2019 Words of the Year

In 2018, I chose Power and Glory as my words for the year, listing them and stating, "But I also want to grow in humility."

On 1-8-2018, I wrote:

I am desperate to see the power and glory of God, and I want to see it this year, now, soon.  I don't want to wait and watch evil have its heyday before God reaches out His hand to do an awesome deed of righteousness.

So (I'm owning this, my brokenness, my flawed strategies), I decided to adopt "Power," and "Glory," as my words for this year.

I'm sure there is a root here, where I am trying to control, manipulate the very God of the Universe.

Dear Jesus, I'm sorry.  I'm so very sorry.  It's just that I am desperate to see your hand work.  You probably want me to seek humility this year, but I beg instead for you to show me your power and glory.  I am in favor of humility, I know it is a treasure I need to seek.  But I desperately crave the unveiling of your power and glory.  Please forgive me and make your power perfect through my weakness.

Perhaps ironically, but perhaps not surprisingly, Humility became the major theme of my year.  God knows what I need, and He is gracious to give it to me if I have any receptivity at all.  By January 19, 2018, I had tacitly accepted Humility as one of my year's words.  By February 8, 2018, I was overtly writing about it.  And thus it went.

So it may be no surprise that I've decided to keep Humility as one of my words this year.  I want to explore how humility is accomplished through growing in concern for the glory of God and the interests of others . . .  how humility is, in large part and perhaps ultimately, the expression of pure love.

In that vein, I am also going to take Love as a word for the year, lofty as it sounds.  Anyway, seeking love can't be any loftier a goal than seeking humility.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).  Apart from Him, I can do nothing (John 15:5).

Humility leads to joy.  I've written about this before, but I need to examine it more.  Joy comes directly from gratitude, and we are grateful for what we recognize we do not deserve.  Humility helps us accurately comprehend the undeserved blessings God bestows on us.  It's a chain:  Humility leads to a clear comprehension of how gracious God is to us, and a clear comprehension of grace leads to deep gratitude, and deep gratitude leads to fullness of joy.

So, I considered taking Joy as my third word, but I think I will save Joy for next year.  I'll focus instead on a step along the path to Joy: Acceptance.  I need to accept humbly and gratefully what God has given me.  Sometimes it is easy, like when I think about my forgiveness, my salvation, and my sure hope of eternal life in paradise.  Sometimes it is hard, like when I think of how far I exist from virtually all of my family, and how I am missing out on the daily growth and development of my amazingly beautiful, brand new grandson, who lives approximately 450 miles away.  I crave joy, but I obviously need to work on having an attitude of acceptance.  If I can attain it, perhaps I will be surprised by joy (didn't C.S. Lewis write a book with that title?).  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, right?  That's a promise, isn't it?  And God is faithful.  God is faithful.  I'm not exactly feeling optimistic about this, but I'm trying to trust in what I know is true, rather than letting my feelings drag me down.

So those are my words of the year:  Humility.  Love.  Acceptance.

I've got two scriptures to go with them.  For Love, I picked a verse we've already learned in our 1 Corinthians Bible study:

Let all that you do be done in love.  ~1 Corinthians 16:14.

For Humility and Acceptance, I picked this:

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.   Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.  ~James 1:19-21

Okay then.  Onward 2019.  We have a lot of work to do.

Words coming together

Many years ago, I started to pray for joy.

I did this out of selfishness and self-defense, primarily because I was afraid to pray for patience.  I'd heard stories about praying for patience.  "If you pray for patience," everybody said, "watch out!  You will get all kinds of trials, to test your patience."

Of course I wanted to avoid trials.  So I decided never to pray for patience, but to pray for joy instead.  I didn't think there could be a downside to praying for joy.

Well.  I had a lot to learn.  I could probably write a whole series of books about everything I've learned related to this.  And that is not saying that I learned everything there is to know--I'm sure that I've only learned a small fraction of what there is to know.

So, instead of trying to tell you "everything," I'm going to distill it to a few words:

Pride.

Dignity.

Humility.

Grace.

Gratitude.

Joy.

Pride is the problem.  Pride is putting yourself first, focusing on your feelings, and working hard to control your circumstances.  Pride is not so much thinking that you are better than other people, although that's what we automatically associate with pride.  Rather, pride is assuming that your perspective is correct and your feelings are very important.  Most of us do this without thinking about it; it's so automatic, it's invisible to us.  That's Satan's favorite.  He loves to keep us blinded to our sins.  Pride is a sin--a very fundamental, basic sin--that hinders our relationship with God.

Dignity is what we should have instead of pride.  Dignity means that we have an appropriate, accurate view of who we are and what is called for in our behavior.  When we have dignity, we act with respect for others and respect for ourselves--true respect, dignity, acting with grace even in difficult circumstances--because this is who we are.  And who are we?  We are children of God, created by God, redeemed by Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  Dignity knows Whose we are, and carries His banner like an ambassador.

Humility is the opposite of pride, but it is inherent in dignity.  Humility is understanding that God is sovereign, and we are not.  Humility is realizing that none of us are the center of the universe, God is.  Humility is realizing that God does not need us, but we need Him, desperately.  Humility is understanding the way we have been born mutated by sin, and in need of repair by the Master Creator of the Universe.  Humility understands that God created people to glorify Him--to love Him and to reflect His glory into the created Universe.  Humility also understands that we--created men and women--have pridefully rebelled against God, and thus failed to fulfill His purpose for us.  Thus, humility understands that we deserve nothing from God except destruction.  When something is too broken to fulfill its purpose, the normal conclusion is to throw it away.

Grace is what God gives us in place of our deserved destruction.  We cannot understand grace if we do not understand what we truly deserve.  If we assume that we deserve heaven (or even just "all the good things"), then "grace"--under that assumption--simply would mean that God is nice and comes through to provide what we thought we ought to have received anyway.  But if we understand that God had every reason and every right to crumple us up and discard us, that He could have started over with a new, unblemished creation, but instead He chose to die for us, in our place, while we were sinners, so He could purchase us back from Satan and embark on a massive restoration project, then we begin to grasp what grace means.  Grace is undeserved, by definition.

We can't understand grace if we don't have any humility.

But when, through humility, we grasp the concept of grace, we arrive at gratitude. Thanksgiving.  Gratitude.

Gratitude arises when we receive something outrageously generous, something we could never have hoped to attain or afford, outside of an intervening miracle.  We are thankful when we brush the edge of destruction and the hand of God delivers us into life, instead of death.

When we are truly thankful, to the depth of our being, in the reverberating center of our hearts, then we experience joy.  Joy comes from gratitude and thanksgiving.

Joy is the fruit that grows in a grateful heart.

A grateful heart comes from an accurate understanding of what we deserve, and what we are not entitled to.  In other words, gratitude originates in humility.

Humble people experience joy, and (sadly) prideful people cannot.  That's another one of Satan's lies: "Have pride in yourself.  You are important.  You are where the buck stops.  You can call the shots, and anybody who tries to stop you from calling the shots is a bad person.  Seize your rights!  This is how you pursue happiness!"  But it simply doesn't work that way.  Satan is a liar, and pride will never bring you more than a flashing glimmer of happiness.

Pride is the pitfall.

Dignity is the escape route.

Humility is the cousin of dignity and the key to appreciating grace, which ultimately results in gratitude.

And gratitude leads to joy.

Words coming together.

In conclusion, here is a short analysis of the result of praying for joy: You will get the pride beat out of you.  But it's a really good thing.  It's worth it.



Also, you'll find all of this in the book of Philippians, in the Bible, if you are inclined to look.  I realized this today at church, as our pastor is preaching through Philippians.

Humility

That's a bad picture, the one I put up at the top of this post.

Humility is not about posting bad pictures.  Yet, pride can be about only posting beautiful pictures, only showing what you want to show, presenting an image that only reflects the best light.  "The me I want you to see," that's pride (also, it's social media).

The Lord seems to be teaching me a lot about humility lately.  Although, by virtue of what humility is, one can never become exactly adept at it, or comfortable in it, or proficient.

What would it even look like to be proficient in humility?

One thing I've learned that humility is not: Humility is not pre-emptive self-deprecation.  A lot of us can fall into doing this, this pre-emptive self-deprecation thing.  We apologize in advance for our shortcomings, the ones we are aware of, in hopes that people will then go soft on us, understand that we already feel bad about ourselves, desist in looking deeper for further flaws, since they've already been presented with some really outstanding flaws to distract them.  Yes, I do this.  It's a self-protecting technique.  It rises out of insecurity, and it is not humility.

Humility is the opposite of pride.  Sometimes when it is hard to understand a concept, it helps to look at the thing opposite it, to determine what it is not.

Pride is believing that you are important.  This may not mean that you think you are important to the world, like a king or a queen or an army commander.  It means that inside your head, you operate under the assumption that your feelings are very important.  You may not consciously realize it, but you think that people ought to treat you as you wish to be treated, fairly and kindly and respectfully.

Unlike a proud person, a humble person does not assume that he is entitled to be treated well wherever he goes.  Instead, a humble person thinks about how he is treating other people.  He is much more attuned to whether he himself is being fair, or kind, or respectful than to how others are treating him.

It's tricky, too.  Because it becomes pride again if, while thinking about the other person's perspective, you start to focus specifically on how the other person perceives you.  It's not about your image in the other person's eyes.  It's about the other person's feelings.  You have to lose track of yourself, and attend to other people, if you are to escape pride.

This sounds pretty good.  The idea of thinking about the needs of others, and being able to get one's eyes off one's own needs, actually sounds pretty freeing.  In fact, I'm sure it is very freeing.

But it's also stinking hard.

They have always said, "Don't pray for patience.  You'll get all kinds of experiences that test your patience."

Well.  Let me tell you.  If you pray for humility, you may find yourself having experiences that humiliate you.  Humiliate, shame and embarrass, not necessarily in that order.

Still, if God has chosen to grow you in humility, you won't escape the process by not asking for it  (that would be the proverbial you, which is to say, me).  The same holds true for patience, and any other virtue.  God will do what He needs to do.

It will probably hurt a lot.  But it will be good, profitable, worth every agony.

If Jesus emptied Himself of all His divine glory and became a human with a body of skin, bones and blood, we need to be willing to empty ourselves of our ideas of what is due us.

If Jesus humbled Himself to death on a cross, we need to be willing to make personal sacrifices and pour ourselves out for the good of others.  (Oh how difficult this is.)

If Jesus was raised and glorified following His obedience, we can have hope that our faithful God will also raise and glorify us, after we have served in obedience, and there is great joy to come in the future, certain joy that gives us strength to carry on.

In humility.



This post is based on Philippians 2:1-11 and Hebrews 12:1-3.

Power, Glory and Humility

I'm pondering my words for the year.

Power.

Glory.

Humility.

At first, I was thinking of them from the perspective that power and glory are God's, and humility is for me.  This is not a bad way to see it.

Yet, I was struck by how, together, these words tell the story of Jesus.

Jesus was full of power and glory.  Through Jesus, and by Jesus, and for Jesus, all things were created (Proverbs 8:23-31, John 1:3-4, Colossians 1:15-17).  He is the power behind all life and the glory of all that is good.

Yet, in humility, Jesus emptied Himself of divine glory,
became a man--the perfect God-man who never sinned--
and offered His life for the atonement of our sins (Philippians 2:6-8,  Hebrews 9:14, 1 John 2:2).

Of course, after He humbly finished his work for us, Jesus was raised to the right hand of the Father (Ephesians 1:19-21, Philippians 2:9, Hebrews 12:2).  Now Jesus lives in glory for all eternity, constantly interceding for us and defending us from accusations and attempted condemnation by the enemy of our souls (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:24-25).  Jesus has paid the price to redeem us (Titus 2:14, Revelation 5:9-10).  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who have run to the Savior (Romans 8:1).

Power and glory.  Jesus relinquished them for awhile, exchanged His heavenly robes of infinite light for a frail human body that could break and bleed.  Instead of remaining the Source, Jesus allowed Himself to become the perfect channel through which God would broadcast light and life into the world.  Through Him flowed as much power and glory as could be cloaked by the skin of one human male, which was plenty.  Jesus poured out a bounty of love, healing, wisdom and hope, all for the benefit of His beloved created ones.  In return, He endured insults, ridicule, hunger, fatigue, abandonment, betrayal and death.  Yet, by the miracle of grace, He triumphed.

Jesus' radical act of ultimate humility accomplished the purpose of God, once and for all.

How could you ever imagine that a King would conquer His enemy by walking right into enemy territory, laying down His life and dying?

Yet, this paradoxical action undid the power of sin.  We cannot totally understand it, but we can believe it.

And afterwards, Jesus returned to His glory, by the mighty power of God.  I can't understand this either; somehow the post-resurrection glory is even greater than the glory before Jesus died.

We haven't seen anything yet.

But wait, there's more.

God invites us into this glory, to share it with Him and to live with Him, in His presence, for all eternity (2 Thessalonians 2:14).

Did you get that?

He invites us into His glory.

How?  How can He even want to do this?  Why does He love us like this?  We do not deserve this.  We don't even appreciate it.  We can't comprehend the outrageousness of it.  Lots of people simply reject the truth altogether, as ridiculous.  They have a point.  It is ridiculous.  That God should love me enough to become a man and die for me is absolutely ridiculous.  But He does and He did.

Do you know what else is ridiculous?  It's ridiculous that so many believers take this all for granted.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus died for me.  Yes, I get to go to heaven.  We just assume.  We take it in stride.  Of course God loves us.  Of course Jesus died for us.  Of course we are going to go to heaven.

This is why we need humility.  Humility enables us to realize that the truth about Jesus is mind-boggling.  Humility allows the wonder of grace to wash over us like waves that take our breath away.  Humility helps us internalize some wisdom about who God is, and what He does not owe us but miraculously gives us anyway.  Humility allows us to experience gratitude and joy.  Humility results in joy.

So many things are paradoxical.

Power, glory, humility.

My verse for the year:

Yours, O Lord, 

is the greatness and the power and the glory 

and the victory and the majesty,

for all that is in the heavens 

and in the earth is Yours.

Yours is the kingdom, O Lord,

and You are exalted

as head above all.

~1 Chronicles 29:11

Confidence?

Every year since 2015, I have chosen a word to focus on.  To be strictly accurate, sometimes it has been a few words.  I call them Words of the Year.  I don't do New Year's Resolutions.  I do New Year's Words.  This is an exercise in learning, in mindfulness, and in examining my heart.  I am thankful to the Lord for giving me the idea and helping me grow through it. 

Many of these words hang with me: humility, abide, listen.  The process teaches me about important ideas and goals.  I have never mastered one of my year's words, although God has taught me much along the way.  I don't discard my words at the end of a year.  I keep them, like a list in my pocket.  I could, literally, write them into a list for my pocket, but I would lose the list, so I catalog them here.  I revisit them every so often, not probably often enough, but always in January.

Here is the history of my words-of-the-year:

2015--Peace

2016--Restoration (which changed to Goodness, Mercy and Unfailing Love)

2017--Faith and Gratitude (which grew to encompass Joy)

2018--I tried to make my words Power and Glory; however, God said, "Okay, but I actually want you to consider Humility.  Looking at my power and glory will help you understand humility."

Looking back, I can see that a fundamental shift occurred in 2018.  

I began this exercise in 2015, in response to a heartbreaking relational issue and family crisis.  Peace was what I wanted--peace among the members of my family, and freedom from worry and fear in my heart.  God responded gently, patiently, and let me spend a year seeking peace.  

I petulantly chose Restoration in 2016, because I was tired of waiting, tired of living in a broken place, impatient for things to be fixed and finished.  The Lord moved me in a different direction, redirecting my focus to Goodness, Mercy and Unfailing Love--He wanted me to look up at Him, not around at my circumstances.  

I made a step of progress in 2017, as I started to understand the importance of not simply "picking a word," but asking the Lord what He wanted me to work on and learn.  He led me to pursue Faith and Gratitude that year, then kindly, generously demonstrated to me that His path is the path of Joy.  

Nevertheless, in 2018, I tried again to take the helm.  I decided it was time for God to act, to show His Power and Glory, time for Him to fix my problems and give me a comfortable life.  He did show His power, by unmistakably letting me know that Humility was what I really needed.  My power and glory verse, 1 Chronicles 29:11, makes me grateful to be humble.

I never finished with humility.  I'm still pondering it, still learning about it.  Some days I stand in awe of the beauty of humility, and some days I stand in terror of the process of learning it.  Since 2018, I have tried (not necessarily successfully, but with conscious effort) to set aside my own goals, my own ideas of what life should look like, and especially my own timelines.  I have tried to entrust everything to God and be thankful that He is in control.  I have a prayer that helps me when I pray it: "Thank you Lord Jesus, that I can trust you because you are faithful, and good, and able to do all that you purpose and promise to do, through your almighty power."  

2019--I was not done with Humility.  My words that year were Humility, Love and Acceptance, but mostly Humility, because Humility is Love and Acceptance.  Particularly, Humility is loving people sacrificially by putting their interests above your own, and Humility is accepting what God brings into your life with faith that He is good, wise, and faithful, and can be trusted when nothing seems to make sense.

2020--Abide.  This was a good word, something that really cannot happen apart from humility.  I need to abide in Christ, and I need Him to abide in me.  Neither can happen when I cling to pride.  

2021--Listen.  This was an important word.  2021 showed me how much I fail to listen.  I also learned more about my lack of humility, as--in trying to improve as a listener--I also became more aware of other people's poor listening.

It's discouraging to me when I try to grow in a particular area, and then find myself noticing how others around me lack growth in the same area.  So much pride.  I can hardly wait to get to heaven and be completely relieved of this monkey on my back, this stinking pride that refuses to let go.

For the past two years, we have quarantined.  I have not made many friends in my new state.  We go to church, but have not forged relationships there, throughout a year of attending.  Granted, we often attend through zoom, and when we go in person, we wear masks.  Our other social contact comes through neighborhood and family.  We have met some sweet neighbors, outside in our neighborhood.  We see my son and his wife and their baby.  Occasionally we visit or are visited by family from out of state.  But it has been a quiet and lonely two years, even for me, a hard-core introvert.  Always skittish of people, I think I have developed some deep fears of people during this hiatus from the discipline of regularly challenging myself to leave my home and participate in the social landscape.

Because of these fears and anxieties, because sitting at home is akin to Abiding, and not talking is something like Listening, I thought perhaps God wanted me to consider the word Confidence this year.  I thought He might want me to walk more confidently as His child, in confidence that He loves me, will never forsake me, will complete His good work in me.

Then on New Year's Eve, something happened that rocked me violently.  Whatever confidence I had that God was working in me, growing me, forgiving me, and possibly beginning to bear fruit through me, whatever hopes I had that He was accomplishing anything in me, were attacked and battered.  Accusations assailed me and cut my legs out from under me, knocked the wind from my lungs: You will never be worthy.  You are a farce, a hypocrite.  You have failed, and your failures will never be undone.  You are awkward, an embarrassment, but even more than that, you are evil.  You are guilty.  It's all your fault, and you should be ashamed.  I looked back through years of old prayer journals.  The handwriting, the words looked like someone else's, or like lies.  Who are you, to think God would hear those prayers?  You think you know Jesus so well, and love Him so much.  But nobody who loved Jesus would do the things you've done.  You are despicable.

I know that some of these thoughts are accusations from the accuser, from the devil.  I know that they are not all true.  But the devil is a clever liar.  He doesn't tell far-fetched lies.  He tells lies that can easily be confused with the truth; that is why his deceptions are successful.  I am awkward and do stupid things.  I do have a track record of failures.  I am guilty of sin.  From these truths, it is a quick and easy slide to believing that I am beyond the grace of God's forgiveness, and that none of my spiritual growth could possibly be authentic.

They often say that unforgiveness only hurts the person who refuses to forgive, and I do not know why they say such a thing.  Unforgiveness deeply hurts anyone who is longing for forgiveness and reconciliation, and finds them unattainable.  When people withhold forgiveness from each other, it makes God's forgiveness very difficult to conceive.  How can I decide to walk in the freedom and grace of God's forgiveness, if someone next to me on earth insists that I am unforgivable?

Why did this happen on the eve of my starting a year with the word Confidence?  Literally, that is when it happened.  I thought I would wake up on January 1 with the word Confidence, and move to get up and out, carrying the light of Christ to places that need Him, because of His power at work within me (Ephesians 3:16, 20).  Yet, on December 31, I was struck a blow that made me more inclined than ever to stay in my house, in my bed, with a blanket pulled up over my head.

I do not know if Confidence is the word God has for me this year or not.  In the past, when I missed the right word, Jesus gently changed me mid-course.  So it's okay; I can start with Confidence and trust the Lord to lead me where He wants me to go.  

As I ponder it, I am frightened to think of Confidence being my word, because so often God works in us through creating oppositional circumstances.  For instance, we learn patience by enduring circumstances that make us feel impatient.  We learn trust by being afraid.  We learn joy by finding it in the middle of our sorrows, losses and lack.  I can surmise that learning Confidence will come through being mocked and scorned.  Well, if that is the case, maybe I did choose the right word, and God started me off on it a day early?

The plan was for Confidence to be the word of 2022.

The scripture, as of now, is 

~ 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 ~

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.  

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, 

but our sufficiency is from God, 

who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, 

not of the letter, but of the Spirit.  

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

In other words, through Christ's unfathomable love, demonstrated on the cross, we have access to the Spirit of God, who lives in us, imparts life to us, and makes us sufficient to be His temple and participate in His ministry of lovingly offering life to all who will come.  This is our confidence.

Humility and polite words

Manners are fading from our culture, which is a shame.

Manners are training that teaches us to put the interests of others ahead of our own interests.

Fairly recently, somebody blew me away with the comment that you should teach your children always to hand someone a cup or a pitcher with the handle extended, so the other person has an easy time taking hold of it.  I had never been taught that, nor had I ever done it, or even thought of it.  Yet, it makes perfect sense.

Think of others.  Care for others.

Here's the thing:  When everyone is humble, caring for others, it frees people not to need to protect their own interests.  When all the people are grasping for their own individual rights and privileges, it is terrifying to think of being the first to let go and lay down your own rights for the good of others.

What are our rights, anyway?

The United States of America has given unprecedented rights to her citizens.  Never before in history have the people of a nation been granted so many rights and freedoms.  However, along the way, we have become accustomed to our rights.  We take them as a matter of fact.  I can vote.  I have the right to a fair trial.  I have the right to a free education.  I can own property, travel basically anywhere I wish, and express myself freely.  I can even run for political office, if I am so inclined.  These things are a matter of assumption, and in the case of the free education, many don't even appreciate it.  They see the blessing as a burden.  I'm not sure how it is in Western Europe, but here in the USA, the prevalent attitude is one of assumed entitlement.  We do not tend to be thankful for our freedoms; rather, we assume that we deserve them.

As this attitude becomes more habitual, we forget to guard our freedom, because we forget that it is precious and that it was won at a cost, at the price of many who died in battles to attain it.  We do not remember life before the Bill of Rights.  We somehow become deluded into assuming that freedom has always been.  We think freedom is simply the natural way, and everyone knows that everyone is free and equal, and everyone automatically ought to be able to do whatever he wants to do, so long as he isn't killing or stealing, and actually, it's okay to kill or steal, too, as long as you are only doing these things to those who don't count because of certain factors, like their belief system or their income level or their age or their abilities (or, more accurately, disabilities).  I hope that you can see that I am saying that these assumptions are crazy and dangerous.

I long for a return to humility.  We used to be ashamed to be selfish and prideful, but now we revere selfishness and admire proud people.  I long for a return to humility.

Humility listens.  Humility wants to know what others think and feel.  Humility cares.  When there is a conflict, humility rolls up its sleeves, enters into the muck, seeks resolution and says, "I'm sorry," for whatever part it played in the problem.

Humility says, "I'm sorry," when someone gets hurt.  Humility is more concerned about restoration and resolution than about defending its own position.  Humility is willing to examine whether or not it was right, and admit when it was not.  Humility says, "I'm sorry."

Humility doesn't presume to deserve things.  So, when humility wants or needs something, humility says, "Please."

"Please pass the salt."

"Please, can you help me find my glasses?"

"Please, could you put gas in the car today?"

"Please listen to me."

"Please forgive me."

When we say "please," we are not ordering or commanding. We are requesting that someone do something for us that we do not deserve, something that requires kindness of heart.  Some people misuse the word please.  They add it to a command, to promote additional obligation: "Please stop hitting your brother."  This is unfortunate, because it warps the meaning of the word.  "Please" means, I know I am asking for something I do not deserve, but if it would please you to do this kindness for me, I would be very grateful.

Speaking of being grateful, the last polite phrase I want to discuss is, "Thank you."  Humble people are much more thankful than prideful people, because they see life from a different slant.  Instead of raking in advantages as a matter of course, humble people accept each good thing as a blessing and a gift, unexpected and delightful.  Humble people recognize grace for what it is: undeserved.  Since humble people do not set out expecting to receive assets and boons at every turn, they respond to blessings with gratitude and joy, wondering why they, of all people, should gain such treasure, whether it be a cozy home, a caring phone call, a faithful spouse, an award, a soft blanket, a check in the mail or a glass of milk.  They are filled with gratitude.

In fact, I think a return to manners in our culture could possibly start with the cultivation of grateful hearts.  If we could learn to feel grateful and say, "Thank you," perhaps we would soon become more automatic at saying, "Please."  By the time we get those two truly ingrained into our hearts, perhaps we would find ourselves enough attuned to others that we would also say, "I'm sorry," when it needs to be said.

I'm sorry.  Please.  Thank you.  When spoken from the heart, these are hallmarks of humility and the building blocks of healthy relationships which, ultimately, form healthy cultures and civilizations.

Groaning for home

And we believers also groan, even though 

we have the Holy Spirit within us  

as a foretaste of future glory, 

for we long for our bodies 

to be released from sin and suffering. 

We, too, wait with eager hope 

for the day when God will give us 

our full rights as his adopted children,  

including the new bodies he has promised us.

~Romans 8:23, NLT

I quoted that verse a few days ago.

Do you know what is jumping out at me?  This verse says that we groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit in us.

" . . . we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of glory . . ."

Life is hard.  Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble, but that we should take heart, because He has overcome the world (see John 16:33).

Sometimes the contemporary church gets all going about how much great fun it is to be a Christian and "worship" with all their contemporary, swinging beats, and feel good, relevant, part of a great movement full of cool, savvy people who know how to love as nobody has ever loved in the past.  If you aren't having fun for Jesus, they suggest, then you aren't really a Christian, because Christians don't go around with pickle puckers on their faces.

That isn't the point.

If you are a real Christian, you will have joy, but you might not be happy.  Real Christians don't live in a world that looks like a manufactured stage covered with colored lights, drumsets and fog from a fog machine in the wings.  Real Christians don't dance a frenzied game of manufactured euphoria.  Real Christians know true joy, because they learn to find joy even in the midst of suffering.

Christianity is not just one more escape from the sorrows of life by turning up the volume and waving your hands in the air and saying, "Yeah, Jesus is so cool, and He doesn't ever get anybody down, so why are you, like, on everybody's case?"

The thing about Jesus, I think, is that He was real.  Painfully, profoundly exposed.  He wore a covering of flesh to protect us from the glory of God, but He put on no masks.  He wasn't afraid to be unpopular.  He befriended people who could never do anything for Him, people who couldn't boost Him to the next rung of the ladder because they weren't even at the worksite where the ladder was leaning.  Jesus never told anybody, "Hey, come follow me, and we will be so cool, and we will have fun in the sun and show those old serious, stodgy people that the Kingdom of God would come alive if they would just loosen up!"  Jesus never talked like that.  Jesus never even defended His own perfect self.  He went to the cross.  He gave up His life.

Jesus said that foxes have holes to sleep in, and birds have nests, but He had nowhere to lay His head.

Jesus said that His followers should deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow Him.

Jesus said that the blessed ones are the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourners, the peacemakers, the persecuted (see Matthew 5).  These are the ones who will be children of God and inherit the earth.  Not the rock stars.  I am pretty sure that Jesus is not enamored with the prototypical rock star personality.

Yes, Jesus took on the pharisees and religious leaders, but he did not do this because they were too serious. He did it because they were full of pride.  He wasn't against them because they were too determined to obey the will of God; He was against them because they used their own man-made rules to exploit the very people they were supposed to love and care for.  He was not opposed to their authority because authority is bad; He was opposed to the way they pridefully positioned themselves to usurp the radiant authority of God Himself.

The pharisees were all about themselves and they built themselves up through appearances.  Jesus is about stripping away the masks, the costumes and the trappings of success, stripping all that away and showing the pure, powerful grace of God in all its glory.

Satan wants you to think you can have it all right now: power, prestige, popularity and fun.

True Christianity is about humility and hope.

Humility means that we understand that it's not all about us.  We understand that there is a God, and He has an eternal, universal, unthwartable plan.  He is God, and it is His plan.  We are not God, and it is not our plan.  We can try to fight against it, but if we have humility, we understand the utter folly and futility of fighting.

Humility cannot stand without hope.

Our hope is in the goodness and grace of God.  He has an eternal, universal, unthwartable plan.  Jesus has made peace with God for us by dying as the perfect substitutionary sacrifice, absorbing the wrath of God that humanity deserved, absorbing that fearsome wrath so that we could be saved, and not only saved, but endowed with Jesus' own righteousness.  This is mind boggling.  Think about it.  This is our hope.  We have peace with God, and we will someday be released from this weary, troubling world.

This is our hope: To one day be taken home to a place where there are no more tears, no more disappointments or danger, no more fear, no more illness, no more death.  Home, forever, with the ones we love, under the umbrella of love and protection of the One we love best, safe and warm and filled to the measure with everything that is beautiful and good.  At peace.  At rest.  At home.

We might groan a little until we get there.  That's okay.  It means we believe.

Good-bye - Hello

January 1 can be a trying day.

You'd like to get on with the new start and the new routine, but everything is closed.  Also, today was -15 degrees F.  I think it eventually warmed up to -7.  I stayed inside.  No exercise for this body today.

The sun has already set, darkness falling black outside the windows.  Granted we haven't eaten supper yet, haven't even worked up an appetite for supper.  Still, the daylight is over and the day mostly gone.

I washed a few sheets and towels.  Shawn washed the dog.

It's been a slow start to 2018, all things considered.

Last night was a blue moon, or maybe not quite.  Maybe tonight is the full moon.  But last night, December 31, the moon was round and particularly bright, after a lovely full moon on December 1.  Shawn and I ventured out into the dry, bitter cold to look at it before we went to bed.  When it gets that cold, the outside air sucks your breath away but almost doesn't feel cold to your skin, because it seems to burn.  A cold burn.  We quickly turned our faces to the moon, appreciated its brilliance, and hurried back inside.  Then we went to bed, on New Year's Eve, at about 10:30 p.m.

The kids left on Thursday and Friday, December 28 and 29.  David and Ashton left early Thursday morning.  Matthew and Laura had planned to take Shannon to the Indy airport on their way home Friday, but snowy conditions moved them to try to leave ahead of the storm.  Shannon had a late flight, which was further delayed by the weather.  Shawn and I were happy to glean a few extra hours with her, so we offered to take her to Indy later.

We almost crashed the car on our way home from Indy.  Highway 465, the beltway around Indianapolis, is five lanes wide (I think, at least that...), and it was completely unplowed after 5-6 inches of snow had fallen.  You couldn't make out any lanes, and the surface of the road was extremely slick.  As we sloughed northward, amidst a mixture of cautious and reckless drivers, all of a sudden, for no obvious reason, a car ahead of us and to our right lost control and careened in an arc across a number of lanes, towards the left side of the road.  We and the car directly to our right (which was also a bit ahead of us) began to brake and try to avoid a collision.  On our left, in the "fast" lane, another car was approaching, faster than the rest of us.  As the out-of-control-car crossed in front of us and slid into the left lane, the car chugging up the left lane was completely unable to stop or slow down, and it T-boned the careening car with an ominous crunch of metal.  The impact carried both vehicles into a sort of circling dance; right in front of us, they spun around together.  I prayed, and Shawn tried to figure out which way to steer to avoid them without hitting the other cars around us, while pumping his brakes.  They glided off onto the inner shoulder and we left them in our wake.  I wonder if any other vehicles piled into them.

It's easy to feel thankful when you have a near miss like that.  For awhile, the relief and adrenaline took the edge off missing the kids.

Saturday was a dull day.  Of course we were tired.  And Christmas let-down set in with a fury.  I don't know what we did all that day.  We did not cook or wash dishes, which is a nice silver-lining after the excitement of houseguests.

Sunday was church, which is always nice.  Church, lunch with Jonathan, football in the afternoon, a Vikings win.  A lazy day.  I ate popcorn, applesauce and granola, and drank a number of mugs of tea.

Which brings us to today.

I apologize for this lame blog post.  It's been so long since I've written, I scarcely know what to do with myself here.

My words for the year are Power and Glory (God's), and I also want to grow in humility.  Perhaps "want" is too strong a word there.  I perceive the importance of growing in humility and hope to get better at it, although I have a certain dread of the pain that such an endeavor may involve.  Still (an idea I've explored before), I think humility is the surest, and perhaps only, path to ultimate joy.  I will write more about Power and Glory and humility another day.

2017 was a busy year, full of graduations and trips.  We experienced gains and losses, triumphs and sorrows.  It was a good year for the garden and a bad year for the ornamental pear trees.  Some excruciatingly horrible things happened, but there was no lack of small and medium sized miracles to keep us conscious of the truth that a sovereign God in heaven watches over us with love.

Legacy words

Back in September, I had a lupus flare.  It was bad.

At one point, I thought I was going to die.  Of course, nausea always knocks me for a loop and makes me feel tremendously aware of my mortality.  I probably was not nearly as near to death as I felt, but notwithstanding, I thought I was going to die.  Nausea, purging digestive system, fever, chest pains, headache, backache, shortness of breath, congestion, ringing ears, heart palpitations, dizziness, swollen glands and lymph nodes, you get the idea.  I remember sitting in the bathroom with my head against the wall and tears running down my cheeks because I was sure I would never hold a grandbaby in my arms.  My thought was, "I wanted to write them each a letter, but I guess I didn't get the chance."  I was thinking about my beloved children.

I told God, "It's okay.  It's okay.  You are sovereign. You can take better care of them than I can."  And of course He can.  I have failed more often than I have succeeded, and He is the one who holds them in the palm of His hand.  He is the one who knew their life stories before they were born. He is the almighty God of power and wisdom and might.  It truly is okay, even though it may not have been what I was hoping.

Then I recovered!  I've been doing quite well.  I might still be around to play with the grandchildren after all, and tell them that I love them, and nurture them with the grace and patience I lacked as a young mother.  I would be so grateful to be able to do that.

Most days, I don't think about writing each of my children a letter (the way I did when I thought I was dying), a letter full of all the important things I should have told them, celebrating their gifts and abilities, exhorting them to surrender their weaknesses to Christ to be transformed into their most powerful assets.  You don't remember that the roof leaks except when it's raining, right?

Today I want to write a general letter, something for all my children.  No personal secrets will be addressed here, nothing private, just my heart desire for my children, my family.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Dear ones,

How I love you.  Not a day goes by when I don't think of each of you, multiple times.  So many things bring you to mind: a container of food in the refrigerator, the shiny black piano, the adorable dog, a book on a shelf, a song, a sweatshirt, a container of moisturizer, a candle, a blanket, a TV show, a scent in the air outside, the slant of the sun through a window, a photograph (of course).

My love is flawed.  I made many mistakes, for which I am grieved.  Perhaps as you grow older and experience more of life, you will be better able to understand and to forgive me.  Please try to remember good things, fun times when we laughed around the table over plentiful meals, late nights when you came into my room to talk as I lay in bed before I fell asleep, times when life was vibrant and hope was natural and we had victories, successes, joy.   Remember how I read you the Chronicles of Narnia and broke down weeping every time Aslan wandered into a sentence, much to your consternation.  Please remember how hard I tried, understand how much I loved, and believe how hard I prayed.

Oh dear children, forgiveness is so important.  We must all forgive one another as God has forgiven us.  Forgiveness is grace, and we cannot live without it, because none of us is without need of being forgiven.  We all mess up, we all make mistakes, we all sin, and therefore we all stand in need of grace from God and from each other.

Forgive those who have hurt you.  People hurt each other; it is the way of a fallen world.  The Bible tells us that love covers over a multitude of sins.  Anger and condemnation do not fix sin.  The only way to overcome sin is by loving, so love, give grace, forgive.  I am not yet proficient at this, but I am learning, and the more I learn, the more I discover the blessings of grace and forgiveness, both given and received.  Jesus died so we can be forgiven, and so we can forgive.  It is costly to forgive, but it is priceless to be forgiven.

Another thing: never judge God by those who call themselves Christians.  Many have claimed the name of Christ but have not walked according to His purpose or His plan.  Jesus said that all men will know who His disciples are because of their love for one another;  yet, people constantly fall short of loving one another.

So here is my advice:  Read your Bible.  Read it often.  Read all of it, not just your favorite parts.  Read it with an open heart, praying that God will reveal Himself and His truth through His Word.  Please do not claim that God doesn't speak to you, if you are not reading His Word.  Read your Bible and listen for God's voice, seek His face.  Then, on the basis of God's Word, be discerning about those who call themselves Christians.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Use the Word of God to determine whether people are really God-followers.  Do not use people who claim to be Christians to determine whether God is relevant or good or real.  People are so fallible, even the ones who are honestly trying to do what is right.  People must never be your standard of measurement.  Only scripture should be your standard of measurement.

At the same time, be diligent in your own life.  The famous Oswald Chambers book is called My Utmost for His Highest.  The title alone is a worthy sentiment.  We must strive in the utmost to accurately reflect the glory of God to a fallen world.  Although we should not measure the worth of God by the worth of His people, we must recognize that the world will do this, and as bearers of His name, we must pray daily that He will shine His love, compassion, kindness and glory out through our lives.  We are ambassadors for Christ, the only "Bible" many people will ever read.

Too often, churches lambaste their congregations with admonishments to go out and share the good news of the gospel, but I think they fail to realize that it is not our glib recitation of a gospel acrostic that will bring people to a saving knowledge of Christ.  It is Christ in us, the hope of glory, the beauty of God revealed in the redeemed lives of His loving saints.  Live a life worthy of the Lord who has called you.

I know, I know.  I have failed in this task seemingly countless times.  I have been unforgiving, bitter, critical and angry.  I have lost my temper, and I have failed to trust the Lord.  I have been unloving and unkind; I have both spoken and acted in sin.  I have been prideful, arrogant, haughty, and I have also been fearful, discouraged and despondent in the manner of one who must have no faith at all.  And yet, when I confess my sins, He is faithful and forgives me, cleansing me from all my unrighteousness.

I think you can learn something from my experience here:  Never give up on the power of God's forgiveness.  You may need to humble yourself over and over again in asking for it, but never give up, because He promises that He will never stop forgiving and cleansing.  He is so pleased when we come trembling before Him in humility, asking for His help to do what we can never do in our own strength.  He loves us so deeply, we will never understand, but we must run to Him in faith.

Lastly (there is much more I'd like to say, but I have gone on far too long, so I will end with this), seek His joy.  God wants us to have fullness of joy.  Jesus came to bring us abundant joy.  Although He warns us that in this world we will have trouble, although the New Testament is full of words to encourage perseverance through suffering, still: Knowing God is truly the way to joy.  In fact, it is the only way to true joy.

Psalm 37:4 (ESV) says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."  This is a most beautiful and potent promise.  Be careful in how you apply it; it does not say, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and then as a reward He will give you whatever you wanted in the first place."  No!  It says that when the Lord Himself is your delight, then He will give you the desires of your heart.  One might surmise that if the Lord is your ultimate delight, then your ultimate desires are related to His presence in your life, the opportunity to apprehend His glory, and the coming of His Kingdom.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 speaks of how the Lord promises to give His people new hearts that are inclined to love Him and to follow Him, actually cutting out our hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh.  Pray for that kind of heart.  Pray that God will make you love Him--delight in Him--desiring what He desires, rejoicing in the things that cause Him to rejoice.  

Pray that the Lord will mold your heart to love righteousness and hate evil, and that even in hating evil, you will be filled with His compassion and lovingkindness for a lost and blinded world.  Pray that you will be like Jesus: faithful to the Father, tender toward the oppressed, and courageously confrontational when those who bear His name do so in an unworthy manner.  Pray that He will be real to you, that He will show you signs of His presence and goodness every day, that He will reveal His beauty and His way through His Word (and pray that He will give you an unquenchable thirst for His Word).  Pray that He will fill your heart with assurance of His love and His faithfulness and the inevitability of the completion of His Kingdom, that you will have steadfast hope resulting in daily joy.

Don't worry about this life.  Comforts will come and go.  There will be times of plenty and times of want, times of safety and times of oppression, times of gain and times of loss.  In His strength, you can weather it all, and through it all there is hope, and His constant abiding presence.  Nothing and nobody can ever take away your hope, the faith with which He has imbued you, or His abiding presence.  And when we arrive at the end, everything will be okay, marvelous, in fact.  At the end, we will live with Jesus in perfect paradise, forever, and there will be no more danger, fear, pain, sorrow, shame or death ever again.  All the brokenness of this world will pass and be replaced with comfort, safety, health, light, love and everlasting life.  He promised, and He is faithful.  So be joyful and hope in the Lord.

With all my heart,
mom

The inclination of a heart

I am trying to figure out what to do with whatever might be left of my life.

I've never been outgoing or had an easy time making conversation with people, so the traditional adage of the church, that we need to go out and share Jesus with others, is something I've never effectively done.  Or maybe, if I'm honest, it's simply something I haven't done, effectively or not.  Yet, Jesus is the Savior of the world, our only hope for release from the curse of destruction.  I must speak.

I would be lost without Jesus, and without hope.  I would not be able to find any point to anything.  I long for home, which I have finally come to understand is heaven, although I have spent, literally, decades of my life pining to live in geographical proximity to family members.  Now I finally know that home is not here.  It's in the hereafter.  This frightens me, because it will be utterly different from anything I have ever known.  Yet, I try to hold and believe the promises of God, that this is the fulfillment of all I have ever desired and the healing from all I have ever suffered.

I fear because I am not good at loving people.  I am scared of people.  From the time I was a small child, I have been afraid of people, and have experienced them as much more hurtful than trustworthy.  But God tells us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  I do try, but I am incredibly bad at being loving.  I am selfish and self-protective, and above almost all else, I do not want to experience pain.  By the grace of God, I do not have impulses to hurt people.  This is not to say that I don't hurt people.  I do.  But it is usually by mistake.  I try very hard to be kind and safe.  Yet, I still find myself doing hurtful things, even if they are by accident, or accidental collateral damage that comes from my self-protective nature, or the explosive chaos that breaks out of a panic attack.

I am afraid of what selfishness may be exposed in my nature as this virus bears down on us.  May God forgive me, and help me to be loving.

God is good, although His ways are often inscrutable.  I do not know why He allows fallible people to try to act on His behalf in bringing the news of His grace to the world.  I do not know why He allows wolves to get in among His flocks in disguise, and savage His sheep.  I do not know many things.  But I do know that the world is irreparably broken, and Jesus is our only hope of rescue, and He promises that if we cling to Him, it will be better, so much better, a weight of glory beyond all comparison.

I think God might save more people than we expect, and perhaps different people than whom we expect.  (C.S. Lewis said that, in better words.)  In my own words, I think it depends only on the inclination of the heart.  Is your heart inclined towards Jesus, or away from Him?

A long line stretches from sin, at one end, to righteousness, at the other.  What I'm saying--about the inclination of your heart--is that it doesn't matter where you fall on the line, how close to the righteous end, or how close to the sin end, at any given time.  What matters is the direction you are heading.

"Whosoever will may come."  All who long for Jesus and look to Him--agreeing with Him and admitting our desperate need--will be saved, only held accountable for whatever revelation of God we have been given (Romans 2).  But even the most apparently "righteous" person, if he looks away from Jesus, will be lost.   Everyone will be held accountable for what he does with whatever revelation he has received, but only God can be the judge of that, for some "revelation" comes through such flawed sources that it is distorted to a point where Satan's deception makes it impossible for the listener to receive.  Only God can be the judge, but if He knows that you know the truth about Jesus and relentlessly reject it, that is the sin that will condemn you.  The ultimate sin is when you say in your heart, "I know who you are, God, and what Jesus did for me, and I don't care.  I don't want any part of you.  I want my own way."  For any other attitude, I believe the Lord has grace.  His great desire, His passion, is for the salvation of all people.

There may be more people seeking God than some of us realize.  Although they may not be able to name Jesus, they will know in their hearts the value of humility, kindness and compassion, His righteous example.  When they meet Him, they will not turn away in pride, but will run with open arms to the one they have always longed to know.  They will realize that the voice inside their hearts, exhorting them to goodness, was never their own, and always His; His call.

Jesus taught that true, effective righteousness is love.  He explained that to keep the Law and the prophets, you need to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Righteousness is worked out in love.  Love is humility, humbly counting others as more significant than ourselves and seeking others' interests rather than our own, but truly seeking their best interests, not just indulging their desires (which could be quite detrimental for all parties).  

The opposite of righteousness is sin.

The opposite of love is selfishness.

The opposite of humility is pride.  

So, if you go back to imagining the line, you see that sin, selfishness and pride are at one end, and humility, love and righteousness are at the other.  

RIGHTEOUSNESS

SIN

LOVE                                                       <------->-------->--------<----------<-------->

SELFISHNESS

HUMILITY

PRIDE

The direction in which we incline is the factor that determines our standing for eternity.

Satan loves to deceive us in regard to pride, because that is the easiest way for him to trick us.  There is a truly distressing amount of pride in the world, and it doesn't usually look the way we think it would.  It is forever creeping up on me.  The moment we experience a bit of victory over sin, the temptation to pride becomes an imminent threat.  I'm so thankful that God is merciful.  We must always remember that everything good is only ever from Him, never from any other source.

I pray we can find joy and gratitude and peace as we wait out these days, wondering what is to come.  I pray that time in quarantine in our homes will lead us to consider, and then to speak with God, to examine our hearts and our ways under His light.

Seek the Lord while He may be found

call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake their ways

and the unrighteous their thoughts.

Let them turn to the Lord, 

and He will have mercy on them,

and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

Isaiah 55:6-7

Insufficient, yet thankful

Currently, I am preparing to teach a ladies' retreat.  I've never done this before.  Once, when I was quite young, in my twenties, I think, I was asked to speak at a Mother-Daughter Tea.  Being young, I went forward brashly and presented something completely unmemorable, probably no help to anyone.

Teaching Bible studies is the passion of my heart, and God gave me a virtually-seven-year hiatus from it.  Recently, a dear woman at our new-found church granted me the privilege of doing some long-term subbing for her while she is going through a busy and overwhelming season of life.  This has been a tremendous joy, and such a wholesome, healthy place for me to focus my mind.  How kind God is, to give me wonderful things to meditate on, while I struggle to manage troubling life issues that tempt me to doubt His goodness.

Somehow, while I was in the middle of the rich joy of studying and teaching, the women's council at our church approached me and asked if I would be the speaker at our spring ladies' retreat.

It sounded like a wonderful thing to do.  A sweet young lady asked me.  After praying, I told her, "Yes, I will do that.  I'd love to.  When is it?"  She told me it was in April.  I said, "I'll really look forward to that.  Thank you so very much for trusting me with such a responsibility.  I'll be happy to do that.  In March, when it's drawing close, I'll probably be a little freaked out and wonder why I said yes.  But right now I'm excited, and so grateful that you would ask me."

So.  It's March.  I'm having some tense times, but mostly I'm excited, although intimidated.  It's okay.  In our weekly Bible study, in 2 Corinthians, we are studying words that ask, "Who is sufficient for these things?" and answer, "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us to be sufficient..."

My grace is sufficient for you, God tells me, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  And God knew, exactly, that I would need these words, this encouragement, this month while I feel so insufficient.  I am insufficient, but it's okay, because God is sufficient, and He will come through.

The retreat is called:  The Way of Forgiveness:  Receiving and Extending the Grace of God.

This may be ironic, because I'm by no means a master at forgiving.  Yet, I take God's commands about forgiving very seriously, so I am always trying to learn how to forgive better.  Perhaps we teach more effectively in areas where God has made it necessary for us to practice again and again, because we keep struggling to get it right.

Yesterday as I was working on the retreat, God showed me something I can't believe I'd never seen before.  It's not about forgiveness, exactly,  It's about apologizing, about being the one who needs to ask for forgiveness.  Do you know that a good apology can help someone tremendously with their struggle to forgive?  That's not the new thing God showed me, though.  God showed me something else. He showed me that in the forgiveness process, if you apologize to someone and ask for forgiveness, and the person says, "I forgive you," that is not the end.  No!  There is one more thing, a very important step to bring closure for both parties.  After someone tells you, "I forgive you," it is very important to say, "Thank you."

Did you know that?  I don't know why I never realized it before.  Forgiveness is an undeserved gift, and if someone gives you this gift, you need to respond with appropriate gratitude.  If you don't feel thankful for the forgiveness you receive, you must not have been appropriately sorry for the wrong you did.

I realized this because the Bible says, "Forgive as God in Christ forgives you."  We pattern our human confession-forgiveness exchanges after the grace of God.  All who have truly received the Lord's forgiveness surge up with gratitude for this great gift.  We should also be grateful for forgiveness extended to us from another person.  This requires great humility, but it pays in an abundance of joy and restoration.

Think about how fears would be allayed and life would be different if we learned this conversation:

I'm sorry.

I forgive you.

Thank you.

Pride is the problem

Since Mother's Day, I've been worn down, exhausted.  Lupus talk belongs on my lupus blog, but I've virtually given up on that one entirely, so I will just briefly mention a mini-flare I've been having: Intense fatigue.  Headaches.  Aching legs.  Low-level buzzing and numbness in my face and hands.  Pain in my ankles, big toes, and thumbs.  And, last weekend, a burning, stinging butterfly rash across my face.  Also, my eyes bother me a lot.  The combination of eye issues and headaches makes it very difficult to blog, or even read.  Sometimes I find myself lying with my eyes closed on the sofa, listening to sermons on YouTube, in a desperate attempt to do something that is at least somewhat productive.

Sometimes I listen to Tim Keller, or Colin Smith.  Sometimes, when my head hurts too badly to think deeply, I listen to Focus on the Family broadcasts.  Today, I tuned in Rachel Held Evans, a "Christian blogger and speaker" who recently died of brain encephalitis at age 37 and made the news.  I'd never heard of her before she died, but CNN loved her.  I was curious.

RHE (as they seem to call her) confronts the tendency of many churches to hide brokenness under a mask of perfection that is supposed to be a good advertisement for God.  I thought a lot of what she said was good--better, in fact, than I expected.  However, I was troubled, because she blurs the line between male and female.

Why is it that in order to be kind, loving, and accepting--things Jesus absolutely calls us to be--people so often fall into the heresy of equalizing male and female roles, and celebrating homosexuality?  Of course, it logically follows that homosexuality would be fine, if a man and a woman are absolutely equal and interchangeable in every way.  But that whole package of opinions is troubling.

Men and women are not absolutely equal and interchangeable in every way.  There is male, and there is female, and we need both for the continuation of life.  That is a biological, scientific fact.  It's nature.  It's natural.  Homosexuality is not part of the natural continuation of life, and so it is a type of aberration.  Homosexual activity does not lead to the flourishing of a species.  Yes, there are ways to use what we know about science to overcome the obstacles of homosexuality in humans and produce babies anyway, but they are unnatural ways.  In this day when we know that organic food is safer and better, and we avoid eating GMOs like the plague, how can we think that GMO children (or, for that matter, GMO adult transgender persons) are a healthy thing?

The way of righteousness, the way of God, leads to health.  It leads to health and life, peace and joy.

The way of sin leads in the opposite direction, to disease and death, to conflict and despair.

The world is full of death, disease, chaos, conflict, anger, rage, fear, disappointment and despair.  This is the default state of the world ever since the original sin of Adam.  We cannot fix it by condoning it.

We bring relief by recognizing that this is what Jesus came to fix.  Jesus came to turn our eyes towards God, and to indwell us with His Spirit who transforms us so we desire righteousness instead of sin.  Jesus came to clean us from the filth and hopelessness of this world we live in.  Jesus came to purify our hearts.  Jesus did not come to condemn the world; He came so the world could be saved through Him (John 3:17).  We were already chained under condemnation, before Jesus came.  Jesus came to show us the way to freedom, by forgiveness through His blood.

We need forgiveness.  Forgiveness from sin is our most fundamental need.  We need God to forgive us, and then help us, by His everlasting presence in our hearts, to be remade into the image of Christ.  As we have borne the image of the man of dust, so shall we bear the image of the man from heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49).

We must never forget that we are all sinners, every last one of us.  We are all born to a spot on the bench on the death row of eternity, and it is only by the grace of God that any of us ever gains freedom and release from that condemnation.  Yet, Jesus loves us.  He loves us so much that He--the perfect, glorious Creator of the Universe--set His glory aside and came to earth to absorb the necessary wrath of God against sin, in our place, while we were sinners, before we even began to become righteous, because without His grace, we were incapable of becoming righteous.

I do not understand how this works.  In essence, it seems, God divided and conquered.  He divided Himself, so that He could punish sin in Himself, in our place, because He was the only One who could open the scroll, the only One who could face down sin and defeat it.

Part of sin is rebelling against God's righteous designs for creation, creation before the fall into sin, when He created male and female, to work together and help each other and care for each other in unity and love, to extend the life of humanity together.  If we love God, we must love His ways and His designs, the way trees grow outward with expanding branches, and water ripples down a mountainside, and daylight follows the dark of night, and both sunshine and rain make the flowers bloom.  We should not try to fight against the patterns and the seasons and the life cycles of creation.  We should embrace them, sway and flow with them, rejoice in them.

Loving God's creation, His patterns, and His ways requires humility.  It requires humility for us to admit that He is the unfathomably great Creator of all things: the origin, the source, the artist, the designer, the producer.  He made it all, and He knows how it works best.  He wants us to share in the joy of the Universe set right and working in perfect form.  Someday, when He brings forth the New Heaven and Earth, this is what we will experience.  But He wants us to practice now, to cooperate with Him in reversing the flow of death into a glorious flow of life and light.

Unfortunately, reversing the flow requires that we go against the natural flow, the bent we all carry to be selfish, to grasp for our personal interests and desires, regardless of God's will or others' best interests.  Reversing the flow first requires a death to our own pride and selfishness, and then it requires incredible courage and wisdom as we navigate the tricky path of figuring out how to help others also learn to die to themselves, which nobody naturally wants to do, even though it culminates in the death of death and resurrection to eternal hope and life.

This is why the Great Commission is so incredibly difficult.  "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you..."  It is not good news for people to hear that they are on the wrong side of righteousness, that they are sinners in need of forgiveness, and that they need to die to their selfish desires and surrender to the will of God.  Only broken people will respond to that, only those who have come to the end of themselves and tasted the truth of the bitterness of the way of the world.  In His grace, God brings us to a point of brokenness where we can receive the truth of His hope, but Satan masquerades as an angel of light, constantly trying to avert us from seeing the truth about the darkness.  Satan capitalizes in deception, and we are prone to wanting to be deceived, because we are prideful.  Like the hard chunk in the depths of a massive pimple, pride is the core of the problem.

The problem is not homosexuality.  The problem is pride.  Pride is a much deeper and more pervasive problem than any sexual inclination, and it affects more people.  Those who find it easy to marry the opposite sex and raise families, sometimes feel no compassion for those whose temptations are different from theirs (even though they have plenty of struggles of their own).  Instead of showing kindness and compassion, they respond with revulsion and disgust.  This is not the way of Christ, who regularly made people raise their eyebrows as He supped with tax collectors and prostitutes.  Rather, this is pride, and pride begets pride.  For every self-righteous person who looks at a struggling sinner and says, "You are disgusting," there is a host of struggling sinners who join hands to shout back, "You are more disgusting than we are, and you have no right to speak to us that way."  It is a terrible cycle of ever-increasing pride, people who hate each other, calling each other haters.

Christ's followers are called to love as He loved, and He regularly showed love to sinners.  He said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31).  The irony, of course, is that none of us are righteous.  Thus, Jesus didn't come to call people who do not exist.  He only came to call sinners, which means that He only came for all of us.

However, He didn't merely come to eat lunch with sinners.  He came to call us to repentance. Repentance is a change of heart and a change of direction.  Repentance is when we recognize our sin in light of God's perfect love and righteousness, and we say, "I wonder how you could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean," and we invite Him to purify our hearts, to put His Spirit into our hearts and teach us to love the things He loves, to pursue the way of righteousness, to leave our sinful habits behind.  Repentance produces change.  Our habits, tastes and inclinations do not usually change instantly, but as we grow to know the Lord better, we become quicker to recognize the folly and emptiness of sin.  Over time, it does become easier and more natural for us to choose righteousness over sin, willingly and joyfully.  Yet, it is good, and humbling, for us to remember and talk about our struggles with sin, and how but for the grace and power of God, we would be stuck there.  We should always remember that those locked in sin need hope and encouragement.  It is not our job to shame people.  The Holy Spirit convicts.  The Holy Spirit in us will shine His light where He chooses to shine it, if we will only walk in obedience, humility and love.

Obedience, humility and love, these are the attitude and mind of Christ to which we are called.  If only we could all put away our pride, every one of us, and stop insisting on our own way, our own desires, our own fulfillment, our own success or acclaim.  If only we could trust God and believe in His perfect love, goodness, compassion, and mercy toward us.  Oh Lord, help us, please.