Why Are You Wearing This?

One of my professors says that we should study people like we study books.

When I talk to a friend, I express myself through my words.  Writers express themselves through words, too, and then print them out or write them down.  Artists express themselves through paints and mediums and canvasses.  Musicians express themselves with sounds and melodies and lyrical craftsmanship.  When we buy clothes or when we choose what we want to wear in the morning, it’s a way of expressing ourselves.  But who really takes this kind of expression seriously?

I think we really only pay attention to the extremes.  A blue mohawk.  Black clothes, black eyeliner, and black nail polish.  A short skirt, blonde hair, and pink everything.  Pants that are five times bigger than the waist that’s wearing them.  However unconsciously, we ask ourselves why she would ever wear something so hideous or strange, or why he would ever cut his hair in such a way that it seems to defy gravity itself.  These are the people we wonder about.  Their clothing seems to disclose something about themselves.  What are they trying to say?

What if everyone has something to say?

My professor says never to say of someone, she just wants attention, or he just wants attention.  There is symbol and metaphor, rhyme and reason in what we do, how we dress, what we say and where we go.  Makes sense.  These can be powerful modes of expression.  And if we pay attention to them, we might just learn a thing or two about the people around us, if we care enough to ask.

I often just don’t care enough.  It’s easier to just make a judgment than to ask.

For the sake of example, let’s pretend there’s a student in my youth group who just recently buzzed his hair (though it looks more like a propellor got a little too close to his head).  Maybe he wears the same black shirt all the time, wears eyeliner, and seems to have headphones surgically attached to his ears.  Almost everyone’s pretty much convinced he’ll need a hearing aid by the time he’s sixteen.  He’s the kid who’s a little bit left out, and doesn’t quite fit anywhere.  And he’s just confided in me that he’s smoking pot pretty regularly.

Don’t say he just wants attention.

If I’d ask questions, I might learn something about him.  In fact, I might be instrumental in helping him to learn about himself.  What does all-black clothing say about a person?  Why did he just buzz his hair?  Is it a metaphor for self-disclosure, a desire to be known – is cutting his long hair that conceals his head to a short length a symbol for his need to be seen for who he is underneath it all?  What does buzzing his hair mean for him symbolically?  Why is he listening to music all the time?  Could he be shutting something out?  What is his family situation like – is there something happening at home or at school that music helps him to forget about?  Is he trying to add noise to drown out the questions or thoughts he’s having?  Maybe he doesn’t even know why he dresses the way he does.  Maybe he also wonders why he’s smoking pot.  Maybe he isn’t fully conscious of the way he is communicating.  But asking is so important.

And when we ask, we may begin a journey that we would not have the privilege of embarking on were we to ignore him, judge him, or shrug and say, he just wants attention.

The Stranger in the Desert.

[In light of Genesis 32:24-26...]

God engaged Jacob.  Somewhere, as the orange-red horizon gave way to deeper and darker blues and purples, a wrestling match began.  Somewhere, out of the shadows, in the dark of night, Jacob fought in the struggle of his life with a mysterious Stranger.

I’ve been thinking about how dear my Jesus is to me.  I’ve been doubting my love for him.  I’ve been thinking about how little I think of him, wondering about how infrequently I am awed by his majesty, and I’ve been feeling less than in love. I feel that my commitment to him is, at best, convenient.

And it hurts to admit that.

It sounds so awful, so self-centered and full of my own desire to benefit from this relationship, and so ready to abandon all faithfulness should adversity make itself present.  I feel my heart’s willingness to abandon the rich, rich love of Jesus should the road become difficult, covered in brush and thorns, rocks and roots obstructing the path, and the night creeping in through the eerie fingers of the forest trees like a choking fog.  And I find myself longing for the softer path.  I find myself crawling into bed with any lover that promises relief and an easier way.  I cringe to think of my cowardice, the nights I’ve spent in strangers’ arms, the countless ‘lovers’ that promised something better.  I’m embarrassed to make known my unfaithfulness to Jesus.  It is bad that I am unfaithful.  It is worse that I know it.  It is worse still that I know it and am as unfaithful as the day I was born.  And it is worst yet, that He waits for me still, lovingly, patiently, while I wander to and from the homes of strangers and strippers in an attempt to find some easier path, some more fulfilling love, some road that promises no pain.

I want to believe that the struggle, that moonlit contest with the Stranger in the desert, was an encounter Jacob couldn’t have avoided had he tried.  All alone, somewhere between dusk and dawn, he found himself blinded by his own sweat, ears pounding with blood.  He could feel his entire body locked in total warfare, each fiber of muscle straining, every one edging ever nearer to explosion.  But he could not let go; he would not.  But this Stranger in the desert, this mysterious man, would test his resolve.  It is one thing to match yourself in a physical fight against another person.  It is something else entirely to fight injured.

Jacob chased after his dad’s approval his whole life.  Isaac liked Jacob’s brother Esau better, and he always got the better end of every deal.  It wasn’t fair.  Dad was giving out blessings and Jacob wanted in.  Till the day his father died, Jacob sought that acceptance, that affirmation, and he held onto it with a determination that could only be described as obsessive.

Jesus wants for me to become obsessed with him, to be so uncompromisingly in love with him that I would chase him through anything, that I would refuse to give him up, that I would truly make him my champion and my lover.  With Jacob, fighting under the desert moon, Jesus wanted to see if he would hold on, if he would refuse to let him go.  So he touched Jacob’s hip.  In the middle of this fight, this Stranger reaches down and pulls Jacob’s hip out of its socket, causing him intense, blinding pain.

What if I injured you?  Would you still hold onto me?

Pain is maybe the clearest way for God to get our attention.  I don’t think he wants to get our attention that way.  I believe that in every way, my perfectly loving and compassionate Father is constantly vying for my attention in a beautiful sunset after a hard day’s work, in an open parking space in a crowded parking lot, in a card in the mail, or in the smell of clean laundry.  But sometimes, when I have forgotten his love for me, when I’ve learned to overlook and ignore his attempts to love me, he gets my attention with pain.  Maybe because it’s so sharp.  Maybe because pain always gets our attention.

I know he longs for my attention.  But I fear my own heart’s refusal to give it.  And I wonder if it is only a matter of time before pain comes knocking at the door again.

God, I don’t want to close my eyes when you want to open them.  I don’t want to be cold-hearted when you want me to fall in love.  Open my eyes and soften my heart.  Make me aware of You, moving all around me.  And when I turn from You – God, be patient with me.  Win me over.

Connecting Curses.

Curses | The Law and the Tree

Today my pastor spoke about Jesus – the Jesus who lived, who died, who rose again; the Jesus who, breaking through death in glorious victory, poured his grace over me and took on the curse that was mine to bear.  We looked at Acts 10:1-8 specifically, but verse 39 really hit me hard.  It’s where the author references the Old Testament Jewish Law that declares that ‘anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse’ (Deut. 21:23).  This brings us to Galatians 3:10-14, which says:

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do all that is written in the Book of the Law.”  Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”  The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

So it is clear that those who rely on the Law to reconcile them to God are cursed; the same is for those who are hung on a tree.  What seems so strange to me is the idea that somehow, Jesus took the curse of the law from us by taking the curse of being hung on a tree.  Maybe the two curses are not connected in this way.  It doesn’t make sense to me that the taking of one curse would relieve us of another – instead, it would simply mean that our mediator, Jesus, would have to take two curses instead of one.

This is why I’m thinking that the work of the cross, as far as these curses are concerned, is twofold.  This presents questions about these curses, and maybe they’re insignificant; but to me, I find that to probe and question and wonder at it all only tends to enhance my awe of God and love for Jesus.  And so with that in mind, I will write and wonder.

Curse | The Law.

At the foot of the cross, I am humbled.  All my efforts vaporize; every work of greatest strain, every arduous endeavor, every labor and every pain, in the blaze of perfect glory crucified, evaporates into nothing.  It is immensely humbling to watch the fruit of all your labor subdued and reduced to nothing.  It is mortifying.  It is humiliating.  It is like witnessing the ivory tower I’ve built – the trophy case of my life’s successes and achievements – consumed into nonexistence; and I watch, horrified, straining to understand what just happened, caught in total disbelief.  I find myself on my knees, completely humiliated, with my hands – as if holding some small, fragile thing – bare and empty.

The crucifixion was the God-man meeting the demand for our perfection, and satisfying it.  And so this demand that laid claim over us was lifted from our backs and fully appeased.  The law demanded our perfection, but would never make us perfect.  It was never designed to; in fact, it was created for two purposes: first, to make us unmistakably aware that we are hopelessly imperfect, and second, to point us (however vaguely) in the direction of a holy and perfect God.  And so in meeting the law’s demand for our perfection, Jesus made us free of its claim on us, free from living by the law.

He made us free to live by faith.

Did you catch that?

The righteous will live by faith.

Curse | The Tree.

At the foot of the cross, I look up and see a man of shame, under God’s curse.  There are a couple important things to pay attention to here.  Here’s what Acts 10 says:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

First, I think it is important to note that everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.  Although I believe that Deuteronomy 21:23 was a prophecy of the coming Messiah, I wonder if that explains the entirety of the curse.  Second, Jesus was hung on a tree, and so was cursed himself for us.  This small phrase may change everything.  This may imply that we were cursed somehow already, or were meant to be cursed, bound to such a curse, and were set free from it by Jesus’ taking that curse upon himself.  That’s phenomenal.

Because, last time I checked, I haven’t been hung on a tree.

And yet, he took that curse for us.  Confused yet?

Connection | The Garden to Golgotha

I once saw an art exhibit where the artist would arrange seemingly random objects in a random way – a string of junk and pieces strewn across a pure white floor.  I remember thinking, I hate modern art.

As we continued through the exhibit, I soon realized that the art – the sculptures I was wondering at – were designed in such a way that if you were to look at it from all around, it would all seem to be complete nonsense.  In fact, it would appear to be chaotic and disorganized, thoughtless and random.  However, it was only from one very specific vantage point that a person might be able to see the image that the artist desired to be seen: it was unbelievable.  It shocked me to think that a person could sculpt something so seemingly abstract, when, in fact, from the intended vantage point, this pile of garbage resembled to my astonishment a 1920s model car, or an expensive dish at a 5-star restaurant, or a woman riding a bicycle.

The beauty is in the perspective.

Here’s where I think it all comes together in one grand and beautifully artistic arrangement.  Maybe this is like the art I saw.  Maybe it doesn’t make as much sense until you’re looking at it all from a different vantage point.  Here, in this perspective, maybe Adam stands face to face with Jesus.

Maybe Eden collides with Calvary.

Maybe the Serpent wrestles the Son.

Maybe the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (the very tree on whose outstretched boughs we hung our innocence) meets the tree of the Roman cross (the very cross on whose horizontal beam we hung our Savior).

Maybe Jesus’ being hung on a ‘tree’ – his crucifixion – actually pointed to the fact that we really are cursed in this same way.  Maybe, in Adam, I hung myself – my innocence and purity, my unhindered understanding of my Creator, my intimate relationship with my Father, my wholeness and perfection – on a tree (that forbidden tree in Eden), and traded it all in for a curse.  And maybe Jesus, in taking this curse for us upon himself, and in making it possible for us to live by faith by satisfying the Law’s demand for perfection, my Savior died one wretched, cursed man.

It breaks my heart to think that he knew the weight of it all, that he knew the contrast of the trees and the connection between the curses from the start.  And that it was my fault.  And that he loves me anyway.

You are so good to me.

Cyclical Love.

I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, a book he wrote to help understand better the world we live in, the God we serve, the pain that we experience, and how it all might fit together.  He draws a distinction between the lover and the beloved; one who is in need of love and one who gives to meet that need.  He writes,

Human love, as Plato writes, is the child of poverty – of a want or lack; it is caused by a real or supposed good in its beloved which the lover needs and desires.  But God’s love, far from being caused by goodness in the object, causes all the goodness which the object has, loving it first into existence and then into real, though derivative, lovability.  God is goodness.  He can give good, but cannot need or get it.  In that sense all His love is, as it were, bottomlessly selfless by very definition; it has everything to give and nothing to receive… That is the conclusion of the whole matter.  God gives what He has, not what He has not: He gives the happiness that there is, not the happiness that is not.  To be God – to be like God and to share in his goodness in creaturely response – to be miserable – these are the only three alternatives.  If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows – the only food that any possible universe can ever grow – then we must starve eternally (43, 47).

Think about it.  God is the sole Generator of love.  We are merely carriers, channels, conduits - vessels.  We aren’t meant to hold water forever.  We’re meant to share it, to give it, to pour it out of ourselves.  We aren’t allowed to keep it because we aren’t the ones who create it.  To hoard such a gift would be to claim as our own that which was never ours to keep.

That which was given must be given.

We must think of ourselves as troughs and channels.  We are not generators of love; God is the Generator – the one and the only.  It is not so much that God runs a monopoly on all of love, so much as it is that He is the only possible love that there can be – there is no other possibility.  He is it.  There is no other.

My love for my brother is not so much that I am loving him as it is the Generator’s love flowing through me to him.  My love is not my own, and so I’m not the one who can decide with whom to share that love.  Because of this, I shouldn’t be selfish and keep it to myself by stopping up my channel and blocking all outflow, though I have the capacity to choose selfishness anyway.  If we are free-flowing channels, then what happens when we choose to rebel and stop his love from flowing through us?

We overflow.

Maybe this is helpful for understanding why God seems to bless in abundance a ‘wicked’ man while many who love him dearly might seem to go without.  It seems unfair.  But maybe God, in the most unexpected response to rebellion we could ever conceive, doesn’t destroy or obliterate a dammed up channel, but decides to continue to fill and saturate and send swell after swell of love in an attempt to gloriously overwhelm a rebellious heart determined to block all outflow.

Maybe those most in rebellion seem to have the goodness of God hovering over their lives because He wants to overwhelm and overpower with love their blockade.  Wait and pray for the dam to break.

Just as God empowers us to give the love he fills us with, he empowers us to receive it as well.  I can both give and receive the love of God with those around me.  Essentially, this means that he gives and receives his own love – the greatest possible love there is or could be – through you and I.  If I give myself an object – the object – that I already have, it cannot be said of me that I am selfish with it.  So God, both giving and receiving that love which he has had in himself from the beginning, has only decided to include us in this cyclical love.

What a blessing.  Thank you, Jesus.

To Fall.

Jesus has been teaching me about grace.  That I am a failure and a screw-up.  That I make mistakes and I manipulate and I hurt others.  That I have this burning need to be right, and an icy resistance towards needing to be humble.

Or be humbled.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  - Hebrews 10:26-31

Lately, I’ve been so caught up in thinking about the grace of God that I’ve forgotten to throw myself in desperation, pleading and heartbroken, at his glorious feet.  Though my God gives grace to cover my mountains of sin, shines love to the deepest caverns of my secrets, and floods my motives – hidden and mysterious as valleys swamped in fog — though He is willing to do this and more, my God is not a God who simply forgets.  My God is not a God who, though patient beyond reason, though gracious beyond excuse, though merciful each and every morning, is okay with me waking with every sunrise only to step on and trample down the blood Jesus painfully spilled for me by the time my feet hit the floor to pull me out of bed each morning.  How ungrateful.

I live the life of a thoughtless soul, caring only for my own cravings, thinking only about my own circumstances, only rarely giving deep and conscious thought to the massive blessing that it is to simply live.  I give no thought to the Lord when I pour milk into my bowl of cereal in the morning.  I don’t give thanks to God for the privilege that it is to be bothered by work.  It is sinful and degenerative to be as thankless as this.

Maybe, if we’re willing to see it, we’re more sinful than we ever thought we were.

My sins are ridiculously repetitive.  And yet, I continue to I assure myself that my Father’s grace covers me.  I tell myself that Jesus forgave it all.  I say “Amen” to knowing He grants me endless mercy.  Which is not a bad thing.  It’s just that sometimes, I use Jesus.  I use him to get what I want, and what I know he doesn’t want for me.  Because if I know he’s going to forgive me, why try so hard to avoid the sin?  And so I am tempted to sit still and not try so hard.

Just relax, he’ll forgive you.

What bothers me so much about this is that this grace and forgiveness, this reassurance of salvation and throwing off of my need to upkeep and maintain salvation by good works, this heavy burden lifted is so glorious and so full of freedom, and I’m twisting it into a horrifying wreckage.  Just relax, he’ll forgive you.  That should be a beautiful statement.  A liberating declaration.  But notice how as you read it, the condition of your heart can change its meaning without ever changing a word; it will mean something entirely different depending on how I say it and what my motives are.

In the foreword of Spectacular Sins by John Piper, he warns that we are casual Christians, that we are unfamiliar with suffering or persecution, that we don’t know what it means to share in the stripes of Jesus’ back.  We wake and sleep without fear of our homes being burned to the ground.  We don’t sneak into our churches or meet with other believers in secret.  We aren’t afraid of being murdered or tortured for bearing the name of the Christ because the threat isn’t there in our lives.  And so Piper warns: if we continue to live this way, we will not be ready to stand when persecution comes pounding on our doors, and we will not be ready to endure when our families are dragged into the streets to be slaughtered.

I insult the Spirit of grace and the blood of Jesus, because I fear nothing.

I am so comfortable and so secure that I don’t know what it means to fear the living God, to be terrified by his majesty.  How can I begin to live out the life Jesus wants me to live unless I know Jesus, unless I truly know God in his overwhelming sovereignty and massive power?  Can I continue to live my life sinning the ways I always have, continue to disbelieve the victory I have in my Conquerer, continue to mock the sacrifice he made for me?

God, change me!

Jehovah Jireh.

If my “need” is not met, then it is no need at all.  Jesus is Jehovah Jireh.

A Liberating Paradox

I can have my cake, and I can eat it too.

I can be bitter and forgiving.

I can be angry and gracious.

I can be mad and merciful.

I can be hurt and joyful.

All this time, I’ve been causing one to declare war on the other, each acting exclusively, battling for influence over my practical relational decisions in light of painful circumstances.  But it isn’t that way at all.  I’ve been trying to control what I do and what I feel by eliminating one or the other of two competing emotions.  I wanted to forgive, so I had to toss bitterness; and yet I felt hurt more than I felt joyful.  Feeling hurt isn’t bad, but if I’m still hurt over something of the past even after sorting it all out, I would ask myself, then am I, in actuality, foregoing forgiveness?

Desiring reconciliation and wanting to forgive wholly and completely is an act of God.  And I know God is trying to work in me and grow me and stretch me in ways I’ve never been challenged to work, grow, and stretch before.  But at the same time, when I am wronged, am I to simply pretend as if nothing happened?  Can it be expected of me to put on a patient, smiling, all-too-happy-to-forgive-you face when someone has clearly shot me straight between the ribs?  It must be, in some way, okay to feel hurt, to feel angry, to be bitter.  And I can say with confidence that it is.

In Genesis 3, man destroyed relationship.  Relationship to God.  Relationship to himself.  Relationship to nature.  Relationship to each other.  All of relationship was damaged, twisted, and impossibly disfigured.  Perfect harmony was shattered as the first man and woman to walk the face of the planet sunk their teeth deep into the fruit of a God-forsaken tree.

Hope it tasted as good as it looked.

The bitterness we feel when a friend hurts us is not wrong – just wrongly placed.  It would be wrong of me not to hate and rage against the misery that is sin – it torpedoes friendships, bombs marriages, annihilates loving bonds growing between complete strangers.  It makes a girl ask herself if anyone loves her.  It makes a guy stab his buddy in the back.  It causes a man to cheat on his wife.  And it causes a child to despise her parents.

Sin is always here, inside.  It’s a part of who we are now.  Unfortunately, this means simply that we can’t ever, ever – while we are here on this earth and in these mortal body – hope for or have a perfect relationship with anyone at all.  Wow… How defeating! one might think.  But it’s just the opposite: it is liberating.

In my last post, I was sorting out through the emotions of a fractured friendship.  It’s been somewhat painful to deal with, to think about.  When the dynamics change between best friends, someone gets hurt, and I was up to bat.  Since faced with pain inflicted on me by maybe my closest friend, I’ve hurt tremendously.  I’ve felt rejected and abandoned, forgotten and suddenly alone.  The person I always spent time with was nowhere to be found, and it hurt.

We have, in our world today, traces of pure relationship.  But somewhere we end up hurting each other.  We may start off with great intentions, but we end up with the problem that is what it means to be human.

We are the enemy.

We can’t escape ourselves.  If sin is so deeply a part of us, then it is ultimately we who are the problem.  It’s strange how without people, relationships are impossible; and yet with people, they are more impossible still.  And so how could anyone possibly expect to see no anger in a man who recognizes, who feels deep inside of his hurting soul the brokenness that sin causes, that there is no hope for fulfilling connection?  Let me make this clear: do not let anyone tell you that you cannot be angry or bitter because it is completely sinful.  It just isn’t.  But it does have to be shifted.

Forgiveness is the only right response we can have to the sting of sin, the problem of pain.  We are all fallible.  In some respects, we are victims to the sinful nature within us, prisoners of ourselves.  My actions, therefore, follow my nature: they will betray friend and foe alike.  We’re all in the same boat.  Can’t fake it.  So can I really hold that against anyone?  Can I really hold a grudge against someone for a fault I ultimately share?  The question isn’t whether or not I do share the same fault; we all share it: it is sin.  The fallible can only, rightly, forgive (however imperfect that forgiveness might actually be).

When I feel let down, betrayed, neglected, hurt by a friend, I’m usually tempted to be angry with that person.  But being that we are entirely fallible, that friends and enemies alike are prone to the same screw-ups and mistakes that we are, I can’t begin to describe to you the hypocrisy it would be to be bitter towards them for what they do to you.

Don’t get bitter at the person.

Get bitter at the sin.

Don’t forgive the fact that sin happened.

Give forgiveness to the sinner.

Today, don’t let bitterness boil up inside of you.  And don’t delay forgiveness; healing is a time-demanding process, but give grace freely.  But I want you all to know that it’s okay to be angry and it’s alright to be bitter.  So long as your fury finds itself buried in distress over the brokenness sin inevitably causes, and so long as it is moving you to mobilize and redeem fractured humanity in the relationships God has placed in your life, let it burn brightly because it is godly anger.  Equally important is the necessary step to forgive the fallible.  They are victims of themselves as much as you are.

Time Will Tell.

I am time-oriented.

Time, more than anything else in the world either manufactured or found in nature, is the rarest and scarcest of resources.  It is non-transferrable.  You cannot, by any choice of your own, increase your amount of it.  You cannot accumulate it.  This moment, right now, is the rarest of all things.  Because it only happens once, and before you can even begin to understand it, it’s vanished through the grasping clutches of your mind and will never occur again.  Time, then, is incredibly valuable to me.  It is my relational currency.  And how I spend it will tell you a lot about who I am.

Time is how I build trust.

Time is how I show love.

Time is how I demonstrate loyalty.

Time is how I become what I never thought I could be.

Time is how I know you mean what you say.

And time is how I can tell you’re lying.

You’re lying to me and you’re lying to yourself.  You really want to believe that you care, but your time tells me otherwise.  There are times when I catch myself believing that I love certain people with all my heart.  But when I examine my life closely, anyone might see that my actions betray what I’d like to believe about myself.  Words are only as good as the actions they describe, and if nothing follows but a fading farewell whisper, trailing behind you like a wisp of smoke, you can’t expect me to chase after the vapor.  No, it’s not easy to hear.  And no, I can’t change a thing.  I won’t go running after you  if I know you’re only willing to sit and wait for me to arrive.

So don’t judge me for not moving.

Listen, I’m okay with you dropping out.  I’m discovering the fact that people go their separate ways.  I’m accepting that diverging paths are a part of life, and that it is okay to change and to leave, even for good.  If it is painful, the distance gives me space to heal.  Trust me, I wouldn’t trade distance for intimacy were it up to me.  It’s just what I’m left with.  It’s just that I really hope nothing happens that causes you to count on me being there for you.  I might not be anymore.  If something does happen, you can try me.  But I can’t guarantee that the pain that would cause me wouldn’t stop me.

I think I’m coming to terms with just how deep this goes.  I think this might be the most I’ve hurt in a very long time.  Friends have a special way of wounding.  So congratulations to you: you’ve pierced the armor only to hurt the man beneath.

My door is still open.

My time is still available.

Make the best of those now, because God forbid the day you need them and I have nothing left to give you.

Dreams and Fear.

Christianity demands of us nothing short of everything.

Why do I feel that I can do as I please with my life? I make plans. I expect to have a beautiful wife and family, a decent paid job, a humble home to raise children in. I will have a living room with two couches and a carpet that’s plush enough to sit on comfortably through a movie. I like to sit on the floor when I watch movies. I’ll have a dog – a boxer/golden labrador mix. The kids will grow up with him and they’ll wrestle in the yard, squealing and laughing, sloshing about and splashing in sunshine, all the while seeming to compete viciously with one another to find out who can get the deepest, greenest grass stains on their jeans by the time mom calls them in for dinner. She’s such a good cook. The little guys will gobble down their food and before they’re even done eating, will be off and about the house, spreading out their LEGO blocks across the floor to build the greatest engineering marvel of all time. And my little girl will sit on my lap, helping me eat a bowl of our favorite ice cream, just having daddy-daughter time. She’s precious. Mom and I will tuck them in to bed. My little girl’s already sleeping, her head on my shoulder. I can feel her little breaths on my ear. Then I’ll climb into bed with my wife and we’ll read for a while, talking and tired, but so happy. I’ll kiss her goodnight, and she’ll kiss me back with that smile I love so much.

But maybe this isn’t what I’m meant for.

That’s my fear. That’s my idol. That’s my more than anything else, this is what I want wish. And I can only do everything in my power to suppress the question that’s crouching behind my teeth, waiting to spring off my tongue: If He asked it from me, could I give it all up?

I’m afraid the Christian life – radical Jesus-following relationship – may ask far more of me than I’m willing to give. I’m afraid that ripping it from my white-knuckle grip will hurt like hell. I’m afraid that I can’t control what is given or taken from me, and I’m afraid that, should I be given any treasure at all, I could do nothing in my power to keep it. I’m afraid of finding that incredible someone, finding that someone who loves me as I am, finding that someone who has everything I have been looking for in a wife, only for their presence to be removed from my life forever.

I’m afraid life will break my heart. Because Jesus doesn’t promise me an unbroken heart. He doesn’t promise me an all-pleasure, no-pain journey. He doesn’t guarantee my life will be everything I dreamed and more.

My fear stems out of a distrust in His nature as a beautifully good God who wants and has planned nothing short of an uncompromisingly, perfectly crafted life despite whatever it may appear to be. And so my fear can become a reason to set controls on aspects of my life in an attempt to ensure that I get what I want. If my attempt to keep my life in control falls short of actually controlling my life (and it will), I could begin to hold inside of me bitterness and frustration, along with discontent and more distrust.

Walls go up.

Intimacy decreases.

Defense-mode kicks into effect.

But love, love casts out all fear. So the question is, how?

The Im|Possibility of Good.

There’s one question and three beliefs that have my attention right now. The question is, Are we capable of doing anything good? The first belief is that undeniably, all people act out of self-interest.  The second belief says that we always act in order to either achieve pleasure or avoid pain.  The third belief says (in response to the first) that not all people do act out of self-interest, but everyone should.

I’d say they’re nearly right (unfortunately).

Let’s take the first one.  The belief that everyone acts out of self-interest is called Psychological Egoism.  Self-interest is the regard for one’s own interest or advantage, especially with disregard for others.  Nothing I do is unselfish.  Altruism is dead. Everything I do is for the purpose of achieving some kind of end for myself. That’s the belief. For example, if I give to charity, psychological egoism says that I did not do it because I’m unselfish (though it appears so), but because I truly am selfish; I gave to charity only because it gives me a good feeling about what I did.   If I buy a homeless man a meal, I did it not for the purpose of meeting his need, but for the purpose of making my heart pump full of satisfaction in myself. And so, in the end, it’s all about me.

Here’s where it ties into the second belief, called Psychological Hedonism.  Hedonism is the lifestyle that pursues pleasure as the highest virtue.  So Psychological Hedonism is when a person only lives and acts in the way that grants them the greatest pleasure and/or the least pain.  Every situation we come across has both Pleasure and Pain on a polar continuum:

Pain <<<———————————|———————————->>> Pleasure

In every situation, we evaluate whether or not a certain course of action will result in more Pleasure or more Pain. Inevitably, says Psychological Hedonism, we choose what seems to us to be the more pleasurable road, without fail. So in the circumstance of buying a homeless man a meal, I might weigh the pain of losing money that is not being used for me against the pleasure of making myself feel like a real fine guy for buying the meal. And so if I think it’s more pleasurable to keep my money, I won’t buy him a sandwich. But if I think it’s more pleasurable to feel good about myself, I might just buy that sandwich for him.

Then there’s the third view that agrees with all of this, except that it isn’t impossible to choose pain or to choose to act in a way that isn’t going to maximize self-interest. This third belief is called Ethical Egoism – it basically sets forth that although not everyone does act out of self-interest all the time, everyone should.

So now I’m going to borrow bits and pieces.

From Psychological Egoism, I will borrow the principle that we cannot act unless it is out of self-interest. However, I will also borrow Ethical Egoism’s assertion that we can act beyond our self-interest. NOTE: These seem to contradict, but don’t have to. I’ll also borrow Psychological Hedonism’s idea that we will always choose the greater pleasure.

Here we go.

Acting out of self-interest isn’t always pride, but it certainly has the propensity to move in that direction.  When we meet our needs, it is in the interest of continuing our lives.  This isn’t wrong or sinful by any stretch.  We were created with needs.  But it transforms into pride, a sort of exaltation of self as most important, when we place our needs and wants as first and foremost above all others.  It becomes pride when we place our own value, and therefore also our desires for pleasure above pain, as more worthy than others’ and, if we have the power to do so and feel it is necessary, we will pursue that pleasure at the expense of those around us.  For example, a certain woman wants the attention of a man she’s attracted to.  But the man seems to be ‘involved’ with someone else.  There are several factors that play into the outcome.  She may:

1. Tell a lie or an unfavorable truth about her competition, the second woman, in order to bring into question the desire to pursue her for the man.  However, she runs the risk that man might be repelled by her conduct if he found out. She will do this anyway if the risk is low enough that her means wouldn’t spoil her prize.

2. Not do much and let things play out as they will.  In this case, she may take greater pleasure in having noble character than in winning the man by foul play.  And yet, she is taking the risk of experiencing the significant pain of rejection.

3. Convince herself that she doesn’t desire the man’s affection anyway, and she will boost her own self-concept as higher than that of both her competition and her desire.  She will take pleasure in believing she is meant for someone far better.

Essentially, this is risk evaluation.  And because we can’t know the future, we weigh what we believe will be probable or improbable degrees of pain or pleasure, and if the prize is greater than the risk, we will choose that option.  There is a great deal of this in the world.  We seek our own benefit.  We ensure that we get as much pleasure as possible.  But different people have differing ideas about what is pleasurable.  One student does his homework and gets good grades, but lacks a healthy social life.  Another student has an enormous social network, but lacks a decent GPA.  The first student foregoes the immediate pleasure for a later one he believes will be greater.  The second student indulges in the immediate and doesn’t see the option of a later and greater pleasure as legitimate.  If at all possible, we will more than likely try to achieve both.  We like to have our cake and eat it too.  If we can have two cakes, that’s even better.

So there’s this whole pride thing and self-serving kind of living that we experience day in and day out.  But there just has to be something more than that, right?  We can’t be entirely selfish.

It’s true.  We’re not entirely selfish.

But maybe we shouldn’t sigh with relief just yet.  If we aren’t placing highest value on ourselves, what are we valuing?   Take this example into consideration: Let’s say a soldier, in the heat of battle, throws himself onto an enemy grenade to save his fellow soldiers.  We’re going to go two ways with this: 1) God is not in the picture, or 2) God is in the picture. In both cases, the ultimate existence of God is assumed; belief in Him is not.

~ 1. God is NOT in the picture ~

Such an act of camaraderie is incredible.  It shows a genuine selflessness on the part of the sacrificial soldier.  He put his fellow soldiers’ lives before his.  And so the idea of acting solely on selfish pleasure is not a plausible option.  If that soldier had a wife and kids at home, I’m sure the greater pleasure would be to return to them, and so, not to jump on the grenade.  And if he believes there is no afterlife, then he truly acted selflessly because there would be no promise of heavenly treasure for his brave deed.  His dying for those men displayed a very high value on them.  So much for psychological egoism.

Unfortunately, if this is true, and if he doesn’t believe in God, then from a Christian’s perspective, he acted on a principle of idolization in that moment.  If he wasn’t acting out of pride, he had to act out of idolatry for those men he saved.

In other words, he transferred highest value from himself on to them. Selfless, but still fallen.

The key word here is highest value. It’s superlative, meaning that it leaves no room for a higher value. So regardless of what we place our highest value on – whatever it might be – if it isn’t God, then it is idolatry. I wish there was a different word for it. But that’s what it is. So let’s take a look at the second option.

~ 2. God is in the picture. ~

If the soldier believes in God and believes in an afterlife, he is not able to escape the possibility that he saved his comrades out of selfish motives since there is a promise of treasures stored up in heaven. So unlike the man who doesn’t believe in God, it is possible that his act of bravery and sacrifice was selfish at heart and in motive. But let’s put that to the side for just a moment.

He gave his life up for his friends. With the right mindset, this would not be idolatry for the believing soldier, who would give high value to his fellow soldiers not because they have any intrinsic value in themselves, but because he understands that God values them, and so he must also. Knowing that the perfect God, who assigns value perfectly, values each man enough to die for them, it only makes sense for the Christian soldier to do the same.

Both options have special circumstances. But by and large, these are rules. So the first option eliminates self-serving motives (because of death), but guarantees idolatry. Then the second option leaves open the possibility of self-serving motives (because of life after death), but eliminates idolatry.

So what happens if we take the principle of the first option into everyday life? We find that death is the only reason why self-serving motives would be eliminated. And so, again working from the assumption that God exists, the unbelieving individual is unable to act beyond either pride or idolization. He either acts with himself as the Highest Being, or he erects something/someone else as Highest Being. There is no other choice.

The believing individual isn’t so easily let off the hook. I would say that every believing individual is caught in exactly the same predicament. Where the unbelieving individual may do good things because of his own self-interest, the believing individual may do the same in reminding himself that he will be richly rewarded in heaven for his good deeds here on earth, and so he might make that his motive. And where the unbelieving individual may value something other than himself as Highest Being, the believing individual may do the same in forgetting to regard God in His rightful place as Highest. The same fatalistic dichotomy faces both people. Except for one thing. The individual who puts his trust in God has the Holy Spirit, has God at work within him. This, and nothing else, changes the circumstances.

The Holy Spirit in me, alone, is able to make me capable of doing any good thing selflessly. And it is the Holy Spirit in me, alone, that is able to make me capable of creating/recognizing, and acting on, an accurate value hierarchy based solely on what God Himself values.

Let me put it this way: we don’t have a choice not to sin.  We’re not capable. Hope that makes your skin crawl like it does mine.  Because honestly, I’d like to think I’m capable of doing something right. But God is capable within me.

The only reason I have to believe I have the hope of doing anything but sin is His work within me. Otherwise, my only choice is between Pride and Idolization.

What makes God so great is that He is able to work real, genuine, authentic good through what would otherwise be sin.  I make mistakes all the time.  I sin all the time.  I do all kinds of things that I know I shouldn’t do, and a ton of things I don’t even know I’m doing.  And yet somehow, God takes my secretly self-serving act of charity and transforms it so that it actually blesses somebody.  He takes the compliment that I didn’t actually mean when I said it, and metamorphoses it so that it actually speaks beauty into a downcast life.  He takes my banal attitude towards taking communion on Sunday, and replaces it with a spirit that all-in-all is remembering with great fear and intense love the sacrifice that it cost His Son to make real communion with Him possible.

The amazing thing is exactly that: I am rendered impossibly helpless to redeem my own acts, to transform selfish motives into perfectly selfless ones.  To metamorphose false words into authentically true ones.  To replace vacant practices with substance-filled ones.  Imagine that you have in your hands a sheet of white paper that needs to be white when it arrives in the hands of its intended recipient.  And it is dripping with black ink.  You can do no more to make your actions and motives pure and perfect again than you could to turn that ink-blotched paper back to white.  But let’s say Someone takes your blackened sheet of paper and turns it clean and new en route to the recipient.  All is good.  Except He turns it green.  It is a perfect green.  A brilliant green.  But it is not white.  This is because even what we intended to do is not exactly what is needed to be.  He knows better what the recipient needs.

And so he changes everything.

That’s my God.

I want to do my very best, I want to strive to have pure motives, to have right thoughts, to act selflessly, to live in such a way that something, anything, would be worthy of giving.  But regardless of my efforts to do good or to not sin, it is Him in the end.  And it is only Him.  So I’ll pray for grace in every moment.  I’ll live by faith that he’ll give it.  And I’ll love out of the gratitude that I have for everything He does through and for me.  I alone can do nothing.  He in me can do anything.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter
Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

- “Come Thou Fount (of Every Blessing)”