My tortured heart can feel no more
behind thick walls of glass.
It seems one wound too many tore
and ripped this tattered mass,
Until with fear its cringing core
crept down into the floor
To find some safety evermore
which bah! would not endure.
So now alone, afraid, unsure
my heart sits in its cell.
Waiting for a coming cure
to sound the freedom bell.
But I am blind and deaf for sure
and goodness I can't tell,
So when it comes I might ignore
and stay locked in this hell.
It seems I don't know what is good
or what will set me free
And soon I forget where I stood
and how things used to be.
My yearning is not satisfied,
and croaking in the mire
There lurks a beast of lust and pride
and lovely death desire.
Alas, the time has come once more
now do i stay or go?
This place of evil things of lore
has become all I know.
This game will be the end of us,
for as long as we play
We sell our souls back into dust
and act content that way.
The world is full of emptiness,
these streets are full of cries
And houses full of loneliness
illuminate our lies.
What is the price of happiness?
What would you pay for smiles?
What would you give for peace and faith
and joy through all your trials?
Myself, I give it all away
to see what I can find
Because this worldly, nauseous sway
destroys my weary mind.
Instead I live for love and see
there is a better way to be,
that all that joy from pleasing me
was lonely, cold, and hardly free
Compared to keeping those in mind
who have no pleasure left to find
And who feel darkness wrap and bind
their souls up just like mine.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Love (I wasn't)
The truth is I wasn't, but I thought I was.
They knew I wasn't, yet loved me because
they knew that love isn't tied up in knots,
that love doesn't end at the sound of 'cannot.'
They knew that love isn't rusty old chains
or striving for stringent, cold standards of shame,
but rather it's something that comes from above
in glorious splendor and rests like a dove
on the shoulders of those who embrace it.
How then do we live in a world so confused,
that sees 'love' as something to keep us amused
instead of as freedom from all our mistakes?
Oh how my soul from this poor life aches!
Awaken my heart, oh Father above,
and share with me all the great secrets of love
and give me this life that I've been dreaming of
as I wallow and wail in the pit.
Show me how to express what I feel
and give me the courage to fall down and kneel
when it seems what little things I can give
fall so very short of the life I should live.
I know I must follow before I can lead,
and all of this pain will make me succeed.
I have to be taught before I can teach,
but wisdom and love are not out of reach.
By His gift of grace we all can be free
and soon, as knees bow, each of us will see
that shallow, vain 'love' was not meant to be,
that this love of His inexorably
fulfills the great holes that as people we
have tried to complete for so long.
They knew I wasn't, yet loved me because
they knew that love isn't tied up in knots,
that love doesn't end at the sound of 'cannot.'
They knew that love isn't rusty old chains
or striving for stringent, cold standards of shame,
but rather it's something that comes from above
in glorious splendor and rests like a dove
on the shoulders of those who embrace it.
How then do we live in a world so confused,
that sees 'love' as something to keep us amused
instead of as freedom from all our mistakes?
Oh how my soul from this poor life aches!
Awaken my heart, oh Father above,
and share with me all the great secrets of love
and give me this life that I've been dreaming of
as I wallow and wail in the pit.
Show me how to express what I feel
and give me the courage to fall down and kneel
when it seems what little things I can give
fall so very short of the life I should live.
I know I must follow before I can lead,
and all of this pain will make me succeed.
I have to be taught before I can teach,
but wisdom and love are not out of reach.
By His gift of grace we all can be free
and soon, as knees bow, each of us will see
that shallow, vain 'love' was not meant to be,
that this love of His inexorably
fulfills the great holes that as people we
have tried to complete for so long.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Grace
We are told from day one that our value comes from things we do and that, without them, we have none. We think we have to be funny, smart, polite, on time, patient, beautiful, or any number of trivial things in order to be a worthwhile human being. This is painfully obvious when you look at how stressed and worried we become about homework or deadlines or our appearance or anything, really. Everyone’s list of things they “need to do” is different, but the outcome is the same: it crushes us. The weight of these expectations is overwhelming and leaves so little room for joy or peace or contentment.
When a sense of obligation overpowers the desire for something beautiful, something we actually want to do, it is a sad day indeed. The New Testament calls this living under "the law," referring to the old covenant laws given to Moses. Jews at that time received their sense of value from rigidly keeping these commands and, although the rules have changed significantly, the game is still unanimously popular, and the desire to prove our merit is as strong as ever.
But we can never quite live up to these expectations: we end up constantly “keeping up with the Jones’s.” We’re never quite smart enough or funny enough, we can never get with enough girls, we never have enough money, and we can never perform well enough to find real, lasting fulfillment. Even though struggling to find redemption in our deeds leaves us weary, exhausted, empty, and vacant, “[we do] not know the righteousness that comes from God and [seek] to establish [our] own” (Romans 10:3). But Romans 3:20 says that "no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." It seems counterintuitive, but this “law” exists to open our eyes to how desperately incapable of following it we really are. The different feelings of obligation that we all seem to have reflect our perceptions of what perfection looks like, of what we would have to do to be God, and for whatever reason we are very inclined to try. But “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Faced with this impossible standard of perfection we have a choice: we either accept and embrace our inability to live up to it or suffer under the delusion that we have NOT sinned by justifying and excusing every one of our failings until they are all shoved under the rug. But the rug gets cluttered very quickly, and it’s not long before we start to trip over it. We try so incredibly hard to convince ourselves that we are God and are somehow so blind to just how helpless we really are. We fail, and we fail hard. Do you know that you have sinned? We all have, but because the world teaches that our value is tethered to our actions we feel compelled to cover up the nastiest of evils because at the core of human nature is a need to be valued. As a result, all of our immorality is ignored and allowed to fester in our souls, and the weight of shame becomes almost too much to bear.
Every day, by the way we live our lives, we perpetuate the lie that the criminal in jail is worth less than the businessman on Wall Street, that the student with B’s is worth less than the student with A’s, and that the beggar on the street is worth less than us. But God couldn’t disagree more. Somehow, through truly amazing grace, He sees more value in each one of us than we will ever fully comprehend. He smiles at every silly thing we do, he claps when we succeed, and he cries when we venture down the wrong path. Anyone who has ever felt warm-hearted affection towards an animal or small child has a taste of the love that God pours out on us every second of every day. He wants us to know him, to seek him, and to find him because He knows that He is what our hearts have been searching for all along. God didn’t abandon us in our hopeless situation, but instead he “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” We “are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” God is not an enemy, but actually wants to be your best friend, and He and His son are just dying (quite literally) for a chance to meet you.
"My love is over, it's underneath, it's inside, it's in between
The times you doubt Me, when you can't feel.
The times that you question, 'Is this for real? '
The times you're broken.
The times that you mend.
The times you hate Me.
And the times that you bend…
These times you're healing,
And when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you've fallen from grace.
The times you're hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry and are tempted to steal.
In times of confusion and chaos and pain.
I'm there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame.
I'm there through your heartache.
I'm there in the storm.
My love, I will keep you by My power alone.
I don't care where you’ve fallen,
Or where you have been.
I'll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends.”
- “Times” by Tenth Avenue North
When a sense of obligation overpowers the desire for something beautiful, something we actually want to do, it is a sad day indeed. The New Testament calls this living under "the law," referring to the old covenant laws given to Moses. Jews at that time received their sense of value from rigidly keeping these commands and, although the rules have changed significantly, the game is still unanimously popular, and the desire to prove our merit is as strong as ever.
But we can never quite live up to these expectations: we end up constantly “keeping up with the Jones’s.” We’re never quite smart enough or funny enough, we can never get with enough girls, we never have enough money, and we can never perform well enough to find real, lasting fulfillment. Even though struggling to find redemption in our deeds leaves us weary, exhausted, empty, and vacant, “[we do] not know the righteousness that comes from God and [seek] to establish [our] own” (Romans 10:3). But Romans 3:20 says that "no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." It seems counterintuitive, but this “law” exists to open our eyes to how desperately incapable of following it we really are. The different feelings of obligation that we all seem to have reflect our perceptions of what perfection looks like, of what we would have to do to be God, and for whatever reason we are very inclined to try. But “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Faced with this impossible standard of perfection we have a choice: we either accept and embrace our inability to live up to it or suffer under the delusion that we have NOT sinned by justifying and excusing every one of our failings until they are all shoved under the rug. But the rug gets cluttered very quickly, and it’s not long before we start to trip over it. We try so incredibly hard to convince ourselves that we are God and are somehow so blind to just how helpless we really are. We fail, and we fail hard. Do you know that you have sinned? We all have, but because the world teaches that our value is tethered to our actions we feel compelled to cover up the nastiest of evils because at the core of human nature is a need to be valued. As a result, all of our immorality is ignored and allowed to fester in our souls, and the weight of shame becomes almost too much to bear.
Every day, by the way we live our lives, we perpetuate the lie that the criminal in jail is worth less than the businessman on Wall Street, that the student with B’s is worth less than the student with A’s, and that the beggar on the street is worth less than us. But God couldn’t disagree more. Somehow, through truly amazing grace, He sees more value in each one of us than we will ever fully comprehend. He smiles at every silly thing we do, he claps when we succeed, and he cries when we venture down the wrong path. Anyone who has ever felt warm-hearted affection towards an animal or small child has a taste of the love that God pours out on us every second of every day. He wants us to know him, to seek him, and to find him because He knows that He is what our hearts have been searching for all along. God didn’t abandon us in our hopeless situation, but instead he “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” We “are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” God is not an enemy, but actually wants to be your best friend, and He and His son are just dying (quite literally) for a chance to meet you.
"My love is over, it's underneath, it's inside, it's in between
The times you doubt Me, when you can't feel.
The times that you question, 'Is this for real? '
The times you're broken.
The times that you mend.
The times you hate Me.
And the times that you bend…
These times you're healing,
And when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you've fallen from grace.
The times you're hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry and are tempted to steal.
In times of confusion and chaos and pain.
I'm there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame.
I'm there through your heartache.
I'm there in the storm.
My love, I will keep you by My power alone.
I don't care where you’ve fallen,
Or where you have been.
I'll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends.”
- “Times” by Tenth Avenue North
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Love v2
This is largely the same writing on love as before, but beefed up quite a bit to be used for a magazine at school. Enjoy :)
What exactly is love? Alexander Haddaway wants to know. Cole Porter wants to know. Christofer Ingle of NeverShoutNever wants to know. I’m guessing most of you want to know, or you wouldn’t be reading this. According to the apostle Paul, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
These days we throw the word “love” around like nobody’s business. We love pizza, we love movies, and we love candy, but we don’t love each other. In personal relationships, the only place it really matters, our “love” is tainted. We use affection like currency in order to get what we want (most often the approval of others). This is unbelievably selfish. Relationships feel less like love as described above and more like speculation on the stock market. How messed up is it that we feel as insecure and uncertain about showing affection as a greedy businessman feels about spending his money? The question that plagues our subconscious is “what will be the return on my investment?” Just like a shareholder on Wall Street, we lend our love to borrowers, but only if we expect it to be repaid in full. We only show love if we feel like we are receiving love, and if one of our “investments” misses a payment, we lash out at them. As soon as one member of a relationship slips up (an averted gaze, an unkind word, a moment of pride), a deadly cycle begins. The other person’s faith is shattered; they feel they have done something wrong and the resulting insecurity stops them from showing affection. But don’t we all make mistakes? Is there anything more human than having flaws? Yet even knowing this, as any good stockbroker would advise, when we feel that what we have to gain in a relationship is threatened, we completely pull out our own investment of “love.” But by doing this we make the other person feel the same rejection, perpetuating the insecurity and effectively breaking the relationship. Plus, wouldn’t it follow that those who are unable to give out love are the ones who need it the most? The unloving are unloved and seek nothing but love, yet they are discarded and left in the cold darkness of loneliness because they are unable to love us and therefore cannot improve our stock portfolios of relational conquest. This whole attitude is nothing but “self-seeking” and “proud,” this is keeping a record of wrongs, and this is not even close to love. And yet we bask in the glory of playing this game! We throw aside our dignity and allow our self-worth to be determined by the amount of affection we can earn. We’re all hopeless beggars, desperate for the next meal of affection, and we gobble up scraps of conditional pseudo-love from lenders with their own selfish ambitions, ignoring the cost all the while. We let ourselves become slaves to their affection until we feel like we can’t survive without it. We become puppets, obliged to bend ourselves in any direction that our masters pull the strings in order to scrape together another meal to feed the hungry beast in our soul. We’re constantly measuring ourselves, deciding whether each of our actions makes us better or worse, more or less likely to be affirmed, and as a result we move ourselves up or down an invisible hierarchy in our minds.
This hierarchy is fruitless. In his book Searching for God Knows What, Donald Milller explains what he calls “lifeboat theory.” It poses the dilemma of several survivors of a shipwreck who are stuck in a lifeboat that is about to sink. If throwing one person overboard would save the rest, how do you decide who will drown? It’s easy enough to imagine how quickly heated comparisons and a self-promotion fiasco would arise: “I’m an athlete so I should live!” “But I’m the smartest one here!” “And besides, that guy only has one leg…” The sad truth is that we all live this out every day with our imaginations. We weigh ourselves against everyone, making sure to secure our spot at the top of the make-believe scale of importance so that we won’t be thrown overboard. We judge ourselves in this way constantly because society says that if you are not significant or good enough, we will drown: we will not go to college, we will not have friends, we will not get married, and we will not be happy. But, quite frankly, the water is fine. We just need to learn how to swim.
Real love is unconditional. It doesn’t go away when we screw up and it doesn’t increase when we do well. We didn’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, and yet nothing we do could ever take it away. Love tells us that who we are is not just okay, but in fact quite wonderful. In the song Love Is Not A Fight, Warren Barfield says that “love is a shelter in a raging storm. Love is peace in the middle of a war…Love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for.” Love in its purest form just is, forever and ever, and it frees us in the same way to just be ourselves, “warts and all.” Love is the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” - 1 John 4:8. God offers a feast to the worst of beggars. His table is full and the door is always open; He loves us more than we could ever know simply because we are His, not because of anything we have done to try to earn it but quite unbelievably in spite of all the evils we have committed, even while we ignore Him and curse Him and hate Him and refuse to see ourselves for what we really are.
In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman who is getting water at a well. She tells him that she has no husband, and he replies, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true,’” (John 4: 16-18). This woman was doing exactly what all of us fall into every day: stuffing the void in her heart with whatever she can get, which happens to be the false love and affection of selfish men. Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14).
To know that we are loved so completely is to break the dependency on these affectionate lies, and this itself is true liberty. It is the freedom to ignore what we think we should be and see only what we are. It is forgetting whether or not we should say what’s on our minds and just saying it. It is forgetting where our hands should be and just placing them comfortably. It is forgetting what we look like, what we sound like, what we smell like, and how anything we do might hurt our self-esteem. It is the ability to laugh at our mistakes and enjoy being alive, and it is allowing all those around us to do the same. And, what’s more, while it is impossible to truly love others until we are secure in the fact that we are loved, if we eat from God’s table, chances are He’ll let us borrow some magnificent recipes.
What exactly is love? Alexander Haddaway wants to know. Cole Porter wants to know. Christofer Ingle of NeverShoutNever wants to know. I’m guessing most of you want to know, or you wouldn’t be reading this. According to the apostle Paul, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
These days we throw the word “love” around like nobody’s business. We love pizza, we love movies, and we love candy, but we don’t love each other. In personal relationships, the only place it really matters, our “love” is tainted. We use affection like currency in order to get what we want (most often the approval of others). This is unbelievably selfish. Relationships feel less like love as described above and more like speculation on the stock market. How messed up is it that we feel as insecure and uncertain about showing affection as a greedy businessman feels about spending his money? The question that plagues our subconscious is “what will be the return on my investment?” Just like a shareholder on Wall Street, we lend our love to borrowers, but only if we expect it to be repaid in full. We only show love if we feel like we are receiving love, and if one of our “investments” misses a payment, we lash out at them. As soon as one member of a relationship slips up (an averted gaze, an unkind word, a moment of pride), a deadly cycle begins. The other person’s faith is shattered; they feel they have done something wrong and the resulting insecurity stops them from showing affection. But don’t we all make mistakes? Is there anything more human than having flaws? Yet even knowing this, as any good stockbroker would advise, when we feel that what we have to gain in a relationship is threatened, we completely pull out our own investment of “love.” But by doing this we make the other person feel the same rejection, perpetuating the insecurity and effectively breaking the relationship. Plus, wouldn’t it follow that those who are unable to give out love are the ones who need it the most? The unloving are unloved and seek nothing but love, yet they are discarded and left in the cold darkness of loneliness because they are unable to love us and therefore cannot improve our stock portfolios of relational conquest. This whole attitude is nothing but “self-seeking” and “proud,” this is keeping a record of wrongs, and this is not even close to love. And yet we bask in the glory of playing this game! We throw aside our dignity and allow our self-worth to be determined by the amount of affection we can earn. We’re all hopeless beggars, desperate for the next meal of affection, and we gobble up scraps of conditional pseudo-love from lenders with their own selfish ambitions, ignoring the cost all the while. We let ourselves become slaves to their affection until we feel like we can’t survive without it. We become puppets, obliged to bend ourselves in any direction that our masters pull the strings in order to scrape together another meal to feed the hungry beast in our soul. We’re constantly measuring ourselves, deciding whether each of our actions makes us better or worse, more or less likely to be affirmed, and as a result we move ourselves up or down an invisible hierarchy in our minds.
This hierarchy is fruitless. In his book Searching for God Knows What, Donald Milller explains what he calls “lifeboat theory.” It poses the dilemma of several survivors of a shipwreck who are stuck in a lifeboat that is about to sink. If throwing one person overboard would save the rest, how do you decide who will drown? It’s easy enough to imagine how quickly heated comparisons and a self-promotion fiasco would arise: “I’m an athlete so I should live!” “But I’m the smartest one here!” “And besides, that guy only has one leg…” The sad truth is that we all live this out every day with our imaginations. We weigh ourselves against everyone, making sure to secure our spot at the top of the make-believe scale of importance so that we won’t be thrown overboard. We judge ourselves in this way constantly because society says that if you are not significant or good enough, we will drown: we will not go to college, we will not have friends, we will not get married, and we will not be happy. But, quite frankly, the water is fine. We just need to learn how to swim.
Real love is unconditional. It doesn’t go away when we screw up and it doesn’t increase when we do well. We didn’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, and yet nothing we do could ever take it away. Love tells us that who we are is not just okay, but in fact quite wonderful. In the song Love Is Not A Fight, Warren Barfield says that “love is a shelter in a raging storm. Love is peace in the middle of a war…Love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for.” Love in its purest form just is, forever and ever, and it frees us in the same way to just be ourselves, “warts and all.” Love is the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” - 1 John 4:8. God offers a feast to the worst of beggars. His table is full and the door is always open; He loves us more than we could ever know simply because we are His, not because of anything we have done to try to earn it but quite unbelievably in spite of all the evils we have committed, even while we ignore Him and curse Him and hate Him and refuse to see ourselves for what we really are.
In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman who is getting water at a well. She tells him that she has no husband, and he replies, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true,’” (John 4: 16-18). This woman was doing exactly what all of us fall into every day: stuffing the void in her heart with whatever she can get, which happens to be the false love and affection of selfish men. Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14).
To know that we are loved so completely is to break the dependency on these affectionate lies, and this itself is true liberty. It is the freedom to ignore what we think we should be and see only what we are. It is forgetting whether or not we should say what’s on our minds and just saying it. It is forgetting where our hands should be and just placing them comfortably. It is forgetting what we look like, what we sound like, what we smell like, and how anything we do might hurt our self-esteem. It is the ability to laugh at our mistakes and enjoy being alive, and it is allowing all those around us to do the same. And, what’s more, while it is impossible to truly love others until we are secure in the fact that we are loved, if we eat from God’s table, chances are He’ll let us borrow some magnificent recipes.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Fear
We really do have nothing to fear but fear itself. In fact we have nothing to fear INCLUDING fear itself. The wisest of the Jedi once said, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” How many times have we all felt rejected (“fear”), blamed the other person (“anger”), and created a fight (“hate”)? The situation is multiplied because this leads to real rejection and creates mutual distrust, perpetuating this cycle of fear (“suffering”). But “you’re the only one capable of making yourself feel guilty, sad, enthusiastic, or whatever.” Charles Swindoll says that “life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."
“Why do we take refuge in the darkness of fear rather than step into the light? One reason is because it’s easier…It’s easier to do nothing than to do something. It’s easier to criticize than it is to create. It’s easier to sit back and regret missed opportunities than it is to pounce on them. And finally, it’s easier to watch the world go by and waste your life than it is to think up and make things happen. It’s also no fun.”
So how do you beat it? The same Jedi said, “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” We can’t fix a problem that we pretend we don’t have. We are so unwilling to accept responsibility for our fears, as if circumstances have tyranny over our emotions, but then they just keep mounting and mounting until we’re ready to burst. Only by accepting that we really are afraid can we begin to conquer it. In other words, fear only wins if you ignore it. If you feel emotionally numb, you’re probably afraid. If you’re telling yourself all of the reasons that you’re okay, you’re probably afraid. If you don’t know what you’re afraid of, you’re probably very afraid indeed. Isn’t it ironic that probably our biggest fear is admitting we’re afraid? This is the hardest fear to overcome, but it’s also the most crucial to living life in freedom.
Sometimes we have this awful feeling like we’re on a tightrope and that all these little things we do might knock us off and send us to our doom. So we never even look down, and we spend our lives building little safety nets and living like this:
But most of the time, if we’d just open our eyes and see the ground mere inches away we could walk the rope with a smile and embrace the world of adventure that is waiting at the end. “When fear knocks on the door and courage answers it, there’s nobody there.”
Many times, however, situations are beyond our courage. This is where faith comes in. All of our safety nets would do nothing to catch us anyway, and we seem to know that (don’t they always feel so uncertain? Isn’t that why we always seek reinforcement?). But a big net is there even though we can’t always see it. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).
1 - Imagineering by Michael LeBoeuf
"All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required." – Dave Barry
“Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.” - Eddie Rickenbacher
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.” – Aristotle
“Clarity is obtained when you can separate your sleep dreams, your fears, your fantasies and your reality.” - P.J. Varsalona
"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is." – German Proverb
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Frank Herbert
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." - 1 John 4:18
“Why do we take refuge in the darkness of fear rather than step into the light? One reason is because it’s easier…It’s easier to do nothing than to do something. It’s easier to criticize than it is to create. It’s easier to sit back and regret missed opportunities than it is to pounce on them. And finally, it’s easier to watch the world go by and waste your life than it is to think up and make things happen. It’s also no fun.”
So how do you beat it? The same Jedi said, “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” We can’t fix a problem that we pretend we don’t have. We are so unwilling to accept responsibility for our fears, as if circumstances have tyranny over our emotions, but then they just keep mounting and mounting until we’re ready to burst. Only by accepting that we really are afraid can we begin to conquer it. In other words, fear only wins if you ignore it. If you feel emotionally numb, you’re probably afraid. If you’re telling yourself all of the reasons that you’re okay, you’re probably afraid. If you don’t know what you’re afraid of, you’re probably very afraid indeed. Isn’t it ironic that probably our biggest fear is admitting we’re afraid? This is the hardest fear to overcome, but it’s also the most crucial to living life in freedom.
Sometimes we have this awful feeling like we’re on a tightrope and that all these little things we do might knock us off and send us to our doom. So we never even look down, and we spend our lives building little safety nets and living like this:
But most of the time, if we’d just open our eyes and see the ground mere inches away we could walk the rope with a smile and embrace the world of adventure that is waiting at the end. “When fear knocks on the door and courage answers it, there’s nobody there.”
Many times, however, situations are beyond our courage. This is where faith comes in. All of our safety nets would do nothing to catch us anyway, and we seem to know that (don’t they always feel so uncertain? Isn’t that why we always seek reinforcement?). But a big net is there even though we can’t always see it. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).
1 - Imagineering by Michael LeBoeuf
"All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required." – Dave Barry
“Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.” - Eddie Rickenbacher
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.” – Aristotle
“Clarity is obtained when you can separate your sleep dreams, your fears, your fantasies and your reality.” - P.J. Varsalona
"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is." – German Proverb
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Frank Herbert
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." - 1 John 4:18
Monday, February 1, 2010
Self-Awareness
I always looked down on people who were “self-conscious” until I realized that I was one of them. Words like that get such a negative feel that we don’t even consider associating them with ourselves.
I prefer to say self-awareness, but it’s really the same thing. Self-awareness is (duh) being aware of yourself: aware of your own presence, of how you are affecting whatever situation you’re in, and of what effect this will have on others’ opinion of you. We’re constantly measuring ourselves: we decide whether each action makes us better or worse and as a result move ourselves up or down an invisible hierarchy in our minds. Why do we do this? If, for whatever reason, we can convince ourselves that something makes us better, we feel proud and safe (the standard we measure ourselves against is constantly changing and is almost always trivial; it could even be a standard of not being self-conscious). If we think it makes us worse, we feel insecure, and scramble to find anything about us that we can be proud of to block out the insecurity. Because of this, self-awareness is slavery.
In Matthew 16:25 Jesus says “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” We are convinced that we can somehow save ourselves, that our own achievements will someday propel us to the top of the hierarchy where we’ll find fulfillment. But this leaves us always waiting for the next party or big game or whatever we place our hope in. And maybe we’re happy while it’s happening, but in between there is emptiness and a deep longing for something greater. But we banish that from our memory and only remember our pride.
In his book Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis says, “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you… the real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”
Freedom, through God’s grace, is the ability to ignore what you think you should be and see only what you are. It is forgetting whether or not you should say what’s on your mind and simply saying it. It is forgetting where your hands should be and simply putting them where they feel comfortable. It is forgetting what you look like, what you sound like, what you smell like, and how others perceive you entirely. It is the ability to laugh at your mistakes and easily enjoy life. Freedom is being alive!
I prefer to say self-awareness, but it’s really the same thing. Self-awareness is (duh) being aware of yourself: aware of your own presence, of how you are affecting whatever situation you’re in, and of what effect this will have on others’ opinion of you. We’re constantly measuring ourselves: we decide whether each action makes us better or worse and as a result move ourselves up or down an invisible hierarchy in our minds. Why do we do this? If, for whatever reason, we can convince ourselves that something makes us better, we feel proud and safe (the standard we measure ourselves against is constantly changing and is almost always trivial; it could even be a standard of not being self-conscious). If we think it makes us worse, we feel insecure, and scramble to find anything about us that we can be proud of to block out the insecurity. Because of this, self-awareness is slavery.
In Matthew 16:25 Jesus says “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” We are convinced that we can somehow save ourselves, that our own achievements will someday propel us to the top of the hierarchy where we’ll find fulfillment. But this leaves us always waiting for the next party or big game or whatever we place our hope in. And maybe we’re happy while it’s happening, but in between there is emptiness and a deep longing for something greater. But we banish that from our memory and only remember our pride.
In his book Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis says, “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you… the real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”
Freedom, through God’s grace, is the ability to ignore what you think you should be and see only what you are. It is forgetting whether or not you should say what’s on your mind and simply saying it. It is forgetting where your hands should be and simply putting them where they feel comfortable. It is forgetting what you look like, what you sound like, what you smell like, and how others perceive you entirely. It is the ability to laugh at your mistakes and easily enjoy life. Freedom is being alive!
Contentment
There is no situation that can’t be made worse by worrying about it. It seems like most of the time our worries and doubts are so much more detrimental to our wellbeing than the realization of our worst fears ever could be. Isn’t sacrificing your peace of mind, your happiness, and your freedom at least as bad as failing a test or saying something stupid, or whatever else might befall us? And how often do our worst fears actually come true? And what does worrying really do to prevent them anyway? If you think about it, most of the time the worries that we let consume and paralyze us are only a big deal because, for whatever reason, we decide that they are, whether that’s because society tells us so or because we like self-pity (which is quite frankly a form of pride. When we say “this sucks,” don’t we really mean “I deserve better than this?”). The mind is incredibly powerful, and most of the time we abuse it to fill our pride by pitying ourselves, which saps away our contentment. The idea of controlling our mood is so frowned upon, though, because we like to deflect blame: “My parents make me so mad,” or “That test was so hard.”
But every time you point the finger, three more point back. Samuel Johnson said, “He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.” If we could just look past all our masks and defenses and see our brokenness, our ineptitude, and our failings, and be okay with who we are because we know our God loves us anyway, we would find the secret to contentment that Paul talks about: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:12-13).
The best part is that without worry, it becomes possible to become what you worried about being. Talking to that girl is no problem when your opinion of yourself isn’t hinging on her opinion of you. Giving that speech is easy and even fun when you don’t have to worry about what people will think of you. Writing potent little essays from the bottom of your heart and sharing them with the world becomes a possibility without the chains of having to perform to a certain standard to be content. 1 Timothy 6:6 says, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.”
Many of you are probably thinking “Yeah, right…there’s no way I can control my mood in this or that situation.” But in the midst of the horrible darkness of the Holocaust, Anne Frank found a light: “I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.” Paul told the Philippians, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7). Sometimes all we need is a little perspective. Every plant needs sunshine to live and thrive, but without a little rain it wouldn’t grow.
“So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” ~ The Eagles, "Already Gone"
“Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.” ~ Bill Meyer
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” ~ Hugh Downs
“The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind." ~ John Burroughs
But every time you point the finger, three more point back. Samuel Johnson said, “He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.” If we could just look past all our masks and defenses and see our brokenness, our ineptitude, and our failings, and be okay with who we are because we know our God loves us anyway, we would find the secret to contentment that Paul talks about: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:12-13).
The best part is that without worry, it becomes possible to become what you worried about being. Talking to that girl is no problem when your opinion of yourself isn’t hinging on her opinion of you. Giving that speech is easy and even fun when you don’t have to worry about what people will think of you. Writing potent little essays from the bottom of your heart and sharing them with the world becomes a possibility without the chains of having to perform to a certain standard to be content. 1 Timothy 6:6 says, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.”
Many of you are probably thinking “Yeah, right…there’s no way I can control my mood in this or that situation.” But in the midst of the horrible darkness of the Holocaust, Anne Frank found a light: “I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.” Paul told the Philippians, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7). Sometimes all we need is a little perspective. Every plant needs sunshine to live and thrive, but without a little rain it wouldn’t grow.
“So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” ~ The Eagles, "Already Gone"
“Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.” ~ Bill Meyer
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” ~ Hugh Downs
“The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind." ~ John Burroughs
Pain
Nobody is perfect. Everyone knows that nobody is perfect. So why do we pretend to be? We’re all terrified to show weakness or pain or faults, as if having them somehow makes us less human. Why do we answer every “how are you?” with “okay” or “good” or “fine?” Why do we smile and say everything is ok when our hearts are broken and our lives are falling apart?
Nothing makes us more human than having flaws. The problem is we feel like there’s some standard, a perfect standard that we have to live up to. So we hide our pain, not just from others but even from ourselves: when something hurts, we ignore it and retreat into our pride. We tell ourselves it doesn’t hurt and we look away. The saddest part is that when somebody is brave enough to admit that they hurt, others see a chance to mask their own pain by comparison, and so they mock them. This leaves the rest of us even more afraid to show weakness. We all endure deep, horrific wounds in this warzone of a world, but we just rub dirt on them and charge back into battle. We feel like we have to, like we have no other choice. But don’t we know a master Healer?
All this pain builds up inside of us. It eats away at our soul, numbing us to the pleasures of beauty, love, and passion. Pink Floyd argued that numbness was “comfortable,” but this is only in comparison to wallowing in the pain. There is a third option that is sadly unheard of by most people: healing. In Luke 4:18 Jesus says “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.” I used to read verses like that kind of distantly, like I was on the outside looking in, like it didn’t really apply to me. If you see yourself doing that, read it again: you very well may be masking your own pain. We are ALL the poor, we are ALL prisoners, we are ALL the blind, and we are ALL oppressed.
The reason we think there is a perfect standard is because there is: God. By pretending we don’t feel any pain, we are essentially trying to be God, and we seem to know instinctively that earning salvation on our own would require flawlessness. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little out of my league: in fact, I can say without a shadow of doubt that every one of us has already failed to live up to that standard. But I catch myself trying to create that image anyway, and even convincing myself that it’s possible, that I could be perfect. But I can’t, and that’s why a perfect sacrifice was needed and was given freely out of love and grace by Jesus at Calvary.
So what does this mean? It means that we don’t have to pretend to be perfect. We don’t have to be flawless anymore, because Jesus was and he took our death anyway. He blotted out the standard with His blood. You’re going to mess up and it’s going to hurt. It’s ok to be scared, it’s ok to cry, and above all it’s ok to be in pain. We are freed to leave the masquerade and come as we are before God: broken, beat-up, bloody, stained with dirt, and, in spite of it all, loved perfectly.
Nothing makes us more human than having flaws. The problem is we feel like there’s some standard, a perfect standard that we have to live up to. So we hide our pain, not just from others but even from ourselves: when something hurts, we ignore it and retreat into our pride. We tell ourselves it doesn’t hurt and we look away. The saddest part is that when somebody is brave enough to admit that they hurt, others see a chance to mask their own pain by comparison, and so they mock them. This leaves the rest of us even more afraid to show weakness. We all endure deep, horrific wounds in this warzone of a world, but we just rub dirt on them and charge back into battle. We feel like we have to, like we have no other choice. But don’t we know a master Healer?
All this pain builds up inside of us. It eats away at our soul, numbing us to the pleasures of beauty, love, and passion. Pink Floyd argued that numbness was “comfortable,” but this is only in comparison to wallowing in the pain. There is a third option that is sadly unheard of by most people: healing. In Luke 4:18 Jesus says “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.” I used to read verses like that kind of distantly, like I was on the outside looking in, like it didn’t really apply to me. If you see yourself doing that, read it again: you very well may be masking your own pain. We are ALL the poor, we are ALL prisoners, we are ALL the blind, and we are ALL oppressed.
The reason we think there is a perfect standard is because there is: God. By pretending we don’t feel any pain, we are essentially trying to be God, and we seem to know instinctively that earning salvation on our own would require flawlessness. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little out of my league: in fact, I can say without a shadow of doubt that every one of us has already failed to live up to that standard. But I catch myself trying to create that image anyway, and even convincing myself that it’s possible, that I could be perfect. But I can’t, and that’s why a perfect sacrifice was needed and was given freely out of love and grace by Jesus at Calvary.
So what does this mean? It means that we don’t have to pretend to be perfect. We don’t have to be flawless anymore, because Jesus was and he took our death anyway. He blotted out the standard with His blood. You’re going to mess up and it’s going to hurt. It’s ok to be scared, it’s ok to cry, and above all it’s ok to be in pain. We are freed to leave the masquerade and come as we are before God: broken, beat-up, bloody, stained with dirt, and, in spite of it all, loved perfectly.
Love
The singer Haddaway semi-famously asked the question, “What is love?” According to the apostle Paul, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
These days, our “love” is tainted. We use affection like a commodity, to get what we want. This is so selfish. Relationships tend to feel less like love and more like speculating on the stock market: so many times we feel insecure and uncertain about showing affection, and what we’re really thinking is “what will be the return on my investment?” Much like an investor on Wall Street, we lend our love to borrowers, but only if we expect to be repaid in full plus interest. And if someone misses a payment, we lash out. Like any good investor, when we feel that what we have to gain in the relationship is threatened, we wholeheartedly retract our own affection. We only show love as long as we are receiving love. But when someone runs out of love to give, doesn't that mean that they need it the most? This whole attitude is nothing but “self-seeking” and “proud,” this is keeping a record of wrongs, and this is truly not love.
And oh, how we also borrow! We’re all beggars, desperate for the next meal of affection, and we gobble up scraps of pseudo-love from lenders who have selfish ambitions. We become indebted slaves to their affection to the point where we feel like we can’t live without it. So we conform to their wishes, to whatever we feel like we have to do to scrape together another meal to feed the hungry beast in our soul. And when he gets hungry, he is more than willing to let us know by unleashing his friends: doubt, worry, and insecurity, and it seems like the more we feed him, the hungrier he gets. And once he takes control, it feels like there’s no way out.
But God is a feast. His table is full and the door is always open. Jesus’ body, broken as the Bread, and his blood, poured out as the Wine, is meant to more than satisfy and even tame the beast. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman who is getting water at a well. Before confronting her about her adulterous past (this search for love through multiple husbands is, if you think about it, not so far from our own), he says “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). His point is that the only safe investment is God, and that Jesus is the middleman. And, what’s more, while you’re eating from God’s table, he might just give you a few good recipes.
These days, our “love” is tainted. We use affection like a commodity, to get what we want. This is so selfish. Relationships tend to feel less like love and more like speculating on the stock market: so many times we feel insecure and uncertain about showing affection, and what we’re really thinking is “what will be the return on my investment?” Much like an investor on Wall Street, we lend our love to borrowers, but only if we expect to be repaid in full plus interest. And if someone misses a payment, we lash out. Like any good investor, when we feel that what we have to gain in the relationship is threatened, we wholeheartedly retract our own affection. We only show love as long as we are receiving love. But when someone runs out of love to give, doesn't that mean that they need it the most? This whole attitude is nothing but “self-seeking” and “proud,” this is keeping a record of wrongs, and this is truly not love.
And oh, how we also borrow! We’re all beggars, desperate for the next meal of affection, and we gobble up scraps of pseudo-love from lenders who have selfish ambitions. We become indebted slaves to their affection to the point where we feel like we can’t live without it. So we conform to their wishes, to whatever we feel like we have to do to scrape together another meal to feed the hungry beast in our soul. And when he gets hungry, he is more than willing to let us know by unleashing his friends: doubt, worry, and insecurity, and it seems like the more we feed him, the hungrier he gets. And once he takes control, it feels like there’s no way out.
But God is a feast. His table is full and the door is always open. Jesus’ body, broken as the Bread, and his blood, poured out as the Wine, is meant to more than satisfy and even tame the beast. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman who is getting water at a well. Before confronting her about her adulterous past (this search for love through multiple husbands is, if you think about it, not so far from our own), he says “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). His point is that the only safe investment is God, and that Jesus is the middleman. And, what’s more, while you’re eating from God’s table, he might just give you a few good recipes.
Pride and Insecurity
It doesn’t take a very long look at the world to figure out that man is fallen, broken, and flawed. The world is filled with bombings, murders, terrorism, rape, lies, theft, jealousy hunger, and pain. Almost anybody you ask would agree that there is something fundamentally wrong with mankind, but at the same time what would happen if you asked a random person on the street what they struggle with personally, or what their flaws were? They would probably be rather startled and offended. I know I would be. Why is it so easy to identify the flaws of others but so hard to see our own?
We were created for a perfectly loving relationship with God. We are wired to receive complete and total affirmation of our souls from Him, which he offers freely, but there’s a problem: in Eden and today, we choose sin. God is constantly trying to tell us that we are important and loved, but we turn our backs and try to earn this same feeling by striving to be better than others, often by pointing out their flaws to them or even just thinking about them. We probably don’t even know we’re doing it. I see myself doing it even as I write this, thinking that I’m better or somehow more important than someone who doesn’t understand these things. This is disgusting. This is what sin looks like.
Have you ever looked at a person who was in pain or struggling with something and felt better about yourself afterward? Without God, we have to build ourselves up constantly, leaving little room for love because of this desperate need inside of us. This person becomes an opportunity to fill ourselves with pride by subconsciously thinking something like “See, I’m not in pain like they are! I’m better than they are,” rather than an opportunity to care for them, to show God’s love.
The hard part is we become so dependent on this pride to tell us that we matter that we are blind to our situation. Romans 10:3 says “Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.” In order for our “works righteousness” to even temporarily compare to God’s love, we have to create such an inflated self-image that there’s no room for flaws. I find it very hard to think about my mistakes when I feel proud about something. When we inevitably do sin, however, or feel this self-image threatened somehow, our ego is smashed. And it hurts. This is called insecurity, and I’m sure we’ve all felt it. It comes when we fail, when we are ignored, or in any way told that we are not as significant as our bloated self-worth makes us think we are. Even then, however, when we are at our weakest, we often put more faith in ourselves than in God. We wait for our own accolades to pick us up rather than accepting the free salvation given by Jesus at the cross. Romans 3:23-24 says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
This is an amazing gift. It is a gift of love and security, confidence, and freedom. In his book Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller says "Imagine how much a man's life would be changed if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really." A few months ago I would have been terrified at the thought of writing something like this, but now I’m seeing that quote become reality in my life. And the best part is it is free. We don’t have to do anything to earn it, and what’s more, we couldn’t do anything anyway. We cannot be redeemed by God until we tear down our walls of pride and acknowledge our inability to redeem ourselves.
From The Message translation (Ro: 21-24, 28, 31):
Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
We were created for a perfectly loving relationship with God. We are wired to receive complete and total affirmation of our souls from Him, which he offers freely, but there’s a problem: in Eden and today, we choose sin. God is constantly trying to tell us that we are important and loved, but we turn our backs and try to earn this same feeling by striving to be better than others, often by pointing out their flaws to them or even just thinking about them. We probably don’t even know we’re doing it. I see myself doing it even as I write this, thinking that I’m better or somehow more important than someone who doesn’t understand these things. This is disgusting. This is what sin looks like.
Have you ever looked at a person who was in pain or struggling with something and felt better about yourself afterward? Without God, we have to build ourselves up constantly, leaving little room for love because of this desperate need inside of us. This person becomes an opportunity to fill ourselves with pride by subconsciously thinking something like “See, I’m not in pain like they are! I’m better than they are,” rather than an opportunity to care for them, to show God’s love.
The hard part is we become so dependent on this pride to tell us that we matter that we are blind to our situation. Romans 10:3 says “Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.” In order for our “works righteousness” to even temporarily compare to God’s love, we have to create such an inflated self-image that there’s no room for flaws. I find it very hard to think about my mistakes when I feel proud about something. When we inevitably do sin, however, or feel this self-image threatened somehow, our ego is smashed. And it hurts. This is called insecurity, and I’m sure we’ve all felt it. It comes when we fail, when we are ignored, or in any way told that we are not as significant as our bloated self-worth makes us think we are. Even then, however, when we are at our weakest, we often put more faith in ourselves than in God. We wait for our own accolades to pick us up rather than accepting the free salvation given by Jesus at the cross. Romans 3:23-24 says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
This is an amazing gift. It is a gift of love and security, confidence, and freedom. In his book Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller says "Imagine how much a man's life would be changed if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really." A few months ago I would have been terrified at the thought of writing something like this, but now I’m seeing that quote become reality in my life. And the best part is it is free. We don’t have to do anything to earn it, and what’s more, we couldn’t do anything anyway. We cannot be redeemed by God until we tear down our walls of pride and acknowledge our inability to redeem ourselves.
From The Message translation (Ro: 21-24, 28, 31):
Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
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