It Starts Where It Ends

I don't know about you, but 2009 was not the best year for me.

Don't get me wrong, it had some incredible bright spots - my summer, in particular, was absolutely fantastic. Positively life-changing.

But on the whole... Yeah, 2009 was kinda lame.

Part of what made 2009 so hard for me was... well, me. I made it hard on myself, really. For all the stuff I learned over the past year, it's amazing that it took me all the way until the end of it to realize that the only way any of it could do me any good was if I would just chill out for a bit and let God do His thing, instead of trying to do it for Him.

I spent so much of this past year working myself into conniptions over things that I either could no longer control or had no control over in the first place. Did I say the right thing? Should I have maybe used a different word there? Was I fully understood the way I wanted to be? Would we still be talking if I'd done things differently? What if I'd done all of this earlier? What if I'd waited and done it all later? What if I'd just ignored it all and continued on with the way things were?

The questions were absolutely endless, and I'm sure you can see how they would stress me out, which they definitely did, and to quite an impressive degree. Everything was awful. Even when I found myself in the good times - and they were plenty, whether I'd have admitted it then or not - I was still miserable because I couldn't let go. I couldn't stop obsessing over choices I'd made, or choices other people had made, wondering if it was all going to work out the way I wanted it to.

That was another big moment this year - finally figuring out that, NO, it won't all work out the way I want it to, and that's actually a good thing.

When I was a little kid, I would sneak into the kitchen and steal cheese from the fridge. As I grew older, I dropped any pretense of "sneaking" around - largely because my parents somehow always knew when it happened, but also because my desire for cheese outweighed any potential guilt or shame I could possibly have felt if my cheese-theft was made public.

Now, I still make the occasional cheese raid, but I have learned how to be more selective in my timing. I learned, through years of experience, that having that cheese whenever I wanted it was leading to complications, not the least of which being that we would quite often run out of cheese at extremely inopportune times. I learned that getting what I wanted (cheese) when I wanted it (at all times) would occasionally have dire consequences for my future (a burrito without cheese is a tragedy easily on par with the end of Old Yeller).

So I've learned something again. I've learned that God might not want me to have everything I want. Maybe God has been holding off on giving me everything I want because He's trying to get me ready for everything I actually need.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

- Matthew 6:25-34

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find

You get what you need...

- The Rolling Stones

And so, it is with that attitude of contentedly satiated patience that I look forward to 2010.

I don't know what's going to happen to me in this coming year. I don't even know what's going to happen to me tomorrow night. But with everything I've learned in the past year, there is one thing that I know for sure, and that is this: one way or another, God is working some pretty big changes in my life. I'd better pay attention to what's going on.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

- Philippians 3:10-14

As we step into a New Year, my earnest prayer - not only for myself, but for you, as well - is that we are all able to move past the baggage of the Old Year, that we can lift our eyes to the Cross, the open Tomb, and the Risen Savior who occupied them both, and that we can boldly march forward, strong in our confidence of the Providence of God, knowing that our struggles continually refine us, strengthen us, and educate us, leading us - in His time, not ours - to The Goal.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas (whether you like it or not)

(If you have known me for more than one Christmas season, you've probably heard me pushing this song as one of the greatest Christmas messages of all time. I still stick by it, and I'd still heartily recommend you listen to it, especially if you want to get into some of the same headspace I was in while writing this post. The lyrics may be found here.)

It's Christmas.

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has purchased several billboards with messages such as "Heathen's Greetings," "Reason's Greetings," and "Yes, Virginia... There Is No God." (More info on that here. Please accept my sincerest apologies - both women make me mad to no end.)

In malls across America, people are maxing out their credit cards and depleting their savings accounts in attempts to buy happiness for themselves and their loved ones.

I have absolutely no money, and even though I know my family knows that, I still feel the incredible pressure of trying to put together a gift for everybody, even though I know that they are happy just to have me around for the holidays. And yet, at the exact same time, my impatient materialistic side is still twitching nervously, wondering what I'll get this year. I've got far, far, far more than I could ever need, but I still don't have everything I want, and I somehow think that to be sufficient grounds for complaint.

And finally, perhaps most bafflingly of all, I've got atheist friends and Christian friends alike complaining about the "Christianization" of a pagan holiday, the winter solstice festival, into a supposed remembrance of the birth of Christ.

I think that to recognize that "Christmas" is not originally a Christian holiday is good, but I think that to intentionally divorce any Christian purpose from Christmas is a mistake.

Whether Christ was born on the 25th of December or not doesn't matter.

What matters is that we come together on one of the coldest, darkest days of the year and share in each other's love and presence*.

God called Abram out of Ur in Babylon, and used the systems Abram already understood from his pagan worldview (such as circumcision and sacrifices) to transform him into Abraham, a man with a new worldview, one centered on the true God. There are aspects of Babylonian culture all across early Israelite culture. The entire book of Deuteronomy is modeled after a Babylonian treaty form.

But God can still use those pagan ideas to show us something holy.

And I think that is EXACTLY what can happen with Christmas, if we let it.

If we choose to focus on the fact that our modern Christmas descends from a pagan seasonal festival, then of course it's hard to find the Baby in the manger fitting in naturally.

But if we choose to focus on the celebration of the birth of the Child, no matter what day of the year it really was, and use that celebration as a time to rekindle the flames of family and friendship, especially in the hardest, loneliest, dreariest, coldest part of the year, then it can become quite natural to see Christmas as a holy thing. And not just natural - but good.

God is not unwilling to meet us where we are. He met earlier Christians in the snowy fields of Europe, gathered around their Yule logs, and helped them tie their Winter Solstice celebrations to His Son.

And so He still can - and, if we allow Him, will - meet us, here and now, with our stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists, and He will transform us into the people we were meant to be, celebrating the birth and life of His Son all year long, but taking a special day in the middle of the cold and the dark to show the rest of the world His Face.

Merry Christmas.

* - You see what I did there? With the "presence" bit? Huh? Christmas? "Presence"? "Presents"? Yeah? Get it?

Comments

A few people have told me they've been having trouble with the comments, so I've changed the comment settings to allow anyone to comment, including anonymous postings. I was kinda hesitant to do that, just because I've had trouble with inflammatory comments before, but I guess I'll just take the lumps as they come.

So... Comment away.

(I realize that this may come across as blatantly fishing for feedback. That's largely because that's exactly what this is.)

Unrequited Love and the Desperate Search for Holiness, part II

In my last post, I talked about how we can relate a bit to God when we feel the incredible pains of unrequited love. The single greatest pain I've ever gone through in my life to this point is knowing that I love a girl enough to move mountains for her, and it goes unappreciated. And man, that's awful.

God feels the same thing when somebody chooses a life that doesn't have Him at the center. All God wants from us is our love. Loving God carries with it a certain code of conduct, but the code of conduct is pretty easy, because once you truly love God, you start to understand - even though it's still in an infinitely small way - how much God truly loves you, as well as the rest of mankind. Once you understand God's love for mankind, you start to spread that love around, too.

On my last post, Robin had a comment that perfectly sets up what I want to talk about in this post.

"If you love me you will feed my sheep."

How can we love everyone without liking everyone? Sure, God is crazy about us because he gave us life and we're his creation, but how can we become head-over-heels crazy about every living person?

Feed his sheep, heal his world, live, love, die?

In "Mere Christianity" - which is really just an outstanding book, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to challenge their own way of thinking, Christian or not - C. S. Lewis hits on this very idea. He says that it's very important that we not confuse liking someone with loving someone, even though it is very natural for us to like a lot of the people that we love, and love a lot of the people we like. Within that, then, it's necessary to understand that we are not called to like everybody. It's simply impossible to do.

It is, however, entirely possible to love people without liking them.

There's a guy I used to hang out with a lot that I really just don't like.

And the thing is, even though we saw each other pretty often, I never really did like him. I tried to. He's a decent enough guy. He isn't hostile towards anybody, at least that I've ever seen. He's generous. He'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He genuinely tries to be pleasant and conversational with people no matter where he is. That's something I don't do very well, but he's pretty good at it.

I just don't like him.

Like I said, we used to hang out quite a bit. Almost every day for a few months. Then it just got to a point where I was constantly cranky when he showed up. It wasn't that he was knocking over my DVD shelf or leaving my fridge open or any other minor aggravation like that, it was just him. The way he talks, the way he thinks, the way he acts... It all drove me completely crazy. And most of my other friends got along with him just fine!

So I finally got to a point where I decided that the best thing for both of us was to just not hang out anymore.

Now... Is that love?

I think it is. As far as me and that guy are concerned, at least. Because the alternative - at least then and still now - was for us to continue hanging out and for me to continue being a jerk when he was around. The guy got under my skin, and for no real reason other than simply being himself! So when he was around, I'd make fun of him. Sometimes it'd be out in the open, sometimes it'd be real sarcastic and subtle, where I knew (or at least hoped) he wouldn't pick it up, but other people would. I'd get mad at him for doing things that my other friends could do with no problem, just because he was the one doing them. I'd get mad at him for not knowing things that I had no right in the world to expect him to know just because he was hanging out with me.

And so, in the best interest of loving him - caring for him more than I care for myself, treating him like I would want to be treated - I just stopped hanging out with him altogether.

I was mean to him! And I liked it! I enjoyed making fun of this guy. It was easy! So I had to cut it out. I had to show him the same dignity I would have wanted shown to myself. Being around him meant I was mean to him, so in order to not be mean to him, I had to not be around him.

So now... I don't make fun of him as much. And I never do it to his face. Do I need to quit making fun of him altogether? Sure do. Working on it. But I'm doing better than I was.

Will I ever mature to a point where I can hang out with this guy again and not be a jerk towards him? Well... I don't want to doubt the transformative powers of the Holy Spirit in my life, so I'll just say "probably not anytime soon."

Is my example the single way showing how to love someone you don't like? Goodness, no. I took the easy way out. Specifically, the way out. Just out altogether.

But like I said, it helped. Now, when I do see him... I'm nicer. I still don't like him, and I still have to fight like crazy to not completely berate him at every turn when he's around, but it's an easier fight.

So how do we love people we don't like? I think the answer still lies in the words of Christ, from Matthew 7:12:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

People are different. Sometimes we just don't get along. Sometimes we don't get along to such an extreme that it becomes difficult for us to even be in the same room.

But if we do to them what we want them to do to us, we'll be in good shape. If what we want them to do to us is simply leave us alone, do that for them, and I promise you, you'll get along just fine.

And if that sounds a bit too isolationist... Well... I'm sorry. Sometimes you just have to avoid certain people until you learn enough about love from your other relationships in order to do better with people you don't like. Sometimes you have to be isolated for a little while. Sometimes you have to be alone in order to learn what your function with people really is.

Never give up on God's ability - as well as His patience and desire - to transform you into the person He knows you can be. It will take time, it will take effort, and it will take pain. But God can use anything in our lives to help us see Him more clearly. Even people we don't like.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.

- I John 4:7-12

Unrequited Love and the Desperate Search for Holiness, part I

I'm gonna wager that if you have the mental capacity to read and understand the words on this page, then you've probably been in love before.

I mean, really, if you're past the age of seven, you've probably been in love before.

And... unfortunately... you've probably also been in love with someone who didn't love you back. Maybe they didn't love you back the right way, maybe they didn't love you back "enough", maybe they didn't love you back at all.

But I don't know anyone who hasn't been through it, and I can honestly say that unrequited love is the absolute worst thing I have ever experienced. There's no exaggeration in that, there's no hyperbole, and there's no melodrama. It's just a straight up fact.

I've never buried a parent, and, Lord willing, I won't have to for a long, long, long time. Again, Lord willing, I hope to never have to bury a child, once I've actually got them. I'm not saying unrequited love is the worst thing possible, I'm just saying it's the worst thing I've gone through.

How can someone so completely break my heart if there wasn't ever actually a relationship there in the first place? How can a love that didn't actually happen keep me up at night? How could I feel so strongly, so deeply, and so completely for someone else that I would - gladly, and without a moment's hesitation - sacrifice everything I am and have and ever would be for her and it not be returned?

I don't know. I don't get it. Maybe I will one day. Maybe I won't.

But in the meantime... I've learned something else about God.

God created us because He loves us. God created the entire universe because He loves us. Everything in the grand infinite span of existence was designed to point clearly towards God. The stars in the night sky, the majesty of nature, the love and reasoning of mankind... it's all there to point towards God.

I'm willing to lay down my entire life, to the point of death, for the girl that I love. God did lay down His life, to the point of death, for the people He loves. And those people is us. All of us. Every single one of us.

And so now... I have some small, tiny fraction of a window into the heart of God. Now I know, in a small, small, so very, very small way what God feels when someone doesn't love Him the way He wants us to.

And I never want to put God through that again.

You see, the thing is, God really only asks us to do one thing: Love Him. That's it. That is the entire point.

Matthew 22:36-40

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Everything in the Bible - everything, everything, everything - is meant to show us one thing: how to better love God. It just happens that loving God means you love people.

Love changes your life. And I don't mean it changes your life like a new haircut "changes your life" or getting a new car "changes your life" or even like moving to a new town "changes your life." Love rewires you. Love transforms you. Love completely overhauls everything you are.

I John 4:7-12

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

There comes a time in life - and I don't know when that time is for you, I just know it's right now for me - when love becomes the single most important thing in the universe. And the thing is... it transcends reciprocation.

Do I hope and wish and pray that the girl I'm so hung up on will change her mind and things work out between the two of us and we live happily ever after? You bet. More than anything else in the physical world, that's at the top of my list. It'd sure make one peach of a Christmas present.

But is my love for her conditionally based on her loving me back? No. Not anymore, at least. Whether we get married or not, whether I ever speak to her again or not, I know that I care for her on a deep enough level that I can't go back on it. I can't undo it. And it's not just because it's her.

It's because it's love.

I finally understood - even if it was just for a brief, shimmering moment - what it means to be willing to lay down my life for someone. I finally understood - even as imperfect it was and still is - what it's like to put someone else completely above myself. I finally understood - even as much as coming to the understanding hurt me - what it means to love and accept and forgive and care for and sacrifice for and pray for another person to the point that I put their needs and desires above my own.

And now... I'm realizing I've got to do that for everybody on the planet.

I've got a great relationship with both of my parents. My sister is one of my closest friends. I've been richly blessed my entire life with such an incredible family, so it's not like I'm any stranger to love.

But so what if I love my family? So what if I love the people who love me? Who cares? Who's impressed?

But what if I start loving the people who don't love me back?

What if I start loving everyone with just as much of the love as I've had for the unattainable girl of my dreams, even if it's not in the same way?

What if I start loving everyone I ever come in contact with like they're more important than I am?

Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be approaching true holiness? Wouldn't that be getting as close as is humanly possible to really showing the world what the power and love of God can still do today?

John said that "God is love." He also said that "love comes from God" and that "everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." And when I finally got to the point where I understood what that kind of love is, it changed my life. I'm telling you right now, it was a BIG moment when I realized that my heart and soul were bursting apart at the seams because I had finally let God show me what HIS love is like.

So what if you started doing the same thing?

"When in Rome...", Psalm 22, and other oft-quoted yet incomplete thoughts. (orig. posted to Facebook)

This was originally posted to Facebook on December 1, 2009.

Finish the sentences for me if you can:

"When in Rome..."

"The best laid plans of mice and men..."

"Six of one..."

"You can lead a horse to water..."

"When life hands you lemons..."

You may not know all of those, but you know some of them, right? We don't even have to finish the sentences most of the time, and people understand what we're talking about. We use shorthand in our conversations because we have a collective societal understanding of what the abbreviated phrase represents in the long form.

There's a theory out there among some Christians concerning the crucifixion of Christ that says that the words of Jesus in Matthew 27:46 demonstrate, along with II Corinthians 5:21, how Jesus completely became and embodied the sin of mankind. Since God cannot exist in the presence of sin (is that even accurate? Wouldn't that kind of imply that God leaves us every time we're in our sin?), and Jesus had become sin, God had to leave - forsake - Jesus. And that's why we have the verse we have:

Matthew 27:46

"About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'—which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'"

I don't really know if I agree with that theory. I wanna make this point clear, first off - I don't think it matters. That's not salvation issue material. You can believe that Jesus became sin or you can believe that He stayed in contact with God the whole time, like I do, it doesn't matter. God will still love you no matter what.

But anyway - the theory and my problems with it. For starts, I don't think God could leave Jesus, since the whole idea of Jesus is that He is God in the flesh. If the whole idea that Jesus became the physical embodiment of sin holds, then in the moment that God "left" Jesus, then Jesus would have been nothing but a man, completely full of sin, dying on the cross. That... doesn't quite jive with me. The point of the crucifixion of Christ is that God was willing to sacrifice His Son - a part of Himself - in order to redeem humanity. If God withdrew the Spirit from Jesus as He was dying, then the whole sacrifice doesn't make sense.

Another of my problems with it is that if you look at the Old Testament example for sacrifice, you see over and over and over again that all of the sacrifices to God had to be completely perfect. "Without blemish" is a pretty popular phrase in the Pentateuch. If the sacrificial lamb had a broken leg, it was no good. If the sacrificial bull had a birth defect, it was no good. The sacrifice itself had to be perfect. I'm not saying that the verse in II Corinthians isn't valid, I'm just saying it's a metaphor. The whole point of the sacrifice was that when someone sinned, something had to die in order to maintain the balance of holy justice. And the dying thing had to be perfect, because its death allowed the sinner to continue their life by transferring the death that they deserved onto something that didn't deserve it at all.

And my last problem with it, and this is gonna be my nifty little segue into my whole point with this, is that Jesus knew way too much of the scripture to just arbitrarily pick "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" as His expression of choice. According to Matthew, those are the last words of Christ before His death.

So let's build a metaphor bridge together. Let's say I'm dying and you're in the room with me and I know I'm about to go. We're all misty-eyed, since... you know... I'm dying... But I take your hand, and look you in the eyes, and I say, with my dying breaths... "When life gives you lemons..." And then I'm gone.

So now you're at my funeral and everybody else is there, and they're talking to you because they know you were the last person to talk to me before I shuffled off this mortal coil. When they ask what my last words were, you can tell them with ease, because even if I didn't actually finish the sentence, you know exactly what I meant. "When life gives you lemons..." is enough of the thought that the rest comes with it naturally. So you can take my dying advice about optimism in the face of adversity to heart because you know what I was trying to tell you.

That's how I see it going with Jesus.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the first line of the 22nd Psalm. The Psalm itself is 31 verses long, which might have been a bit of a mouthful to try to get out in the midst of a crucifixion.

I can send my Dad a text message that only says, "For days, I have tried to forget you," and he immediately knows what I'm talking about. He knows all the other verses just because of the opening line. The short introductory phrase brings the whole idea to mind.

So now let's look at what happens after "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

Psalm 22

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, and am not silent.

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;

you are the praise of Israel.

4 In you our fathers put their trust;

they trusted and you delivered them.

5 They cried to you and were saved;

in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me;

they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

8 "He trusts in the LORD;

let the LORD rescue him.

Let him deliver him,

since he delights in him."

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;

you made me trust in you

even at my mother's breast.

10 From birth I was cast upon you;

from my mother's womb you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me,

for trouble is near

and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls surround me;

strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

13 Roaring lions tearing their prey

open their mouths wide against me.

14 I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

it has melted away within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

you lay me in the dust of death.

16 Dogs have surrounded me;

a band of evil men has encircled me,

they have pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones;

people stare and gloat over me.

18 They divide my garments among them

and cast lots for my clothing.

19 But you, O LORD, be not far off;

O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

20 Deliver my life from the sword,

my precious life from the power of the dogs.

21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;

save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

22 I will declare your name to my brothers;

in the congregation I will praise you.

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!

All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!

Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

24 For he has not despised or disdained

the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him

but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;

before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;

they who seek the LORD will praise him—

may your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth

will remember and turn to the LORD,

and all the families of the nations

will bow down before him,

28 for dominion belongs to the LORD

and he rules over the nations.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;

all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—

those who cannot keep themselves alive.

30 Posterity will serve him;

future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness

to a people yet unborn—

for he has done it.

For those of you who don't follow poetry very well, let me sum this up: "Dear God, Everything is awful right now, but I know You are still God, and You are still looking after me. God, I know You are going to set things right by YOUR standards, and I know that no matter what happens, You will still be God. Just... well... if you felt like making this whole nasty mess I'm in right now work out where I'm not dead, that'd be... that'd be just super. I love You."

I'm going through stuff. The stuff I'm going through is making everything just kinda awful. I'm still trying to let go of the illusion of control, and I'm trying to focus on what needs to be cut from my life and what is worth keeping. I'm trying to get a lot of things right, and it's definitely hurting.

But I don't think - for a moment - that God has forsaken me. Oh, it may feel like it sometimes... I may feel alone... But I know I've got something bigger than me at my back. I know I've got my faith. I know I've got God, and I know He's got me.

God never promised us happiness. In fact, it's made pretty evident throughout the gospels and the epistles that if you're actually doing this Christian life thing right, things are going to get rough. You will be despised. You will be persecuted. You will be mocked. You will have times where the only thing you've got left in your life is God.

But know - don't feel, know - that God has a picture in mind of how the world will be when it is finally perfect. He's working towards it, using us to get it there. Sometimes He uses happiness to teach us things... Sometimes He uses pain. If we accept the happiness but ignore the pain, what are we actually learning? If we thank God for all of our blessings but don't thank Him for our trials, aren't we selling Him short?

I know trials aren't any fun, but neither is going to the dentist. It's still good for you.

Go look back at verses 21 and 22 of the psalm. Notice that there's not a conditional relationship between those two verses. The psalmist isn't saying, "God, if you save me from this, I promise I'll go to church EVERY SUNDAY for the rest of my life." What he's saying is, "God, I know you can save me, and if you would, that would be great. But in any case, you are my God, and I will praise you, no matter what."

So I'm sitting here, staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun of uncertainty in my future, scared to death about losing something that really means a lot to me, and all I can think is...

God... I know You're looking after me... And I know You're gonna work this out, one way or another... But if there's ANY WAY we could get through this without the whole part where I'm completely miserable for months and cry myself to sleep and don't eat or shave or find joy in the kisses of a puppy... that'd be just super. But no matter what happens... You're still my God, and I am still going to follow You to the best of my ability with every step I take.

In Christ's name, Amen.

(For more of the whole Jesus-as-sin theory, this link has a better explanation than mine. I still disagree with it, but the explanation is better.)

Letting Go and Letting God (orig. posted to Facebook)

This was originally posted to my Facebook account on November 24, 2009.

I am scared to death.

I don't have a job, and every job I've applied for has either said no or just said nothing. That, of course, means I'm broke, and what's this? Oh, good, my student loans are coming in. I'm trying to get deferments, but - like so many other things in our modern world - relying on the accuracy of an automated phone system is, at best, atrocious.

I don't have any idea what I'm going to be doing next year. I've got three classes left before I finish my bachelor's degree, and the super fun part is that I haven't yet found any place close to home or online that will allow me to take those three classes without commuting for an hour both ways (done that once, DIDN'T GO WELL).

I am at so many crossroads in my life right now that I can barely remember what road I was on to begin with.

I have been through some pretty dark patches in my life before. I've been depressed to the point that I slept for at least 12, usually closer to 16, hours per day. I didn't go to class, I didn't eat but maybe four meals in an entire week, and the only social interaction I ever had was when people would come to my room to play poker. I was there for two solid months. It was hell.

I've dealt with paranoia so intense that I wouldn't answer my phone or my door for days at a time, no matter who was calling or knocking, because I was so convinced that whatever was on the other side was going to be the end of my life. It would kill me, whatever it was.

But even with the complete desperation and loneliness of that depression and the non-stop fear of that paranoia, I've never felt anything quite like this.

I think what happened is I finally realized just how little control I actually have over my own life.

Sure, I can decide what to eat, what to wear, where to live (sort of), how hard I apply myself, and all those other things. I can control what I do, sure. And yes, my actions will always have consequences, and I can (and do) try my best to make sure that my actions are positive so that the consequences will be positive.

But the snag is that I'm not the only thing in my life.

In fact, my life is made up of me... and then EVERYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE.

And since I only have control over me...? Man, I am in control of nothing.

There are things that I want to happen in my life that I have no control over. A church hiring me? Completely out of my hands. Finding my wife? Ain't a THING in the world I can do to hurry that up. Perfectly maintaining friendships that meant (and continue to mean) a great deal to me now that I'm in a different state than all of those friends? I can do my best, but it is still entirely out of my control.

And that is scary.

People are complicated things. We were made that way, so don't try to fight it too much. That's where I get into trouble. I get tangled up in my mind and wind up tripping over all my emotions because I'm trying too hard to make everything make sense. I want things to be a certain way, whether it's a relationship with a friend, a job, money, or whatever, and they just aren't that way, and I get upset. I get worried. I get frustrated. I get down. I let it bother me. I take it personally. I completely lose my grip on my own life getting upset about something that I never had any control over in the first place.

Well, just how in the world is that supposed to make me feel better, huh?

We like having control. We like things making sense in our worldview. We like patterns and predictability. It all makes us feel safe.

So when we lose our control - what precious little we have - it turns our world upside down. When we realize that our control doesn't extend as far as we thought it did, it shakes us.

And that's exactly where God, in His infinite bigness, wants us.

See, here's the thing... You may think you're in control, but you're not.

You may think you've got it figured out, but you don't.

You may think you can make it on your own, but you can't.

If you don't have God, you don't have anything.

And when you actually do have God, He is the only thing you actually need.

You're no doubt familiar with the story of Abraham being told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 22. Abraham was ready to plunge that knife deep into the heart of his son, not knowing why he was told to do so, just knowing that God told him to do it. And since you know that part of the story, you know that God stopped him before he killed Isaac and congratulated Abraham for passing the test. In verse 12, God says, "Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son." So, you know... Good for Abraham. He was told to sacrifice his son, and he was going to, and then he was told not to hurt the kid at all, because it was just a test, and he passed with flying colors.

Good for Abraham, but what about me and you?

Do you think Abraham was just all chillaxed about knifing his boy? Do you think he was just rollin' up the mountain whistling a merry tune when his son asked him, "Uhhh, Dad? Aren't we supposed to... isn't there a lamb or a goat or something involved in this whole sacrifice process?"

OF COURSE NOT!

Abraham LOVED his son! He had to be scared senseless. He had to be confused. He had to be wondering HOW IN THE WORLD God was going to make this whole thing work out.

But he was willing to make the sacrifice anyway.

So what about me and you?

God has to be the most important thing in your life if you're going to follow Him. He can't be number two to ANYTHING. It doesn't work. There's a reason that rule made the top ten list.

And is that hard to do? VERY. God is asking a LOT from us. More than we sometimes remember. In Matthew 10:37-39, Jesus drops one of the absolute hardest passages in the entire Bible:

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

So there it is. That's all Jesus asks of you: everything. If you aren't willing to sacrifice your family in order to pursue God, you're not getting it done. If you aren't willing to take up a lifestyle that is guaranteed to bring pain in order to pursue God, you're not doing it right. If you aren't willing to completely deny yourself and completely sacrifice everything you are, have, and want in order to become what God created you to be, then you're never going to see how much God can accomplish in your life.

I don't want to let go of all the things in my life. I want to hold on to them. I want to hold on to people. I want to hold on to my lifestyle. I want to hold on to my stuff.

But... I've decided I want God more.

So I've got to let go.

Will the sacrifice of my own life, my own desires, leave me completely abandoned? I sure hope not. But it could. Will God take everything from me, leave me penniless, homeless and alone in this world, with nothing and no one to lean on but Him? If He has to, sure. If that's what it takes to make me what He wants me to be.

But could He just as easily fulfill my hopes beyond a level I ever thought possible? Sure. Could He send me to a church tomorrow and into the arms of my future wife the day after that? Definitely. He might even do a two-for-one and make it happen on the same day. I don't know.

But I do know that the only way I will ever find out is if I actually let go.

And I am scared to death.

Pulling back the curtain (orig. posted to Facebook)

This was originally posted to my Facebook account on October 22, 2009.

Last night, I went outside around 2:00 AM to watch the Orionid meteor shower. The stars were brilliant - dazzling - diamonds in the pitch black night sky. The sky was completely clear. No clouds, no haze, just me staring into the infinite and the infinite staring back at me. It was gorgeous. The meteor shower was fantastic. I saw one so big it had to have touched down somewhere in Kentucky.

But tonight, the sky is completely overcast. That's not really a surprise, I guess. It's been raining A LOT here lately. The night before the meteor shower was cloudy, the night before that was cloudy, the night before that, the night before that, and the night before that... All cloudy.

But last night? I saw stars so distant and so faint that the only way I could actually tell I was seeing them was by not looking directly at them. The incredible depth of the universe was laid out for me on a scale so huge that I could scarcely take in what was actually visible to me, and I still knew the entire time that there were millions of things I couldn't even fathom being able to see. I saw so much I broke my mind.

So I got to thinking.

Sometimes God pulls back the curtain when He's ready to show us something pretty spectacular. We've just got to make sure we're watching.

You're gonna go through hard times. You're gonna have rainy days and dark, cloudy nights. Nothing on this earth will ever stay perfect forever. Sorry to break it to you, but that's just how it is.

But the good news is that God is still watching out for you, and He's still reaching out to you. In the middle of heartbreak and tough times, it's understandable to feel alone and abandoned. That's only human, and you can't expect to be anything more than that. Faith allows us to hold onto our Hope that things will get better, but sometimes our fear and despair outweigh even the strongest of Hope and Faith. Life is hard. It happens to the best of us.

But it is in those moments that we are the most ready for God to work something enormous in our lives. It is at those times that we not only want and need God to show us a sign, but we're aching for it. We're ready for it.

Read 1 Kings 19. Yes, the whole chapter. It's only 21 verses, it won't kill you.

Elijah was at a pretty miserable point in his life. He's got a death sentence on his head, he feels completely alone, and he's to the point that he's actually praying that God will kill him. And this is DIRECTLY AFTER the experience with the priests of Baal on top of Mount Carmel, where God torched His altar with heavenly fire, even after it had been completely covered in water. Even after such a direct experience with God, Elijah is at just about the lowest point a person can get to. So what does God do? He pulls back the curtain. He sends the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. He pulls back the curtain and lets Elijah know He is still there. God lets Elijah know that he isn't alone. God lets Elijah know that things will work out.

Sometimes things get miserable. Sometimes things get downright - there is no other word for it - depressing. Sometimes things get really hard. And it is in those times that God pulls back the curtain to show you something pretty spectacular.

Just make sure you're watching.

Late Night Theology (orig. posted to Facebook)

This was originally posted as a note on my Facebook account on September 11, 2009, at 3:41 AM. So... Just remember that it was written at 3:41 AM and that should put a lot of things in perspective...

Luke 7:18-35

John's disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

When the men came to Jesus, they said, "John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?' "

At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

After John's messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:

" 'I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way before you.' I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."

(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)

"To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

" 'We played the flute for you,

and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge,

and you did not cry.' For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by all her children."

Emphases mine, of course.

But seriously.

Jesus said that. The Christ. The Son of God. The Alpha and the Omega. He Who Was Without Sin.

Jesus was called a drunkard by his contemporaries.

People don't call you a drunkard if you are a teetotaler.

So if Jesus Christ, the Son of Yahweh, the Most High God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob drank enough that the Pharisees felt like they could discredit His ministry by calling Him a drunkard...

WHO ON EARTH ARE WE to say that drinking is a sin?

I don't want to get on a rant about drinking - that's not my point here.

What I DO want to get on a rant about, however, is how we act when people don't fit OUR picture of OUR Christianity.

If you haven't read my sermon from July 26 of this year, you might wanna do that before you go any further. I know, it's kinda long, but hey - it's a sermon.

I've really been thinking on the stuff I wrote in that sermon lately. Ever since I wrote that sermon, actually. I look around and I see so many people trying so hard to live the best Christian lives that they know how to live, and then I see so many other people slamming them down for not being good enough, and that completely breaks my heart.

In Matthew 23 Jesus rips the Pharisees in half, saying that they "tie up heavy loads on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." What does that heavy load mean? The rest of the chapter paints a really clear picture: they had turned Judaism into a strict set of rules - laws! - that were impossible to keep. They made the search for God such an arduous task that God got lost in the details. If I may use a metaphor that I will never actually be able to relate to: following God under the Pharisees was like constantly being in labor but never actually having a kid.

And sometimes we still do that.

Sometimes we see people with their hair and their clothes and their tattoos and their piercings and their cigarettes and their beer bottles and their bumper stickers and their music and their past and their friends and their family and their whatever the smash else you want to think of and we automatically assume that there's no way that they're actually living out God's will for them.

Here's the thing about God's will for them: it's FOR THEM.

When we're trying to reach the lost, we love to tell them - and rightly so - that God accepts them just the way they are, that God already loves them, despite all their faults, and that God looks at what's on the inside, not the outside.

So why don't WE do that?

Why don't we take on the love of God? Why don't we just let everyone around us know that we're gonna love them, no matter what?

And please - don't think that I'm saying that our love for people has to go to a point that we simply allow sin to run unchecked in their lives. That's definitely not the case.

What IS the case is that we have to redefine what sin actually is.

Have you ever seen the movie "Pleasantville"? Remember when all the color started showing up and everybody went nuts? Remember when all the dads met at the bowling alley because it was the last black and white place in town, the last "safe" place?

Sometimes we as Christians forget that different isn't always a sin. In fact, it rarely is. Long haired freaky people can be just as Christian as close-cropped cookie-cutter suburbanites.

I'm not super focused right now. It's 3:35 AM. I'm kind of a lot tired. I'm just miffed, that's all.

Please - if you understand this, if you care about bringing people to Christ, or even bringing fellow Christians closer - help me spread this around. I'm trying so, so, so very hard to stop making people fit MY definition of what Christians look like, and I'll admit that my definition is already pretty loose compared to a lot of folks'. I'm trying to see people with the eyes of God. It's taking a lot of prayer, but when's that ever a bad thing?

I was once told by a man who should know way, way, way better than to ever say such incredibly horrible things that I was "putting too much trust in God." Those quotation marks are there for a reason, the man actually said that, to me, with his mouth, out loud, and meant it.

Holy blasphemy, Batman. That's just insanity.

And since then, I've tried to live my life with the understanding that it's impossible to put too much trust in God. He is, after all, GOD, and by definition, that pretty much means He's got it handled and really doesn't need your help figuring it out.

Leave comments, ask questions, tell me I'm wrong, tell me I'm right... Whatever. I'll reply. I want to go somewhere with this. I just needed to get it out into the open first.

I love you.

Nothing To Be Proud Of (A Sermon)

Yes, it's long, and yes, it quotes roughly a third of the New Testament, but this is the sermon I preached on Sunday morning, July 26, at Heritage Place Church of Christ in Irondale, Alabama. I have an audio copy hosted here if you'd prefer that. Again, I'm sorry it's so long, but it's a sermon. Gotta fill some time. I assure you, nothing else written for this blog will ever be this long again.

I am a sinner.

I have never had any other gods before the Lord our God.

I have never made an idol for myself in any form.

I've never murdered. I've never committed adultery. I've never robbed a bank, kicked a baby, hit my girlfriend, poured sugar in somebody's gas tank, cheated on my taxes, staged an elaborate prison break, or faked my own death in order to get out of taking a final exam.

But I am still a sinner.

I'm an Eagle Scout. I spent some time earlier this summer volunteering at a day camp for inner-city children. I have spent late nights on the phone with friends going through unfathomable heartache, simply providing a listening ear and a comforting word of love and support. I have quite literally visited the sick, fed the hungry, and clothed the naked.

And yet, I am still a sinner.

I'm a sinner in the exact same way that the apostle Peter, the apostle Paul, and Mary Magdalene were sinners. I'm also a sinner in the exact same way that 1960's folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary were sinners. I'm a sinner just like the President of the United States is a sinner, just like every President of the United States before him has been a sinner, just like every President of the United States after him will be a sinner. I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, we're all sinners.

Am I a good person? I'd like to think so.

But I'm still a sinner.

Am I a bad person? No...

But I'm still a sinner.

So no matter how proactively good I am, I'll still be a sinner?

And the fact that I'm nowhere near the heinous jerk that guys like Stalin and Genghis Kahn were doesn't matter, because I'm still every bit the sinner they were?

Huh.

Sometimes in our lives – weddings, funerals, birthday parties that have enough candles to warrant a visit from the fire marshal – we all try to focus on how good one person is. We stand up and talk about all the times that our friends or family members saved all those kittens from all those trees. Or we talk about all the hours spent reading to children at the public library. Or we talk about the times where the self was completely ignored for the sake of others. And then we think, “Wow. I want to be like that.”

And some other times – high school reunions, state executions, Election Day – we all focus, usually without as much effort as before, on just how horrible a person is. We think about how cruelly some people go through life, not caring who they offend, malign, or destroy. We think about people who steal millions of dollars from charities. We think about people who willfully scar children for life – whether the scars are physical or emotional. We think about people who openly spit in the face of everything good, pure, clean, sweet, and decent. And then we think, “Wow. I may have my problems, but at least I'm not like that.”

And sometimes we forget that neither of those are actually good enough.

You see, just being a good person isn't good enough to get you into heaven, and not being a bad person is nothing to be proud of.

In Luke 17:7-10, Jesus says,

“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'”

Sometimes we look at ourselves and we see the good things that we've done and we start to think we're something special. We start to think that our good works make us special. We start to think that the positive impact we're making on the world ought to be rewarded. We sometimes think that the good stuff we've done makes us God's favorite.

What we forget, though, is that even when we're treating every body we come in contact with in such a way that the very aroma of Christ fills the air, we're still only doing exactly what we were told to do.

Nobody ever throws a party for the plumber when he fixes the leaky faucet. Nobody ever writes Congress to extol the virtues of the taxi driver who stops at red lights and uses his turn signal when changing lanes. Nobody pins a medal on the Wal-Mart cashier for ringing up your items and taking your money. It's what they're all supposed to do.

And nobody gives you a plaque when you make it through a day without murdering someone, do they? Nobody ever makes you the grand marshal of the homecoming parade for managing to go a whole week without kidnapping, do they? Nobody ever asks for your autograph because you didn't commit perjury in federal court, do they? Of course not. That's simply living up to the expectation of a normal person.

Don't think you're special for doing what is expected of you. Sometimes we become complacent in the good that we do, and we think we're doing enough to get by. The thing is, it's impossible to do enough good. Nobody's perfect – but we had sure better be trying!

One of the biggest snags about doing the right thing and being a good person is that we're going to get a lot of flak for it. Things won't be easy.

Luke 6:17-36 is the beginning of Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount. Listen to what Jesus says.

He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

And back over in Matthew 5:10-12, we have a different wording that drives the point home again:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

As Christians, we are called to be different. Peter calls us “aliens and strangers in the world.” In Romans, Paul tells us that we are not to conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed. Jesus tells us, in plain Aramaic, be nice to folks who aren't nice to us, turn our cheek when someone slugs us, and give money to people we know won't ever repay us. That's pretty weird stuff, by the world's standards.

And if there's anything that the world has consistently proven since the beginning of forever, it's that the world does not do well with weird. The presence of Christianity upsets the boat. When the people of God step into the light and make waves for justice and universal love, the pattern of the world is thrown off. The world is self-seeking. Christians are self-sacrificing. The world hoards money like it makes a difference. Christians give out money like it's water. The world laughs at the suffering of its enemies. Christians weep for the suffering of another one of God's children.

We're supposed to be weird! We're supposed to be different! We're supposed to be SO weird and SO different that we just don't fit in anymore. We're supposed to be SO weird and SO different that the world decides it can't handle our presence. We're supposed to be SO weird and SO different that the world tries to turn us away from our calling by mocking us, threatening us, chastising us, excluding us, marginalizing us, and demonizing us. The world wants us to go away. The world wants us to be quiet. The world wants us to just leave them alone.

Being picked on means we're doing a good job. Living the Christian lifestyle guarantees persecution and suffering. There are simply too many verses throughout the Old and New Testament that tell us that the people of God will face hardships simply for being holy people that we can't ignore this one simple fact: if it's easy, you're doing it wrong.

It's not going to be easy to love someone who hates you. Do it anyway. It's not going to be easy to forgive people who steal from you. Do it anyway. It's not going to be easy to pray for those who mistreat you. Do it anyway.

Jesus asks, What difference does it make if you're nice to the people who are nice to you? Even people who have never heard of God do that. Who cares if you love people who love you? Sinners do that.

In Romans 2:12-15, Paul says:

“All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)”

What Paul is telling us is that whether you know what's expected of you or not, sin is sin. And it doesn't matter that you have gone to church since the day you were born; HEARING the law, knowing the truth, doesn't make you righteous. OBEYING the law, FOLLOWING the truth – that is what makes you righteous. He goes on to say that even the Gentiles follow parts of the law – there are parts of God's law that are common to everyone because of simple human decency and courtesy. So living up to the standards of what the world expects good people to look like isn't enough. We've got to look to a higher standard.

In Matthew 23, Jesus has a few words for the men who thought that looking good in front of people was good enough.

Verses 1-11

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

“Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

“But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

(In Deuteronomy 6, God gives the Israelites the “shema” - “shema” is the Hebrew word that means to hear or to listen. And so in Deuteronomy 6:4, when we read “Hear, O Israel”, we are reading what would have been “Shema Israyil.” The “shema” is one of the most important texts in all of Jewish thinking. It says:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

A phylactery is a small box with the shema, written on a small piece of parchment, placed inside. Then that box has a leather strap run through it, and that strap is then used to tie that box on the forehead and on both arms. Most phylacteries were small – no more than an inch wide. However, Jesus is pointing out to us here that there was a trend among some people to make their phylacteries bigger – to make their visual dedication to the word of God more prominent. But the thing is, God didn't care how big their phylacteries were – He cared that they obeyed what the script inside the phylacteries said. He cared that they loved Him. But it's really hard for someone to see how much you love God. You can't just pull out a barometer of your love for God and show people in measurable units how much you love God. So sometimes folks try to come up with other ways to show people how holy they are. Sometimes we still do the same thing. Sometimes we wear the cross around our neck, but we don't carry the cross on our back. Sometimes we'll put the magnetic fish on the back of our car, but we forget to be fishers of men.)

Verses 13 and 15

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

Jesus had no patience for the Pharisees, and with very good reason! Their dedication to being admired meant that they had to live lives that could be shown as perfectly righteous when held up to a quantifiable standard. The Pharisees had to live up to a list of rules so they could tell everybody else how bad they were for not following all the rules. They thought of themselves as the teachers who were above the students, the leaders of the woefully lost, the fathers of the errant children. But Jesus says that those very same Pharisees did far more harm than good. Their rules and lists kept people from truly pursuing God. They put all these hurdles in the way of reaching God, when all God really asks of us is that we love Him. And when we love Him, we love His creations – the people around us.

Verses 23-28

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

It's easy to focus on checklists. It's easy to follow rules for every situation we can possibly come to. It's easy to say that because we've done all the things we were asked to do, we're good people. But doing it easy isn't doing it right, and doing what we were asked to do is nothing to be proud of. How often we come to church doesn't matter if we don't ever try to bring anyone with us. How much scripture we can quote doesn't matter if we don't let it enter our hearts and change who we are. Don't worry about what people think of you, worry about what God thinks of you. It doesn't matter what people think about our relationship with God. It matters what GOD thinks about our relationship with God.

Another thing we have to remember is that just like other people's opinion of our faith doesn't matter, our opinion of other people's faith doesn't matter. Your Christianity is your own, and involves no other people.

Romans 2:1-4

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

Paul is telling us here that none of us can possibly follow all the rules, which means that we can't possibly expect anyone else to follow the rules, either. God's going to look after things on his own. He doesn't need us making sure people live up to OUR version of HIS standards. After all, you didn't MAKE the rules, so you don't get to ENFORCE the rules.

And the big kicker of it is, rules don't even help anyone get closer to God, anyway! They only stand in the way.

Romans 8:1-11

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Checklists and rituals are empty and disconnected, but a passionate and genuine desire to know God will bring about a change of behavior anyway. When we seek God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we come to know His Spirit. And when we come to know that Spirit, it bears its fruit in us. And, as we know from Galatians 5:22-23, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And against such things there is no law."

But you know what? There's no law FOR those things, either! You can't legislate morality. You can never make a list of rules so complete that people will become genuinely good people because they followed the rules. So what should we do? We have to realize that sometimes some of our fellow Christians just aren't going to act the same way that we do, but they can still be just as much of a Christian as you and I are. Just because they don't fit our picture of a perfect Christian doesn't mean they missed the point.

Asking, Seeking, Knocking... and waiting.

Hi, I'm Aaron J. Rushton.

In Matthew chapter 7, verses 7-12, Jesus says:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

This blog is simply going to be a chronicle of sorts of my attempts to understand what that means. I won't just be focusing on those six verses, but they do set up a pretty good frame for what I'm trying to go through. I've got a lot of questions, I'm looking for a lot of stuff, and I'm coming up to a lot of doors.

So I'm asking, I'm seeking, and I'm knocking... and I'm waiting.

I've been told a few times that praying for patience is the worst thing I could possibly have done to myself, because when God answers that prayer, He's going to answer it with the most patience-building process He thinks I'll be able to handle.

Well... I already prayed for patience, and so far, that theory has turned out right.

I don't claim to have any new insights into anything concerning the Christian life. I'm not really trying to show anybody a new way of thinking or believing. All I'm trying to do is work out my own salvation, and it's definitely coming with a heaping load of fear and trembling.

I do want to invite you to feel free to comment. Please! I live for discussion and feedback. I want to know what you think, because I imagine you're struggling with some of the same things I am. And even if you're not struggling with the same specific issues that I am, you're still probably struggling with the big issue of God and how you relate to Him. I'll read all of the comments, and I'll reply in the comments if there's anything I'd like to say there. If the comments hit on a big enough idea, I'll make a new post about it. But I will read every comment.

I'm going to try to keep this blog honest. That's going to take a lot of humility on my end, and - frankly - humility is not yet one of my defining characteristics. I'm working on it. So I'm going to try to open up to you - whoever you are - and show you that I am just a poor, wretched sinner, trying his best to achieve holiness, as much as it can be achieved in this life.

I'm going to be posting about once a week, at least for now. I'll be bringing over a few things I've written in other places, just so we can all be on the same page as far as the discussion I'm having with myself is concerned.

If, for whatever reason, you think that my opinion and thoughts are special enough that you'd like to ask me a question about something going on in your life, knock yourself out. You can leave a comment, or you can e-mail me: AaronRushton (at) gmail (dot) com.

The most earnest prayer that escapes my lips at this point in my life is that God grants me wisdom, patience, and understanding, and that's definitely my prayer for this blog. I pray that - even if I'm the only person who ever learns from it - God uses me through the magic of the internet to lead people closer to Him.

So... Here we go.