A Beautiful Key

Here is something beautiful I never saw in Romans before.  I've always been intrigued with this section early in Romans but never have seen before how it can be used to interpret later passages in Romans 7 and 8.

This is from Romans 4:

"[Abraham believed] God, who brings to life the dead, and calls those things that are not as though they were.  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which is spoken, so shall they seed be. And being no weak in faith, he considered his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of sara's womb...and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able to perform"

The references to a dead womb (unable to receive life) and his own dead body (unable to offer anything good) brings to mind the references to our dead flesh that can do nothing but produce dead works.  And God is able to raise the dead and the promise is made later in this letter to the Romans that the "Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies".  I wait for this, but when I read 1 John and other places about what those signs of life are, well, I'm starting lately to see them, but had not before.  Why?  Didn't I only have to believe?  Why was I acting more like a disconnected branch, a sick tree bearing bad fruit?

Look at Abraham believed God, that real life would be given.  But the actual quickening of the dead happened years later.  Now Abraham did not know how it would happen or when.  And when life did not appear yet, it was not the fault of Abraham, that he was doing something wrong.  Though he did try to readjust the understanding of the promise at one point and thought that since he had not seen the fulfillment of the promise yet that maybe he misunderstood, that it wasn't as wonderful as he thought it was going to be and that he needed to adjust his approach.  And the thing is, Hagar conceived.  It seemed to work.  It wasn't until later that the fruit was manifested to be a work of the flesh.

The sad thing is, in today's microwave, instant society, Abraham probably wouldn't have given up after the Hagar debacle.  He would have assumed that his approach just needed to be adjusted and he would have tried one misguided attempt after another and Isaac never would have born!

But he hung on and believed God would perform as he promised, exactly as he promised.  His faith became so strong that he actually was willing to sacrifice Isaac, after all that waiting.  But God is the one who raises the dead, and it may not happen in my timing, but it will be as wonderful, if not more wonderful, than everything I thought it would be, that it should be, if we believe what is described in the Gospels and Paul's letters and especially in 1 John.  Beyond belief!  But I'm going to believe exactly that.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand places

Here are some quotes from one of my favorite authors from a book I'm reading by him right now, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.  The idea of the title is that of all the "games" that Man likes to participate in, the reality is, there is only one game going in God's eyes, the game of salvation, and Christ plays every position in a thousand ways.

Here are some quotes that most recently started my wheels turning:

"Salvation is God's work: Jesus saves.  In competence may be the essential qualification, lest we impatiently and presumptuously take over the business and start managing a vast and intricate economy that we have no way of comprehending.  To be sure, we get intimations; we are in touch with stories that reveal God's salvation work at certain moments in history to which we have access.  We know enough to get in on the life of salvation personally by repenting and believing and following Jesus, the architect and pioneer of salvation.  But when all is said and done, we don't know very much.  Most of what goes on in salvation is beyond us; we live a mystery.  We make our way through life in a "cloud of unknowing".  p. 152

"The Wonder at the Sea (the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites) is meant to be unederstood as miracle without qualification.  It was not even qualified by Israel's faith.  Brevard Childs makes the trenchant observation that 'Israel failed to believe right up to the moment of her deliverance.'  At the very outset we are meant to understand taht salvation is not limited by conditions, by impossibilities, by conventions.  The Wonder at the Sea establishes it as fundamental that salvation consists in what God does; it is not a human project.  We see and fear and believe (14:31) and that's it.  This is difficult to digest, for we grow up with and are surrounded with 'salvation projects' on all fronts (many of them in churches) that insist that what we do, how we get involved, is critical to their success.  When waws the last time that we heard one of our pastors or evangelists or politicians tell us, 'You have only to keep still'?  But that is what we are told here.  This is as indisputable and as clear as our story teller can make it: Our showcase salvation story anchors 'save' in the sheer, unqualified miracle of the Wonder at the Sea.  Only God did this and only God could do it.'  p.172

"[Resurrection] happens, we do not make it happen.  The more we get involved in what God is doing, the less we find ourselves running things; the more we participate in God's work s revealed in Jesus, the more is done to us and the more is done through us.  The more we practice resurrection the less we are on our own or by ourselves, for we find that this resurrection that is so intensely and relationally personal in Father, Son, and Spirit at the same time plunges us into relationships with brothers and sisters we never knew we had: we are in community whether we like it or not.  We do not choose to be in this community; by virtue of the resurrection of Jesus, this is the company we keep."  p.231

Absolute Surrender... for real this time!

Yes, yes... I know.  There will be re-surrender, again and again.  "I surrender all" has been the theme of prayers in the past, but there was a different flavor to this one, a brutal honesty that wasn't there before, mostly because so much yuck has come to the surface lately and I can no longer deny that I am unsound and covered in wounds from head to toe, as described in Isaiah.

Those who know me know that I rarely read one book at a time.  Right now I'm in the middle of several and lately I kept reading the same sort of message, no matter who I was reading: Larry Crabb to Johnathan Edwards to Nancy Lee DeMoss to Thomas Merton (and I could go on)-- they were all saying the same thing.  I'll quote the one I was reading when everything seemed to come to ahead:

"The person who has never acknowledged Christ's right to rule over his life has no basis for assurance of salvation.  he may claim to be a Christian; he may have walked an aisle or prayed the sinner's prayer, he way know how to speak "Christianese"; he may be heavily involved in Christian activities; but if he thinks he can have a relationship with God by retaining control over his life and somehow trying to fit Jesus in with everything else, he is deceived and is still at war with God."

-Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Surrender, from the trilogy Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness

This is what I was reading God seized my heart and put my face between his hands and turned it up towards his countenance.  I have been frustrated lately in my efforts to change some things in my life--some of them on the level of "bad habits" and some easily fell in the category of outright breaking of God's commandments.  But I know that truly they are all issues of the heart, because we do what we want to do.  That's what we eventually do, anyway.  And no lasting change would come in my behavior or my feelings until my heart changed.  I knew in my heart that I loved the world.  I know that I love the opinions of men and become a slave to such fear daily. (Most specifically, lately, the opinion of my husband.  And though I'm supposed to revere and obey him and should want to please him, there is no fear in love, so if I'm walking in fear, something is seriously wrong)  And my heart did not hate sin.  I was not facing, honestly, the wall I was building brick by brick between my and my family and me and my God.  (And all the people who were already out of sight because the walls were complete.)

But what hit me at this moment, is that I had not called Jesus "Lord".  I called him "Lord" in the morning, before the kids get up and the demands of the day come, but I have held onto the right to rule my own life and was making decisions all day long that I knew He would not approve of, and that Nick would not approve of, and when it comes right down to it, I did not approve of.  In fact, there was a little girl, a long time ago, who looked just like me, but shorter and with less gray hair, that would be shocked at the things I do, the sneaking, the lying, the distrust of almost everyone.  So no, he was not Lord, absolute authority, in my life.  I could not be described as a slave to him in any sense of the word, but rather a slave to my fear, my passions, to anger, to unbelief.

No, if I looked at what my life had seemed to become, my lips worshiped, but my heart was far from him.  Now what's confusing is, I could still come to experience his presence in my life.  I've heard his voice.  But is this the evidence that is the proof that I'm looking for?  To be free to obey God is what Romans says is the fruit of new life, of a new heart, of being buried with Christ (rejecting the world) and being raised with him to new life (a life which values Kingdom things, not things that feed the flesh).

So I was left with this dilemma: I needed to let Jesus rule my life, but I knew it seemed impossible because my heart was still bent towards the unholy trinity of "I want, I feel, I need".  It would just be another empty promise made in the morning, broken later in the day.  (Though this was actually close to midnight when this all happened, so even worse, I had a whole night to sleep off the effects of my resolve.  But I know it would take more than resolve.  So something else needed to happen, something I'd be completely out of control of whether it happened or not.  Something I could not do for myself.

Now I have told God that I surrendered everything before.  And I have asked for a new heart before.  But there a few things different this time.  I think this is the first time it clicked together at the same time, the conviction that I needed to surrender combined with the realization of my need for a new heart with new desires.  This is the first time I've come before him with such absolute honesty of how much I had hated him and spurned him every time I chose to be deaf to his voice and... oh, I don't know.  It's so hard to describe other than being in the light.  He gave me the grace, at that moment, to come so completely into the light, where everything became so clear.  And as I brought one thing after another before him in confession, his holiness surrounded me and healing was in the air.

The biggest difference this has made in my life is not that it's enabling me to "get my act together".  That would be old way, linear thinking--striving to live up to a code, the law, a standard.  The biggest difference is that it's brought peace.  I have been at war with God and not been admitting to it.  My heart was constantly straining in the other direction, so obedience took so much work.  Just existing, took so much work, because my head was full of so much knowledge of how things ought to be.  So guilt just weighed me down, the guilt of knowing that I didn't want what I ought to want.  Now I have lifted that work up to the Lord and my hope is completely in him to make it happen.

By the way, here are a list of some of the things that I laid down including many that I didn't expect to be on the list:

- the right to spend money how I want to (I am the one who takes care of the bills and who knows where all the balances are at on all the credit cards, and though I know it eventually comes out
- the right to my time, to have any leisure even
- the right to sleep
- the right to a good marriage
- the right to have good kids
- the right to stay home with my kids and home school them
- the right to fellowship with other believers (Really, this a a privilege, not a right.  And the kind of fellowship that first century believers enjoyed is such a rare commodity today, how could it possibly be considered a right?)
- the right to a devotional time in the morning, or any other part of the day.
- the right to read
- the right to feel good or be comfortable
- the right to be useful in God's kingdom.  I am only called to readiness.

I'll close with these words by Thomas Merton, which contain a surprising definition of lukewarm, but rings true...at least it did in my life:

"There is no neutrality between gratitude and ingratitude.  Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything.  Those who do not love, hate.  In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.  That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable.  It is hate disguised as love.
    Tepidity, in which the soul is neither "hot or cold"--neither frankly loves nor frankly hates--is a state in which one rejects God and rejects the will of God while maintaining an exterior pretense of loving Him in order to keep out of trouble and save one's supposed self-respect. "

Little Addendum to my last post

I don't know if I've ever posted twice in one day, but I wanted to get my thoughts on this out there because I don't want to lose this thread and let it vaporize in the attack from the Enemy of distractions and incredibly negative thoughts threatening to wash away all traces of the path that might lead me out of this pit.

I watched an episode of the Closer while on the treadmill. The storyline included a couple who had lost their daughter to a murdering rapist and watched him get convicted but receive a mere 8 years in prison. After he got out, the girl's mother found out where he got hired for work and pass out fliers to everyone at his job, telling what he had done, so he kept losing jobs. When police questioned the couple because they were suspects in the murder of their daughter's killer, the father asked, "Was he brutally tortured before he suffered a long painful death? No? Then it wasn't me." It was really clear that these fictional but realistic characters had clearly not only lost their daughter, but themselves.

As I pondered this story later, I considered how the offense doesn't really matter; the nature of the loss doesn't really matter. When it's all said and done, unforgiveness is amazingly consistent in its effect. I could search my whole life and never find someone who understands exactly what I'm going through, because as the Proverb says, "Each heart knows it's own bitterness." And somehow, it's tempting to believe the uniqueness of my situation justifies staying in that bitter place. But I'm starting to realize that my path is simply a different path that leads to an amazingly similar end.

The Lord illumined something else as I meditated on the effects of unforgiveness: the nature of my burden. I think I carry more upon myself because I have started to lay so much on others. If I cut others little slack, I end up cutting myself even less. I wondered, as this bitterness has grown in my heart, how much my burden of guilt has increased as well, so gradually that I forgot that my heart didn't used to be this heavy. As I allow myself to judge others in the ways they have not met my expectations, I become VERY aware that others have expectations of me as well. And sometimes these are actual expectations, and sometimes they are imagined, and they all increase the pressure, the burden, the weight.

It's like how it is to run on that treadmill. I used to run that same three miles in high school, but it's not the same three miles, if you know what I mean. I weighed 120 when I ran it back then and now I weigh.... well... more. I'm not going to put that in black and white. :) And it's been about 25 years since I ran and it's not like I added all that weight at once. So I don't remember being different, but I know it was. And if I could lose it all at once, I'm sure I'd feel like I was on wings once I started running.

Jesus offers a quick-loss program. I could lose this weight of unforgiveness, but sometimes it seems more elusive than that 120 mark on the scale.

A new Year, A new Heart... this is what I need.

Last night, I had a little meltdown that showed me just how angry I am about some things. I'm not a big fan of laying out my dirtiest laundry in cyberspace, but I'm thinking that maybe there are some that might relate and could be encouraged. Who knows?

As I was beginning to say, I'm very angry inside. What came out as I poured my heart out to God (I'm so grateful when my meltdowns happen with Him and not in other harmful forms with my family.) was a glimpse of the ugliness of rage that I was simply calling "resentment". Like God spoke through Isaiah, I had serious, gaping, festering wounds in my hearts that I was not treating seriously or tending to and they were poisoning my life. If you're married, you know how it can be when you have a fight with your spouse and you separate angrily and can't function to do anything else, can't concentrate on any task, until you resolve your conflict. Well, This is where I am, more or less. But it's over conflict with people I rarely see and whose relationships have become superficial and the conflict will probably never be resolved other than for me to lay my hurt down at the Cross and walk away and never look back.

So what has been happening is that I've been walking in serious poverty where I should have riches. I've entrusted my heart to sinful men, they've smashed it to pieces and I'm sitting here waiting on them to put it together again. And of course, they never will. They wouldn't know where to begin. I'm grateful to my husband who has counseled me over and over to resist the urge to let those who have hurt me know how deeply I'm hurt, to make an effort to get them to see what they've done. It's a tempting but foolish path for so many reasons. As I imagine what would happen if I did, not a single outcome is anything that would ultimately make me happy.

But the desire to "resolve" all this is holding me back from everything that could be called moving forward, or even simply abiding in anything that could be called contentment. And the tremendous shipwreck that I've had has caused me to not even want to set sail again. And I stay on the shores of a dry and weary land, still looking for water. I read "His lovingkindness is better than life" and it's never fallen so flat. But I think it's the first time I've had to depend on him and only him. I think I read that before and rejoiced, but was still receiving water from the broken cisterns that surrounded me. (In Jeremiah, the Lord accuses his people of forsaking the spring of living water and going to broken cisterns when they thirst.) Now I have no one but him and am facing a crisis of belief. Is He really enough?

Will I gladly not look back and gladly look forward to a life where He is my only portion? I have my face turned up toward him waiting for the grace to believe and am hopeful. "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!"

Words we have lost but still use

Everyone who lives in America, who hasn't been living in a cave or something, has witnessed a flood of words entering our language to accommodate the flood of new technology, among other new things--new types of education, new ways of defining relationships and family and even new ways of committing crimes, and this only names a few of the avenues for new words. But does our language really have the capacity to expand infinitely? Or are new words coming in bound to force old ones out? Words only stick around if they are actually used and can we really use more words per day, per year? Or will the aspects of life that brought the new words in leave no room for the other parts of our life--or that used to be part of our lives--that caused the use of the old words.

I know, this is a deep thought. And may not seem significant in any way. Who really cares of we lose a few words, if we gain so many? Well, as a linguist, I care for one.

Perhaps, though, the greatest loss, is not when we lose words as much as keeping words that lose their meaning. I've been reading a book series to my kids (The Five Little Peppers) that was written over a hundred years ago and the language is so different, and certain words have completely different meanings and connotations than they do now: words like "cunning" and "elegant" and "prime"... and the one that disturbed my kids the most was when I first used in the 19th century sense--"toilet" :)

There was a learning curve, but after a few chapters, they caught on.

Eugene H. Peterson--the author of The Message--in most of his other writings spends a lot of time explaining precise definitions of words as they were originally intended in the Hebrew or Greek. I used to assume that every language was equally capable of translating the meaning of any phrase from any other language. But language reflects the culture. And the further our culture moves away from resembling what it did when the bible was written, that harder it becomes to translate, I imagine.

Some words have not changed meaning as much as become the equivalent of nutritional fillers and as potent as placebos--they, as far as I can tell, have little meaning whatsoever. We carelessly toss words around in such a way to certainly confuse the listener (as it can easily mean one thing as intended by the speaker and received as something completely different by the listener). Perhaps our lips have just become to far removed from our hearts.

The classic example, which I've heard mentioned in many a sermon, is the word "awesome", which we use to describe mountains towering above but may be just as likely be used to describe the news that a favorite team has won one of the hundreds of games they will play this year, or even more trivial, we have found the cap to our favorite pen!

The word that I'm tempted to stop using altogether is "love". The bible says "God is love." That sets the standard for the definition, or it ought to. There ought to be a certain reverence for a word that, in one word, encompasses the whole of God's character (and the summing up of God's law as well).

But I am as guilty as anyone of throwing that word around with little reverence. I "love" my children, my dog, my husband, chocolate, a joke, sleep and my favorite TV show--oh, and God. Jesus defines love as laying down your life (not being willing mind you, but actually laying it down) for the one you love. Does this definition apply to all these things on my list? I certainly hope not, though it probably applies more to things that it ought not to than the things that it ought. And what I probably "love" most, by this definition, would be my pride, my reputation, my comfort and my selfish lusts.

So what would I say about the things I say I "love" if I was forced to remove "love" from my vocabulary?

For my favorite TV show?

"I am diverted by this show and it numbs me from the pain that my heart constantly smarts from due to the blows life has dealt."

For chocolate?

"I feel good so little of the time and when I put this in my mouth, I feel good and feel pleasure, thought it's only a shadow of what I wish I could have in my life."

For my child?

"I see you, my child, and I feel a swelling of pride that my old, tired body could have produced anything so seemingly unspoiled and beautiful. I look at you and I can have hope that my life hasn't been wasted."

For my dog?

"O my doggie, I am so grateful to have anything look at me that way, like I could do no wrong and you would follow me to the ends of the earth and never complain about what I give you for dinner. You are so much easier than people."

For my God?

This is one that's going to take some thought, so I'll leave that for later. :)

I mostly just want to be left alone... but then I get lonely.

Every once in awhile, I get a fresh glimpse of just how vast is the chasm between myself and the Lord. Here is a description of my latest glimpse. Notice a common thread in all these sayings of the Lord--a spirit of welcoming with arms open wide: "Come unto me...and I will give your rest," "Come and follow me," "I long to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks," "Come all who are thirsty." This just scratches the surface. Pay attention, as you read his Word how the Lord constantly beckons: Adam out of hiding, Moses up the mountain, to his people to turn towards him and away from their sin... and even without the words, his posture is the one of the Father of the prodigal, arms open wide.

Then I considered myself and what my kids hear from me most of the time. "Not right now," "Go and get your work done," "Go back to your room and let me rest," "Go outside and play". Sadly, my kids are probably more likely, if they hear me actually calling them to come to me, to believe that I have a chore in mind for them and they don't come very quickly. Rarely do I call them to come with me to the store if Nick is home to be able to watch them, but may find myself trying to sneak out before they notice I've gone, because for every child I end up taking to the store, you can probably add 20 minutes to the trip and when I have all four, I'll probably forget several things on the list.

So of course, this is not characteristic of all my interactions with my children, and there are certainly good reasons for me to need time to rest or go the store alone. But I guess I'm not feeling guilt for my words to them as much as the attitude of my heart. I always have my guard up to protect myself from my kids and protect my own interests in general. The demands certainly are great and my supply is limited (except when God's grace intervenes) and I hoard my time and energies like the servant burying his talent. (And I won't even go into my poor husband and the leftovers he deals with if there are leftovers I'm willing to spare at all. And of course, he'll agree, it goes both ways. We're both guilty of assuming we couldn't possible ask for one more thing from our spouse that the world around us hasn't already sapped from us and have come to this sad truce best described in "I won't bother you if you don't bother me.")

This is where I am completely in awe of Jesus. He and his disciples have ministered non-stop and haven't even had a chance to eat (Mark 6) and Jesus leads them to slip away with him in the boat to a place without public demands for rest. The people on the shore are not caring whether Jesus and his disciples should rest and race on foot along the shore and are waiting for them when they land. Instead of having the breakdown I probably would have had (though a mother's heart does tend to rise to the occasion, but in the instance... I just don't know if I could have done what Jesus did), Jesus had compassion on them and decided they were needier than himself and continued to minister to them.

So I ponder how soon after we are moved by every instinct to bond with our parents and make social connection with others that we start to desire separation from others, starting to hate them in our hearts as we compete for possessions, turf, the affection of our parents, the last piece of cake. We see our siblings as in the way, making a mess, a source of annoyance or hurt, and we daydream of life as an only child

My girls (3 of them) all share a room. When they get to bickering or keep each other from going to sleep when they ought to, night after night, it's tempting to start seeking the solution of separate rooms (which would mean moving or renovating). But do we want to teach them this sort of solution to interpersonal problems? Do good walls really make for the best neighbors? Granted, certain respect for personal bounderies must be taught, but do the walls need to be physical?

Life without others is more simple, uncluttered, streamlined, productive... and lonely. The bottom line is, God says, "It is not good for man to be alone." I used to try to get around this by reasoning this just applied to the male of the species, that men cannot function will on their own, but women aren't near as helpless. Apparently, I've been brainwashed by the modern media.... Shame on me.

So this whole meditation caused me to reflect back on the book by C.S. Lewis called The Great Divorce in which Lewis gives a picture that we all are making progress towards heaven or hell throughout life and prepare ourselves in a gradual way for one or the other. And that hell is simply the end of the path which, as we travel down it, we become more and more isolated from others and we are fit for nothing but the ultimate isolation in the trash heap outside the city. (I'm mixing my own thoughts here with my memory of the book, I'm sure.)

And on our way towards heaven, we travel the path where are hearts become softer, more able to receive others into our thoughts, enter into their joys and sufferings, and we make ourselves fit for community, until we finally land, in the end, in the ultimate eternal fellowship with the Church and the Trinity.