Tag Archive | Christianity

How to Love People Better

Jun14

You know how sometimes God puts together cute little lessons for us that all revolve around a central theme? (He could be a party planner that way. He could be on Pinterest.) Well, the lessons of the month for me are all about learning to love better.

God is showing me I’ve previously approached relationships with a pretty self-centered perspective.

Sometimes I blatantly, yet subconsciously, use relationships to meet my needs. In other words, I maintain relationships because they benefit me in someway.

Other times I am more covert. I focus on meeting other people’s needs in relationships because it makes me feel good to know other people benefit from being friends with me. It’s a little more pleasing to the eye, but it’s still rooted in selfishness.

If a relationship doesn’t meet my needs or make me feel good by allowing me to meet others’ needs, I usually don’t put any effort into that relationship. If there’s nothing in it for me, what’s the point?

What's in it for me?

image via empowernetwork.com

Sounds pretty godly, right?

Negative, which is why God has been creating all kinds of “opportunities” for me to grow up. And, dare I say, I’m finally starting to make some headway.

I’ll just go ahead and tell you my recent growth hasn’t happened because some well-meaning Christian quoted 1 Corinthians 13 to me and told me I ought to love like that. It’s true, I should love like that, but sometimes when I read verses 4 through 8, all I hear is a list of standards I can’t keep. I get discouraged. To love as perfectly as Paul describes feels like spinning plates, trying to make sure they all stay atop their poles before the whole show comes crashing to a halt.

No, that intimidating passage was not the catalyst for my recent improvement. Actually, the difference-maker for me was a friend taking time to share his view of what it means to love others well. And because he has a great track record of loving me well, I listened to him. He said when he interacts with someone, he asks himself, “What is in the other person’s best interest?”

Huh.

I’d never thought of that.

Probably because, at first glance, it has nothing to do with my best interest.

As I pondered my friend’s perspective, it reminded me of servant love. It reminded me of Jesus washing gross feet because the disciples needed to be clean before they ate (John 13:3-12). It reminded me of Paul enduring beatings because it was in the Gentiles best interest to hear the Gospel (Acts 16:23-33). And, of course, it reminded me of Jesus dying on the cross because we needed rescuing in the worst kind of way (Luke 9:22).

All that to say, I decided my friend might be onto something. So the past couple of weeks, I’ve been asking the Lord to help me intentionally ask myself, “What is in my friend’s best interest right now, and how can I help promote that interest?”

I’m asking this question before I give well-meaning advice, while I’m having conversations with people, when I’m leading women in Bible study, when my husband gets home from work, when my kids are being challenging. And I’m finding it to be quite clarifying.

Too often I discover what I was considering doing or saying would have made me feel good, but it would not have been what the other person really needed most at the moment. Then I have a choice.

Do I say/do what I want anyway, or do I stop in my tracks, exercise self-discipline, and choose to love the person how they need to be loved?

It’s hard. Dying to self is always hard. But it’s also gratifying. Knowing I am loving people better than I used to motivates me to keep going in this direction.

And, just so you know, I fail a lot. Sometimes I revert to self-centered “loving”. Conviction sets in, and I have to repent to the Lord. But I’m always met with grace. He sees my heart. He knows I am trying. He knows growing is a process. And He delights over me because I am His.

He feels the same way about you.

Anyway, give this technique a whirl, and let me know if it helps you.

Prayer: Conflict Resolution with God

Jun11

Unable to sleep despite needing to sleep, I went downstairs for the next best thing – coffee. I paced the length of my kitchen as the machine sputtered. The coffee maker struggled to brew as I struggled to order my thoughts.

I began speaking aloud to the Lord, using Him as a sounding board for my broken logic and heightened emotions. He listened patiently. He gave me all the time I needed to verbally rearrange the pieces of the puzzle… in vain.

Sometimes prayer goes like that. It isn’t so much a laundry list of “Please do these things for me, Lord,” as it is a wrestling match to align my heart with His on matters.

image via wikipedia/Jason M. Carter

His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways (Isaiah 55:9). Sometimes we have to fight for understanding. Sometimes we have to settle for peace without clarity, but even that doesn’t always come without an altercation with God.

Our broken minds are inclined to believe a lot of things that aren’t true, especially about ourselves and about God (see Jacob – Genesis 32). So it’s no wonder we have to spend a lot of time with God – the Spirit of Truth – to sort out our right thinking from our wrong thinking (John 16:13). Part of “fight[ing] the good fight of the faith” is mentally fighting the inclination to believe falsehoods (1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Corinthians 10:5).

He doesn’t take offense to our (respectfully) arguing with Him (see Moses – Exodus 3-4). He knows that’s part of the process. He delights that we’re speaking honestly with Him, seeking to reconcile our perceptions of reality with who He is and what His Word says. And He knows it is hard and exhausting at times (see Jesus – Luke 22:44).

He never expects us to will ourselves to believe things we struggle to comprehend. Mostly because He knows we can’t. And He certainly doesn’t expect us to pretend we trust Him when we don’t.

Instead, He invites us to come to Him in conversation and work things out. He knows that it is through this wrestling process that our hearts will learn to value what He values and trust His character.

If your heart is overwhelmed, put on your singlet, pop in your mouthpiece, and get on the mat with the Lord.

When We Shouldn’t Share the Gospel

Jun7

I spend my Tuesday mornings intentionally engaging in conversations about God (among other things) with women who don’t share my views. Some think they believe what I believe about God, but their lifestyles communicate otherwise. Some don’t know what they believe. Some don’t really care to figure out what they believe.

We spend thirty minutes one on one, talking out problems these women are facing. They tell me about themselves. I affirm their feelings. I try to make them feel heard and understood. I try to empower them to make well-educated decisions. I interject pertinent truth when it’s fitting. And, if I feel led, I share the Gospel proper.

Thirty minutes is not a lot of time to get through all that. And I will never see the vast majority of these women ever again.

That being the case, I must ask myself, “As a Christian, whose primary responsibility to others is to share the Gospel with them, must I verbally share it with every non-Christian I meet? If I don’t have time or don’t ‘feel led’, am I shirking the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) by not laying out the plan of salvation with every non-Christian I know?”

http://samaritanxp.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.htmlimage via samaritanxp.blogspot.com

It’s true, every unbeliever’s greatest need is an understanding and acceptance of the Gospel. And it’s also true that each unbeliever is at a different point along the path to accepting truth.

If we think of a person’s journey to faith in Christ as a timeline, with their birth on the far left and their acceptance of Christ on the far right,we would do well to consider what happens in between.

As they start traveling on their path, unbelievers go through stages.

1. Ignorance. The fact is none of us are born knowing the Gospel. We have to learn it. And whether we’re 4 or 94 the first time we hear it, we all spend part of our lives ignorant of the Gospel.

Once we’ve heard the Gospel, we respond to it, for better or for worse. A small percentage of folks hear the Gospel one time and embrace it wholeheartedly. The majority of us, however, have to hear the Gospel more than 7 times before we both understand it and accept it as truth. Before that glorious day comes, we may go through the following stages in any order, each stage may last for any length of time, and we may visit any stage more than one time:

2. Denial. “That can’t be true.” “That doesn’t work for me.” “That doesn’t make any sense.” “That’s pretty far-fetched.”

3. Hostility. “I’m a pretty good person – I don’t need a Savior.” “That’s intolerant.” “Who are you to tell me I am going to hell?”

4. Conviction. “I want to believe it, but I’m not sure it’s true.” “I know I need to get right with God, but I really don’t want to live differently yet.”

If unbelievers are in stage 1, I’m convinced the most loving thing we can do is share the Gospel with them. Lay it out, clearly, lovingly, with scriptural support. To withhold that information would be unloving and in direct violation of our charge as believers.

But what do we do with unbelievers in stages 2, 3, and 4? They’ve heard the Gospel at some point, but they aren’t emotionally ready to accept it. In that case, sharing it with them again might actually turn them off. Is it in their best interest to share it with them anyway? Unless we really feel a definite leading from the Spirit to share, I’d say it isn’t.

Christians ought to do whatever it takes to move non-Christians toward the Lord, and sometimes that means NOT sharing the Gospel verbally.

If we sense they aren’t open to hearing the Gospel, although it sounds like an oxymoron, we can actually perpetuate their acceptance of the Gospel down the line by not verbally sharing it with them now.

If an unbeliever has already heard the Gospel before and chose not to accept it, what they need more than anything – even more than an additional presentation of the Gospel – is a positive interaction with someone who calls themselves “Christian”. They need to feel respected, valued, appreciated, and accepted. An encounter like that will move them farther down the timeline toward accepting the Gospel for themselves much more readily than a pushy Christian with an agenda to verbally share the Gospel with every non-believer she comes into contact with.

How to Have Hope in the Hopeless Times

May22

There are times we feel stuck in suffering. We look around and see no way out. The hurt is so deep, so constant, and everything we’ve tried to counteract the pain so ineffective, we feel helpless and hopeless. Or, as Paul put it, “in our hearts we felt the sentence of death,” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

Image via sakhorn38/freedigitalphotos.net

Image via sakhorn38/freedigitalphotos.net

That’s pretty severe.

On the heels of our discussion about whether or not God gives us more than we can handle, I find it interesting that Paul said this to the believers in Corinth, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life,” (2 Corinthians 1:8).

Paul. Super apostle. He had experienced Jesus in an incomprehensibly amazing way during his salvation experience. Yet, when the crap hit the fan, even Paul “despaired of life.” Sometimes life is just too hard. For all of us.

So what do we do when the pressure of circumstances are “far beyond our ability to endure”? We still have to live the day to day. Make choices. Accomplish tasks. Take care of families. Go to jobs. Participate in life. How do we do these things when life feels like a death sentence?

Paul says hardships and unbearable pressure happen, “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead,” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

When we feel like life is a death sentence, we are to rely on Him who literally raises the dead. 

God is in the business of redeeming that which seems unredeemable. That includes people, yes, but it also includes hardships and pressures, circumstances that seem too far gone or too overwhelming to overcome.

It’s true that you and I cannot raise anything from the dead. We cannot go to a funeral, stand over the casket, call out the person’s name, and tell him to arise. But Jesus literally did that (Lazarus, John 11:38-44). God the Father literally did that too (Jesus, Matthew 28:5-6).

Just as God is capable of resurrecting dead people, He is capable of resurrecting the “dead” parts of our lives. Dead relationships. Dead careers. Dead ministries. Dead communities. Dead parts of ourselves - from physical infirmities to emotional sinkholes. Anything that is dead, He came to give it life.

We’ve seen that in our pasts. We can all come up with a time or two when we “felt the sentence of death”, and God, somehow or another, delivered us. (If you’re having trouble seeing past your despair to remember such a time, think about your salvation story. He delivered you from a literal death sentence – Hell – and gave you eternal life when you “got saved”.)

Paul encourages us to reflect on redemptive moments in our pasts so, in our current hardships and pressures, hope will well up in our hearts. “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,” (2 Corinthians 1:10).

If life is unbearable right now, take heart. Remember how He has taken great care of you in the past, and set your hope on His goodness and power to deliver you from your current plight.

As long as God is still God, nothing is hopeless. Nothing.

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How to Forgive Anyone for Anything

May18

(Yikes. Hope this article can really live up to that title…)

(It’s ok, it’s not the words in this post that inspired that title. Scripture inspired that title. So I can go that big with that claim.)

(I probably shouldn’t start a post with a dialogue between me and myself.)

(It’s ok, my readers have come to expect some crazy.)

Now that I have my attention…

As a parent of more than one child, I spend a lot of my time settling sibling disputes. I try to teach the offending child to recognize her wrongdoing, apologize for it, and ask for forgiveness. I try to teach the offended sister to accept the apology by verbally extending forgiveness.

Image courtesy of adamr/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of adamr/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And it goes over about as well as it sounds like it would. Through gritted teeth, they obey me because they have to, not because their hearts feel much empathy.

As an adult in her 4th decade, I don’t do much better handling my own conflicts. A lot of people struggle with forgiving those who have hurt them. We genuinely want to forgive, but we don’t know how to get there. We don’t want to say we forgive and try to force our hearts to feel forgiving because we all know that doesn’t work. We can’t will ourselves to a place of forgiveness.

Yet, we’re commanded to forgive all over the place in the Bible. One example is Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

A lot of times we really want to do this… and we feel guilty when we don’t do this. And we feel angry that we seemingly can’t do this. (I can’t help but think this is all part of Satan’s plan (2 Corinthians 2:10-11).)

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, what do we do?

I got to thinking, what if we’re focusing on the wrong thing? What if mustering up forgiveness isn’t really the place we should start if we want to succeed at forgiving someone?

I know it’s a strange thought, but we’ve already proven time and time again that psyching ourselves up to give our best shot at forgiving rarely (never?) works.

So what if we try something different?

If we read the verses surrounding Colossians 3:13 (namely, verse 12), we get some clues as to how we can improve our chances of forgiving as the Lord forgave us.

Colossians 3:12 says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

This verse - immediately preceding the verse commanding us to forgive all people for all things – says (at least) two important things we need to know and do before we will be ready to forgive well.

1. Recognize Whose we are. Every believer is purposefully hand-picked by God, set apart for Him, and cherished by Him. Maybe instead of jumping prematurely to trying to will ourselves to forgive, we ought to meditate on these three truths about ourselves. When we internalize the implications of our identity in Christ, two things happen: the offense committed against us doesn’t seem quite so important, and our hearts, overcome with humility, start to soften toward the offender, who is really just like us – a sinner in need of a Savior. Forgiveness isn’t going to happen inside the cold, hard hearts of people whose self-worth is wrapped up in what others think of them. So let’s start here and get our heads right.

2. Get dressed. Before we can forgive, we are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. This is a lot easier to do after we’ve spent some time reflecting on Whose we are. These characteristics seem to start flowing out of us when we are secure and in tune with our Father’s love for us. But trying to forgive without these things going on in our hearts is, as we’ve all experienced, impossible.

After we’ve “completed” verse 12, verse 13 actually becomes attainable! Feeling enveloped in His love, walking in love toward others, we are enabled to, ”Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you,” (Colossians 3:13).

If I can be so bold, we can forgive anybody anything (which is how the Lord forgave us) when we follow these two verses IN ORDER. 

Dare to try it with me?

The Problem with Comfort Objects

May8

God wants more for us than we want for ourselves.

Which is awesome and terrifying all at the same time.

Our hearts are so broken and bent toward sin that if someone were to ask us what we want in life, our list would be pretty self-centered. My list contains things like happiness, fulfillment, healthy family and friends. I want to grow old with my first husband, and I want my kids to thrive.

These things might seem benign on the surface, but I know the real motives underneath - I want to avoid pain and maximize pleasure.

And so do you.

But God wants more for us than a good time. He wants us to live lives that matter. Comfy, cozy lives don’t accomplish much. Self-preservation seems right, and it is natural, but it misses the heart of God (Proverbs 16:25).

We’re all here for 2 reasons: to know God and to make Him known (Exodus 9:15-16). But our pursuit of pain-free living often prevents us from knowing God (and, thus, making Him known).

How?

Because we find things that feel good and provide comfort, and we latch on to them for dear life, refusing to let them go.

(Note: this is called idolatry. I know, I know, too harsh. But true.)

We are born doing this. As newborns, we literally latch on to our mother’s, for nourishment, yes, but any mother can tell you, her baby hangs around well past meal time, suckling solely for the comfort. As we grow, this pattern of behavior continues, it just manifests differently.

When all our energy is focused on our comfort objects, we don’t have much time (or room in our hearts) to draw nearer to God. Problem.

But draw nearer we must. It’s the only way we can be fulfilled for any length of time, and it’s the only way we can fulfill our life purposes – to know Him and make Him known.

So God, lovingly, gently, and Fatherly-y (like a Father?), beckons us to find our comfort in Him.

Naturally, that doesn’t typically go over well with us. Our entire lives have been spent seeking and holding on to comfort objects that weren’t Him. To put them into their proper places - lower places than the Lord – is foreign and scary and hard and scary.

But He wants better for us than we want for ourselves. So He continues to encourage the process of loosening our grips on our chosen comforts that we might find our hands free to grab onto Him, the Ultimate Comfort.

I have a feeling the sooner we I cooperate, the better it will be for all involved.

How about you?

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What, Exactly, is His Grace Sufficient For?

May4

One of the go-to verses for Christians in pain is 2 Corinthians 12:9. In it God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Of course, the context is important. So bare with me while I rehash that for us.

Corinth was a city of wealth, commerce, and depravity. Sexual immorality was rampant, with prostitution being part of idol worship. Apparently, the Corinthians had a hard time separating themselves from these cultural practices. Paul tried, somewhat in vain it seems, to encourage Corinthian believers to higher standards – godly standards. Second Corinthians was actually his third letter (at least) to the group, after several lengthy personal visits to try to steer the church in the ways of the Lord. To put it mildly, Paul was frustrated and desperately wanted these believers to desire to be the Church – those called out of the world and into the Kingdom.

In chapters 10 and 11, Paul felt the need to answer a question the Corinthians seemed to be asking themselves – why should we listen to Paul?  Paul acknowledged their grumbling, reporting his awareness that “…some say, ‘His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing,’” (2 Corinthians 10:10). The Corinthians were feeling a bit rebellious, and they weren’t afraid to say it… when Paul wasn’t around.

Paul did his best to respond calmly the rest of chapter 10 and the first half of chapter 11, but he eventually decided sarcasm and mockery were the way to go. (Have I mentioned I love him?) He was infuriated the Corinthians were choosing to elevate false apostles’ teaching above the true Gospel he had introduced to them (2 Corinthians 11:5-6).

While defending himself, though, he didn’t want to give the impression the Corinthians should listen to him because there was something special about him. It was important they realized it was not Paul he wanted them to submit to but Christ in Paul. Paul told the story about his infamous thorn to illustrate his humanity and frailty and to emphasize only the existence of an all-powerful God could explain how a man with such a restrictive condition could be so successful.

Within this context, Paul recounted how he asked God to take away his thorn three times (2 Corinthians 12:8). And God had responded this way, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The first part of the sentence intrigues me. “My grace is sufficient for you.” What does that even mean? We Christians are quick to quote it to someone in need, but have we really nailed down what’s going on here? I haven’t.

What, exactly, is God’s grace sufficient for?

I took the verse apart in the Greek last night to try to answer that question, and you’re never going to believe what I found out. What God really means is, “My grace is enough for you.”

If you’re paying attention, you’re realizing I discovered absolutely nothing new. So I took it apart in the English and came up with this.

Grace can mean favor, approval, or blessing, typically unmerited. Enough means occurring in such a quantity as to fully meet a need. So God’s favor and blessing will fully meet our need. The question is begged, our need for what? Some needs? All needs? Specific needs?

Before we can transfer the idea to ourselves, we need to get back in Paul’s shoes to understand the original intent of the Lord.

Paul had some needs.

In the most immediate context, he had a thorn of some sort causing him some agony. God likely would have been intending to communicate His favor was enough to get Paul through that agony. God’s blessing was enough for Paul to live  for a lengthy amount of time in spite of whatever physical, spiritual, or emotional pain he was experiencing.

Zoom out a smidge, and the wider context is that Paul was defending his credibility as an apostle to the Corinthians. In the midst of their doubting his authority to speak on God’s behalf, God tells Paul, “My approval is enough.” The power behind Paul’s ministry resided in God’s approval and favor, not the Corinthians. Nothing else was needed. Even without the Corinthians’ okay, God’s approval was enough for Him to accomplish whatever He willed through Paul.

I’d also like to think the Father-heart of God wanted to remind Paul that He loved Paul. He wanted Paul to feel confident of that love and to find his identity in that love, no matter what others were saying about him. God approved of Paul, even if others didn’t, and knowing that should have fully met Paul’s need to feel secure and valued. 

Step back even farther, and we realize Paul had a nearly impossible task – to take the Gospel to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles also (Acts 13:46). The Jews thought of Paul as a traitor preaching sacrilege and would’ve rather killed him than listen to him try to convince them Jesus was the Messiah they’d been waiting on (Acts 9, 13). The Gentiles didn’t know what to do with Paul. Some were scared of him (Acts 9), some tried to worship him (Acts 14:11), some stoned him (Acts 14:19), some believed his message (Acts 14:20), and some, like the Corinthians, believed Paul initially but got angry when he held them accountable. So when God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” the widest application implies God’s favor was all Paul needed to successfully fulfill his life’s calling to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15, Eph 3:8).

Back to the original question. For today’s believer, what is God’s grace sufficient for?

God’s grace is sufficient…

1) To survive pain. God’s blessing is enough for us to make it through any kind of physical, spiritual, or emotional pain, no matter how long that pain exists. God’s grace – His favor – is enough, all by itself, to sustain us until He determines that pain should end.

2) To empower us for ministry. God’s Kingdom purposes are accomplished by His endorsement alone, not human approval, ability, or ambition. We all have a ministry, and His grace – His blessing and approval – is enough, all by itself, to make our ministries flourish.

3) To establish our security. We all wonder, to varying degrees, if we are loved, valued, appreciated, accepted, approved of, desired, etc. Too often we look to others to affirm our worth. God’s grace - His approval – is enough, all by itself, to solidify our true worth.

4) To fulfill our life callings. We’re all here for 2 reasons: to know God and to make Him known (Exodus 9:15-16). How we make Him known, and to whom, may vary, but, ultimately, we’re all called to the same thing. And the calling is not for the feint of heart. But, God’s grace – His favor and blessing and approval – is enough, all by itself, to empower us to do what we’re supposed to be doing.

So I guess to put it succinctly (1100+ words later), God’s grace is sufficient for everything.

A Memo From God to Christians Old and New

May2

To: My Followers

From: God

Subject: Life

There will be no doing this yourself. 

Living a life with Me as your Lord – it’s not possible in your own strength.

I don’t say this because I have a superiority complex (I’m actually quite justified in feeling superior, but that’s another memo). I say this to enlighten you as to how your own heart works. I created you to need Me to live correctly.

Books, classes, sermons, good intentions, redoubled efforts, positive thinking, having a certain amount of faith, praying often enough… none of these will end your struggle to live right. They may aid you in moving in the right direction, but, ultimately, they will not enable you to conquer the affection for wrongdoing you have in your heart.

I am being quite literal when I say only I can make you live right. Me in you is the only way you will ever succeed at anything I’d ever approve of.

I’m not talking about Me enabling you to live well. I am saying anything good you do is not you at all; it’s Me. I just happen to be choosing to move and work through you. You may have the desire to do what is good, but you cannot carry it out (Romans 7:18, Galatians 5:17).

You need me, not just to be with you, but to take over you. Successful living – as I define it – cannot be accomplished any other way.

In the best sense of the word, I want to control you (Romans 8:6). And as contrary to human reason as it may seem, it is in your best interest to let Me control you (Romans 8:28-30).

All you need to do is be willing to let Me work through you. Once you consent – and you have to choose to consent countless times each day – My Spirit, within you but independent of you, does all the rest.

I know this is a mystery. But you don’t have to fully understand how it all works to obey.

Come to Me. Trust in My unfailing love for you. Let Me show you the only way you can live a life worthy of the calling you have received – by letting Me live through you (Ephesians 4:1).

Is Anxiety a Sin?

Apr28

My pastor said something I didn’t like today.

He read Philippians 4:6 – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God,” – and then he offered this interpretation: being anxious is a sin.

To be honest, I stopped listening. I wasn’t angry so much as I was searching my mental database for a theological reason to support my desire for his interpretation of the verse to be wrong, or at least one possible interpretation of many.

Maybe the original Greek wasn’t really a command. Maybe a softer, suggestive tone was lost in translation.

I got home and read the verse in a different translation, “Be anxious for nothing…” Crap. That sounds like a command, too.

I pulled out a commentary, and it said, “This is a command, not an option. Undue care is an intrusion into God’s arena. It makes us the father of the household instead of being a child,” (Guzik). I never liked that commentary anyway.

I pulled out a dictionary and looked up the word anxious, hoping for a semantic reprieve. Google said this:

anx·ious  /ˈaNG(k)SHəs/

Adjective
  1. Experiencing worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
  2. (of a period of time or situation) Causing or characterized by worry or nervousness.
Synonyms
uneasy – worried – solicitous – concerned – restless

Really, Internet? The one time I need you to be on my side, and you’re not?

Clearly, Paul is commanding us to not be anxious, and, try as I did, I couldn’t escape that fact. And if we are commanded not to be something, then it stands to follow that when we are that something, we are disobeying the Lord. And what do we call disobeying the Lord? Sin. Geez.

With no wiggle room, I started to wonder why I don’t like the conclusion that anxiety is a sin.

Well, for starters, not being anxious – not worrying or feeling uneasy or feeling nervous – feels impossible. Sure, there are fleeting moments here and there in which I feel peaceful, but, by and large, anxious is my standard emotion. And to say that my baseline feeling is wrong is really saying there is something wrong with me. I don’t hear, “What you’re doing (worrying) is wrong,” I hear, “You are wrong. There is something wrong with you because you worry.”

While that’s a true statement, it hurts to think about. I can’t imagine Jesus having that attacking mentality toward me. Something just still didn’t jive for me about the blanket statement that anxiety is a sin.

After pondering all this, I did what any of us would do when confronted with the ugliness inside of us: I got defensive.

I thought to myself, “It doesn’t feel like I have any control over feeling anxious. I can’t never feel anxious. That is an impossible standard no human could ever uphold.” And in the midst of my rationalizing, I found a loophole that just might be valid.

It’s been said that, because we can’t stop a sinful thought from popping into our minds, we don’t actually sin until we react to that initial thought by choosing to continue to dwell on said thought. This argument is how we explain that Jesus was tempted but did not sin (Hebrews 4:15). Being tempted is not the sin; giving into the temptation is the sin.

So if we apply that to anxiety, we can say the initial anxious feeling about any given situation is not the sin, it’s the temptation to sin. We haven’t actually sinned until we respond to that initial anxious feeling by choosing to stay worried, a la definition 2 above.

I took this idea back to the scripture, and I caught something I didn’t see this morning. The command is, “Do not be anxious…” It doesn’t say, “Do not feel anxious…”

We will all have times we feel an intial jolt of anxiety over something. It’s not until we feed that worry that we move from feeling to being. “Being” anxious has the connotation that we are perpetually worried, not just worried for an instant.

This is a command I find easier to accept. It’s no longer an impossible standard. It allows me to be human and frees me up to experience human emotions without feeling guilty. Then, when I recognize that I am feeling anxious about something, I can choose, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to not stay anxious.

I’d like to believe that’s the heart behind this verse.

What do you think?

Winning at Failing

Apr27

I’m not sure how it happened, but I seem to be friends with more and more people who are “green” and “organic” and “work out” and “don’t eat crap”. They never eat anything not grown in their own backyards, they make their own shampoo, and they’d have their doctorates in homeopathy if the Internet could award that sort of thing. They are amazingly energetic, focused people, and I am sincerely proud of them.

But for someone who just tries to keep her head above the ever-rising water, it can be intimidating to think about my “perfect” friends. It’s not that they ever have or ever will condemn me for my all-refined sugar diet and my synthetic-chemicals-only policy, I just feel overwhelmed when I compare myself to them. I make myself feel like a failure, and, quite honestly, from a health standpoint, I am a failure.

If health were the only area in which I wasn’t the valedictorian of awesome, that might be ok. But it’s not.

Turns out marriage is hard. I missed the pre-marital class on “putting your spouse’s needs in front of your own”. Getting this rock of a heart to accept that and implement it multiple hours (minutes?) in a row is proving difficult. Paul says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).  If the Bible is the standard (and it is), then I’d have to say I am failing at marriage too.

Apply that same verse to friendships, and I’m screwed there as well. Selfishly and vainly aptly describe how I react when friends don’t do what I want them to do. I’m not at all thinking about them and their needs, just about myself.  Again, with the failing.

How about parenting? I’m tired. “Teaching” the same lessons that never seem to stick; losing patience before breakfast is over; reacting to the ugly with ugliness of my own. I’m not going to be the poster child of a parent who does not exasperate her children (Ephesians 6:4). Not this week (year?) anyway.

There are more ways in which I fail not fit for public consumption. (You didn’t know I had that filter, did you? Yeah, add that to The Failure List).

It’s more than a pity party I’m having over here, and I’m working my way to a point, so please don’t share a “cute” Facebook image about “bucking up” and “staying positive” and various and sundry sayings that fall into the category of “not my reality”.

(I’m clearly feeling feisty today. Add that to The List, if you want.)

(I’m also using the air quotes ad nauseum. Just imagine Chris Farley reading you this post, and you’ll “feel better” about the “whole thing.”)

Who’s ready for the redemptive point of this post?

I think God brings my failures (all of them) to my attention (all at once) in order to show me a vital truth: I need Him. 

You (I) may think I already knew that about myself. And I did, in an intellectual sense. But in an experiential sense, I seem to need a tangible demonstration very a lot often. Daily, even.

Last week, when I was acutely aware of The Failure List and not so aware of my intrinsic value to God, He did some things to remind me this whole show runs on His power like a car on gasoline (or electricity, if you’re one of my green friends. Sigh.)

Two different friends in spiritual predicaments reached out to me for advice. Me. ME. The woman with The Failure List a mile long and growing. Part of me wanted to say, “I can’t help you.” And I was right, I couldn’t help them. But God through me did. The Holy Spirit brought to mind what to say, and it proved helpful (so they say). (I’m such a skeptic. Where’s my list, I need to add that.)

Another friend told me she wants me to speak at a program at our church in the fall. Me. ME. The woman with The Failure List a mile long and growing. Given that my heart is to eventually speak/teach/write as a career, I found it to be so sweet of God to have my friend think of me.

Then yesterday I took my Failure List to a place I volunteer once a week helping women who find themselves pregnant and scared and hopeless. My role is to inform the clients of all their options (abortion, adoption, parenting). The bigger goal is to love them well, showing them Jesus-love no matter who they are or what decision they want to make for their baby. The biggest goal is to spend time understanding what their spiritual beliefs are and sharing with them what mine are.

In the interest of HIPAA, I can’t tell you exactly what happened yesterday, but I can tell you the Lord used my time with one client to show me, “Your Failure List is no match for My power. I can and will use you despite your failures, and I can and will bless you despite your failures. My agenda doesn’t depend on how long or short your Failure List is, and your need for Me doesn’t depend on how long or short your Failure List is.”

If I can muster up the energy I’m going to ask God to use His energy and power to help me fix my eyes on Him instead of The List. That sounds pretty biblical.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” (2 Corinthians 4:18).