My Two Very Small Copper Coins' Worth

Mark 12:41-44 -

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."

Throughout the Bible, God makes it pretty plain that He likes poor people. The ones who are down at the bottom, barely getting by, have a special place in the Heart of God, it seems. Under the Law, God's people were told to care for the poor among them, even if they were foreigners. When God delivered Jesus to the Earth, He chose Nazareth, a little pitstop so insignificant, so looked down upon, that the apostle Nathanael, upon learning the hometown of the Messiah, asked, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" (John 1:46)

But what is it about the poor that affords a special place in the Eyes of the Creator? What does it tell us about God when Jesus tells us that the poor widow's seemingly insignificant contribution outweighed the vast sums of the rich?

That last sentence from Jesus explains it all - "They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on."

This is why Jesus tells us that the rich will have such a hard time getting into Heaven. It's harder for somebody who's got a whole bunch of stuff to get rid of it all. When you've only got one shoebox full of stuff to your name, getting rid of it all isn't as much of a challenge. This is also why the "poor in spirit" are the ones who will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. When your spirit has already given up - or lost - everything else that stands in the way of its focus on God, He becomes a whole lot easier to get sight of.

Jesus makes it easy, doesn't He? Well, OK... No... "Easy" is the wrong word... Plain. He makes it plain. Time and time again, Jesus spells it out, and it's pretty simple to understand. The only thing God wants from you, the only thing that God will accept from you... is everything.

And that's kinda hard, isn't it?

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple."

- Luke 14:25-33

Again, Jesus makes it plain. If you're not in it all the way, you're not in it at all. There are plenty of times where Jesus spells this out - when speaking to the church at Laodicea, through John, in the book of Revelation, He tells us that being lukewarm is worse than being hot or cold, and the synoptic gospels all contain variations on the phrase, "He who is not with me is against me."

The thing is... Deciding to take on Christianity isn't like ordering one of those multi-volume CD sets off of TV. You can't "keep only the ones you want" or "cancel at anytime" and expect everything to work out. (Also, there's no Dokken.)

So how are we supposed to take all of this "hate" speech? Hate my mother? Hate my father? My sister? Myself? Doesn't that invalidate "Love your neighbor as yourself"?

"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."

- Matthew 10:37-39

Well, I guess I just answered my own set of entirely rhetorical questions... But I think it's worth noting that Luke's account still uses the word "hate," and that's still... Yeah, that's still really hard to handle, isn't it?

Here's how I think about it: my favorite movie of all time is Ghostbusters. I've seen it more times than I could possibly count, I've got the whole thing memorized, and I still bust a gut laughing every single time I watch it. I have never said no to watching Ghostbusters when somebody else asks, but at the same time, it's not the only movie I'll ever watch. Yes, it is far and away the winner, but sometimes I'm really in the mood for Blade Runner. Just because I'm watching Blade Runner doesn't mean I don't still love Ghostbusters, does it? Of course not.

But what if I could only choose one movie to watch for the rest of my life?

Well, I guess I would never see the "tears in the rain" monologue again, because Ghostbusters would win that fight in a heartbeat.

That example seems silly, because it only takes two hours to watch a movie, and there's nothing stopping us from watching all the movies we can manage to fit in. But I hope it still illustrates the point. Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's seriously in the top five. But compared to Ghostbusters...? I might as well hate it. I might as well have never seen it. It might as well not exist.

I love my parents. I love my sister. But compared to Jesus? They're nothing.

I kinda like being alive. It has its moments, at least. But compared to Jesus? I am such an insignificant mote of dust, barely a speck of existence, a fleeting thought in the mind of the Creator.

So if ever it came down to choosing between my family and my Savior... Jesus says I have to hate my family. If it ever came down to choosing between my own life and my Savior... Jesus says I even have to hate my own life.

Taking up the cross is not exercise. Jesus took up His cross and then died on it. That wasn't a surprise. When the Roman soldiers shoved the big, heavy cross onto His back, there was no mistaking what it was for. He knew that this was to be the instrument of His torture, His execution.

Carrying your cross means you know that you are going to face humiliation. Carrying your cross means you know that you are going to be persecuted. Carrying your cross means you know that your life is over, that you are dead, that nothing will ever be the same.

Carrying your cross means giving up everything.

Even down to the last two very small copper coins.

And that is a TERRIBLY frightening thing. It's a terribly HARD thing. It's so against everything that we feel makes up who we are. A complete denial of the self is so mind-bogglingly difficult because our selves are kind of a big deal to us! They're the only things we really know!

And it is in that fear, in that moment of realization that following Christ means being willing to sacrifice everything that makes up who we are, that Jesus comes in with one of my favorite verses in all of the Bible... Matthew, chapter 10, verse 39: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

Jesus is telling us - in the plainest words that He can possibly use for a concept that is so absolutely foreign and incomprehensible, down to contradicting our very instincts for self-preservation and survival - that the only way life works is by following Him to the point of death. Not to the point of tears, not to the point of pain, and not to the point of the threat of death. But to death. To the very loss of our own lives.

Because when we die to ourselves, when we have finally, with God's help, slain the creature of sinful nature and replaced it with the Spirit of Pure, True, and Holy Love, then we will understand the full reality and awesome presence of God. That is when we will truly understand what "life" is, because we will be wholly absorbed into the all-encompassing holiness of the Creator and Sustainer of all Life. And that is something I cannot wait to experience.

So I say we'd best get busy dying.

What I've Learned From a Broken Heart

The backstory: I met a girl. I fell completely in love with her. She did not feel the same for me. Things got complicated (to put it simply). Things fell apart.

My heart shattered.

It still hurts. I'm getting better with each passing day... But it's still, unquestionably, the absolute worst, hardest, and most painful thing I've gone through so far in my life.

The disclaimer: I don't want this - AT ALL - to come across as a solicitation for pity. I don't want people to read this and feel bad for me so they'll shower me with affection. I really don't even want this to be about me at all. I want this to be about God. I want this to be about what God has shown me through my pain, but in order for me to show you what God has shown me, I've also got to show you what I've been through.

Here are four (of many) things I've learned.

1. God can use our darkest moments to show us His Light brighter than we've ever seen it, so long as we let Him.

The pain was (and sometimes still is) utterly indescribable. There was a great big hole, right in the middle of me. There were times when nothing could bring me happiness. My favorite songs were torture to listen to. I couldn't watch any movie with anything remotely resembling a happy love story without crying. (This includes, but is not limited to, Disney's 1992 animated film, Aladdin.) "I ate ashes as my food, and mingled my drink with tears." (Psalm 102:9, sort of...)

There came a point in all of that pain where, in attempts to at least distract myself, I picked up a copy of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I devoured it. From there, I went on to more of Lewis. But more importantly, from Lewis, I went straight to God. It is because of the heartbreak I experienced that I completely refocused my mind, my heart, my soul, and my strength on God. My prayer life went from stagnant to unstoppable. I learned what it means to "pray without ceasing."

And so, in the middle of all of my horrible pain... God showed me more of His face than I'd ever seen before. When I found myself surrounded by nothing but darkness, God's Light came shining through more than ever.

BUT... That only happened because I let it. Instead of wallowing in my self-pity - which, frankly, I'm really good at when I put my mind to it - I decided to open my heart and my mind up to God. I decided to focus on something bigger than my pain. Something bigger than my own misfortunes. Something bigger than my bruised ego. And the only thing in the universe bigger than my pain, my misfortunes, and my ego... especially my ego... is God.

2. Forgiveness feels far, far better than revenge ever could.

I like action movies. I like cowboy movies. I like movies where the bad guys are really, really bad and always carry guns, while the good guys are really, really morally ambiguous and also always carry guns, but happen to be superior marksmen.

So I really like the idea of revenge. I like the idea of "You did something wrong, so you're gonna pay for it." I especially like that idea when it comes in the form of "You did something wrong TO ME, so you're gonna pay for it." I have a really hard time with "turn the other cheek." I have a really hard time trying to "overcome evil with good."

But something funny - not funny "ha-ha" but more funny "I'm a terrible person" - happened when I thought about all the hurt I'd been caused and how delicious revenge could be, complete with emotional guns-a-blazin'...

I realized that I am every bit as guilty of breaking other girls' hearts as this girl is of breaking mine.

(I know there are a lot of you reading this who will find it hard to believe that I could ever possibly break a girl's heart. To some of you, I would like to say thank you for your confidence in the gentleness of my character, but I assure you, yes, I do have a dark side, and yes, I have caused some very undeserving girls a whole lot of pain in the past. Others of you simply do not believe that I'm quite interesting enough for a girl to invest enough of her emotions into me that her heart could possibly be broken no matter what I did, and to you I would like to say... Well, OK, I don't really have any good argument against that one.)

And that realization made me think of a couple of things.

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.

- Romans 2:1

And if that one weren't bad enough on its own...

Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

- Matthew 6:12 (NLT)

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

- Matthew 18:21-35

Have I been wronged? Yeah. I have.

But does the evil done to me compare, even on the slightest level, to the offenses I've committed against God? You could put a single grain of sand next to Mount Everest and you still wouldn't be anywhere close to comparing the difference between the two.

And once I realized that... Well, it made it a lot easier to forgive her, I'll say that much... Especially since the forgiveness that God shows towards me is directly related to the forgiveness that I show others.

And I'd much rather God forgive me than take out His revenge on me.

3. Sometimes God speaks to us through voices that we have a hard time listening to.

I've got some really, really smart friends. I've got a really, really smart family. These are people who have loved me for their whole lives, or have loved me for my whole life, or have loved me since they met me, or hated my guts at first and then for some reason decided that I'm actually a pretty decent guy and have loved me ever since. These are people whose hearts I hold close to mine, whose respect I treasure, and whose companionship has been an enormous blessing in my life.

And these people in my life - a whole lot of people in my life - were telling me, over and over and over, that I was on a road that was only going to lead to a broken heart.

Well, if you were one of those folks and haven't heard me say it yet, perk up your ears - YOU WERE RIGHT. I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO YOU.

I wanted so badly to believe that God was telling me that it was all going to work out. I wanted so badly to believe that God was telling me that I was right and that they were all wrong. I wanted so badly to believe that the constant voice reassuring me that everything would work out the way I wanted it to was God's voice, the Holy Spirit, leading me in my life.

As it turns out, I was the one telling myself it would work out, that I was right, that everything would work out the way I wanted it to. It also turns out that I am not God.

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel.

- Proverbs 27:9

The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

A mocker resents correction; he will not consult the wise.

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.

He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise.

- Proverbs 15:4, 12, 22, 31

I could, pretty easily, quote a lot more of Proverbs, but it all kinda boils down to the same thing: I made a huge mistake in not listening to the advice of the people who care about me. And the only reason I didn't listen... is because I didn't want to.

I didn't WANT them to be right, even if I knew they were.

And look where it got me.

4. Pain fades, anger cools, love lasts.

I don't want you thinking that I hate this girl. I really don't even want you thinking I'm mad at her. I have my moments, but... they pass.

In spite of everything - even in spite of my own self-preservation instincts - I still love her. I would still do anything for her. I still want her to be happy. I still want her to be a bright, shining beacon for God, seeking Him in everything she does.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

- I Corinthians 13:4-8a (emphasis added)

If I love this girl - if I ever loved her - I can't be after revenge. I can't keep track of how bad she hurt me. I can't keep thinking about ways that MY life is affected.

I've got to think about HER spiritual needs.

I've got to think about OTHERS' spiritual needs.

I've got to think about showing the entire world the same unbelievable, unstoppable, unconditional, and absolutely unconventional love that God has shown me.

And if it breaks my heart? So be it.

Even if it breaks my heart a hundred, a thousand, a million times? So be it.

Because no matter how broken, decimated, shattered, or obliterated my heart may be, I haven't come anywhere near the pain that God experiences every time I choose to put myself first, surrender to my prideful desires, and turn my face away from Him.

So all I can do is exactly what I am told to do: forgive, forgive, forgive, and then forgive some more, and never, ever, ever stop loving.

And hopefully... even through all the heartbreak... I'll keep on learning.

(If you would like to read, or re-read, what I learned earlier on in this broken-hearted journey, this post is the one you want.)

Why We Ought to Be More Like a Criminal

Luke 23:32-33, 39-43 -

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with Him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified Him, along with the criminals—one on His right, the other on His left.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this Man has done nothing wrong."

Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise."

If you're familiar with the story of the crucifixion, I'm sure you're familiar with this part. Throughout my life I've heard it time and time again in sermons about Heaven, about Christ's power to forgive anything at any time, and a few other topics, but pretty much all of them focus on verse 43, Jesus' reply to the second criminal.

I don't remember how or why, but a couple of weeks ago this story got good and stuck in my head, like a bit of popcorn kernel stuck at the back of my mouth, except with less similarity to my cat trying to get rid of hairballs.

What has stuck with me the most is the dialogue between the two criminals. I think it paints a rather marvelous picture of two very distinct, very real, and very common responses to Christ - responses that we can still see all around us even now, even within those searching after the Kingdom of God.

These two men were not minor criminals. Crucifixion was not the punishment for unpaid parking tickets. They had done something pretty awful. From what I understand of crucifixion, I'd be willing to go so far as to say that it was probably a violent crime, maybe even murder.

The first criminal says, "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" This shows us a lot about his character, as well as his understanding - or rather, misunderstanding - of the role of Jesus. Interestingly enough, it also shows that he was at least entertaining the notion of believing Jesus to be who and what He said He is. Maybe it was simply a last-ditch effort, but he still had enough curiosity to admit that it was at least POSSIBLE that Jesus actually did have the power to save his life, which is really all the first criminal was worried about.

The second criminal, however, understood more about the true role of Jesus, and shows it through his admission of his position in relation to Jesus. His acceptance of the punishment he deserves shows his acknowledgment of his sin, but even more than that, he realizes that Jesus is facing a death that He does not deserve at all. That's when the really profound part happens. That's when the second criminal looks over to Jesus and says, "Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

So we see how the two responses were distinct from each other. The first criminal believed Jesus was maybe somebody powerful, but could only see the value of that power in how it could directly affect his life at the moment in saving him from the pain and trouble he was in. The second criminal saw Jesus for who He really was, and humbled himself - correctly - in the sight of that power, accepting the consequences for his actions, ignoring the desires of the material world, and asking nothing except that Jesus "remember" him.

And really, the first criminal is not completely in error. There's definitely nobody better for him to ask to save him from the tough spot he's in.

But that leads us to how the two responses are still common in today's world.

It is not wrong to ask God to remove your pain. It is not wrong to ask God to save your life. It is not even wrong, I don't think, to ask God to remove the burden of certain consequences for your actions from your life. Sometimes God does just that. Sometimes He moves things for us that show us that His grace not only reaches us eternally, but also has an impact in this life, as well.

But what IS wrong is to set up your relationship with God and Christ on the conditional terms of being removed from your troublesome spot. It's wrong to test God, to say to Him, "Well, if You're God, if You're so powerful, if You're in charge of the whole universe and somehow still love me... Save me! Give me what I want! Make this easy! THEN I'll follow you. THEN I'll listen. Once you give me what I want, I'll consider what You've got to say."

The first criminal was not in a mindset that would allow him to fully see the Glory of Christ. He was focused too much on his own pain, his own life, his own desires, his own suffering, his own world. What if Jesus HAD saved him? What if the ten thousand angels had come and set Jesus free, as well as the two criminals? Would the first criminal have fallen to his knees, like Thomas, and proclaimed, "My Lord and my God!"? Maybe. And I can't say that God won't, or doesn't, use pretty big life-changing events in the lives of people to show them His power, whether they fully believe in Him or not. But what we do know for sure is that the first criminal chose to stay focused on himself instead of on Jesus. He could only see Jesus as a way to get what he wanted for himself in the moment. His relationship to Jesus was conditional.

But the second criminal got it right. The second criminal knew that his life was ending the way it was because of the choices he'd made. He accepted the consequences for his sins. And yet, even in the midst of a very painful death, he looked at Jesus and saw The One who had done no wrong, had done nothing to deserve this shared death, had no sins for which there could be any consequences. He saw Jesus not as the solution for his personal problems, but as the King who deserved his humble praise. There are no conditions in his relationship to Christ. He sees Jesus as the King whether he is saved or not. He sees Jesus as the King even as he is dying. He knows that Jesus is capable of something great and terrible, but asks only to be remembered.

The first criminal says, "If You're REALLY God, You can prove it to me by giving me what I want!" The second criminal, however, says, "I know that You are God, and I recognize everything that means, and I ask only that You take care of me in Your way."

So which one are you? What's your relationship to Jesus like when you're in pain? What's it like when you're experiencing the consequences for your actions? Do you ask Jesus to save you from the troubles?

Do you ask Him to give you what you want? Or do you ask Him to put you where you belong in His Kingdom?

Do you ask Jesus to make your plans work, or do you ask Jesus to make you work for His plans?

Are you focused on your life? Or are you focused on His Kingdom?

Happiness is Overrated

I hope it comes as no surprise to you that God does not necessarily want you to be happy.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think that God wants you to be UNhappy, but I don't at all believe that His primary goal for us in life is to be happy.

The easy way to show that happiness is obviously not the end goal of a God-centered life is to think of the relationship between a parent and child. The parent does not want the child to be unhappy, but the good parent also knows that pursuing nothing but the child's happiness will be detrimental to the development, health, and - in the long run - true happiness of the child.

For instance - while it may make a child happy in the moment to eat nothing but Oreos, a strictly double stuf diet will inevitably lead to problems down the road that provide a lifetime of nothing but the exact opposite of happiness, so the good parent knows that the child must eat a more balanced diet, which may include things not quite as delicious as Oreos, things which could - potentially - make the child unhappy.

Similarly, when the parent sees that the child is about to drink the bottle of Windex under the sink, the good parent knows that it is in the child's best interest to prevent the child from drinking Windex. The child will possibly be unhappy because the vividly colored (yet oddly scented) Kool-Aid has been taken away, but the child will definitely not have ingested ammonia, which I think we can all say is a good thing.

But that's just the simplistic view. We can all see that the instant gratification of a child who is ignorant to the dangers and consequences of the fulfillment of all immediate desires would be bad. We can see that denying the child happiness in a moment where the positive of the child's happiness would be far, far outweighed by the negative of the consequences on the child's overall health, whether it's in the long-term damages of the Oreos or the short-term damages of the ammonia.

So now let's take it up a step. If a man abandons his wife of 30 years to be with his 24 year-old secretary, but defends his actions by saying, "God wants me to be happy," where do you think God stands on that issue? Does that man's happiness matter to God? Of course. Does God want that man to be happy at the cost of hurting someone else? At the cost of sin?

I Peter 1:13-16 says:

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

And so we can see fairly easily that our lives are not meant to be spent in search of happiness, but - instead - of holiness. We were not created to live our lives enslaved to passions that lead us from temporary pleasure to temporary pleasure; we were created to live a life focused on the Creator of not only our life, but of all life. The idea is made plain - from Genesis through Revelation - that life as we know it really doesn't work the way it's supposed to until we completely surrender everything we have and are to God, allowing His will to supersede our own, molding us back into His image, re-shaping us, taking away the detritus of our exposure to the world. True meaning - and, therefore, true happiness - is only found in a life completely centered on God.

Jesus tells us that the people who have figured out that their own lives mean nothing when compared to God are the ones who are going to be called to experience the full majesty and splendor of the uninterrupted, unfiltered, unaltered presence of God.

The ones who are heartbroken over their own sin are the ones who will be rewarded with comfort.

The ones who recognize their true place in the universe and don't try to impose their will on the world are the ones who will be placed over the whole world.

The ones who understand that holiness and righteousness are just as important to a fulfilled life as food and water are the ones who will experience perfect satisfaction.

The ones who forgive the faults of others because they know that their own faults are no less heinous are the ones who will have their faults forgiven by The One Who Is Faultless.

The ones who have stripped away all other desires and have centered their entire lives around one bright, holy singularity of purpose will be the ones who encounter the One Bright, Holy Singularity of Existence.

The ones who strive to create harmonious coexistence between themselves, their fellow man, and their God are the ones who will be seen as the ones living a life as extensions - manifestations - of that very same God.

The ones who encounter pain, and difficulty, and hardship, and struggles, and enmity, and alienation, and discrimination, and all of the other horrors of this world because of their dedication to holiness, to righteousness, they are the ones who will be shown the true form, nature, and design of Creation, as well as the face of the Creator. The ones who have it bad down here because they are focused on God are in good company. If Moses, if David, if God Made Flesh Himself could not escape the persecution of this small-minded, temporal, unholy world, what chance do we have?

And so now we come to the hard part...

What if the life that God has set out for you, in this world, doesn't include a whole lot of the temporal, here-and-now kind of happiness?

What if your journey towards holiness is one filled with more persecution than pleasure? What if your walk with God is really a climb up a jagged, uneven, steep crag, with razor-sharp rocks on all sides? Nobody ever said the straight and narrow would be flat and steady.

What if God denies your desires - all of them - in order to better fulfill your needs?

What if you're just not HAPPY?

Does that mean that God no longer loves you?

More importantly - and more of an actual question - does that mean that you no longer love God?

When times are good, be happy;

but when times are bad, consider:

God has made the one

as well as the other.

Therefore, a man cannot discover

anything about his future.

- Ecclesiastes 7:14

Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

He enables me to go on the heights.

- Habakkuk 3:17-19

I will admit that I have not yet fully pierced the veil on the mystery of Joy. I am - at times - a rather gloomy man. But I think I still have Joy. I may not have happiness, but I have something else, something that helps me realize that whatever unhappiness I experience down here is merely a temporary setback, and that my Hope is built on things eternal. I have Joy in knowing that even when happiness does come, even though it is only fleeting, I am still on a path towards something greater than any happiness I have ever known, or ever will know, in this life.

I want to be a husband. I want to be a father. I want to be a successful (meaning "well-paid and yet maintaining creative integrity") writer. I want to be a lot of things, and I'm fairly confident in saying that those things would make me a pretty happy man.

But if I am called to forgo the happiness of the family life I want, the creative success I want, or any of the other things I want (like Oreos) in order to attain a life of holiness... Well... I'd say that's a pretty good trade.

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.)