn shame because this idea of brothers and sisters in Christ dates back to the very earliest days of the church. It is a beautiful and profound concept that precious few in the church understand today.

    Not only is the concept of “brothers and sisters in Christ” a beautiful and profound concept, it’s a damn useful tool for a Christian to have in their toolbox. (I feel like saying damn today. I know it’s unseemly, but it keeps out the riffraff.😉 ) Anyways. Believe it or not, this whole “church/body of Christ” thing would work a lot better if more Christians understood how “brothers and sisters in Christ” worked. So, I’m gonna teach y’all the basics.

    At its simplest, you can think of brothers and sisters in Christ as being those people who know God the way that you know God. The amount of overlap between how you know God and how I know God, will determine the level of spiritual intimacy we are able to share. If someone knows God only by name or theology, we may not have much in common. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk and we can’t learn from each other! We’re brothers and sisters in Christ, after all – that does mean something. But there’s not going to be a great deal of intimacy there. I don’t need you trying to correct God’s work in me or stepping all over my boundaries, thank you very much.

    On the other hand, sometimes I run into people who know God in a deeper way. Like they’ve encountered God’s spirit. Sometimes they are people who don’t even know the name of the King. But they know his heart. I know that they know his heart because I know God’s heart and I can see that we’re talking about the same God. Even if they don’t know that there is a God to talk about. It just comes through. It’s in what is important to them, how they think, the way they understand themselves and their place in the world. I recognize my Father’s handiwork. But sometimes these people’s judgment is suspect. Like maybe they willfully embrace greed, violence or unforgiveness as positive, useful things.

    But then, every once in a while, I run into someone who both knows my Father’s heart and they know his name and his story. Or at least a version of the story that similar enough for me to recognize it as the same one that I know. They even know the rules of the game the way my father taught them to me. These are the people who give beauty and meaning to the phrase “brothers and sisters in Christ”.

    These people can be a lot of fun. Sometimes they become friends. Sometimes they are just people whose judgment I know I can trust if I need information or an opinion. In a pinch, I know that I can reach out to this person for prayer and a shoulder to cry on in a time of need. And they can do the same with me. I mean, there are people who I don’t know the names of their kids who know some of my most intimate thoughts. Before I write them here even! And I am the repository of any number of their secrets as well.

    These relationships are like gifts from God. Inevitably these people have something that I need for my journey. Even when I don’t have anything to offer in return.

    I said at the beginning of this post that some time I’ll have to share the story of how some of these people, including a few I know only because of this here mess I call a blog, were there to catch me and help set me on my feet last summer. It was as if God found just the right people, with just the right background and just the right knowledge, personality and temperament and sent them to me so I’d have exactly what I need. Really and truly, I swear it was like God sent some of his children who were basically Jesus out there looking for me like a shepherd looks for his sheep that got separated from the herd. Although, to be perfectly honest, he could have sent a lot more rich people. I mean, not to criticize or complain. I’m just saying.

    But that’s the power of being brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Even if you feel very alone. Even if you’re like me and are practically a recluse. (Because I need a car. Rich people. I need God to send me more rich people. Or make my books NYT bestsellers so I can buy myself a car and not be a recluse anymore.)

    That’s really what this church thing is supposed to be all about. No matter what your circumstances, you’re never alone when you know the King. There is always help there. There is always someone who will love you in your dirty, broken state. Whatever you are going through, there will be someone walking by your side. The way of the cross is something we must walk for ourselves. But like Jesus, we will never have to walk it all alone. Just keep your eyes open for the signs that the person in front of you might be a brother or sister in Christ.

    Peace, peeps!

    PS – Damn. (Insert groan here.)

  • This Is Our Faith

    March 16, 2015

    1 Comment

    My friend Carol sent me a link to this video over the weekend of Egyptian Christian’s responding to the murder of 21 of their own by ISIS last month. I wish that everyone would see this video, because this is what the Christian faith looks like. This is the faith of the apostles, the saints and the many unknown faithful through the ages, as taught to us in Christ. I would that when the name of Christ was spoken, this is what people thought of. Please, please, please take a few minutes to allow these dear ones to teach you what it is to be a follower of Jesus. And then pass it on so that others might know the true face of our faith as well.

    I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven . . .  ~Jesus

    Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. . . Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. . . Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. ~ Paul to the church in Rome

    HT to Simply Church for sharing this video.

  • Let’s Talk About the Scary Atheists

    March 15, 2015

    9 Comments

    Atheists

    (Some) American Christians are well know for their fear of various boogeymen. Muslims, feminists, the anti-Christ, abortion rights supporters, black thugs, homosexuals, evolutionists, liberals, atheists, President Obama. (Some) American Christians have been faithfully loud and predictable in their incessant warnings, condemnations and obsessive fear of all these terrible, frightful boogeymen.

    It is rather odd, given that Jesus said his followers would be known by their good deeds and Paul said that perfect love casts out fear. But we’re a work in progress. And apparently you can make a lot of money and gain a lot of followers by fighting boogeymen. So it goes on.

    At any rate, today I’d like to put in a good word for atheist boogeymen. Yes, yes, I know; a fool says in his heart there is no God. Dawkins and other “new-atheist” types are obnoxious tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.

    But here’s the thing; I have been engaging in discussions regarding religion on the internet for over 15 years now. And although they are still relatively rare (2-7% of Americans), atheists have played a disproportionate role in growing my faith through those conversations.

    I have always worked from the assumption that if my faith is true, then it holds the answers to even the most difficult challenges. So when I have encountered atheists asking honest questions and pointing to real challenges, rather than vilifying them for not believing in God, I would dig in to figure out what my faith had to answer in response.

    We Christians argue with each other over all sorts of things, but atheists, because they have no loyalty to the “cause” see and point out the sorts of contradictions, fallacies and illogical conclusions that we Christians generally avoid. And, as is so often the case, those difficult questions which we’d rather gloss over or ignore are exactly where some of the best gems are found.

    Of course, the answers I have found to the questions and challenges posed by atheists have not often satisfied the atheists. Although my willingness to take my faith seriously enough to allow it to be challenged has frequently impressed the atheists I have dealt with enough that it changed their understanding of what being religious means. So that’s not nothing. But the answers I have found while in discussion with certain atheists have made my faith deeper, more solid and more real than it otherwise would be.

    It is for this reason that I have long viewed atheists as God’s quality control department. Without them, it would be all too easy for us to stick to shallow, unsatisfying answers and remain spiritually immature. I am grateful for my faith and would that all people would know God in a way that is life-giving and healing. But seeing as we’re a work in progress, I am quite grateful to those who have forgone the benefits of a living faith in order to serve in quality control positions.😉

  • Scales-in-court-room-470x260

    Me and That Judging Thing

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    I’ve written a couple of times about what I call “the hardest, best spiritual discipline I’ve ever tried” – that being not judging. Now, this is not something that came naturally to me, to say the least. I’ve always been pretty tolerant and laid-back, but let’s face it; some people are idiots. Some situations are so ridiculous that you pretty much have to be in a permanently drug-addled state not to look at them and say, “really? WTF is wrong with you people?” There’s a reason that, despite Jesus’ rather point-blank instructions, even the most devoted Christians equivocate when it comes to not judging others.

    But, as I explained before, I decided a couple of years ago to treat Jesus’ instruction as a spiritual discipline – something I do out of faithfulness, whether I want to or not, even when I have every reason not to and when it seems pointless. Far from the claims of those who think that not judging is easy, not judging is extraordinarily hard. Most of us can’t even manage it while sitting in traffic.

    So it’s been a real struggle to let go of my urge to judge and just be open to learning and loving instead. Often it’s something that I have to turn to God in prayer in order to accomplish. But slowly and surely, God has used my willingness to withhold judgment to teach me about his judgment.

    You see, our judgment is easy. It comes automatically and is so obvious that any fool can learn it. Some things are right and some things are wrong. My 5 year old knows it. Our judgment and our ability to point out right and wrong hardly need to be taught, they come so easily to us. As attached as we are to our human judgments, they really are no more useful or impressive than being able to stick out your tongue and spit.

    By withholding judgment, I open the door to allowing God to show me how his judgment works. And his judgment is a much more complicated affair than mine, it turns out. As God says to Samuel, “people look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” God knows what a heart has been through better than the owner of that heart does. God also knows the role that a person has to play in the grand scheme of things. We do not. God knows both the harm done and the unexpected opportunities created by even the worst actions.

    We are told not to judge, it turns out, because we simply are not capable of it. No matter how easy, obvious and even necessary our judgment seems to us. It turns out that the sheer volume of information and complexity that God knows and understands simply boggles the mind. These days, when the urge to judge hits me, I find myself almost afraid. I still have my own opinions and feelings about things, but I no longer have any desire to turn them into declarations about another person that ought to carry any weight beyond the confines of my own skull.

    And when God does judge, it is a mighty and a frightful thing. To stand before the one who made the universe and be faced with the reality of both the good and evil of one’s life and being carries with it such weight that I am astounded now that I ever even tried to do it.  The task of judging is so far beyond us and our limited abilities that if we understood just how inadequate we are to the task, we would feel like a person pulled off the street being asked to perform a life saving operation on an infant. Some things are too big even for me.

    Except when it comes to this one person . . .

    There is one person who I have held as exempt from my little “don’t judge” spiritual discipline. Who I have felt free to judge as good or bad and whose very life story I have been continually passing judgment on with abandon. And further, I have discovered that my ongoing judgment of this person and her life is very deeply entwined with my ongoing struggle to trust God and live fully in the fruits of the Spirit, as is my right and inheritance as a child of God.

    It turns out that as much as I have learned by refraining from judging others, it really matters very little because all the while, I have continued to judge myself. I continue to look at my own life and declare it broken and in need of fixing. I am forever taking each event, each action, each need or pain or achievement and putting them on the little scales of my own mind to weigh in order to understand myself and my own life as either good or bad. Damaged beyond repair or a work in process. Irretrievably broken or inspirationally triumphant. And it’s been killing me.

    Like a lot of us, I have this tendency to absorb the negative voices around me and other people’s negative judgments of my life. So in order to combat those voices, I developed a habit of creating a counter-narrative that highlights what is good about me and my life. The negative voices say that I am lazy, so I keep track of what I accomplish in order to prove to myself that it’s not true. Someone told me that I am indulgently wasting my life raising my kids rather than having a career, so I have a litany of reasons why simply being mom is enough. Someone told me that my life is a tragic, pitiful waste and, well, I’m still working out my defense against that one. But back and forth it goes. Sometimes the positive view wins for a moment, but it’s a continual battle. It never stops.

    Recently I was talking to a friend and I had lapsed into my habitual defense of myself, against myself and my friend stopped me and said, “you don’t have to prove yourself.” And like truth sometimes does, it got through my defenses and hit me square in the heart. Because something very deep in me does feel like I have to prove myself. Like I do have to mount a defense against the accusations and judgments that come my way and get nurtured in my own head.

    I mean, I know in my head that I am justified and don’t have to justify myself. I know that I don’t need to defend myself. But I want to. I want to prove that I am good enough. I want to prove that I am worthy. I want to prove that those who stand in judgment of me are wrong. Because I think I can. I think that if I don’t, I might get a technical pass because Jesus died for my sins, but really, we all know that it’s just a technicality. A pretty gloss covering what I’m afraid looks like an ugly reality. I don’t just want a pretty gloss; I want a beautiful reality. And I’m going to figure out a way to prove to myself, if not to anyone else, that me and my life are good enough. I am trying to do for myself what Jesus has already done for me. And unsurprisingly, my way has brought nothing but death to my spirit.

    So now God is telling me to lay down my defenses. To stop trying to prove that I and my life are good and worthy enough – even to myself. To accept that even though it’s my own life and my own being, I really don’t have the ability or the right to make such a judgment. I do not know what God knows. I cannot see the full breath or meaning of my life anymore than I can see the full breath and meaning of someone else’s life.

    What I am realizing, as I try to let go of my judgment of myself, is that when I am engaging in my back-and-forth accusation and defense of myself, is that I am denying what God has already said about me and my life. By continually judging myself, I am giving power to the lies and accusations the enemy has cast at me, no matter how often I raise a defense and convince myself that I am OK.

    That’s why the battle never ends. I am viewing the value and worth of my life as an open question that I am responsible for answering. And it’s just not so. It wasn’t an open question on the day I was born and it’s not an open question today. As has so often been the case with me, I could see this in other people long before it even dawned on me to see it in myself. So now, I hope and pray and trust, that God will help me apply what I have learned from not judging others to myself.

  • God’s Ways Have a Power All Their Own

    January 27, 2015

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    God’s ways do not rely on the goodness of men (or women) to work. They have a power all their own. Thus, all through the Old Testament, we see God relying, not on good men, but on people who were prone to abuse, violence, weakness, arrogance and all manner of human sin to enact his plans. To put a finer point on it, any idea about how things work which relies on the goodness of humans to work, is self-evidently not from God.

    To see the difference in action, consider the difference between the fruit from the teaching of the unique subordination of women vs full equality and mutual submission between men and women. Despite having been tried all over the world, the unique subordination of women has never produced a human society where peace, justice and freedom were widely enjoyed. (Anyone who says pre-1960s America gets slapped – slavery?) The explanation for this is always the same – it requires good, Godly men. This teaching is like communism, a great idea that’s just never been properly executed.

    On the other hand, women in the early church served in all areas of the church. They enjoyed rights in their marriages and as daughters not allowed or expected in the prevailing culture. That all faded away after the first few hundred years, but the remnants of this teaching carried such power that the places in the world where women first gained (pretty much) full equality and are considered the most free, most respected and most empowered are places where Christianity has deep roots. Once God’s ways are introduced into the system of humanity, they will face more and less opposition, but over the course of time, they will persist and bear good fruit.