One of the amazing things about the Bible is that if you read it long enough, eventually you will see yourself. It's not like the "Iliad" or the "Odyssey" where you will see great heroes you want to be like, a goal to aspire to. No. In the Bible you'll see yourself warts and all.
Maybe you recognize yourself in Peter's bull in a china closet sort of brash loyalty and good intentions. Perhaps it is in Thomas' doubt. For some, and I feel echoes of this in my soul as well, it is in the father's desperate cry for his child to be healed where he declares, "I believe!" and then follows it up with equally desperate honest with, "Help my unbelief". I wish that I saw myself in Lazarus' sister Mary who happily sits at the master's feet.
Unfortunately I most clearly find myself in the parable of the ungrateful servant. I reference it regularly in both real life and blog posts. Man owes the king say $500,000. He begs and pleads for forgiveness. King wipes the debt clean. Man sees a fellow servant who owes him $10 and he drags him to court to get him thrown into prison. King takes the first man, condemns him for not being grateful and showing the same kind of forgiveness the king showed him to someone who owed way less, weeping, gnashing of teeth, etc ensues. As a result, in my personal Lent reflections I've been focused on gratitude.
I'm not one of those people who was saved from a life of prostitution, drugs, etc. I am an average joe who grew up in the church, fell away for a bit but nothing major, and came back. I'm kind of a super minor prodigal son. So many people are impressed by those testimonies of being saved from massive darkness, they praise God and rejoice that someone was once saved from so much. I remember many times, hearing those testimonies and actually feeling somehow inadequate. Of course, that comes from a basic misunderstanding of the situation. If you asked those individuals with the Super Testimonies (tm) they'd be the first to tell you that they wish they had my testimony rather than walk through a personal hell.
I've mentioned it before, but the most massive revelation of the past year in my spiritual walk has been from Dr. Charles Stanley, who once said that God didn't send Jesus to save us from what we've done, the sins we've committed. God sent Jesus to save us from what we are.
We'd like to believe that we need Jesus because we at one or many points in time committed this sin, that sin, and violated the laws of God. Those sins are just the symptom, and a good physician never just treats the symptom. At our core, because of Adam and Eve's transgression in the Garden, we were fundamentally altered. That act made it so that we weren't just capable of sin, but we would inevitably sin. It is in our heart, our nature, our spiritual DNA. It doesn't excuse us, of course, but that is why we need God, need Jesus, need His Holy Spirit, because we are incapable. To say that the sins we commit are the problem is like saying that someone riddled with cancer's problem is the dramatic weight loss, hair falling out, blood in the stool, and lack of appetite. No. It's the faulty cells inside the body that are replicating the DNA incorrectly. If it was just our actions then we wouldn't need to be conformed to the image/mind of Jesus. We'd just need to be conformed to His actions, and the Pharisees, as much crap as we tend to talk about them, were already doing that. Their externals were white, the internals full of rotting flesh and dead men's bones.
That is where I find myself struggling most of the time. It isn't my externals that need altering, although there are things that are beneficial to do and not do. The issue is now and forever my internals...and that, without Jesus, is impossible to alter. I say I struggle, but really it has lately been more surrender. "I believe; Help my unbelief" resounds through my soul at the same frequent desperation as Brother Lawrence's "If You do not change me, how can I do otherwise?".
It is a hard fact that you can do nothing about it. It is a hard fact that you can do nothing about it.
I was watching my kids the other day. My daughter has been having a rough time of it lately. She's at some sort of snotty "tween" stage that just grates on my nerves. It's too early for her to be acting like I'm as much of an idiot as she thinks I am. If any other adult tells her something it is like some enlightened revelation, but if I tell her she scoffs and does it her own way. She isn't showing much respect for me or her mother and I refuse to let her treat us like that.
The thing that keeps grinding my gears is how ungrateful she is. I mean, honestly, never mind that we gave her life, but there is the food, lodging, clothing, tv, computer, education, vacations, etc. We give her so much and she snots me off? Treats me like I'm an idiot when I show her how to do something? Tell her how best to go about her life? I mean, I'm only 38 and she's 9. How much more life experience do I have? Psht...
And that's when I heard some sort of deep, bass level, spiritual bell ding in my soul. Jesus is so faithful at ringing that thing. My perspective shifted. I heard Him clear His throat and I saw my own inconsistency, my own lack of gratitude, my own insistence that God is an idiot (though I never phrase it that way when I'm about to do the thing), my own snottiness.
I felt guilty. I felt condemnation. I felt gutted by my own behavior.
Normally I would have wallowed in all of that, slipped into a spiritual depression (it's comfy there...), and been all "Woe is me", for a few days. I stepped a toe in there and then felt something different than my usual penitent slump. It was so weird. I felt loved. It was like He came up behind me, turned my face away from my actions and just hugged me, loved on me for a while. I didn't have to feel horrible. And the reason why is hard to explain, but I'll try through the medium of my parent child relationship.
My daughter we always be ungrateful on some level, because she can't know all that we have done for her. She can't know how Papa has struggled to teach her, how much Papa has prayed, and cried, and changed himself to be better for her. She can't know how much time and Papa has spent just doing the laundry, dishes, bathroom scrubbing, floor scrubbing, cooking, etc all for her. There is no way for her to comprehend how much her Mama works and struggles to provide good things for her. Even when she has her own children and does the same for them she will only have an inkling of an idea because we'll be 20 years ahead.
We are ungrateful and always be ungrateful on some level because of the magnitude of what Jesus has done for us, for what the Father has done for us, and what the Holy Spirit has done for us. He has spent many thousands of years from the foundation of the Earth and untold years before the foundation of the Earth doing for us. When I think of that I get the same feeling I imagine I would have scuba diving and a blue whale swam up next to me. Fear. Not a fear for my life, but that natural fear and respect for something so massive we barely register on it's scale. It is just so huge. We can't comprehend it now and I doubt we'll be able to comprehend it on the other side, not fully.
He deserves so much more gratitude, so much more praise, so much more of my life because of what He has done. And every time I meditate on that I feel something like Him replying with a smile, "I know. Hey, let's go for a walk."
From the Garden, to Enoch, to us...His desire hasn't much changed, has it?
Pax,
W
Showing posts with label Sonship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sonship. Show all posts
Friday, March 25, 2016
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
On Lent: The Greatest Commandments
If Lent is a season in which we are called to consider "What is it mean to be a faithful disciple of Jesus" then we must consider, at some point, the Greatest Commandment.
1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
According to Jesus, in multiple Gospels though I'm in Mark 12 for this one, the second is like it.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Anyone with a Sunday School grade level can recite that from rote memory, but when it comes to understanding it...at least in my case, not so much.
How in the world is loving my neighbor in the same manner as I love myself anywhere CLOSE to loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? It's something that I take on Faith (with a capital F, please note, which indicates the concept is too large for me to get a grapple on at the moment) because I don't understand it. Feel free to comment down below and help me wrestle with it.
Taking it on Faith I tackle the more manageable second one. And I've been crap at it. I used to suffer from a fairly significant Social Anxiety. I wouldn't dare call it "severe" merely because I have no basis for comparison. It wasn't Anxiety in the way I think most people feel anxiety, which is a physical response with no corresponding logic to it. Again, I haven't studied anxiety, so if I'm incorrect feel free to correct me in the comments below. I've always had fairly logical reasons for my anxiety, or so I've believed.
When I meet a person I always have a certain amount of awkwardness because I recognize that I'm nothing to whoever I meet. I'm a face without a name until I'm introduced, and who the heck am I to assume anything let alone that I have a right to their time let alone their consideration? Sometimes I feel the same way about my blogs, but I figure you can just close them if you don't want them and be on your merry way. I tend to feel that I don't even have a right to introduce myself to someone, and when others have introduced me I have felt like that was some sort of an imposition. But, usually once a conversation begins even then I'm at a loss. I'm not a very small talk type person. I've never been able to pull off the "Oh...so, uh...are you originally from here?" type conversation. It's awkward, I sound awkward, and it feels like I'm really not interested, struggling for something so the other person who started talking to me doesn't feel rejected. And it sounds like that because I really feel that way. If I could skip the awkward "getting to know you" bit and launch into the in depth struggling with our human and spiritual selves philosophical sort of conversation I would. That's the territory I feel the most at home in. But this, "Oh gee...that Nor'easter we got the other day...what did ya think of that?" is painful. Then you search around trying to find something in common and people always go to Sports. I know why they go to sports...but I am not a sports guy. Even in my favorite sport of Soccer I don't much like talking about it. And that's why I wear Fandom shirts.
Fandom shirts (currently wearing my Doctor Who shirt with the glow-in-the-dark Weeping Angels) let me bypass all of that...generally. One of the Small Group studies I went to I spent 8 agonizing weeks going wearing a different shirt and got no bites. It was a couples thing with the guys but me were all swollen armed "Guys Guys", talking manliness, outdoors, trucks, and the like. I wore Doctor Who shirts, Sherlock shirts, video game shirts, and in a last ditch (and perennially futile effort) I wore an Edgar Allen Poe shirt with a quote from "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" and one of the ladies there said the quote sounded romantic.
I'm just not a "reacher-out-er". I figure that if we are meant to be friends then it's going to happen, and even THEN I have anxiety. My past is a long history of thinking that each friendship is actually more important to the other person than it actually ends up being. And that hurts. I was friends for two years with someone and our wives were good friends. It's such a trite story where the friend holds a party...I didn't get an invite...then one of the other friends casually remarks that "Yeah, it was a great party. All his friends were there." and I realize that I've been just an acquaintance all this time and I thought I was a friend. It has happened in more instances than I can actually count on my hands, fingers and toes. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. It doesn't just cut, it shreds. That shredding makes a person more than a little gun shy when it comes to forging friendships and putting yourself out there. I've been fortunate to have one person in my life who is such a good friend that when we meet up it's like we never parted (even when it was ten years apart) or I would give up on the whole "having friends thing".
All that to say that I have anxiety because I've been damaged, not some chemical imbalance...which would be far worse I agree.
And, all that to get back to what I realized about our second greatest commandment.
"Oh well...get out there anyway."
Satori is a Zen concept that indicates a sudden realization that feels like getting smacked upside the head with a brick spiritually. I had that.
Loving your neighbor is about loving whoever happens to be next to you at the time. Loving him/her as yourself means treating them precisely how you would want to be treated. For me, that means getting over my anxiety so that I can welcome them into my life as warmly and completely as I would actually want to be on the receiving end of. I need to be treating whoever I meet with precisely the same love and care as my one completely steadfast friend did when they met me. Yes, I've been hurt. Yes, I have anxiety to deal with. However, I'm in danger of turning into exactly what hurt me. If I hold my hurt I'll make it awkward for others, I'll love at a distance, I'll not invite someone, etc. The only way to not become what hurt me to someone else is to let go, rely on Jesus to do what He has commanded, and love with His love. It's scary, but I'm pretty sure He can accomplish it in me when He has already commanded it of me.
It may seem a little thing now that I've pushed it outside of myself for you to see, but I'm a bit bigger on the inside for the realization.
Pax,
W
1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
According to Jesus, in multiple Gospels though I'm in Mark 12 for this one, the second is like it.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Anyone with a Sunday School grade level can recite that from rote memory, but when it comes to understanding it...at least in my case, not so much.
How in the world is loving my neighbor in the same manner as I love myself anywhere CLOSE to loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? It's something that I take on Faith (with a capital F, please note, which indicates the concept is too large for me to get a grapple on at the moment) because I don't understand it. Feel free to comment down below and help me wrestle with it.
Taking it on Faith I tackle the more manageable second one. And I've been crap at it. I used to suffer from a fairly significant Social Anxiety. I wouldn't dare call it "severe" merely because I have no basis for comparison. It wasn't Anxiety in the way I think most people feel anxiety, which is a physical response with no corresponding logic to it. Again, I haven't studied anxiety, so if I'm incorrect feel free to correct me in the comments below. I've always had fairly logical reasons for my anxiety, or so I've believed.
When I meet a person I always have a certain amount of awkwardness because I recognize that I'm nothing to whoever I meet. I'm a face without a name until I'm introduced, and who the heck am I to assume anything let alone that I have a right to their time let alone their consideration? Sometimes I feel the same way about my blogs, but I figure you can just close them if you don't want them and be on your merry way. I tend to feel that I don't even have a right to introduce myself to someone, and when others have introduced me I have felt like that was some sort of an imposition. But, usually once a conversation begins even then I'm at a loss. I'm not a very small talk type person. I've never been able to pull off the "Oh...so, uh...are you originally from here?" type conversation. It's awkward, I sound awkward, and it feels like I'm really not interested, struggling for something so the other person who started talking to me doesn't feel rejected. And it sounds like that because I really feel that way. If I could skip the awkward "getting to know you" bit and launch into the in depth struggling with our human and spiritual selves philosophical sort of conversation I would. That's the territory I feel the most at home in. But this, "Oh gee...that Nor'easter we got the other day...what did ya think of that?" is painful. Then you search around trying to find something in common and people always go to Sports. I know why they go to sports...but I am not a sports guy. Even in my favorite sport of Soccer I don't much like talking about it. And that's why I wear Fandom shirts.
Fandom shirts (currently wearing my Doctor Who shirt with the glow-in-the-dark Weeping Angels) let me bypass all of that...generally. One of the Small Group studies I went to I spent 8 agonizing weeks going wearing a different shirt and got no bites. It was a couples thing with the guys but me were all swollen armed "Guys Guys", talking manliness, outdoors, trucks, and the like. I wore Doctor Who shirts, Sherlock shirts, video game shirts, and in a last ditch (and perennially futile effort) I wore an Edgar Allen Poe shirt with a quote from "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" and one of the ladies there said the quote sounded romantic.
I'm just not a "reacher-out-er". I figure that if we are meant to be friends then it's going to happen, and even THEN I have anxiety. My past is a long history of thinking that each friendship is actually more important to the other person than it actually ends up being. And that hurts. I was friends for two years with someone and our wives were good friends. It's such a trite story where the friend holds a party...I didn't get an invite...then one of the other friends casually remarks that "Yeah, it was a great party. All his friends were there." and I realize that I've been just an acquaintance all this time and I thought I was a friend. It has happened in more instances than I can actually count on my hands, fingers and toes. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. It doesn't just cut, it shreds. That shredding makes a person more than a little gun shy when it comes to forging friendships and putting yourself out there. I've been fortunate to have one person in my life who is such a good friend that when we meet up it's like we never parted (even when it was ten years apart) or I would give up on the whole "having friends thing".
All that to say that I have anxiety because I've been damaged, not some chemical imbalance...which would be far worse I agree.
And, all that to get back to what I realized about our second greatest commandment.
"Oh well...get out there anyway."
Satori is a Zen concept that indicates a sudden realization that feels like getting smacked upside the head with a brick spiritually. I had that.
Loving your neighbor is about loving whoever happens to be next to you at the time. Loving him/her as yourself means treating them precisely how you would want to be treated. For me, that means getting over my anxiety so that I can welcome them into my life as warmly and completely as I would actually want to be on the receiving end of. I need to be treating whoever I meet with precisely the same love and care as my one completely steadfast friend did when they met me. Yes, I've been hurt. Yes, I have anxiety to deal with. However, I'm in danger of turning into exactly what hurt me. If I hold my hurt I'll make it awkward for others, I'll love at a distance, I'll not invite someone, etc. The only way to not become what hurt me to someone else is to let go, rely on Jesus to do what He has commanded, and love with His love. It's scary, but I'm pretty sure He can accomplish it in me when He has already commanded it of me.
It may seem a little thing now that I've pushed it outside of myself for you to see, but I'm a bit bigger on the inside for the realization.
Pax,
W
Sunday, May 17, 2015
On Children
I'm up late tonight. Normally I sleep well enough, but my wife offered to make chai and...well, if you've never had my wife's chai let's just say that you are missing out on one of the finer pleasures in life. I forgot, however, that since turning 37 last year my body is processing things like caffeine differently. Once upon a time I was capable of drinking a whole pot of coffee in one sitting and then stretch, yawn, and fall immediately to sleep. Nowadays even a cup of innocent seeming green tea will keep me wired.
I've been reflecting a lot lately on children. Specifically why God gives us children at all. I believe that God's purposes for things in our life are multifaceted and the trick is to catch the flash of divine light off each facet. As such, perpetuation of the species isn't the only reason we have children.
Most obviously, children round our sharp edges. Grandparents are clear evidence of this. Grandparents don't smile only because they get to give the kids back at the end of the visit. They've got the priorities straight. They know, through trial and error...but mostly error, what is and isn't important. Where in their youth they may have freaked out at a furniture scratch, or upholstery stain they realize none of this stuff stays around anyway. Face time, smiles, giggles, cookies, ice cream, loving, and being loved are the things that eternity is made of. When a grandparent raises their voice it's usually for a perfectly good reason. When they stand firm on something they know it's a hill worth fighting on. The younger the parent, generally, the more abundant the "fighting hills" there are.
When we parent we get a much clearer understanding of our own heavenly Father. I can't count the number of times I've said things to my kids and have practically felt the Father nudge me when it applies to my own relationship with him. "Listen, if you could only see what I see then you wouldn't worry about it." "I'm you're Papa. I only want the best for you, and that's why I insist you obey me on these things. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm actually trying to keep you from harm." "You're a part of me, child. How could you imagine that I don't love you?" "I delight in you even when you can't see me watching." "Nothing makes me happier than watching you be exactly who you are."
One of the surprising things has been in the area of relationships. The LORD is pretty sneaky with this one. When I married my wife it would have been very easy for the two of us to just become hermits. We got scolded for being too focused on each other at a few social gatherings. Now, when you marry your best friend and you married her for the right reasons I'm not sure what people expect. She's the most interesting person I know and I love her enough to pledge my life to her so...yeah...surprise! We used to leave Church as soon as the Pastor dismissed. We were quite content with our little "Nation of Two". Kids don't let you do that. Children force you into social situations, force you to stay in them longer, force you to at least try to engage in social interaction and forge relationships. When the Kingdom is made of the very stuff of relationships it shouldn't be too surprising that the LORD finds ways to gradually, lovingly, force us into making them.
Finally, because I've finally burned off the energy from the chai, the perpetual "why?" of a child is more than just information gathering. I can't count the number of times my eldest has questioned me on things and it's made me analyze and then re-analyze just why I believe something. I'm a big proponent of self analysis and consider myself an avid questioner of my beliefs, but it would be a lot more lax of a personal philosophy if it wasn't for my children. The other day my daughter asked me why Christians were being killed over in the middle east. My daughter is so very precious to me beyond just the "cute sweetie" thing. My mother's own way of thinking was "If they're old enough to ask the question they're old enough for the answer" and I've followed that ever since. I explained that because they believe in Jesus and the Bible another group who believes something different thinks it's a crime worthy killing. My daughter's done AWANA and Sunday school, etc. By all accounts she's a "good Christian kid". In that moment, because of her questioning, I realized that maybe she doesn't understand the big "why". Why do we believe what we believe? I already know that my own whys are constantly evolving but her's have barely just begun. She's been given a constant barrage of stories and information, but she'd never actually sad down and read a book of the Bible chapter by chapter. Why do people die for our faith on a daily basis? Why not, as she asked a little later, just lie and say you don't believe and stay alive?
As a result we started in John and have been going through a bit at a time. This is where we get to the truly amazing part of raising children. More than anything we get to go over it all again ourselves. Kids keep us mentally young. They exhaust us mentally and physically, don't get me wrong. But when they see something for the first time we get the chance to fling back to when we were that age seeing it for the first time ourselves. We get the opportunity to remember and get in touch with our most pure self. For me at least the adult stuff, the psych damage from whatever toxic source I allowed unwittingly to damage me, starts to slough off and I remember who I really am at my core. I get to remember what it's like to trust completely and love fiercely, because in the end that's what the Father's called us to and it would be so easy to forget.
Pax,
W
I've been reflecting a lot lately on children. Specifically why God gives us children at all. I believe that God's purposes for things in our life are multifaceted and the trick is to catch the flash of divine light off each facet. As such, perpetuation of the species isn't the only reason we have children.
Most obviously, children round our sharp edges. Grandparents are clear evidence of this. Grandparents don't smile only because they get to give the kids back at the end of the visit. They've got the priorities straight. They know, through trial and error...but mostly error, what is and isn't important. Where in their youth they may have freaked out at a furniture scratch, or upholstery stain they realize none of this stuff stays around anyway. Face time, smiles, giggles, cookies, ice cream, loving, and being loved are the things that eternity is made of. When a grandparent raises their voice it's usually for a perfectly good reason. When they stand firm on something they know it's a hill worth fighting on. The younger the parent, generally, the more abundant the "fighting hills" there are.
When we parent we get a much clearer understanding of our own heavenly Father. I can't count the number of times I've said things to my kids and have practically felt the Father nudge me when it applies to my own relationship with him. "Listen, if you could only see what I see then you wouldn't worry about it." "I'm you're Papa. I only want the best for you, and that's why I insist you obey me on these things. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm actually trying to keep you from harm." "You're a part of me, child. How could you imagine that I don't love you?" "I delight in you even when you can't see me watching." "Nothing makes me happier than watching you be exactly who you are."
One of the surprising things has been in the area of relationships. The LORD is pretty sneaky with this one. When I married my wife it would have been very easy for the two of us to just become hermits. We got scolded for being too focused on each other at a few social gatherings. Now, when you marry your best friend and you married her for the right reasons I'm not sure what people expect. She's the most interesting person I know and I love her enough to pledge my life to her so...yeah...surprise! We used to leave Church as soon as the Pastor dismissed. We were quite content with our little "Nation of Two". Kids don't let you do that. Children force you into social situations, force you to stay in them longer, force you to at least try to engage in social interaction and forge relationships. When the Kingdom is made of the very stuff of relationships it shouldn't be too surprising that the LORD finds ways to gradually, lovingly, force us into making them.
Finally, because I've finally burned off the energy from the chai, the perpetual "why?" of a child is more than just information gathering. I can't count the number of times my eldest has questioned me on things and it's made me analyze and then re-analyze just why I believe something. I'm a big proponent of self analysis and consider myself an avid questioner of my beliefs, but it would be a lot more lax of a personal philosophy if it wasn't for my children. The other day my daughter asked me why Christians were being killed over in the middle east. My daughter is so very precious to me beyond just the "cute sweetie" thing. My mother's own way of thinking was "If they're old enough to ask the question they're old enough for the answer" and I've followed that ever since. I explained that because they believe in Jesus and the Bible another group who believes something different thinks it's a crime worthy killing. My daughter's done AWANA and Sunday school, etc. By all accounts she's a "good Christian kid". In that moment, because of her questioning, I realized that maybe she doesn't understand the big "why". Why do we believe what we believe? I already know that my own whys are constantly evolving but her's have barely just begun. She's been given a constant barrage of stories and information, but she'd never actually sad down and read a book of the Bible chapter by chapter. Why do people die for our faith on a daily basis? Why not, as she asked a little later, just lie and say you don't believe and stay alive?
As a result we started in John and have been going through a bit at a time. This is where we get to the truly amazing part of raising children. More than anything we get to go over it all again ourselves. Kids keep us mentally young. They exhaust us mentally and physically, don't get me wrong. But when they see something for the first time we get the chance to fling back to when we were that age seeing it for the first time ourselves. We get the opportunity to remember and get in touch with our most pure self. For me at least the adult stuff, the psych damage from whatever toxic source I allowed unwittingly to damage me, starts to slough off and I remember who I really am at my core. I get to remember what it's like to trust completely and love fiercely, because in the end that's what the Father's called us to and it would be so easy to forget.
Pax,
W
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