In Decision 2011

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.   Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:4-5

The topic about which I have been writing over the past week is not directly related to our new neighborhood or neighbors but is a parenting decision we need to make in the near future.  It feels like a monumental decision even though to outside observers it might not.  The decision itself is not as important as where it is taking our hearts, or perhaps how our hearts are interacting with it.  Moving to this neighborhood did not feel like a step of faith as much as it felt like the only reasonable thing for us to do.  I didn't feel like we were risking all that much, whether or not we actually are.  This next decision is poking around in some pretty fundamental "untouchables" in my heart and it is freaking me out.

Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?  Luke 12:24-26

What I realized last night is that rather than going to my heavenly Father, who made me and knows me and is writing the script in which I now find myself, I am "worried and upset about many things."  Rather than resting it all at His feet, trusting that a year from now we will all be exactly where He draws us, it is like I am trying to solve a great riddle or discover the end of a treasure hunt by sniffing out just the right clues.  I am trusting in my reasoning ability, my theological sleuthing skills while placing great hope in a coming "Aha!" moment.  My actual prayer time for this decision is at best like Columbo's murmuring his thoughts aloud in an unintelligible, seemingly disconnected way and at worst just non-existent.  This is all very telling about the distance between what I think I believe and the object of my heart's actual trust. I trust myself more than God.

The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes,  and in the wilderness. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”  In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God,  who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go. Deut. 1:30-33

Knowing how it is going to end up makes me feel more secure, more stable and more at rest.  It allows me to start planning in this direction or that, to start envision other aspects of life accordingly.  Knowing what the decision will ultimately be allows me to adjust my heart's perspective and expectations.  Knowing makes me feel less powerless and more in control, like a roller coaster that allows you to see the direction of the track ahead in contrast to the ones in pitch black darkness.  I hate feeling powerless and I have a very high need for control.  I want to know "how much longer" I will be in the car until we arrive at the beach.  I want to know what my alternatives are so that I can prepare for any outcome.  I want to be ready.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6

I absolutely trust more in my own understanding than in the Lord.  It doesn't matter that I know intellectually that my understanding is limited, that my experiences are not rules and that God is good and is in control of all things.  Just like Adam and Eve, the Israelites and God's people before me, I am naturally bent on self-reliance though I have no good reason to be.

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.  John 5:39-40

The Pharisee is a picture of me...I study to find life in the Scriptures but not in Jesus Himself!  Like Adam and Eve, I want to take His fruit apart from Him...but it only remains alive in connection to Him.  Who will save me from this cycle and strong propensity?  What is my hope for ever trusting Him despite my strong will to trust myself more?

All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”  John 6:37-40

I am not trapped in unbelief not because He will inspire me to pull myself up and start fresh tomorrow, but because He will give me the very belief in Him that I lack on my own.  He is drawing me to look to Him and not myself, and that is a sign of life, of His life in me, that I cannot resist or thwart.  He will not lose me or cast me aside, no matter how determined I am to listen to the serpent instead (like Adam and Eve), or to keep the Israelites in slavery (like Pharaoh) or flee to Tarshish rather than go to Nineveh (like Jonah) or destroy the followers of Jesus (like Paul).


Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7

Terms of Engagement

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

I was created in God's image, to image Him in a particular way. None of us exhaustively communicates who God is by ourselves, but He tells of His character and work through the story He is writing through our lives - the sin and brokenness, the promise and hope of restoration, the tangible tastes of redemption in part now and the confidence of sharing in His glory when the time comes.

As a kid, I loved to perform and would put on plays for anyone who would watch. I loved being in productions at school or outside of school, as the opportunity arose. Then I hit that stage of self-awareness where I felt embarrassed to be seen on stage or that it might not be so cool to get really into acting.

From first grade through high school, soccer was truly my passion. The feeling of driving the ball down the field, past the other team's offense and through their defensive line was exhilarating. A good collision here and there increased my adrenaline and satisfaction that I hadn't held anything back. Then I tore my ACL and cartilage and realized I was in fact destructible. After surgery and rehab, I returned to play, even getting travel to Germany to play in tournaments with my club team. But I lost my boldness along with my speed and agility.

At the end of elementary school, I was one of six in "the cool group". Of course I was friends with everybody, but I liked the feeling of popularity. Then I entered junior high and all the rules changed and I wasn't given the rule book ahead of time. I didn't want to carry a purse, or wear make-up yet, or sneak out of my house at night. For the first time in my life I felt insecure and on the outside of the really cool group. I felt lost.

High school and college snapped me out of that moment of an inferiority complex and I came back with a full throttle superiority complex. Then after my junior year of college, God sent me for the summer to Branson, MO on a Campus Crusade for Christ summer project. My identity was as one of the group of people living in this nasty old hotel, with people in jean shorts who thought sororities were sinful, who rather than date preferred to "court" and I had to drive my roommate's old, rusty Toyota to my job every day. As determined as I was to retain my distinctness from "these people", God was determined to use them to show me my arrogance and total cluelessness about His valuation of and honorable love for people, including me.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Matthew 23:23-28

With the help of friends who know my story and can tell me what they hear, it seems God just might be calling me to "Branson" again, in a sense - not the real place of course. My deep resistance to being identified with this group or that group is indication of a total unfamiliarity with the person and work of Jesus. He did not come to be served, but to serve. He did not demand honor and glory, but gave it all up to pour out His life for His Father's Kingdom rather than safeguarding His own. Because He was so securely encompassed in His Father's love, filled in such a way that nothing could add to or diminish this connection, He could and did love others lavishly and without hesitation. He identified Himself not simply with victims of poverty and disease, but with Zacheus who was repulsive in behavior and attitude to the wealthy and poor alike. He had compassion on the arrogant Pharisee who publicly disdained the very people Jesus created and came to fully redeem. He had mercy on the Israelites who had turned from Him in Egypt, and rescued them from slavery not because of their merits but because of His.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Cor. 13:1-3

It is just not going to work for me to live for God's Kingdom on my terms. I can't reserve for myself this area of my reputation or that pet affection and love others whole-heartedly. I cannot judge other Christians whose behavior and attitudes and political leanings repulse me or who I don't think are as cool as I am and also claim to walk in generous and unrestrained love as Jesus did. I can't fear injury and run boldly down the field at the same time. I can't be intimidated by mockery and sing and dance my heart out at the same time. I can’t protect my social status and make myself nothing simultaneously.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. Heb. 11:13

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8:35


Becoming a stranger and foreigner and losing my life are the worst sounding ideas I could imagine and no matter what I believe theologically, they are the very last things I want to do. The beautiful thing, though, is that like Aslan's powerful pull of the children into Narnia, I cannot resist His will, which in the end leads to far more magical places and fuller life than the reputation, knee or coolness I think I want to protect instead. What sweet grace and mercy that He is faithful even when I am not. He will work in me to will and to act according to His good purpose, even if I think I'd rather high tail it to Tarshish. (:

Favoritism

My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.  Col. 2:2-4

God is really messing with my paradigms right now...that isn't anything perverted in case you aren't familiar with the term.  He just has me in what I hope will be a short-lived questioning of many of the untouchables in my world...and by "my world", I really mean my mind and how my mind has assumed the world can only work.  I guess these seasons do happen, but man, it is so disorienting.  A pro-con list does not work for this kind of sorting.  For the lucky few who have heard me think out loud in the past couple of days, it sounds like really fast point-counterpoint, over and over again.  Life-held assumption -> argument that God's Kingdom isn't bound by that cultural limitation -> counter-argument that the untouchable assumptions makes obvious sense and I agree most fully with all of them - >challenge that I am trusting in traditions of men rather than God whose will I can't thwart or mess up even if I do get it all wrong.  (That very last part is the grace in all of this!)

This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.  We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.  As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message.  On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.  Gal. 2:4-8

One of my basic assumptions, based on experience, is that certain inner circles of people can accomplish "great things" more reliably than others.  A well-known, well-connected Christian can get more done for God's Kingdom than an unknown, unconnected Christian.  But then, the next question is: what does God's Kingdom most need to have accomplished?  What qualifications does the transforming work of the Holy Spirit establish as pre-requisites? 

Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?  Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?  Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?  If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  James 2:2-9

I've always been free and clear of this charge of favoritism because I read it with as much tension as an after-school special.  Of course I would never tell "the poor man" to "sit on the floor by my feet".  How ridiculous.  Nobody does that.  Oh, but the person and work of Jesus gently shows me that I do exactly that.  I do it by flocking to the "important" person in the room (based either by public opinion or by their usefulness to my future dreams or based on a felt connection that serves my hunger for connectedness) and then, effectively, neglecting the others who don't offer the same kind of return for my investment of time and energy.
On one level, I show a definite favoritism for those with whom I envision a future return on the investment.  On another level, I trust far more in the power and connectedness promised by "inner circles" than the power and connectedness of the One who holds the whole world in His hands.
 
The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”  Luke 1:28


God's children, of which I am one, are highly favored because God is with us through Emanuel, His Son.  It is not the other way around.  What favor do I seek that has more power, influence or satisfaction than that from God of Heaven and Earth?
One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4

Exalted

Since about the 2nd grade, being cool has always been a very high value of mine.  And a lot about being cool is conveying an absolute aloofness about being cool...like it is the last thing on my mind or that I'd ever care even notice.  You can trip in the lunch room and still be totally cool, or wear your hair awkwardly or laugh with a snort because the key isn't exactly in what you do or say but in being so confident before the eyes of others that they can be convinced the fall, the awkwardness and the snort were actually all on purpose.  On purpose is big, which maybe has something to do with always being right.  For example, "Oh, you thought I fell down because clumsiness, but the joke is on you because I did it to make other people laugh, you tool."  Ok, so sometimes it gets a little harsh like when it is far better to humiliate the person who wrongly assumed they caught you being humiliated.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?  But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”  Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor? James 4:4-12

The law of the land, then, was to mock others before they could mock you, or at least better.  Judge them for being awkward or foolish as a way to prove one's own authority on not-awkwardness and coolness.  If you can spot the weakness, it is one step closer to being above critique.  Isn't that why we give a million disclaimers when people come to our homes?  "Oh, we're getting that recovered and isn't that gross?  We're going to re-do that and then we plan to..."  But curiously, this wasn't how Jesus interacted with His people.  He saw the brokenness and grossness, He knew how everyone needed to be restored and that He had come to do it.  But He didn't spend His time protecting His image from the perceptions of others.  His job approval ratings from the people He came to serve and for whom He would die had no bearing on what He would do.  He was actually serving His Father, not them.  He had His Father's full and exhaustive approval without fear of loss...except on the cross.  What did public opinion know about the intricate details of how each and every aspect of creation's restoration was to take place?  He is God and He knew every bit of the work that had been started would be completed successfully and lavishly.

Those verses in James used to puzzle me because I thought we were supposed to love others and care for others and this seemed to be saying otherwise.  But in context of the whole passage, and in the context of redemptive history, it is shining a spotlight into my heart.  Being proud is connected to the kind of friendship with the world being discussed.  An obsession with personal dignity and honor begins to supersede the focus of those things on God alone.

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.  James 2:23

Abraham's friendship with God compelled him to believe and to do what no outsider looking in could have supported or applauded.  But those same friends to whom Abraham might have bowed, could never provide the life Abraham needed, which was then extended on to generations ever afterward.

In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?  Psalm 56:10-11

No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt themselves.  It is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another. Psalm 75:6-7

I genuinely and deeply fear ridicule and the judgment of others.  A judgment is so authoritative and final.  Disapproving opinions not only sting, but they can have the power to shut me down.  I want to exalt myself and fiercely protect my exalted social status.  I'm assuming more power of others and myself than we actually have.  There is only One who approves or disapproves, who exalts or lays low, who opens doors and shuts them.


He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”  2 Peter 1:17
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,  for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  Gal. 3:26-29
How might my decision making change or my countenance change or my love for others increase if I began to really believe that as I am covered and clothed in Christ, God is well pleased with me and all else is irrelevant?  How might giving myself away bring more life to others than my fierce commitment to protecting my image before the eyes of others?  What if I took more delight and comfort in His exaltation than my own - even if that simply means within my own heart?  "But He gives us more grace!"  What very good news that even as I struggle with these things and their implications for big decisions ahead, my approval rating with Him and His fulfillment of His promises of restoration, are unchanging and eternally reliable because they are based solely on the person and work of Jesus which covers my weakness.  Hallelujah what a savior, hallelujah what a Lord!

Assessments

I got reprimanded at the Y today.  I just hate being told I'm not allowed to do what I am doing, particularly by someone I don't know and who doesn't know me.  They also don't know all the extenuating circumstances which might explain why what I am doing is actually ok and not offensive or harmful to anyone.  (I was listening to my ipod while running on the track when it was interrupted by a phone call from a friend I'd been playing phone tag with for three days.  I answered it while continuing to run on the track.  I had totally not noticed the sign on the door to the track, which says "no talking on cell phones", probably because when would I ever talk on my phone while exercising?  Apparently, today is when.)

Here was the sting about being reprimanded: After initially wanting to blame the rule or the lady or whoever brought me to her attention, what it came down to was the sting of being characterized as "one of those people."  One of those people who jibber jabbers on their cell phone in public with no regard for those around them or one of those people who is oblivious to others.  And then, the next level of sting was the assessment that whatever I was talking about was by no chance significant or necessary.  Along with that, what does she know about the context of my day...I mean, what if someone had just died and this was my first time out in weeks after depression and grieving and the phone call was to help me keep going?  Well of course it wasn't that by a long stretch, but all those thoughts were so very telling about my need to have people assume the best about my motives and intentions at all times in every place.  The 30 second exchange and the hours of thought afterward are revealing about my need to be assessed above reproach by strangers, family and friends alike.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. Gal. 3:23-25

What is clear from this brief episode and other decisions I have been pondering lately is that I am still held in custody by any and every "law" others may hold up to assess my acceptability and approval ratings.  If the new law is organic or natural eating or how much television my children watch or how we've decorated our home (which is a joke right now) or how where our children go to school, by golly I want to stand approved by that law.  Give me your law for perfection on your terms and I will meet it so that you will honor me and not look down on me.

We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. Gal. 2:15-16

What?  Ouch says the determined Pharisee in me.  But true.  If I am seeking to be justified by any measure other than Jesus, not only am I a slave to all those laws which will never set me free, but I am denying my own need for the person and work of Jesus.

Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,  being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.  This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”  The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone,  but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Romans 4:20-25


Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4
 
Here is how it plays out practically for me: If we do/don't do "x", Sally, my child's classmate's mom (or Sue, my friend at church, or Steve who works with my husband), will characterize me/us as "one of those" kinds of people and I/we are not like "those" people.  What it comes down to is my greater need for peers to declare me righteous in their sight than the declaration of righteousness I already have by the God of the universe.  And what that stems from is the classic fear of man being greater than my fear of God.  I trust more in what man might do to or can do for me than what God has the power and love and grace to control or provide.
 
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Romans 8:33-34
 
So am I advocating that we break the rules at the Y because we are not condemned in Jesus?  Seriously?  Is that what you are reading?  Of course not.  That was merely a vignette to demonstrate that the larger judgment of human assessment of my character and honor have become far too important to me.  My reputation has taken the ruling throne of my heart so that even my obedience becomes more about serving my image before others than about living in the freedom of His image alone.
 
By the way, I'm increasingly realizing that I am "one of those people".  I guess as soon as get more comfortable with that reality, I will increasingly enjoy the benefits of being one of His people.
 
The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.  The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.  Psalm 145:8-9

The Prince of Peace

We went to the Alliance Theater yesterday, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, to see a performance by high school students who presented the I Have A Dream speech through their own eyes.  Much was said about the high school cafeteria's voluntary segregation: cool kids, theater kids, athletes, black kids, hispanics, Asian kids, pretty kids, awkward kids...all sitting with their "own kind."  We then had dinner at our house with our neighbors, a mix of generations with the two oldest guests in their 80's and the youngest guest 5 months old, two separate white neighbors in addition to our whole family, single and married and one other family with children.  It was a picture of Martin's dream, at least in a one dimensional sense.

When it came time for the dessert, Terrell opened up a discussion of the day's significance and asked anyone to share who wanted to, particularly as it related to their experiences in our neighborhood.  The two widows in their 80's jumped right in without hesitation.  After beginning with, "I never thought I'd see this day", our next door neighbor, proceeded to share stories of her experience during segregation.  One example was of her long walks in the rain to a trolly which would then pass right by her to pick up a white lady further down the street and then open for her if there was room in the back.  The other widow shared of being on the early side of the transition of this neighborhood from white to black.  The elementary school was mostly burned down when her children began attending, she didn't explain how but it is pretty obvious, so they walked their young children further away to a nearby church to be educated.

I've known these kinds of historical facts for much of my life, in the same way I have much factual knowledge of the holocaust.  But to hear it coming from the mouths and lives of the most dignified, classy and gracious women sitting in my living room was both humbling and paralyzing.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  James 4:1-3

God's people have been divided ever since the Garden.  Adam and Eve were looking after their own interests, attempting to do so apart from God's provision, which resulted even in a division between the two of them.  Cain killed Abel.  Shem, Ham and Japheth divided.  Ishmael was born as one divided permanently from all his brothers, living in hostility with them for all his days.  The nations were divided at Babel for the same reason Adam and Eve were...seeking to be their own gods and determine for themselves what is right and wrong in their own eyes.  I more than anyone want to be king of the hill.  I hate losing and feeling like a loser, even if that sense is based upon not accomplishing what I determine should be accomplished to feel my life has been justified for another day.
 
The racial division that we experience today is not the same blatant hostility experienced by my neighbors as they raised their children.  But in many ways it seems deeper and more impenetrable because it is cemented in resignation.  For my new neighbors, it's just the way it is.  For some here who I do not know, the hurt and injury and oppression has cut so deep that bitterness and hatred have grown powerfully in those wounds with reason.  As a white person who grew up in an affluent community, I've never really experienced the issue of racial oppression and divide because it has never actually been an obstacle to my daily routine nor ever impeded my desires.  Junior high was awkward and filled with insecurity.  I hated the lunch room because I never was certain I would have a seat at the table.  That was two years of feeling inferior and in those two years, most of the trauma was a result of my perceptions of reality and not reality itself.  My affluent community, including me, does not really believe anyone should complain of an existing racial division problem because according to the way we experience it, one does not exist.
 
and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land.  I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.  They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. Ezek. 37:21-23

My mind is overloaded by questions I can't even come up with and my heart is heavy with the seeming impossibility of ever genuinely seeing shalom restored through authentic reconciliation between different people groups.  The magnitude of the divide is overwhelming.  But I will cling to this in the meantime:  He will make for Himself one people out of many tribes, tongues and nations.  He will reconcile all of His people to Himself and therefore to one another.  He will save me from my sinful backsliding into superiority simply because of the way I was raised in the skin into which I was born.  He will cleanse me and all His people.

The healing and restoration won't come through a once a year service project we do together, not simply through high school kids mixing it up in the lunch room, not through eloquent speeches nor angry tirades.  The only One who can reconcile us to one another is the One who overcame death, who took on Himself all of this sin that entangles me, and reconciled me and all His children to Himself.  By faith, I want to live in that true reality now.  This particular story has as much to tell of His redemptive process as any other and is just as covered by the person and work of Jesus.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,  by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace,  and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,  built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Eph. 2:14-22

The Disruption of Redemption

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!  For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.  For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.  One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”  But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”   Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?  What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?  What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—  even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?  As he says in Hosea:   “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’” Romans 9:14-26

I have another sinus infection it seems. My head hurts and my body aches.  If I end up with antibiotics again, it will be the 4th round since Thanksgiving.  Last night at bedtime, after Ellie asked if she could just go on to sleep without our normal routine, she got up complaining of shortness of breath and felt like a hand was pressing down on her chest.  After a call to Children's Healthcare, we ended up going to the closest ER which is Piedmont Hospital.  After a couple of hours, we were finally taken back to a "room" around 1:15/1:30.  Around 3am she had an EKG and X-ray which showed all was fine and clear and we got to go home just after 4am.

A friend of mine who has a long history of chronic illness has encountered another bout with it.  We talked about the deep sense that the storyline of illness isn't changing and it's a rotten storyline.  The thing about illness of any kind is it doesn't just mess with your body, it messes with your mind and heart.  For me last night, I was scared when Ellie for the first time in her life complained about not being able to breathe as she grabbed her chest.  Then this morning I was angry at the loss of a night's sleep and the perpetuation of my own body's ailments and refusal to return to health and strength for more than a week.  Then I began to feel condemned for being that wife/mom/person who is just always sickly and needy and inefficient.  Sick body, sick mind, sick heart.

As I was lying in bed this morning with a pounding headache and a numb feeling face, I started to ask the question, "Is this Satan's attack or God's good design?"  Hopefully, you noticed even more quickly than I did that the question isn't valid because it assumes there are two separate but equal powers at work on my life.  That is not the biblical picture at all, no matter what 80's and early 90's Christian literature tried to make me believe.

Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.  But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”  The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”  Job 1:8-12

God does not just give the tides their limits, the rain and the seasons their times, and the days of our lives a specific number that cannot be increased or decreased apart from His will.  He also limits Satan, who can only do what God gives him permission to do. 

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.  When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;  but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. James 1:12-14

Adam and Eve were dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed to be their own gods and decide for themselves what is right and wrong rather than trust and submit to the care and authority of God.  Those desires existed in their hearts before they sinned.  Satan exposed them.  God's redemptive plan isn't merely to create moral people like the Pharisees aimed to be, because that simply results in white-washed tombs.  God's redemptive plan is body, mind and heart.  The new heaven and new earth will not be comprised of pre-fall Adams and Eves whose desires are to be their own gods though they never act upon it.  We will be post-redemption purified images of a holy God in all of our capacities.  Sin will not be possible because our hearts will be fully transformed.

But why didn't we just start out there to begin with?  I don't really know, but here is my guess for today: God's disruption of my will in the past 24 hours, whether by using Satan's attack or my flesh's fears, doubts, anger and physical limitations, shows me more clearly my need for Him and my resistence to Him.  The test isn't a pass or fail, but like Ellie's EKG and X-Ray, it gives me a clearer picture of what exists below the surface.  Like Pharaoh's episode with God's people, every trial is "raised up" to exalt God's ability to be a life-giving God over any competitor, including me. My anger arose this morning because things refuse to go the way I want them to go.  I'm not parenting as intentionally and lovingly and I so want to do.  Terrell is doing all the work on our house that I want to accomplish but just can't seem to tackle.  Terrell has been making the most amazing meals that don't even occur to me on a good day.  And here is a quote that struck me in the midst of this state yesterday:

"We like to talk about having the faith to be healed - what about the faith to be sick?" - Mike Mason

My anger comes from a feeling of condemnation for not being and doing and ordering life as I want to be and do and order.  The test of faith, to use that phrase, is whether I will believe that my righteousness and rightness is in the being and doing and ordering of the person and work of Jesus alone.  Do I have the faith in His person and work to be at rest and peace during sickness, setbacks and what I perceive as disruption?  Do I have the faith to believe that He disrupts with a snake in the Garden and sinus infections and celiac's and bi-polar and all night hospital visits to help me transfer the object of my faith from myself and my accomplishments to Jesus and His?

God's Kingdom Come

I got an iphone for Christmas and must admit, it is really cool.  It is so user friendly and easy to use.  They truly designed it with an understanding of how people operate and think.  I can get to my e-mail and on the internet with simple touches on a screen that is clear and large enough to read or watch and manipulate to accommodate whatever it is I am trying to accomplish.  Apparently there are apps for everything, though I still haven't taken advantage of that world yet.  They really were thinking of me when they designed it.  But then the funny thing I was thinking about, as I realized that church is becoming more and more like an iphone, is that all this stuff my phone can do has very little to do with phone calling at all.  Similarly, churches are becoming more and more user friendly with advertisements on the radio which say, "We do church differently" and "we're not your grandmother's church" and "If you didn't used to like church, come try ours and we think you'll like it better."  One church had as it motto:  "Contemporary, Comfortable, Coffee"  Seriously.

I was reading an article that Richard Pratt wrote in a 2007 issue of By Faith Magazine and it really resonated with other things I have been thinking about.  In discussing the Lord's Prayer, he began by acknowledging that most of us make the second half our priority...give us our daily bread, forgive us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.  "We find ourselves in the bottom half of the Lord's Prayer because it reflects the greatest vision that many of us have for our lives: securing our personal well-being."  He of course acknowledged that seeking the Lord for forgiveness and provision is beautiful and holy and what faith calls us to do.  But that half apart from the foundation of the first, is simply exchanging the "hallowed name" of our Father whose Kingdom we desire to come for "Sugar Daddy" who we stick with for all that He can give us.

This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matt. 6:9-10

Honestly, making sure my kingdom will come drives most of my decisions and prevents me from making others.  What if running after God's Kingdom is actually a loss of perspective and I wake up five, ten, twenty years later and have cut myself off from people I will "need" then or opportunities for advancement I could build by staying on this track?  The perceived shalom of financial, social and career security somehow becomes enough of a goal than the fuller shalom of the Garden which was merely a shadow of the shalom of God's Kingdom.  People from every tribe, nation, language, culture, ethnicity with a wide variety of interests, gifts, talents, perspectives and passions living in unity and harmony...how that vision of shalom crushes my puny kingdom of me personal shalom.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Mark 8:34-36

Consistent with the whole story of the person and work of Jesus from Genesis to Revelation, I don't think this means what I used to assume it means.  I don't think my salvation is secured or lost by living for myself or sacrificing everything that occurs to me for God's Kingdom as some sort of penance or indulgence to find and maintain favor.  Instead, it is a reminder that life is found in God's Kingdom alone, that all good gifts are from Him and not my own procuring, that He ordains places and times and every circumstance of my life, and I am not left to hope in my resume or networking as a replacement source for my future.  What if I began to really believe this?  What if I quit asking the church to be an iphone to serve my self-esteem and conveniences and began to join it as a body with which to work in bringing shalom to my neighborhood and the community around me?

Here is something else that Pratt wrote in that article:  "Jesus put it this way later in Matthew 6:33. 'But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.'  For many of us, our greatest dream is to live in safety, to retire comfortably, and to escape this planet by flying away to heaven.  yet the first priority in every Christian's life should not be to ensure our physical, economic, social, or emotional well-being; it should be to extend God's kingdom and His righteousness to the ends of the earth (as it is in heaven)...If we will move beyond preoccupation with personal well-being and catch the vision that Jesus gives us in the opening of the Lord's Prayer, we will see the gospel and the kingdom go forth with power..."

This is dangerously close to preaching a new law about simply rejecting traditional expectations and running after shocking and head turning life choices.  Ironically, that turns out to be just as self-centered and self-promoting as the more conventional methods of chasing after God's favor and praises of men.  Imaging Jesus first requires a repentant view of my "contribution" apart from the gracious, merciful and compassionate pursuit of my by the only One who can rightly be called "good".  From here, well, true life and shalom is found where He is and evidences of His Kingdom coming now spring up all around us.  Playing in the snow yesterday with our neighbors was a definite taste of shalom.  Sharing a meal in from the cold with some of these same neighbors was a taste of this shalom.  We didn't do anything but participate in His Kingdom coming now as black and white, relatively more affluent and quite poor, girls and boys, single and married enjoyed sliding down the snowy streets on trash can lids.  Our different backgrounds, different educational accomplishments and future careers had no bearing on our delight in the day together.

His Kingdom is coming and it is so so much more interesting and life-giving than the one of my own. Why do I try to protect my tiny, anemic kingdom of me at all cost, even though it is wasting away with each day no matter what?  I assume it is because my vision of His Kingdom, of Ultimate Shalom, needs to be enlarged beyond my mirror.  And He is doing this and will do it.

Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.  As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Matt. 10:6-8

The Plight of the Orphan

The adoption community that I am experiencing might be a perfect micro-picture of Christian believers everywhere.  It is made up of affluent and shockingly poor, black and white, just out of college and those whose biological children are almost out of high school, single and married.  The other interesting and growing population in the adoption community are those who are not adopting because they couldn't grow their family biologically but because of the plight of the orphans.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  James 1:27

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.  And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Deut. 10:17-19


Seeing the story of God's fathering of His children from Genesis through Revelation, His pursuit and care throughout all the generations is clearly not because His children were adorable, always compliant, nor innocent victims of oppression deserving a rescue.  He pursued Adam and Eve when they had decided they would rather be their own gods than trust Him.  (Which is really the plight of the orphan, isn't it?  The assumption that we are our best advocates, not God.)  He claimed them as His own even as they had chosen to hide from Him and blame others for their offense.  He continues to father this way, never expecting His children to survive in isolation or autonomy but by His compassion and kindness, care and control over all things, based on His grace and mercy toward our perpetual rebellion and lack of belief and choices to be our own gods time and time again.

It is this picture of our own adoption that compels so many to adopt, including us.  I was talking with my friend Melissa about this yesterday, as she is in her first week home with their new child from Uganda.  We talked about the funny shift that inevitably takes place...the unmerited (or more accurately - demerited) favor of God is somehow forgotten as expressed by adopting families who bitterly complain that others aren't doing the same.  Subtly but swiftly, adoption itself becomes a new law by which the adopting families find themselves more righteous than those who haven't been called to adopt.  Would it make sense for the newly matched child in an orphanage to be arrogant and disdainful toward the other children in the orphanage who aren't headed into the same new home?  Of course not...and we get that initially but are so quick to forget that our responses to His grace do not merit the grace or the favor or the adoption any more than they have the ability to forfeit it because His grace and adoption is not based on my character but His.

My sister and I were talking about the similar tendencies for those of us living in a non-traditional neighborhood ("distressed" neighborhood is what the bank calls it).  She laughed about even feeling superior to us because her street is so much rougher than ours (which is more than true!).  "Oh, you have it so easy because you live on one of those streets where all the houses have roofs!"  Her street has more boarded up houses than inhabited ones and the drug dealers across the street have recently installed video cameras outside their dilapidated rental to keep track of the high volume of traffic coming to their door.

For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.  Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.  Romans 10:2-4

For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.  I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other.  Is. 4:4-6

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17

I am the first one to get zealous for God's Kingdom and want to run out to the front lines to fight for God's Kingdom.  What I forget immediately is that even this is part of my orphan tendency.  The plight of the orphan is self-reliance, self-protection and a general sense that if I don't do it, it won't happen.  God asks me to stop relying on my own understanding and perceived resources and to trust His power, control and unthwartable will.  The advancement of His Kingdom is not resting on what I do or do not do, but upon what Jesus has already completed.  My orphan plight is my hourly forgetfulness that I do not maintain God's favor through my obedience but by faith in His obedience credited to me.  It is only in the moments when I am reminded of the object of my faith, the person and work of Jesus in which I am clothed, that I am simultaneously reminded that the fruit of this faith is produced by Him for His purposes, not my status elevation.

He places the orphan in His family, and His children in families within His Family.  Some of these children from babies homes in Uganda or China or Atlanta will do well to grow up simply accepting the fact that they do fully and permanently belong to the family into which they have been adopted.  Other former orphans will respond to their adoption by adopting their own children.  Other former orphans will become contributors to their communities in other ways, publicly and behind the scenes.  Oh, if I could remember that the plight of the orphan isn't predominantly needing a family, but is the challenge to consistently believe that my security in the family and relationship to my siblings isn't ebbing and flowing based on my merits or theirs, but on His alone.  The way He has written my story and our stories to image His is intentionally different from each other and rather than compare stories or elevate some above others, I can trust that He will tell THE story exactly as He intends.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,  by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace,  and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Eph. 2:14-18

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,  for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal. 3:26-29

One of Us

As I've been thinking even more about this egocentric determination of comfort among other people, I've been struck with not only how pervasive it is in every area of my life, but how practically untouchable it is in our society.  It is really a given that you find groups and individuals with which you connect, based on your shared interests and perspectives, and to suggest otherwise doesn't even make sense.  We are encouraged to find others who love sports like we do, or who enjoy scrapbook making (ha ha...if you know me at all, just picture me ever having all the right materials in the right little containers for one of those retreats...and giggle!), or who share our religious convictions or our political leanings, our taste in music or restaurants or movies...and so on.  When afforded the choice, I have always selected the people I will spend the most time with based on commonalities.  Do you see who is at the center of those relationships?

All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  John 6:37-39

There are a few things there that strike me.  The most obvious difference between me and Jesus is that He entered each setting and circumstance not intent on doing on His own will but instead, the will of the Father.  I almost never think about God before myself. I am almost always too preoccupied with the above mentioned assessments of commonalities and agreements that I have no sight for Jesus' other points above:  that all who the Father draws will come and that Jesus will not lose a single one.  I'm rarely interested in who He is drawing and keeping but far more consumed with the ones I would select...which is often limited to those who think like I do or have the potential of thinking like I do.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!  Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.  Romans 5:6-11

He didn't come searching out His greatest fans, the most righteous and winsome nor the ones who could boost His ratings the most.  For starters, and obviously, this is because there is nothing He was lacking in identity or fulfillment that needed completion by His creation.  His creation has dignity and value because it is made in His image to image Him.  Do I ever even consider the possibility of being at home in a group or with an individual who is nothing like me because that person images God's story of creation, fall, redemption and the hope of glory intentionally as part of God's design?  Of course not because I'm usually too busy being preoccupied with my own self and how they affirm or disrupt me.  To be at home with the ungodly, the sinner and my enemies (often those who despise me simply based on assumptions based on appearance, speech and associations...much like I have just done with them) is only possible when I begin to faintly grasp who I am in relation to Jesus apart from His own gracious seeking and saving of me from my own enmity with 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.  1 John 4:10-12

I first notice that "she is not one of us" or assume that I am not "one of them."  In contrast, Jesus did not love out of comfort or convenience.  Jesus became one of us so that we could be one with Him.  Now the moralism take away would be to feel shamed for being friends with those who share much in common and more holy for only selecting the settings in which we feel the most awkward and uncomfortable.  Those are my two natural responses and totally omit the person and work of Jesus from the equation.  Because my righteousness is in Him alone, it isn't in this decision and how I make it any more than any other attempts of mine to meet the demands of the law on my own.  But because I am found in Him, I can be freed up to love extravagantly without the demand of return or reward but simply because His love sends me outside of myself and into the Father's will.

The Discomfort of Birthing Love

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Cor. 13:1-3

Suffering is something we want relief from or from which we want to rescue others.  It is awkward and messy and often over stuff that from the outside seems easily resolved or simply reframed in a more positive light.  But Biblically, suffering isn't something to avoid or anaesthetize or panic over as if a horrible cosmic mistake has occurred.  Suffering, whether through the small tedious responsibilities of the day or the larger tragedies and disappointments, is the very avenue through which God's children are shaped to become His image.  It is not so much the source of suffering that matters so much as what it is revealing in our hearts.  One thing tears one person up and doesn't phase someone else because of each heart's different affections and demands.  When those are threatened or denied, they are also exposed.  But it is not to shame us that God brings us through this, but to birth more of Himself in us in place of our chosen replacements.

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:12-13

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.  James 5:7

As I have been trying to process which side is up, where I am and what I am doing here, I continue to be bombarded like a kid who gets turned over in the waves and can't stand up in the continual surge of new waves.  Our new puppy that came home December 13th and has quickly become a beloved family member started throwing up yesterday afternoon.  She is now in a veterinary hospital with parvo which kills most puppies who get it.  After crying my head off last night about a dog and then crying some more with Ellie in her bed, she mentioned hearing voices outside her window the other night when our neighbor's sensor light came on.  Prowlers?  I just couldn't process one more thing and went to bed wondering what it means that in God there is no darkness at all as the darkness was just feeling so thick around me.

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.  1 John 4:16-17

My recently discussed fears would much more accurately be described as insecurity.  The insecurity is entirely focused on how I "fit" into this neighborhood and into the bigger story God is telling.  The anxiety is entirely about the discomfort I feel being in a different place, with different sounds and different expectations than I am accustomed.  And my response has been sadness, anger and snarky, mean comments to my children and husband.  On Sunday, it finally occurred to me that I actually hate people.  I don't really love them.  My thoughts, words and attitudes to those around me (whether in my own kitchen or walking down my street) are entirely about how they conform to my sense of order or how they disrupt it.  I hate the disruptions and the ones who are responsible for it. 

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it... The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  John 1:4-5, 9-11

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. 
1 John 4:7-12

The overflow of my heart through my spiteful, hateful words lately has exposed a lovelessness for people that Jesus has come to change.  His love for His people was entirely about His love and not in response to how well He connected with their styles, habits, obedience, service to Him or even love for Him.  There is no fear in love because genuine love does not regard self-preservation or self-satisfaction as a factor.  The darkness cannot overcome love, because God cannot and will never be overcome or overpowered.
 
My need for the world around me to conform to a picture with which I am comfortable comes from a heart that has me and my comforts on the throne to be served above all else.  I am not a loving god, but am redeemed and being conformed into the image of the author and sustainer of life.  He has shown me my lovelessness not to shame me, but to remind me that He is God and I am not, and that He is faithful and He will do it.  I will not be changed overnight, but like the farmer waiting for his crop, I will wait with confident hope.  Then, as my focus changes from how others serve my identity and need for order to the needs of others and how I can serve rather than be served, I will begin to experience a greater taste of His love for and through me.