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
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)