Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Waiting for an Invitation
Today, in a class of mine, I shared a story about my work and received an unsolicited piece of advice in return. What the advice was is unimportant, because the point is that I did not ask for any input. The person phrased it in terms of, "I'm just pointing this our because I'm worried for you and concerned about this for you." But did that change the way I felt? Nope. Because I had not asked his opinion, and yet out of concern, he gave it anyway. The thing is, this guy may very well be right. He might have told me exactly what I needed to hear. But I did not invite his opinion and I found his comment incredibly off-putting. He taught me very little but distanced our relationship very much. Truthfully, maybe I should have had ears that were more ready to hear. But I didn't. And the fact that I did not as was evidence of this. And one day, if things don't go well and I do need help and I do have ears to hear, I will remember him as the person who bugged me, and I would not choose him to go to for help if failure or frustration made me receptive. He treated me like his client, but I did not think of him as my counselor. I write this to remind myself that sometimes getting the truth out there is not whole point. Sometimes (even, most of the time?) teaching the other person through experience that you are a safe, loving, gracious place to come to so that they will come to you to ask ONCE they want input is a greater good than forcing our truth on someone who will not receive it and will just be annoyed by us. People who want to be clients invite in a counselor. Even Jesus usually waits to be invited to help or to save (Mark 10:51, Romans 10:13) - He doesn't muscle His way in. He teaches us through love and acceptance and grace that He is the one to come to when rock bottom makes us teachable and gives us ears to hear, when we finally are receptive to help because having to ask made us humble. I need to remember this lesson before I aim my counseling skills at everyone who shares his or her story with me.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Up In My Business
Whenever, something big happens in your life (marriage, baby, big trip, study abroad, new job...), people invariably ask the same question, and it isn't a very good one. "How was it?" It's a very well-intended question that is, I think, genuinely meant to express interest and care, but the truth is that there is no good answer to it. Actually, no. There is one really good (but crappy) answer to it. Fine. How was it? Fine. How is marriage? Fine. How is my new baby? Fine. How was my trip? My job? My day at school? Fine. We get what we pay for - the question "how was it?" is not great, so the answer is not great. But, if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, you will often come up with a pat response that you offer to everyone (so you can memorize it like a script and not blow your brains out having to tell the same stories over and over) that is not too long but is still a little more engaging and gives a few more details than a requisite minimum of "fine" (which invites no further conversation at all.) Well, I have done that with marriage. People have been asking me how it is and it has taken me three months but I now have my standard answer, and the best part of it is, it catches people off guard, which for me is extra credit. Here it is. When people ask me how marriage is, this is my new, very true, and very exciting answer.
It's good. (True.) It's different. (Extra true.) Don't get me wrong, I love it, and if I had it all to do over again, I would make the same choice again, which is my highest compliment for anything. But there is no more "me stuff" left. It's allllllll "we stuff." I don't mean that someone is there when you pee or shower or go for a run alone. I mean that someone is there, with his or her opinion, in all of your areas. People need to know going in that the biggest adjustment in marriage, at least to me, is that someone starts touching ALL of your stuff. All of a sudden, someone else's opinion is just as important as yours in all of the areas that used to be yours alone. Your money. Your apartment. Your future, where you live, what you buy, how much you save, how many vacations you take, how many kids you want, when to get a dog and what kind... All of your stuff. Their fingers are now in all of your stuff. All the time. And you have to let them. You used to be able to invite input and opinions from other people when you wanted, reject what you didn't like, and decide for yourself at the end of the day. But now, there is no more me stuff. There are no more areas where your opinion counts less than mine and I can say thank you but no thank you for your input. It's all our stuff now. Someone is now sticking their fingers in all of your stuff. Hear me. This is coming from a happily married person. My husband is terrific and kind. But if I could go back to my 17 year old self who was just starting to date, I would tell her this. You need to find someone who is attractive and funny and playful and kind. Who you enjoy and who loves you and treats you with respect. But more than any of that, you need to find someone of whom you think highly enough and whose opinion you respect enough that you want him impacting ALL of your stuff. Of whose choices and lifestyle do you highly enough that you won't mind his fingers being in all of your stuff. Because so many of those things, at first, are just there to ease our discomfort in the transition into letting someone else cram themselves into all of the things that we value. We all think about the silly things like washing the dishes and doing the laundry and working on the car. But those things are silly, easy, and simple. How much are we really affected by the way our dishes get washed? We look at silly, simple things like that and think that it'll be easy to meet in the middle and compromise, and we're perfect together! Well sure. Sure it's easy to be malleable and giving in an area that doesn't define you and won't affect you in 10 years. But it isn't about how you wash the dishes. It's about how you save for retirement. It isn't about how you do the vacuuming. It's about how your children are parented. It isn't about how you work on the car. It's about how your parents are prioritized around the holidays. We do not need to be confused by happy love and allow ourselves to think that because we have so much fun together and have learned how to work through a fight about picking a restaurant, we're meant to be. Whose opinion do you respect highly enough that you want them touching all of your stuff? That you won't mind that their opinion matters as much as your does when it comes to allocating YOUR paycheck or raising your kids? Whose thoughts and wisdom do you value that highly? Because it is fun, believe me, it is. But it's cuh-razy hard to pry open the rusty, creaky hinges on the up-til-now locked doors into all your business. And if the person you're with is so great and so fun and your best friend and no one has ever gotten you like this person and you're just deranged with happiness, but you don't respect their opinion highly enough to want them cramming their nose into all of your stuff? Don't marry them. Marriage is hard because relationships are hard. But for me, marriage is hard because it isn't easy to pry your fingers open from around the things you really prioritize and to let someone else start holding them too, especially if you were an independent single person.
Before you get married, ask yourself this: "Do I want this person's opinion on everything in my life?"
Of course, what I say to the people who ask is much shorter than all that.
It's good. (True.) It's different. (Extra true.) Don't get me wrong, I love it, and if I had it all to do over again, I would make the same choice again, which is my highest compliment for anything. But there is no more "me stuff" left. It's allllllll "we stuff." I don't mean that someone is there when you pee or shower or go for a run alone. I mean that someone is there, with his or her opinion, in all of your areas. People need to know going in that the biggest adjustment in marriage, at least to me, is that someone starts touching ALL of your stuff. All of a sudden, someone else's opinion is just as important as yours in all of the areas that used to be yours alone. Your money. Your apartment. Your future, where you live, what you buy, how much you save, how many vacations you take, how many kids you want, when to get a dog and what kind... All of your stuff. Their fingers are now in all of your stuff. All the time. And you have to let them. You used to be able to invite input and opinions from other people when you wanted, reject what you didn't like, and decide for yourself at the end of the day. But now, there is no more me stuff. There are no more areas where your opinion counts less than mine and I can say thank you but no thank you for your input. It's all our stuff now. Someone is now sticking their fingers in all of your stuff. Hear me. This is coming from a happily married person. My husband is terrific and kind. But if I could go back to my 17 year old self who was just starting to date, I would tell her this. You need to find someone who is attractive and funny and playful and kind. Who you enjoy and who loves you and treats you with respect. But more than any of that, you need to find someone of whom you think highly enough and whose opinion you respect enough that you want him impacting ALL of your stuff. Of whose choices and lifestyle do you highly enough that you won't mind his fingers being in all of your stuff. Because so many of those things, at first, are just there to ease our discomfort in the transition into letting someone else cram themselves into all of the things that we value. We all think about the silly things like washing the dishes and doing the laundry and working on the car. But those things are silly, easy, and simple. How much are we really affected by the way our dishes get washed? We look at silly, simple things like that and think that it'll be easy to meet in the middle and compromise, and we're perfect together! Well sure. Sure it's easy to be malleable and giving in an area that doesn't define you and won't affect you in 10 years. But it isn't about how you wash the dishes. It's about how you save for retirement. It isn't about how you do the vacuuming. It's about how your children are parented. It isn't about how you work on the car. It's about how your parents are prioritized around the holidays. We do not need to be confused by happy love and allow ourselves to think that because we have so much fun together and have learned how to work through a fight about picking a restaurant, we're meant to be. Whose opinion do you respect highly enough that you want them touching all of your stuff? That you won't mind that their opinion matters as much as your does when it comes to allocating YOUR paycheck or raising your kids? Whose thoughts and wisdom do you value that highly? Because it is fun, believe me, it is. But it's cuh-razy hard to pry open the rusty, creaky hinges on the up-til-now locked doors into all your business. And if the person you're with is so great and so fun and your best friend and no one has ever gotten you like this person and you're just deranged with happiness, but you don't respect their opinion highly enough to want them cramming their nose into all of your stuff? Don't marry them. Marriage is hard because relationships are hard. But for me, marriage is hard because it isn't easy to pry your fingers open from around the things you really prioritize and to let someone else start holding them too, especially if you were an independent single person.
Before you get married, ask yourself this: "Do I want this person's opinion on everything in my life?"
Of course, what I say to the people who ask is much shorter than all that.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Not Just SPEAKERS But Doers
In college, I was involved in a ministry that was floundering, some said dying. In many ways it was (and still is) a really wonderful place doing many wonderful things, but there was weakness and division and very little unity. Everyone had separate visions and different plans and various things they thought needed to be fixed to make it better. Though no one wanted to say it, the real problem was our head leader, Bonnie, a wonderful woman who had a true heart for ministry but who feared change and feared conflict more.
We all grew incredibly frustrated and sat through long meetings that, though well meaning, did painfully little. We had a staff member who finally decided that it was her job to start openly disagreeing with Bonnie, saying to her face (in the bad way) what was wrong with certain decisions and that she did not support or agree with particular directions that Bonnie made. The thing was, in many ways and on many points, this staff member was right and I agreed with her. Though I didn’t support her tactics, I shared all of her frustrations and many of her opinions. But she was pushy and gave her opinion when it wasn’t invited and tried to have influence in other departments and tried to correct up the chain of command. She was of course asked to leave.
If you, my reader, are someone who fears conflict and runs away and uses tact as an excuse to stay silent when you should speak, this is not for you. God bless you, but close this blog and go consider Ephesians 4:15. This is for those of us who like to shoot our mouths off or tell other people what to do in the name of truth or being helpful. I think many of us really do believe that it is our job to say what we think is the right answer. If something is going on around us, if someone is doing wrong or making a wrong decision or doesn’t see the answer, we consider it our mandate as speakers of the truth to tell them. But the thing is, we want to it in places where: 1) our opinion hasn’t been invited and 2) God hasn’t given us leadership.
We use prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Nathan as excuses to shoot our mouths off, saying that sometimes God raises someone up to speak truth that people do not want to hear, to say what is uninvited, and to be often little liked. Yes, you’re right. SOMETIMES God does call someone to that. And when He does, He is usually quite clear with His instructions. Abundantly so. Annoyingly so. If you think God is calling you to be the bearer of difficult, uninvited truth, you might want to try saying no a few times first to see is He was really serious, because if He actually wants you to do that job, He’ll come back and badger you about it again. Moses and Samuel know.
I do believe that we are called to speak the truth in love, but to those with whom we have built deep relationship. To those with whom we have credibility. To those by whom we have been asked.
If God really has given you divine wisdom, maybe we should thank him for it and then use it to make OUR OWN lives/ministries so healthy that people struggling can’t help but ask what we’re doing right. If that staff member had taken all of those opinions and applied them to her own department, and if she really had been right, then her department would have been so healthy and vibrant and growing that Bonnie would have had no choice but to go and ask her what her thoughts were and what pans she had that were working so well.
Imagine two farmers. One is a good farmer and one is not. The good farmer sees that his neighbor is a bad farmer and that his fields are dying. He can either: tend to his own fields and make them so healthy that the other farmer can come to him for help, or go and try to tell the other farmer what to do. Which will work better? If he goes to push his opinion on the bad farmer, EVEN IF he is right, the bad farmer is probably going to get mad and tell him to go away, because the bad farmer’s fields are not the good farmer’s responsibility. God hasn’t given those to him. God gave him his own fields. If he does force his opinion and makes the bad farmer mad, then when the bad farmer realizes his fields are dying and needs help, HE STILL WON’T go to the good farmer because he doesn’t like him. However, if the good farmer tends to his own fields and uses his correct answers to make them healthy, then when the bad farmer realizes his fields are dying and needs help, he will come to the good farmer and invite his opinion.
What answers do I think I have that I want to force on someone who hasn’t asked? Am I actually applying those in my own life? We need to be careful before we consider ourselves prophets. We are told they we shouldn’t only be hearers of the word, but also doers. Maybe we need to remember that we also shouldn’t only be SPEAKERS of the word, but also doers.
We all grew incredibly frustrated and sat through long meetings that, though well meaning, did painfully little. We had a staff member who finally decided that it was her job to start openly disagreeing with Bonnie, saying to her face (in the bad way) what was wrong with certain decisions and that she did not support or agree with particular directions that Bonnie made. The thing was, in many ways and on many points, this staff member was right and I agreed with her. Though I didn’t support her tactics, I shared all of her frustrations and many of her opinions. But she was pushy and gave her opinion when it wasn’t invited and tried to have influence in other departments and tried to correct up the chain of command. She was of course asked to leave.
If you, my reader, are someone who fears conflict and runs away and uses tact as an excuse to stay silent when you should speak, this is not for you. God bless you, but close this blog and go consider Ephesians 4:15. This is for those of us who like to shoot our mouths off or tell other people what to do in the name of truth or being helpful. I think many of us really do believe that it is our job to say what we think is the right answer. If something is going on around us, if someone is doing wrong or making a wrong decision or doesn’t see the answer, we consider it our mandate as speakers of the truth to tell them. But the thing is, we want to it in places where: 1) our opinion hasn’t been invited and 2) God hasn’t given us leadership.
We use prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Nathan as excuses to shoot our mouths off, saying that sometimes God raises someone up to speak truth that people do not want to hear, to say what is uninvited, and to be often little liked. Yes, you’re right. SOMETIMES God does call someone to that. And when He does, He is usually quite clear with His instructions. Abundantly so. Annoyingly so. If you think God is calling you to be the bearer of difficult, uninvited truth, you might want to try saying no a few times first to see is He was really serious, because if He actually wants you to do that job, He’ll come back and badger you about it again. Moses and Samuel know.
I do believe that we are called to speak the truth in love, but to those with whom we have built deep relationship. To those with whom we have credibility. To those by whom we have been asked.
If God really has given you divine wisdom, maybe we should thank him for it and then use it to make OUR OWN lives/ministries so healthy that people struggling can’t help but ask what we’re doing right. If that staff member had taken all of those opinions and applied them to her own department, and if she really had been right, then her department would have been so healthy and vibrant and growing that Bonnie would have had no choice but to go and ask her what her thoughts were and what pans she had that were working so well.
Imagine two farmers. One is a good farmer and one is not. The good farmer sees that his neighbor is a bad farmer and that his fields are dying. He can either: tend to his own fields and make them so healthy that the other farmer can come to him for help, or go and try to tell the other farmer what to do. Which will work better? If he goes to push his opinion on the bad farmer, EVEN IF he is right, the bad farmer is probably going to get mad and tell him to go away, because the bad farmer’s fields are not the good farmer’s responsibility. God hasn’t given those to him. God gave him his own fields. If he does force his opinion and makes the bad farmer mad, then when the bad farmer realizes his fields are dying and needs help, HE STILL WON’T go to the good farmer because he doesn’t like him. However, if the good farmer tends to his own fields and uses his correct answers to make them healthy, then when the bad farmer realizes his fields are dying and needs help, he will come to the good farmer and invite his opinion.
What answers do I think I have that I want to force on someone who hasn’t asked? Am I actually applying those in my own life? We need to be careful before we consider ourselves prophets. We are told they we shouldn’t only be hearers of the word, but also doers. Maybe we need to remember that we also shouldn’t only be SPEAKERS of the word, but also doers.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
More Hugs Than Lectures
Coleton told me today about a youth kid of his who has a friend who used to be a strong Christian but now thinks it's "stupid." The two boys used to bond over the Bible and going to church, but now the friend is pulling away and isn't as interested. The boy asked Coleton what he could do to fix his friend and help him to turn back to Jesus.
This is not at all to undervalue this boy's question - a very compassionate and concerned question, if you ask me. But these were my thoughts as I worked through a possible answer.
As a disclaimer, let me say that is reaction is in some part (possibly a large part) born out of my own weakness at sharing my faith. I find the process of traditional "witnessing" so inorganic and interpersonally awkward that if the Bible weren't so clear about it, I would swear that it wasn't God's will for us to do it. Evangelism is my absolute weakest spiritual gift, so I own that my reaction is born out of this distaste.
However...
When I was in high school, we had a very religiously diverse class which included many Christians. Many of them were very passionate about sharing their faith in that well-intentioned but aggressive way of new firey Christians. It caused many fights, many debates, and many tears. I was good friends with a group of girls who weren't Christians. They were fun and funny and we liked each other, but I don't know that I ever shared my faith with them. They knew I was a Christian because I went to church but that was about it. I didn't invite them to church, they didn't invite me to bars. They didn't cause me to tumble, and I didn't bring them up. We just met where we were and enjoyed each other there. We knew we disagreed on many things, so we did things spiritually neutral things that we could agree on, like going out to dinner and spending the night. Long story short, our senior year, my closest friend from this group told me that they had made a list of all of the people the knew who were Christians who were also, as they said, "good people." I was one of the only ones on the list.
I don't think that this was to my credit. If anything, I had been overly timid in sharing my faith with them. But what resulted was that they felt like I had accepted them and not crammed faith down their throats and made myself off-putting. There are certainly times when we need to be brave and honest and urge people forward towards what is right. But there is also something very lovely about telling people that, as far as you're concerned, they are just fine where they are, you like them, and you don't need to them to be more like you or change. You'd just like to go to dinner because you think they're great, no change required.
There is an old story about a preacher who invited a homeless man to his church. The homeless man said that he would like to come but he didn't have any shoes. The preacher responded, that's okay, if you will come on Sunday, I won't wear shoes either.
It would have been incredibly kind and completely appropriate for the preacher to tell them man that he would buy him some shoes so that he would come to church. That would have been an incredibly kind thing to do. But within that is a subtle message that the homeless man is right - he does need to have shoes. There are standards. You do need to become more like me, but that's okay, I'll help you. There is something incredibly powerful about the message this preacher chose - you don't need to change. You don't need shoes. You don't have to meet a standard or be more like me. There is something very powerful and very wonderful (and very very much like Jesus) when we respond by joining people where they are rather than helping them to be more like we are.
I recently saw a study about why gay people usually tends towards more hedonistic communities rather than Christian communities. The study showed that people, given the choice, will almost always choose to join a group who makes them feel accepted rather than a group whose ideas and values they share. They don't come to churches because, by and large, we don't make them feel accepted. I think we fear that, if we accept someone and make them feel at home, they will think that their sin is okay. I think often, the only two options we see are to say that sin is fine or to openly condemn it. But I think that there is a very wonderful third option that Jesus often chose. I think that we can give ourselves the permission to enjoy people, accept people, get to know them, make them feel at home, and let them know they are loved without telling them that everything they are doing is fine.
I believe that the Bible is perfectly written and that it lacks nothing, but just personally, I wish that God had included a little more about what Jesus said when he had all those dinners with the prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners. He hung out with them and shared meals (which in their culture was a huge behavioral communication of equality). I wonder if he told them their sins were wrong. I wonder if he lectured them. I wonder if he preached. Or maybe, he just sat with them, not ignoring or permitting their sins, but rather just saying with his behavior, I like you, you are fine with me, you don't have to change for me to accept you. I think it's good for us to help one another change and grow and do better, but does this have to be the entrance fee for relationship? Or should that comes as a result of the loving, safe relationship that has already been built? As campy as it sounds, I think at those dinners, Jesus probably gave more hugs than lectures.
Often, I think we feel the need to debate and to argue and to sell Christ to non-believers. But when we argue, that person's natural position is defensive. They are arguing back. They are defending themselves. People are usually not very receptive to advice or to change in this state. When they are more receptive is when they are in pain and they ask and they want to know where they can get help because they need it.
Coleton's student asked what he could do make his friend turn back towards Jesus. I think this question reflects many of our hearts. I think that (like so many of my high school Christian classmates) we often feel the pressure to make people seekers. We feel like we need to make them want Jesus. But maybe we don't need to try to argue and push and make people into seekers. Maybe we need to be so gentle and kind and accepting and loving that we are the people they want to come to for comfort and help when God uses pain or hardship or sadness sin their lives to make them seekers.
I realize that many preachers would disagree and would say that my friends thought of me as a "good person" because I let them feel comfortable and didn't confront them with the truth, that the Gospel is uncomfortable, that discomfort will be a necessary by-product of sharing, and that we shouldn't avoid it. They would say that it is our job to share the truth, and if people find it off-putting, that that is the job of the Holy Spirit. And I really do get that. I am not truing to say that evangelism is bad. The lives of men like Ravi Zacharias and Billy Graham prove that so so many are in the Kingdom because of overt witnessing, and I certainly don't claim to have a better plan than those men. But maybe it is also okay to just let people know, wherever you are is fine. Change may come later, but whoever you are is just fine with me, you don't have to change for us to start a relationship. I think Jesus treats us that way...
One last story... I have recently started eating Uncrustables (these pre-made PB&J sandwiches that are to die for. Way better than regular PB&J you make yourself.) I bring one to work every morning. The first day, my boss asked me what it was. I told her it was an Uncrustable and that it was amazing. She then watched me bring one and enjoy it every day. Today, two weeks later, she came over and read the nutrition facts off the back and asked me where I got them. She wanted them because she had watched me love them. She was, if you will, a seeker of Uncrustables. I doubt that she would have been so receptive if I lectured her each morning about how she needed to get Uncrustables. What made her want them was not my debating her about how much better my Uncrustables are than her breakfast. What made her want them was that I answered her honestly when she asked me what they were, and that she then just watched me love them.
When commercials advertise a product on TV, is there a lecture on why you should have the product or a debate between two people who each feel differently about the product? No! Because people aren't responsive to that. What they show is people who love the product - who got it and are now thrilled. I don't mean to say that we are selling Jesus like a product. What I am saying though, is that maybe a new way to witness could be this... that we #1. get into a relationship with people where they trust us and know that we love them, and then #2. just love Jesus so dang much ourselves that people want Him because they watch how much were enjoying it.
When Jesus had those dinners with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and the sinners, I don't know what went on, but my bet is that he didn't show up looking particularly clean cut, or stand behind a podium, or give them a talk on waiting until marriage or fair financial dealings. I bet he kissed those people on both cheeks and then plopped right down next to them for some dinner, drinks, and conversation. I bet he asked about their days. I bet he laughed at their jokes. I bet he got invited back because they all had such a stinkin good time. I bet he showed them that, to be in relationship with Him, they didn't have to meet a standard or a bar. (He was going to give them the bar for free anyway...) I bet He showed them that He wanted to have dinner with them and be their friend just exactly the way that they were, and I bet they loved Him for it.
This is not at all to undervalue this boy's question - a very compassionate and concerned question, if you ask me. But these were my thoughts as I worked through a possible answer.
As a disclaimer, let me say that is reaction is in some part (possibly a large part) born out of my own weakness at sharing my faith. I find the process of traditional "witnessing" so inorganic and interpersonally awkward that if the Bible weren't so clear about it, I would swear that it wasn't God's will for us to do it. Evangelism is my absolute weakest spiritual gift, so I own that my reaction is born out of this distaste.
However...
When I was in high school, we had a very religiously diverse class which included many Christians. Many of them were very passionate about sharing their faith in that well-intentioned but aggressive way of new firey Christians. It caused many fights, many debates, and many tears. I was good friends with a group of girls who weren't Christians. They were fun and funny and we liked each other, but I don't know that I ever shared my faith with them. They knew I was a Christian because I went to church but that was about it. I didn't invite them to church, they didn't invite me to bars. They didn't cause me to tumble, and I didn't bring them up. We just met where we were and enjoyed each other there. We knew we disagreed on many things, so we did things spiritually neutral things that we could agree on, like going out to dinner and spending the night. Long story short, our senior year, my closest friend from this group told me that they had made a list of all of the people the knew who were Christians who were also, as they said, "good people." I was one of the only ones on the list.
I don't think that this was to my credit. If anything, I had been overly timid in sharing my faith with them. But what resulted was that they felt like I had accepted them and not crammed faith down their throats and made myself off-putting. There are certainly times when we need to be brave and honest and urge people forward towards what is right. But there is also something very lovely about telling people that, as far as you're concerned, they are just fine where they are, you like them, and you don't need to them to be more like you or change. You'd just like to go to dinner because you think they're great, no change required.
There is an old story about a preacher who invited a homeless man to his church. The homeless man said that he would like to come but he didn't have any shoes. The preacher responded, that's okay, if you will come on Sunday, I won't wear shoes either.
It would have been incredibly kind and completely appropriate for the preacher to tell them man that he would buy him some shoes so that he would come to church. That would have been an incredibly kind thing to do. But within that is a subtle message that the homeless man is right - he does need to have shoes. There are standards. You do need to become more like me, but that's okay, I'll help you. There is something incredibly powerful about the message this preacher chose - you don't need to change. You don't need shoes. You don't have to meet a standard or be more like me. There is something very powerful and very wonderful (and very very much like Jesus) when we respond by joining people where they are rather than helping them to be more like we are.
I recently saw a study about why gay people usually tends towards more hedonistic communities rather than Christian communities. The study showed that people, given the choice, will almost always choose to join a group who makes them feel accepted rather than a group whose ideas and values they share. They don't come to churches because, by and large, we don't make them feel accepted. I think we fear that, if we accept someone and make them feel at home, they will think that their sin is okay. I think often, the only two options we see are to say that sin is fine or to openly condemn it. But I think that there is a very wonderful third option that Jesus often chose. I think that we can give ourselves the permission to enjoy people, accept people, get to know them, make them feel at home, and let them know they are loved without telling them that everything they are doing is fine.
I believe that the Bible is perfectly written and that it lacks nothing, but just personally, I wish that God had included a little more about what Jesus said when he had all those dinners with the prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners. He hung out with them and shared meals (which in their culture was a huge behavioral communication of equality). I wonder if he told them their sins were wrong. I wonder if he lectured them. I wonder if he preached. Or maybe, he just sat with them, not ignoring or permitting their sins, but rather just saying with his behavior, I like you, you are fine with me, you don't have to change for me to accept you. I think it's good for us to help one another change and grow and do better, but does this have to be the entrance fee for relationship? Or should that comes as a result of the loving, safe relationship that has already been built? As campy as it sounds, I think at those dinners, Jesus probably gave more hugs than lectures.
Often, I think we feel the need to debate and to argue and to sell Christ to non-believers. But when we argue, that person's natural position is defensive. They are arguing back. They are defending themselves. People are usually not very receptive to advice or to change in this state. When they are more receptive is when they are in pain and they ask and they want to know where they can get help because they need it.
Coleton's student asked what he could do make his friend turn back towards Jesus. I think this question reflects many of our hearts. I think that (like so many of my high school Christian classmates) we often feel the pressure to make people seekers. We feel like we need to make them want Jesus. But maybe we don't need to try to argue and push and make people into seekers. Maybe we need to be so gentle and kind and accepting and loving that we are the people they want to come to for comfort and help when God uses pain or hardship or sadness sin their lives to make them seekers.
I realize that many preachers would disagree and would say that my friends thought of me as a "good person" because I let them feel comfortable and didn't confront them with the truth, that the Gospel is uncomfortable, that discomfort will be a necessary by-product of sharing, and that we shouldn't avoid it. They would say that it is our job to share the truth, and if people find it off-putting, that that is the job of the Holy Spirit. And I really do get that. I am not truing to say that evangelism is bad. The lives of men like Ravi Zacharias and Billy Graham prove that so so many are in the Kingdom because of overt witnessing, and I certainly don't claim to have a better plan than those men. But maybe it is also okay to just let people know, wherever you are is fine. Change may come later, but whoever you are is just fine with me, you don't have to change for us to start a relationship. I think Jesus treats us that way...
One last story... I have recently started eating Uncrustables (these pre-made PB&J sandwiches that are to die for. Way better than regular PB&J you make yourself.) I bring one to work every morning. The first day, my boss asked me what it was. I told her it was an Uncrustable and that it was amazing. She then watched me bring one and enjoy it every day. Today, two weeks later, she came over and read the nutrition facts off the back and asked me where I got them. She wanted them because she had watched me love them. She was, if you will, a seeker of Uncrustables. I doubt that she would have been so receptive if I lectured her each morning about how she needed to get Uncrustables. What made her want them was not my debating her about how much better my Uncrustables are than her breakfast. What made her want them was that I answered her honestly when she asked me what they were, and that she then just watched me love them.
When commercials advertise a product on TV, is there a lecture on why you should have the product or a debate between two people who each feel differently about the product? No! Because people aren't responsive to that. What they show is people who love the product - who got it and are now thrilled. I don't mean to say that we are selling Jesus like a product. What I am saying though, is that maybe a new way to witness could be this... that we #1. get into a relationship with people where they trust us and know that we love them, and then #2. just love Jesus so dang much ourselves that people want Him because they watch how much were enjoying it.
When Jesus had those dinners with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and the sinners, I don't know what went on, but my bet is that he didn't show up looking particularly clean cut, or stand behind a podium, or give them a talk on waiting until marriage or fair financial dealings. I bet he kissed those people on both cheeks and then plopped right down next to them for some dinner, drinks, and conversation. I bet he asked about their days. I bet he laughed at their jokes. I bet he got invited back because they all had such a stinkin good time. I bet he showed them that, to be in relationship with Him, they didn't have to meet a standard or a bar. (He was going to give them the bar for free anyway...) I bet He showed them that He wanted to have dinner with them and be their friend just exactly the way that they were, and I bet they loved Him for it.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Last Call
I know a man who died recently. He spent his whole life saying that he didn't want to accept Jesus because he would rather go to Hell and be with his friends than go to Heaven with a bunch of stodgy old saints. He was lying in the hospital bed (the one he never left) still saying this the day before he died. At this point, he wasn't doing great but wasn't doing terribly. By the next day though, he had crashed. Everything was failing, everything was beeping, tubes were getting put in and pulled out all over the place, and it was obvious to everyone - but most importantly, to him - that he wasn't going to leave this hospital. He was going to die, probably very soon.
It wasn't until this point that he started to get scared, and it was this fear - this final fear of finitude - that caused him to accept Jesus the day that he died.
I think a fear of death is one of God's final gifts to us.
I realize that I have no idea, but it seemed to me that this man never did really fall in love with Jesus, never did really thank Him for what He did on the cross, never wanted to be changed by His love. He was never even really humbled before glory of Jesus - only before the certainty of death.
And yet, I really believe, God's infinite mercy extends so far that He lets us come into His kingdom for a reason as (silly? selfish? I don't know) as being afraid of dying. I think this fear of death is God's last gift to us, because for Him, isn't that kind of a slap in the face? For us to get saved, not out of gratitude or love or passion towards God, not out of a longing for the change and the relationship that He offers, but simply out of a last fear of dying. Almost like God lets us stay selfish and self-sufficient as long as we'd like, and allows the doors of His kingdom to open to people who are willing to offer Him only the last few hours of their lives, and then only out of a fear of ending badly.
I don't say this to minimize or cast a bad light on a death-bed conversion, I only say this to highlight what I see as a last, final, truly selfless offering of grace on the part of God.
It wasn't until this point that he started to get scared, and it was this fear - this final fear of finitude - that caused him to accept Jesus the day that he died.
I think a fear of death is one of God's final gifts to us.
I realize that I have no idea, but it seemed to me that this man never did really fall in love with Jesus, never did really thank Him for what He did on the cross, never wanted to be changed by His love. He was never even really humbled before glory of Jesus - only before the certainty of death.
And yet, I really believe, God's infinite mercy extends so far that He lets us come into His kingdom for a reason as (silly? selfish? I don't know) as being afraid of dying. I think this fear of death is God's last gift to us, because for Him, isn't that kind of a slap in the face? For us to get saved, not out of gratitude or love or passion towards God, not out of a longing for the change and the relationship that He offers, but simply out of a last fear of dying. Almost like God lets us stay selfish and self-sufficient as long as we'd like, and allows the doors of His kingdom to open to people who are willing to offer Him only the last few hours of their lives, and then only out of a fear of ending badly.
I don't say this to minimize or cast a bad light on a death-bed conversion, I only say this to highlight what I see as a last, final, truly selfless offering of grace on the part of God.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Now You See Me
When I was in college, my photography professor said something about pictures that I haven't forgotten. He said that our generation has begun to take pictures by the millions and billions. The mental culture that this has created is this: we are the first generation in history who has ever had to prove that we are alive. We take pictures by the millions to prove that we are not invisible.
It has become part of our cognition that, if you don't have pictures of yourself doing something, it never happens. If you didn't take any pictures of yourself on your trip, it is just as good as if you didn't go. If you have no pictures to show from your experience, then honestly, how much good actually was it? What was really the point? For the first time ever, just being alive and experiencing is not enough, and we as people have to evidence ourselves.
Another way that this phenomenon is affecting us is, not surprisingly, with Facebook and social media. The social media experience is beginning to be linked to several mental disorders and problems, including depression, loneliness, and anxiety. There are many facets and causes for this, but one of those is the inherent nature of comparison.
By nature of the site, people put up pictures of themselves at their happiest. They are smiling, they are showing off their cool trip, they are giving you the best flashes of their experience. You don't see anyone taking a picture of herself, on her bed alone and sad, and putting that up there.
So, for people who are lonely or depressed and are sitting alone in their rooms on Facebook, they are already feeling alone and down and sad, and they go on Facebook and this is the message: not only are you sad, but you are the only one. Everyone else you know is happy and having fun. No one is depressed but you. And here are 10,000 pictures of everyone you know to prove it. And now your depression and sadness and loneliness are coupled by this sense of isolation and this sentiment that no one is sad but you, your experience is not only hard, it's super abnormal. Your depression becomes cyclical.
I don't have much to say about this other than that I wanted to remember the thought.
It has become part of our cognition that, if you don't have pictures of yourself doing something, it never happens. If you didn't take any pictures of yourself on your trip, it is just as good as if you didn't go. If you have no pictures to show from your experience, then honestly, how much good actually was it? What was really the point? For the first time ever, just being alive and experiencing is not enough, and we as people have to evidence ourselves.
Another way that this phenomenon is affecting us is, not surprisingly, with Facebook and social media. The social media experience is beginning to be linked to several mental disorders and problems, including depression, loneliness, and anxiety. There are many facets and causes for this, but one of those is the inherent nature of comparison.
By nature of the site, people put up pictures of themselves at their happiest. They are smiling, they are showing off their cool trip, they are giving you the best flashes of their experience. You don't see anyone taking a picture of herself, on her bed alone and sad, and putting that up there.
So, for people who are lonely or depressed and are sitting alone in their rooms on Facebook, they are already feeling alone and down and sad, and they go on Facebook and this is the message: not only are you sad, but you are the only one. Everyone else you know is happy and having fun. No one is depressed but you. And here are 10,000 pictures of everyone you know to prove it. And now your depression and sadness and loneliness are coupled by this sense of isolation and this sentiment that no one is sad but you, your experience is not only hard, it's super abnormal. Your depression becomes cyclical.
I don't have much to say about this other than that I wanted to remember the thought.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Finding "The One"
I just want to say that I do not at all think there is a "the one." I think that God knows who we're going to marry, so in that sense, there is a specific person for us, but I do not at all believe that we are meant to find one specific person who will make us happy and make love with us in a way that no one else could.
I think we could happily, successfully be with lots of different people. I think what makes someone the one for you is that they are a good, compatible match who has strong, healthy, desirable qualities and that they were the one who was there when you got ready to commit. I think we might have all, in the past, been with people who would actually have been very good, healthy, compatible matches for us, we just weren't ready at the time. Eventually though, we will find someone who we very much like and very much love, and we will be emotionally, even situationally, ready to do the very hard work of loving them for a long time.
I think people say "oh well, he just wasn't the one for you" about people we break up with, and that's a very nice and fine thing to say, but I don't think it's necessarily true. I think that person might very well have been a good "one for us," and what's more true is that we weren't ready at the time to do what it required to commit to love them well for a long time. And there is certainly no "one" who will come along and make that easy.
I don't meant to sound reductionist or unromantic, but I'm feeling more and more that the thing you do is to fine someone who you enjoy, respect, who loves God, who treats you well, who has something to teach you, who has qualities that you desire, who you're attracted to. And there can be a lot of these people! But you meet lots of them, and when you get ready, you pick one, and if those solid, healthy, compatible qualities are in place, it doesn't necessarily matter who it is that you pick. Each one of them would have had a unique set of things that would be especially wonderful and would be especially difficult. What makes or breaks "true love" is whether or not you each are ready and willing to commit long term to enjoying the good parts and working out the bad parts.
Are we ready to commit long term to staying together even when we don't want to anymore and working hard until we do want to again?
Do we love the person just because of how we feel, because if that is the case, when (not if, when) that feeling goes away for a while, the reason to be in the marriage is gone. No wonder people leave. Why would they stay?
Do we commit to someone because we're in love with them, or do we love them more because we committed and stuck to it?
I think who you are, what you are willing to put into the relationship, how long you can be patient as things go slowly on the path towards "better", how willing you are to turn a blind eye to those tempting people who make it seem like things would be so much easier if you'd just bail out and go off with them...
These things are not made possible because we found "the one", they are an outworking of character. This business is not done well because we found some mystical "One" but because we were the kind of people who could commit and contribute what marriage requires, and because we found someone who efforts are similar to and compatible with ours. It's not "the one." It's you.
I think we could happily, successfully be with lots of different people. I think what makes someone the one for you is that they are a good, compatible match who has strong, healthy, desirable qualities and that they were the one who was there when you got ready to commit. I think we might have all, in the past, been with people who would actually have been very good, healthy, compatible matches for us, we just weren't ready at the time. Eventually though, we will find someone who we very much like and very much love, and we will be emotionally, even situationally, ready to do the very hard work of loving them for a long time.
I think people say "oh well, he just wasn't the one for you" about people we break up with, and that's a very nice and fine thing to say, but I don't think it's necessarily true. I think that person might very well have been a good "one for us," and what's more true is that we weren't ready at the time to do what it required to commit to love them well for a long time. And there is certainly no "one" who will come along and make that easy.
I don't meant to sound reductionist or unromantic, but I'm feeling more and more that the thing you do is to fine someone who you enjoy, respect, who loves God, who treats you well, who has something to teach you, who has qualities that you desire, who you're attracted to. And there can be a lot of these people! But you meet lots of them, and when you get ready, you pick one, and if those solid, healthy, compatible qualities are in place, it doesn't necessarily matter who it is that you pick. Each one of them would have had a unique set of things that would be especially wonderful and would be especially difficult. What makes or breaks "true love" is whether or not you each are ready and willing to commit long term to enjoying the good parts and working out the bad parts.
Are we ready to commit long term to staying together even when we don't want to anymore and working hard until we do want to again?
Do we love the person just because of how we feel, because if that is the case, when (not if, when) that feeling goes away for a while, the reason to be in the marriage is gone. No wonder people leave. Why would they stay?
Do we commit to someone because we're in love with them, or do we love them more because we committed and stuck to it?
I think who you are, what you are willing to put into the relationship, how long you can be patient as things go slowly on the path towards "better", how willing you are to turn a blind eye to those tempting people who make it seem like things would be so much easier if you'd just bail out and go off with them...
These things are not made possible because we found "the one", they are an outworking of character. This business is not done well because we found some mystical "One" but because we were the kind of people who could commit and contribute what marriage requires, and because we found someone who efforts are similar to and compatible with ours. It's not "the one." It's you.
God's Agency
I think that often, very competent people get into a rut of thinking that they are so capable and are able to work so hard to make so many things happen, that this is the only available way of actually getting things done.
I was reminded recently of the opposite. I had to have a hard conversation with Coleton in which I had to ask for an apology that I felt I was owed. I was very nervous about it and I waited much longer than I should have to bring it up. When I finally did, not only did it go wonderfully, but he also said that God had been putting it on his heart for a while to bring up the same thing but that he'd been too nervous.
Now, I think it was a good and right thing for me to bring the topic up. I think that usually, God makes a way for us and we have to travel it. Our lives are shaped by choices and behaviors and movement and agency. I think this is definitely true.
However, I've noticed lately (and a light was really shown on it in this above instance) that I think of God as mostly passive. That the way things get done is that I do them and then He does or doesn't add His blessing. I've been thinking that it certainly matters whether or not God blesses my effort and that my success is a gift, but the core of the belief was that I had to get things moving or they wouldn't ever happen. This instance, however, reminded me that God is at work, all on His, own, without any of my help, to bring about powerful change and to make big things happen. I do think He values and uses human agency, but we shouldn't think (as I've been prone to) that that's all there is. I was hurting and needed healing and reconciliation, and I thought that that would never happen unless I made it happen. I do think that God used and valued my agency, but when C told me that God had been really laying this same topic on his heart to bring up, I realized that God had plans in the works to bring about this healing conversation that He knew I needed, even if I hadn't done anything to make it happen.
I needed to remember that sometimes it's very okay for our prayer to be: God, I really need this, and I don't have the resources or the energy or the ability right now to make it happen for myself or even to contribute to the project. I really need this thing, but it will only happen if you just make it happen and give it to me. I can't contribute anything and all I can be is hopeful and thankful.
This autonomous activity/agency of God was so dormant in my paradigm that when I started thinking about it recently, I was actually surprised. I had forgotten it so thoroughly that it had atrophied and I had forgotten that I ever knew it. I was both shocked and delighted.
I think we need to remember that, while our agency is a very big thing, it is not the only thing. God is working in big, mighty, powerful, active, present way to bring about both the things that He wants and the things that we need. We are allowed to rest in that sometimes (if not all the time), because I tend to stress when I think that the things I need will not happen if I don't get the ball rolling.
I was reminded recently of the opposite. I had to have a hard conversation with Coleton in which I had to ask for an apology that I felt I was owed. I was very nervous about it and I waited much longer than I should have to bring it up. When I finally did, not only did it go wonderfully, but he also said that God had been putting it on his heart for a while to bring up the same thing but that he'd been too nervous.
Now, I think it was a good and right thing for me to bring the topic up. I think that usually, God makes a way for us and we have to travel it. Our lives are shaped by choices and behaviors and movement and agency. I think this is definitely true.
However, I've noticed lately (and a light was really shown on it in this above instance) that I think of God as mostly passive. That the way things get done is that I do them and then He does or doesn't add His blessing. I've been thinking that it certainly matters whether or not God blesses my effort and that my success is a gift, but the core of the belief was that I had to get things moving or they wouldn't ever happen. This instance, however, reminded me that God is at work, all on His, own, without any of my help, to bring about powerful change and to make big things happen. I do think He values and uses human agency, but we shouldn't think (as I've been prone to) that that's all there is. I was hurting and needed healing and reconciliation, and I thought that that would never happen unless I made it happen. I do think that God used and valued my agency, but when C told me that God had been really laying this same topic on his heart to bring up, I realized that God had plans in the works to bring about this healing conversation that He knew I needed, even if I hadn't done anything to make it happen.
I needed to remember that sometimes it's very okay for our prayer to be: God, I really need this, and I don't have the resources or the energy or the ability right now to make it happen for myself or even to contribute to the project. I really need this thing, but it will only happen if you just make it happen and give it to me. I can't contribute anything and all I can be is hopeful and thankful.
This autonomous activity/agency of God was so dormant in my paradigm that when I started thinking about it recently, I was actually surprised. I had forgotten it so thoroughly that it had atrophied and I had forgotten that I ever knew it. I was both shocked and delighted.
I think we need to remember that, while our agency is a very big thing, it is not the only thing. God is working in big, mighty, powerful, active, present way to bring about both the things that He wants and the things that we need. We are allowed to rest in that sometimes (if not all the time), because I tend to stress when I think that the things I need will not happen if I don't get the ball rolling.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Success of Helping
At the beginning of my counseling practicum, I set a goal to feel a clear measure of difference in my level of confidence in treatment planning, and to be able to better see and articulate reasonable goals for a client.
This is one of the areas where I am most pleased with the changes that have come about from this experience. I definitely feel more confident in reasonable treatment planning and goal, largely because I have a much better understanding of what reasonable goals can look like.
When I was becoming frustrated with the fact that we continued to meet and yet I was seeing no healthy or positive change in the behavior of the girls, my supervisor told me two things that were extremely helpful in this area. For one, she explained the idea of trajectory. She said that if a client is on one path, if you stretch out that path to a long-term conclusion, you will end up in one place. But if you are able to change a client’s trajectory, even a tiny bit, even one degree, it doesn’t look like really anything right at the beginning – there is barely any difference at all. But, if you follow that out to the long term, you will see that much later, the ending places of two different trajectories (even two that were only off by the smallest bit) are quite different.
The other thing she told me was that you might not see any changes in their behavior right now. The only thing you might do is to show them that their behavior is not the only way that things can be but that there are actually other choices. Even if that is the only thing you accomplish and they keep acting just as they did and the only thing that is different is that they see now other options (even if they don’t take them), that is actually a huge thing. If they only ever saw one inevitable path, then their future is set in stone. But if you can help them to see the existence of other paths, who knows what they might choose in the future.
This feedback was extremely helpful for me, as I was able to see that success in counseling cannot only be measure by radical, immediate, behavioral change. In fact, it can often not be measured by that. This perspective allowed me to have much greater hope for the long-term benefits of having planted some healthy seeds, even if I don’t ever see them grow.
This is one of the areas where I am most pleased with the changes that have come about from this experience. I definitely feel more confident in reasonable treatment planning and goal, largely because I have a much better understanding of what reasonable goals can look like.
When I was becoming frustrated with the fact that we continued to meet and yet I was seeing no healthy or positive change in the behavior of the girls, my supervisor told me two things that were extremely helpful in this area. For one, she explained the idea of trajectory. She said that if a client is on one path, if you stretch out that path to a long-term conclusion, you will end up in one place. But if you are able to change a client’s trajectory, even a tiny bit, even one degree, it doesn’t look like really anything right at the beginning – there is barely any difference at all. But, if you follow that out to the long term, you will see that much later, the ending places of two different trajectories (even two that were only off by the smallest bit) are quite different.
The other thing she told me was that you might not see any changes in their behavior right now. The only thing you might do is to show them that their behavior is not the only way that things can be but that there are actually other choices. Even if that is the only thing you accomplish and they keep acting just as they did and the only thing that is different is that they see now other options (even if they don’t take them), that is actually a huge thing. If they only ever saw one inevitable path, then their future is set in stone. But if you can help them to see the existence of other paths, who knows what they might choose in the future.
This feedback was extremely helpful for me, as I was able to see that success in counseling cannot only be measure by radical, immediate, behavioral change. In fact, it can often not be measured by that. This perspective allowed me to have much greater hope for the long-term benefits of having planted some healthy seeds, even if I don’t ever see them grow.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Listened To
I have previously written about the fact that I don't publish this blog because I would feel so much more pressure to edit it and make it way better and funny and all that, and that's certainly true.
But I also don't publish it because I feel very convicted that there is a real accountability that comes with readership. Right now, people don't really know about it, so I can say what I want without much hedging or explaining and if I realize later that I was totally wrong, no harm, no fowl - no explaining to anyone.
I don't have much to say about this, except that I think it is a very real thing. If we claim to speak and teach the truths of God, then we are MUCH more accountable to what we say, because now instead of rambling, we are actually leading someone.
See James 3:1-2
I have a tendency to shoot my mouth off sometimes with the first comment I have, and God has reminded me recently that people who set themselves up as leaders simply cannot do this. The girls of our new youth group at Crossroads said recently that I was "so smart" and, much more dangerously, that "everything I say is right." Well, I could go on and on about how that's wrong and if they think that, then it's their problem for putting too much faith in the words of other people and not using enough discernment in deciding what to believe and all of that (which I think is actually true), but in a situation like this, that's pretty much moot. Whether or not they need to examine their own hearts about just drinking up the words of anyone without wisdom and scrutiny doesn't really matter very much. Whether they should listen to me blindly or not isn't terribly relevant because THEY DO listen to me like that. And they are young, and I am older, and so you know who the responsibility falls on? ME. Absolutely me.
And if I just dismissed those comments and kept saying whatever I want with the attitude that they are the ones accountable for what they believe, etc etc etc, you know who is outside of God's will? Me, not them.
Ruth trusted Naomi like this.
"But Ruth replied, 'Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.' When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her."
Should Ruth has exercised some more caution in how blindly she followed someone other than God? Well, maybe. But the accountability and responsibility was then on Naomi!
Again, I don't have much more to say other than that we need to be very aware of just who is listening and just how seriously and how blindly they take our example and if that is present, God has made US accountable to the health of those little ones (even if those little ones are 50 years old or whatever else).
But I also don't publish it because I feel very convicted that there is a real accountability that comes with readership. Right now, people don't really know about it, so I can say what I want without much hedging or explaining and if I realize later that I was totally wrong, no harm, no fowl - no explaining to anyone.
I don't have much to say about this, except that I think it is a very real thing. If we claim to speak and teach the truths of God, then we are MUCH more accountable to what we say, because now instead of rambling, we are actually leading someone.
See James 3:1-2
I have a tendency to shoot my mouth off sometimes with the first comment I have, and God has reminded me recently that people who set themselves up as leaders simply cannot do this. The girls of our new youth group at Crossroads said recently that I was "so smart" and, much more dangerously, that "everything I say is right." Well, I could go on and on about how that's wrong and if they think that, then it's their problem for putting too much faith in the words of other people and not using enough discernment in deciding what to believe and all of that (which I think is actually true), but in a situation like this, that's pretty much moot. Whether or not they need to examine their own hearts about just drinking up the words of anyone without wisdom and scrutiny doesn't really matter very much. Whether they should listen to me blindly or not isn't terribly relevant because THEY DO listen to me like that. And they are young, and I am older, and so you know who the responsibility falls on? ME. Absolutely me.
And if I just dismissed those comments and kept saying whatever I want with the attitude that they are the ones accountable for what they believe, etc etc etc, you know who is outside of God's will? Me, not them.
Ruth trusted Naomi like this.
"But Ruth replied, 'Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.' When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her."
Should Ruth has exercised some more caution in how blindly she followed someone other than God? Well, maybe. But the accountability and responsibility was then on Naomi!
Again, I don't have much more to say other than that we need to be very aware of just who is listening and just how seriously and how blindly they take our example and if that is present, God has made US accountable to the health of those little ones (even if those little ones are 50 years old or whatever else).
Ready for the Battle
I read Proverbs 21:31 recently and fell in love with it in a way that I haven't before.
It says:
"The horse is made ready for the battle, but the victory is the Lord's."
It made me think about my own preparation versus God's sovereignty. This proverb is saying that the army needs to get ready. Is it right for the soldiers to get fat and lazy between wars? Is it right to have crappy armor? Is it right not to train your horses or give them good saddles or help them stay in shape? Of course not. Just like an army that is ready, we need to do the things we need to do to be equipped for our job. Even though we ultimately trust in God, the horse is still made ready for the battle. It isn't smart to never save any money, never go to school to learn, never spend time developing any skills. Would you not take prenatal vitamins to help your baby? Is it a lack of faith in God that compel us to do things that will contribute to our futures in a positive and preparatory way? No. It honors God for us to make ourselves ready! He has given us mind that can come up with plans, can reason through options, can wisely avoid danger, can learn from mistakes, can make decisions - and all of these things honor Him as we use them well. I do not think that His power is lessened if we use wisdom to prepare as best we can.
After this though, we must remember that no amount of our own preparation is the key to any of our success. At the end of the day, the eternal, and even circumstantial, success of our efforts is God's. I think this can be both a relaxing and a difficult thing.
On the negative side, we really don't get much credit for our successes. Success, just like the tools we used to prepare ourselves for it, is a gift from the Lord. We get very little (really no) credit. The glory for success is His, and this can be frustrating as we want some ego-stroking return on the investment we put in.
On the positive side, we don't have to take every seeming failure on ourselves. If we can honestly say that we did the best we could with what we had and we followed God the best way we knew how and things still didn't work out well, we don't have to carry all of that. Sometimes, we do all the things we think we should and things still fail or don't work out or crumble. It is in these moments that we have to remember that the plan wasn't ultimately ours to begin with - it was God's, and if He chose for the time being to withhold success, we do not have to walk away hating ourselves. (the hard part of this, to me, is maintaining joy and faith in His plans even when I worked really hard for something that ended up failing.)
The fact that the victory is the Lord's is both a frustration (when we want credit) and a comfort (when things fail), but it is also a scary place. Because what that means is that no amount of our own preparation and planning can ENSURE victory. We can do the best we can to be ready, but God will either give us victory or He won't, and we can force His hand either way. While it is scary to be in control of things (because if they fail, then it's on you), there is some comfort in control because you get to decide how things turn out.
There are many facets of this and many frustrations within it, especially as we have to learn to be joyful and trusting and faithful in the face of sometimes not getting our way.
But I hope that's its more of a comfort, and I hope that we can all get to a place where we trust God enough and give Him enough credit that, when things do go badly, we actually really BELIEVE that He will work it out, that this setback is a painful little piece of an ultimately wonderful plan.
Remember Daniel 3:16-18:
"Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, 'King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But EVEN IF HE DOES NOT, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.'"
It says:
"The horse is made ready for the battle, but the victory is the Lord's."
It made me think about my own preparation versus God's sovereignty. This proverb is saying that the army needs to get ready. Is it right for the soldiers to get fat and lazy between wars? Is it right to have crappy armor? Is it right not to train your horses or give them good saddles or help them stay in shape? Of course not. Just like an army that is ready, we need to do the things we need to do to be equipped for our job. Even though we ultimately trust in God, the horse is still made ready for the battle. It isn't smart to never save any money, never go to school to learn, never spend time developing any skills. Would you not take prenatal vitamins to help your baby? Is it a lack of faith in God that compel us to do things that will contribute to our futures in a positive and preparatory way? No. It honors God for us to make ourselves ready! He has given us mind that can come up with plans, can reason through options, can wisely avoid danger, can learn from mistakes, can make decisions - and all of these things honor Him as we use them well. I do not think that His power is lessened if we use wisdom to prepare as best we can.
After this though, we must remember that no amount of our own preparation is the key to any of our success. At the end of the day, the eternal, and even circumstantial, success of our efforts is God's. I think this can be both a relaxing and a difficult thing.
On the negative side, we really don't get much credit for our successes. Success, just like the tools we used to prepare ourselves for it, is a gift from the Lord. We get very little (really no) credit. The glory for success is His, and this can be frustrating as we want some ego-stroking return on the investment we put in.
On the positive side, we don't have to take every seeming failure on ourselves. If we can honestly say that we did the best we could with what we had and we followed God the best way we knew how and things still didn't work out well, we don't have to carry all of that. Sometimes, we do all the things we think we should and things still fail or don't work out or crumble. It is in these moments that we have to remember that the plan wasn't ultimately ours to begin with - it was God's, and if He chose for the time being to withhold success, we do not have to walk away hating ourselves. (the hard part of this, to me, is maintaining joy and faith in His plans even when I worked really hard for something that ended up failing.)
The fact that the victory is the Lord's is both a frustration (when we want credit) and a comfort (when things fail), but it is also a scary place. Because what that means is that no amount of our own preparation and planning can ENSURE victory. We can do the best we can to be ready, but God will either give us victory or He won't, and we can force His hand either way. While it is scary to be in control of things (because if they fail, then it's on you), there is some comfort in control because you get to decide how things turn out.
There are many facets of this and many frustrations within it, especially as we have to learn to be joyful and trusting and faithful in the face of sometimes not getting our way.
But I hope that's its more of a comfort, and I hope that we can all get to a place where we trust God enough and give Him enough credit that, when things do go badly, we actually really BELIEVE that He will work it out, that this setback is a painful little piece of an ultimately wonderful plan.
Remember Daniel 3:16-18:
"Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, 'King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But EVEN IF HE DOES NOT, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.'"
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Version of Yourself
I was talking with some friends recently, and we talked about the fact that we have books on our shelves in our room that we have had for years and have never read (books like Calvin's full Institutes of the Christian Religion). They all maintained that they would definitely get around to reading these books someday (liars) but I commented that I think we will never ever read them. I think we have certain books on our shelves, not because we will ever read them, but because we like the person we would be if we did read them. We look at that book and we see a version of ourselves that we would be if we actually did read the book, so we keep the book, not because we're ever going to read it, but because we don't want to give up on that version of who we could be (that version we prefer.)
I think we do lots of things in life for this reason. We make friends with certain people or do certain things or believe certain things, not necessarily because of the merit of the things itself and not even because we actually like the thing itself, but because we like the people we are when we do/have that thing. We like the person that that thing makes us.
I have a friend who has two huge dogs. She recently told me that she wants to get rid of the dogs because they're mammoth and chew everything, but that her husband said they should keep them. His reason for keeping the dogs was this: when we're 80 and look back on our lives, don't you want to remember having two cool St. Bernards? He was using this logic I'm talking about. Never did he say anything about enjoying the dogs or wanting them right now. That wasn't the defense. He just wanted to be able to say that he was the kind of person who had St. Bernards. He doesn't like the dogs. He likes the version of himself that he is when he has the dogs.
I think we all do this with things, and I don't even think it's a bad thing. I think we can honor the Lord by doing right and good things, not because we want to, but because we want to be the kind of righteous person who would do it. (I realize the potential legalism and the holes in this argument and I see them myself, but I think there is still a measure of truth here that's worth mentioning.)
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to do something, not because we like it or will enjoy it or will even use it, but because we like the person we are when we have it/do it. I just think we need to be aware of the motivation.
I think we do lots of things in life for this reason. We make friends with certain people or do certain things or believe certain things, not necessarily because of the merit of the things itself and not even because we actually like the thing itself, but because we like the people we are when we do/have that thing. We like the person that that thing makes us.
I have a friend who has two huge dogs. She recently told me that she wants to get rid of the dogs because they're mammoth and chew everything, but that her husband said they should keep them. His reason for keeping the dogs was this: when we're 80 and look back on our lives, don't you want to remember having two cool St. Bernards? He was using this logic I'm talking about. Never did he say anything about enjoying the dogs or wanting them right now. That wasn't the defense. He just wanted to be able to say that he was the kind of person who had St. Bernards. He doesn't like the dogs. He likes the version of himself that he is when he has the dogs.
I think we all do this with things, and I don't even think it's a bad thing. I think we can honor the Lord by doing right and good things, not because we want to, but because we want to be the kind of righteous person who would do it. (I realize the potential legalism and the holes in this argument and I see them myself, but I think there is still a measure of truth here that's worth mentioning.)
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to do something, not because we like it or will enjoy it or will even use it, but because we like the person we are when we have it/do it. I just think we need to be aware of the motivation.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Mirror, Mirror
This year, I have really felt God speaking to me in ways that are louder and more noticeable than normal. (At least, I hope it's Him and not me just attributing my own thoughts to His voice...) Anyway, I think that in this, He is honoring a request of mine. At the begging of this year, I felt Him asking me to evaluate what I was actively, tangibly doing to contribute to the Kingdom. Not just "being nice" or "trying to love" or "being a witness with my life"or all those other things we say to ease our guilt over Kingdom laziness. But what was I presently, purposefully doing to make a real contribution to Kingdom work? What was I doing right then that, when I stood before Him, would be worth mentioning?
Not to minimize the value and true merit of working towards holy living in a daily way, but really, the answer was.... kind of.... nothing. Not really....
I thought about starting to pray that God would provide ways for me to begin being a powerful worker for Him, but what I decided instead was to pray for God to show me the things in my life that were currently keeping me from it and to help me to start changing those.
he has showed me many things, but the biggest and most important, I think, has been about identity. I feel that He keeps sending me the world Identity. He spoke to me through a book called The Mirror Effect (Pinsky). (It isn't a Christian book! Could He possibly use that?? Who can say...)
This book talks about a mirror effect, in which everyone around you serves always and only as a mirror. In your eyes, people aren't really who they are, but they're just mirroring back to you who YOU are. You look at someone, and their opinion of you tells you who you are. If a professor likes you and gives you a good grade, you're (in your own eyes) smart and good. If your boss at work doesn't like you and criticizes you, you're (in your own eyes) bad. If you make a new friend who seems to like you, you're lovable. If you get dumped, you're disgusting. If you get a promotion, you're valuable. If your date stands you up, you're worthless. And on and on and on, with every interaction, every new opinion.
There is no sense of "this is who I am, this is always who I am, regardless of what happens during the day" - what happens during the day is what tells you who you are.
When babies are developing, they earn object permanence. This means the understanding that, if your mom walks out of the room, she's not gone, she's just away. If you have a toy, and then the toy is put behind someone's back, it isn't vanished, it's hidden, but still there. The fact that babies don't have it for a while is what makes a game like peek-a-boo fun. They can't see you, so they think you've really gone away. But as they grow, it is important that they learn object permanence, so they understand that, even though they can't see something, it isn't gone forever. It isn't completely changed. The change is situational, not forever.
I say this because, with the mirror effect (and with me!), there is very little object permanence with your identity. There is little sense that, this is who I am, and even if a circumstance changes or someone's opinion changes or something good or bad happens, who I am is constant.
What results is a severely selfish mindset in which no one has any value, except to tell you about yourself. It also results in an identity that has no permanence, but is constantly shaped and reshaped by the whims and opinions and feelings of absolutely everyone. And there are lots of people. And they rarely agree. So your identity and worth are never stable. It's very stressful.
Anyway, what I think He has been telling me is that my identity has been very unstable. I am very little object permanence with it.
I have seen in myself that I allow my own performance and my situations and other people's emotions and opinions to all be my mirrors - that is how I will define myself. What I felt God telling me, though, is that He gave me a mirror. The Bible is supposed to be my mirror. In it, I see that I am beautiful, cherished, lovable, desired, sought after, worth dying for - and this identity is as unchanging as the Book that presents it. I think that God wants us to know that who we are and how we are defined should be a stable thing that doesn't shift. And when it is rightly based in Him and His, all of a sudden, that is possible. What other people think and what happens to us and how we perform are all certainly things that matter and that should often be taken seriously and dealt with, but they are just that: things to deal with, flashes in the pan that pass as quickly as the time that contains them. They can be important things, maybe even Kingdom things, but they do not define who we are in the yes of God, and should therefore not define who we are in our own eyes.
I feel like I should have a wrap up point, but I guess I don't. I just feel like God has showed this to me about myself, and I think it's worth noting.
Not to minimize the value and true merit of working towards holy living in a daily way, but really, the answer was.... kind of.... nothing. Not really....
I thought about starting to pray that God would provide ways for me to begin being a powerful worker for Him, but what I decided instead was to pray for God to show me the things in my life that were currently keeping me from it and to help me to start changing those.
he has showed me many things, but the biggest and most important, I think, has been about identity. I feel that He keeps sending me the world Identity. He spoke to me through a book called The Mirror Effect (Pinsky). (It isn't a Christian book! Could He possibly use that?? Who can say...)
This book talks about a mirror effect, in which everyone around you serves always and only as a mirror. In your eyes, people aren't really who they are, but they're just mirroring back to you who YOU are. You look at someone, and their opinion of you tells you who you are. If a professor likes you and gives you a good grade, you're (in your own eyes) smart and good. If your boss at work doesn't like you and criticizes you, you're (in your own eyes) bad. If you make a new friend who seems to like you, you're lovable. If you get dumped, you're disgusting. If you get a promotion, you're valuable. If your date stands you up, you're worthless. And on and on and on, with every interaction, every new opinion.
There is no sense of "this is who I am, this is always who I am, regardless of what happens during the day" - what happens during the day is what tells you who you are.
When babies are developing, they earn object permanence. This means the understanding that, if your mom walks out of the room, she's not gone, she's just away. If you have a toy, and then the toy is put behind someone's back, it isn't vanished, it's hidden, but still there. The fact that babies don't have it for a while is what makes a game like peek-a-boo fun. They can't see you, so they think you've really gone away. But as they grow, it is important that they learn object permanence, so they understand that, even though they can't see something, it isn't gone forever. It isn't completely changed. The change is situational, not forever.
I say this because, with the mirror effect (and with me!), there is very little object permanence with your identity. There is little sense that, this is who I am, and even if a circumstance changes or someone's opinion changes or something good or bad happens, who I am is constant.
What results is a severely selfish mindset in which no one has any value, except to tell you about yourself. It also results in an identity that has no permanence, but is constantly shaped and reshaped by the whims and opinions and feelings of absolutely everyone. And there are lots of people. And they rarely agree. So your identity and worth are never stable. It's very stressful.
Anyway, what I think He has been telling me is that my identity has been very unstable. I am very little object permanence with it.
I have seen in myself that I allow my own performance and my situations and other people's emotions and opinions to all be my mirrors - that is how I will define myself. What I felt God telling me, though, is that He gave me a mirror. The Bible is supposed to be my mirror. In it, I see that I am beautiful, cherished, lovable, desired, sought after, worth dying for - and this identity is as unchanging as the Book that presents it. I think that God wants us to know that who we are and how we are defined should be a stable thing that doesn't shift. And when it is rightly based in Him and His, all of a sudden, that is possible. What other people think and what happens to us and how we perform are all certainly things that matter and that should often be taken seriously and dealt with, but they are just that: things to deal with, flashes in the pan that pass as quickly as the time that contains them. They can be important things, maybe even Kingdom things, but they do not define who we are in the yes of God, and should therefore not define who we are in our own eyes.
I feel like I should have a wrap up point, but I guess I don't. I just feel like God has showed this to me about myself, and I think it's worth noting.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Anything Good
When we wonder how it is the God can allow such bad things in the world or why bad things happen to good people or all of that, I think that we are showing our hand. I think we are revealing our own misunderstanding of how deeply we ruined things when we sinned. I think we have no idea how big a deal our sin was and how completely we altered what God had created, in a massive, cosmic way. I think we have absolutely no understanding of the bigness of our choice and its consequences.
Christ’s work on the cross shows us just how big a deal our sin was, because it shows the great lengths it took and what quality of person it took to bring about a solution. If Christ's death was the only sacrifice that could, in goodness, match the bigness of our evil, then that should show us how HUGE our sin is.
This should result in a life with God as an act of thanksgiving – not because he’ll smite us, but because we are so thankful for the grace we didn’t deserve – rather than a performance, our lives should be a thankful offering, once we understand where we were without Him.
For God to have created something so wonderful and for us to have ruined it as deeply and powerfully and colossally as we did, we should not sit and look at bad things that happen and wonder how God could allow this. I think, if we understood the extensiveness of our sin, we would sit and wonder how God could possibly inject anything good. The fact that we are surprised and disgusted at bad things, as if they're so unfair, is proof that we don't understand the depth of what we did.
For God to have provided a way for us to spend a happy eternity, that is already immeasurable grace. I think it would be WAY MORE than fair for him to say, "I am going to make a way for you to have a good and happy eternity, but because you did such a bad thing, I am not going to worry about your life on earth. Go ahead and have the horrible, evil, pain-filled life that you chose, I'm not going to do anything about earthly life, but because I'm merciful, I'll let you have a good eternity, I'll make something good out of the more important of the two." Absolutely more than fair. But He goes beyond that! And takes steps to even heal our lives here! And we wonder why there is anything bad left, as if it's His fault? The fact that we would either blame Him for bad or feel ourselves entitled to anything good is proof of how blind we are to our own choice of evil. And just how huge that was.
The mystery should not be that God could ever allow anything bad but that He could ever possibly inject anything good.
Christ’s work on the cross shows us just how big a deal our sin was, because it shows the great lengths it took and what quality of person it took to bring about a solution. If Christ's death was the only sacrifice that could, in goodness, match the bigness of our evil, then that should show us how HUGE our sin is.
This should result in a life with God as an act of thanksgiving – not because he’ll smite us, but because we are so thankful for the grace we didn’t deserve – rather than a performance, our lives should be a thankful offering, once we understand where we were without Him.
For God to have created something so wonderful and for us to have ruined it as deeply and powerfully and colossally as we did, we should not sit and look at bad things that happen and wonder how God could allow this. I think, if we understood the extensiveness of our sin, we would sit and wonder how God could possibly inject anything good. The fact that we are surprised and disgusted at bad things, as if they're so unfair, is proof that we don't understand the depth of what we did.
For God to have provided a way for us to spend a happy eternity, that is already immeasurable grace. I think it would be WAY MORE than fair for him to say, "I am going to make a way for you to have a good and happy eternity, but because you did such a bad thing, I am not going to worry about your life on earth. Go ahead and have the horrible, evil, pain-filled life that you chose, I'm not going to do anything about earthly life, but because I'm merciful, I'll let you have a good eternity, I'll make something good out of the more important of the two." Absolutely more than fair. But He goes beyond that! And takes steps to even heal our lives here! And we wonder why there is anything bad left, as if it's His fault? The fact that we would either blame Him for bad or feel ourselves entitled to anything good is proof of how blind we are to our own choice of evil. And just how huge that was.
The mystery should not be that God could ever allow anything bad but that He could ever possibly inject anything good.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Fashionably Unorthodox
I just want to say that I think we are in trouble as a generation in that we have equated orthodoxy with stodginess. Maybe this is the product of youth and something that each new generation does in its own way, but I just want to make the comment that I see our generation doing just that. Orthodox theology is associated with prudishness and judgment, while emerging, off-beat, hip theology is very cool. I have felt these leanings myself. A professor of mine in college made a good care for theistic evolution and against 7-day creationism. I found myself very swayed by him, and as I examine this swaying within me, I realized that, while his points were very solid, I was not being swayed by the convincingness of his arguments but by how cool I knew I would feel if I could reasonably reject something I had taught to me as so inherently, fundamentally true. Oh, I would pretty big stuff. I'm smart enough to know that I couldn't just reject it for no reason and cling to some other random belief. But upon having something else presented to me with enough substance to it that I could reject my old ways and take up this new, edgy belief and still be able to justify it? Well, that was all the rationale I needed. What I really wanted was to feel that free, independent, yummy feeling of rejecting something I had assumed for something much more daring and new that felt crisp and cool on my tongue, after years of having repeated back the same words, of which I had grown very bored.
My point is this - we are in a very dangerous place when we move into new beliefs, not because they are actually better, but because we have equated newness with coolness, and oh we want to feel cool. We don't want to be stuck in the stodginess of all the old people, so we label orthodoxy as uncool and justify this by calling the old beliefs "judgmental". If we have believed something that isn't good, only because we have always believed it, then that is worth getting rid of. I'm not afraid of or against moving into a new idea. But we need to ask why we are moving. Why do we like this new idea? Is it really a better idea? Do we feel God prompting this movement? Or are we just suckers for the glossiness of something new? Do we feel cooler and more enlightened and less stuck when we move forward, no matter what we're moving into?
I think, when we move, we need to consider where we're moving. But equally important is the consideration of WHY we're moving? What's prompting us? Is the new thing really better? Or does the traditional/old thing just feel smothering or boring or normal, and we're tired of that?
I see some of this as our generation of Christians moves away from some of orthodoxy Christianity (namely, into universalism). I am afraid that so much of this is motivated by the desire to feel new and edgy and cool, rather than by informed study and prayerful decision.
My point is this - we are in a very dangerous place when we move into new beliefs, not because they are actually better, but because we have equated newness with coolness, and oh we want to feel cool. We don't want to be stuck in the stodginess of all the old people, so we label orthodoxy as uncool and justify this by calling the old beliefs "judgmental". If we have believed something that isn't good, only because we have always believed it, then that is worth getting rid of. I'm not afraid of or against moving into a new idea. But we need to ask why we are moving. Why do we like this new idea? Is it really a better idea? Do we feel God prompting this movement? Or are we just suckers for the glossiness of something new? Do we feel cooler and more enlightened and less stuck when we move forward, no matter what we're moving into?
I think, when we move, we need to consider where we're moving. But equally important is the consideration of WHY we're moving? What's prompting us? Is the new thing really better? Or does the traditional/old thing just feel smothering or boring or normal, and we're tired of that?
I see some of this as our generation of Christians moves away from some of orthodoxy Christianity (namely, into universalism). I am afraid that so much of this is motivated by the desire to feel new and edgy and cool, rather than by informed study and prayerful decision.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
False Prophets: 2
I just want to say one more thing about how careful w should be that we are not false prophets. We should, as I said, be very careful that we do not let people believe that our opinions and priorities and treatments within a situation are those of God, but I think the same must be said about what we assert to be Biblical truths.
In human sexuality, we were asked to write a paper about homosexuality which, in part, was to cover what the Bible taught about it. Most of us in the class, myself included, were sure that it would be very quick, easy, and clear to find the places that the Bible condemned homosexual behavior. I wrote about this 2 or 3 postings ago, so you can read the rest of this issue there, but the long and short of it was that it was actually very difficult to find places where the Bible said that it was wrong. The passage in Leviticus where it is listed among the forbidden behaviors in the law also lists having sex with your wife on her period - clearly we don't think that's a horrible sin. And in Paul's New Testament lists of wrong behaviors, many believe that the word for homosexuality there is actually making reference to temple prostitution between the priests and young temple boys.
In talking with people, the argument that I hear far and away the most often is that God set up the family a very specific way: a mother and a father, a husband and a wife. He gave us a very clear example of how a family should be, the inference being that anything outside of that original model is not right.
I think this argument from silence is a very dangerous one. Hear me, I do think that a homosexual lifestyle is not God's best or God's plan, but I think that using silence on the issue within the original family structures of Genesis 1 as a condemnation is not only weak but dangerous. Is adoption then similarly wrong? Because the original family structure doesn't include that either.
My belabored point again is this - we need to be very careful when we tell people what God and His Word do and do not prioritize. God does not, in Scripture at least, make a big, overstated, clear deal about homosexuality. You know what He does do that about? False prophesy and leading His children wrongly through your teaching.
I also think, just for ourselves, we need to look at our mindsets and figure out if our priorities mirror His. Do we put our thought and attention and passion and words in the same places that God does? I think we need to look at Scripture and really figure out what GOD is making a big deal about and then make a big deal about that too. I think it's all too often the opposite - we decide what we care about and what is a big deal, and then we go find sections of Scripture to back ourselves up, and then what's worse, we tell people that they can learn the truths of God through us.
We just need to be careful with that.
In human sexuality, we were asked to write a paper about homosexuality which, in part, was to cover what the Bible taught about it. Most of us in the class, myself included, were sure that it would be very quick, easy, and clear to find the places that the Bible condemned homosexual behavior. I wrote about this 2 or 3 postings ago, so you can read the rest of this issue there, but the long and short of it was that it was actually very difficult to find places where the Bible said that it was wrong. The passage in Leviticus where it is listed among the forbidden behaviors in the law also lists having sex with your wife on her period - clearly we don't think that's a horrible sin. And in Paul's New Testament lists of wrong behaviors, many believe that the word for homosexuality there is actually making reference to temple prostitution between the priests and young temple boys.
In talking with people, the argument that I hear far and away the most often is that God set up the family a very specific way: a mother and a father, a husband and a wife. He gave us a very clear example of how a family should be, the inference being that anything outside of that original model is not right.
I think this argument from silence is a very dangerous one. Hear me, I do think that a homosexual lifestyle is not God's best or God's plan, but I think that using silence on the issue within the original family structures of Genesis 1 as a condemnation is not only weak but dangerous. Is adoption then similarly wrong? Because the original family structure doesn't include that either.
My belabored point again is this - we need to be very careful when we tell people what God and His Word do and do not prioritize. God does not, in Scripture at least, make a big, overstated, clear deal about homosexuality. You know what He does do that about? False prophesy and leading His children wrongly through your teaching.
I also think, just for ourselves, we need to look at our mindsets and figure out if our priorities mirror His. Do we put our thought and attention and passion and words in the same places that God does? I think we need to look at Scripture and really figure out what GOD is making a big deal about and then make a big deal about that too. I think it's all too often the opposite - we decide what we care about and what is a big deal, and then we go find sections of Scripture to back ourselves up, and then what's worse, we tell people that they can learn the truths of God through us.
We just need to be careful with that.
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