God’s attributes

From dark to light

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I took this in Montana a couple summers ago. Amazing!

Daughter Emily took this in Montana a couple summers ago. Amazing!

With the time change, I rise in grey light rather than pitch dark. By the time I hit the trail, I can see the round walnuts, black against the white gravel. My ankles are thankful.

I run due west, and at my halfway point, I turn around and head back, and the sunrise lifts in front of me.

Glorious!

But the payoff for the morning light is early dark. Earlier and earlier dark. It’s creeping in on us, hemming in our days, tighter and tighter.

It feels as if it’s crept into my soul as well.

I’m reading through Isaiah currently, and I just finished Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic novel The Road. “Doom and gloom” shrouded my thoughts this last week (hence the break from blogging). In between my times of people-filled activity (parenting/tutoring/teaching/meetings), my thoughts nearly immediately wrestle with the traumas of our trouble-riddled world, and my heart not only aches but wanders, confused and fearful.

At the height of day, with the sunlight brilliant on the lingering yellow leaves, the melancholy recedes a bit, but if I read through major headlines or listened to news talk radio, it returned. From all I can see and hear, we humans are not moving toward peace and goodness and Truth, and we become more and more bent on denying there is a God Who actually determines and is Himself Peace, Goodness, and Truth.

A few days ago I read Isaiah 22, and verse 11 jumped out at me. It summed up all my fears. The prophet Isaiah has told the Israelites that trouble is coming and they will do all in their power to fight against it: fortifying walls, arming themselves, creating a reservoir. “But you never ask for help from the One who did all this,” writes Isaiah. “You never considered the One who planned this long ago” (Is. 22:11b).

That describes us, I thought. We are so bent on finding our own answers to problems. We are so self-reliant and certain of ourselves.

What I missed at first was the irony that I, too, have been doing this.

The verse applies to me in my time-change-induced melancholy.

Though I have not been feeling self-sufficient, I have been trying to discover the “right” view on issues. I have wanted to feel certain and secure, and I have wanted my world to be certain and secure.

My eyes have been on the trouble rather than on the Solution.

What is too big for me to understand and too much for my heart to hold is not too big for HIM.

He is not helplessly wringing His hands over the statistics and news and debates that frighten and confuse me. He does not cry out, “I don’t know what to do!” (or “think” or “believe”)

Last night I drove my girls east to soccer practice. As I turned to head home, dusk kept pace with me. The shrouded sky behind gradually ate up the sunset in front.

But then I noticed that Venus, visible even in the last of daylight, shone even brighter after it was surrounded by night.

I am not left alone in the dark. WE are not left alone in the dark.

The Morning Star still shines, and He will not be overwhelmed.

When I focus my eyes on the Him, my uncertainties and fears shrink in their power. I still have them, but they lose their grip on me. They do not crush me.

So, right now (and again and again in the future), I “ask for help from the One who did all this.” I “consider the One who planned this long ago.” I turn to the Light.

“…Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’”

NOTES: SO many beautiful passages that speak of God bringing light into darkness and Christ being light in the darkness. I’ve listed just a few below.

Psalm 18:28 For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.

Daniel 2:22 (H)e reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him.

Micah 7:8 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

Matthew 4:16 the people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
on them a light has dawned.”

Luke 1:76-79 (Zechariah singing a prophetic song over his son John)

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us[h] from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

I John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Little woman with a Great Big God

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More than 20 years ago, in our pre-kid days, Dave and I had a boxer dog named Barkley. Barkley was my running partner. At a park one day, stretching before I started my run, a woman walking by stopped to talk with me. “I’ve seen you before here,” she said. “I’ve always called you ‘the little woman with the big dog’ and thought I would finally learn your name.”

The little woman with the big dog. He was a good big dog. He made me feel safe and secure, even when we ran deserted trails at dusk. He was always looking out for me, and I knew he could sense danger that was completely unseen by me.

As he and I walked together on a sidewalk one day, a group of teenage boys came slouching toward us on the sidewalk. I didn’t sense any ill will on their part, but Barkley, generally a sweetheart of a dog, tensed up his back, pricked up his ears, and swelled his broad chest.

Still a few yards in front of us, the teenage boys stopped, eyed him cautiously, and then crossed to the other side of the street! As soon as they were past, Barkley visibly relaxed.

Needless to say, I never had any doubts that he would protect me. There was confidence in being a little woman with a big dog.

But even better is the truth that I am a “little woman with a great big GOD!”

Great Big!

But Loving and Tender!

Vast and Limitless!

But Personal and Intimate.

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.

For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.” Psalm 57:9-10

I may be small, just one little person in a huge, overwhelming world…

but I’ve got a GREAT BIG GOD!

A weekend away–with a purpose

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He has been urging me to do this for, quite literally, years!

On Monday night I was evidently ready. So when my husband said, “Go away for the weekend. It will be good for you,” I did not sigh and say, “You’re right. I should, but now…?”

This time I nodded. “Ok.”

So Friday afternoon I checked into a hotel he’d booked for me (he feared I would back out when I was faced with the reality of spending money on myself) and carried my bags up to a room that had no human presence in it other than my own.

It was unnerving.

But good.

I had a specific job for the evening. About a week ago I was accepted into the Redbud Writers’ Guild (www.redbudwritersguild.com) and I received a request from a member of its Board of Directors for a whole list of things, one of which was a one/two-sentence description of my reason for writing.

My reason for writing.

Hmm.

I knew my usual answer—that I can’t seem to NOT write—wasn’t what I wanted to have next to my name. That’s not really a reason; it’s a negative statement.

I decided to look at some of the other writers’ descriptors. I read nearly all of them. Then I visited many of their Websites and blogs. I cried over the tough things some of them are going through and rejoiced at the amazing ways God is using them and their writing gifts.

While I enjoyed all their sites and writing, I identified with only some of their reasons for writing. Many have a particular “niche.” I don’t. Many have writing that flows out of a particular ministry. Mine doesn’t.

In between all this I looked up verses (in three different translations) that have the words “write” or “writing” in them.

I read and thought and prayed and jotted down notes.

And I was reminded of what I learned a long time ago.

I love story.

I love it because I have this deep-down-in-my-gut belief that every story, no matter how small, no matter how terrible, is somehow part of God’s big, grand, beautiful story. In this STORY, God, as Joseph puts it so well, turns all things meant for evil into good. Not a single part of anyone’s story is wasted. Each one plays a vital part in God’s sweeping epic.

Years ago, in an inservice at work, I took a Strengthsfinder test. Top on my list of strengths was “input,” which was described as “a craving to know more,” a desire “to collect and archive all kinds of information.”

What? I thought—but then I read the bigger description at the back of the book. In the long list of the kinds of things “Input” people like to collect is this: STORIES.

Teaching was my main career focus at that point. There wasn’t much time leftover for writing, but when I read that, something in my heart hummed.

It’s true. “Story” is the theme that links all the writing work I do.

By the end of my first night away, I had three possibilities, all related. I’ve since added a fourth. They’re below. If you have a minute to vote, I would appreciate your feedback.

If you have any suggestions and you don’t mind sending me a comment, I would appreciate that, too.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

Parenting and Growth–both neverending

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This past Sunday, in the second service at church, we talked about guilt and grace in parenting. One of the reflection questions was, “What’s something you feel guilty about in regards to your parenting?”

My answer was this: Not wanting to be a parent sometimes.

I know that’s terrible (see, there’s the guilt!), but it’s true. Sometimes I don’t want to be a mom. There are times I want to run away and simply be me (whatever that means!).

I’m struggling with this off-and-on right now. I could pretend I’m not, but I’m hoping that writing about it will help (it usually does) and that maybe some other mom who’s feeling the same guilt will read this and say, “Oh, I’m not the only one.” (And some other woman who is struggling with infertility or loss will hate me.

I’m thankful our God is big enough for all of it!)

I think it’s the never-ending nature of parenthood that wears me down. I remember a conversation I had with a fellow teacher when my own children were still toddlers and her boys were nearly grown. She had just lamented that they were still leaving dishes in the sink for her to wash. “Plus,” she added, “at this age they’re facing choices that could have really long-term consequences. I pray harder for them now than I ever have.” She shook her head. “Parenting is never finished!”

I was horrified.

“Never, Lynnette?” I asked her. “Come on—give me something to hold onto here.”

I like teaching my kids; I love laughing with them; I enjoy going for walks and watching them discover things; I treasure our deep conversations.

But it doesn’t end there. A parent’s responsibility list is endless. There is no task for which a parent can legitimately say, “Well, I’ll let someone else deal with that—not my job.”

So in infancy we do it ALL! (At least they’re really, really cute!)

But as they grow older, the tug-of-war begins. We know that at some point they will need to take care of themselves, and we can’t just dump them at age 18 on some college’s or workplace’s doorstep and say, “I’ve delivered them safe and sound; now you teach them to work and clean and cook and manage their money and be generally responsible adults who contribute to society.”

So we must, bit by bit, make them responsible for those things as they grow.

They don’t like that!

At least my kids don’t. They resist my efforts to saw through the umbilical cord. They would be perfectly happy if I continued to cook every meal for them, clean up every mess, wash all their clothes and put them neatly away, help them with homework, etc. (That should be capitalized: ETCETERA.)

Yesterday a friend in her early thirties told me she and her husband are praying about having children. “I’m ready to stop working for awhile,” she said, and then she laughed at the irony (which she doesn’t entirely get yet—but that’s a good thing because quite a few of us would NEVER have embarked on parenthood had we known in advance how hard it actually is.)

Anyway, she asked me how old I was when I had my kids (30 and 34 [twins]—and then 38 when Patrick came home) and how I would compare my pre-kids stage to my post-.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” I told her. I didn’t want to discourage her, despite my current wrestlings, so I added, “but, boy, have I learned a lot about myself. I didn’t realize I was impatient until I had children—and I was a middle-school teacher! God has revealed so much to me about the depth of my need and the greatness of His sufficiency through my being a mom.”

Then I looked at her face—a little shocked—and realized my addition hadn’t exactly been encouraging.

“It’s a good thing,” I said. “It really is.”

But it’s a lot of growth, too.

And maybe I’m not so unlike my kids in this respect: They don’t like it when I shove them into greater responsibility; I don’t like it when God does the same with me.

Yet it’s so, so good!

I don’t have a whole lot of parental wisdom. Much of the time I’m doing it in desperation, in blind hope.

Not so God. He parents me with purpose, inexhaustible sufficiency, and vast knowledge of who I am and who He knows I will/can be.

He does the same for my children.

And when I wrestle through my desire to run away and then through the guilt that follows, He comes alongside me, and I grow more–in trust and in perseverance.

So, somehow my bumbling efforts at parenting are used for growth in my children AND in me!

What a miracle!

 

Here are a few verses I’ve thought about during this latest bout of wrestling, because, really, my frustrations ARE light and momentary, though they don’t feel like it in the moment. These verses remind me to keep the long view in mind.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Always grace for regrets

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Last week I overheard a conversation. The guy said, “A few years back, I rode the train every day to the job I was working then. That time became my listening time, my prayer time. I often prayed for other people in my train compartment, and for those coming and going.

“One day I felt led to pray for a woman sitting across from me. By all appearances, she looked homeless. The urge grew stronger. I wasn’t simply supposed to pray for her. I was supposed to approach her and ask if I could pray with her.

But my stop was coming up, and if I missed it, I would be late to work.”

He paused and looked directly into the eyes of the other person, owning the moment and his own admission. “I didn’t pray with her. I got off the train.

“And I’ve never forgotten that.”

I have regrets, too. Sometimes they are like that man’s, disregarded urges to reach out to a stranger. More often, mine are with people who are part of my family. I have mornings when I drop the kids off at school with a crummy feeling in the pit of my stomach. In the quietness of the post-drop-off, I examine why and realize it’s because of missed opportunities. I fussed instead of listening; I rushed instead of taking a moment to be still and assess; I lost it instead of laughing over something small.

We will always have regrets like these. It’s part of being human, being stuck in time, in moment-by-moment living.

The awful thing about “little” regrets like these is that the choices don’t seem nearly so difficult when we have the privilege of retrospection. In hindsight, I’m sure the teacher would have chosen to be late to work just that one day. I can almost always look back and see the humor in a mess or situation that at the time caused me frustration.

Yet the solution is not simple. It has no formulaic answer. I know that prayer—lots and lots of cries for help—is required. Slowing down helps. “Living at the pace of faith.” (Gotta admit—I stole that one from a church billboard, which has been making me think every time I pass it.)

But when we forget to pray, when slowing down doesn’t seem to be an option, when we’ve been chewed up and spit out by the pace of life, there is the constant of all constants: grace. We need blessed, real grace to actually remember to pray and slow down and live in faith. We also need it because the regrets will continue. We set ourselves up for guilt and shame if we think we can live without regrets, without missing the mark again and again and again.

This is messy sanctification, but it’s real, and it takes us, bit by bit, into a deep assurance that His grace is always greater than our regrets.

Always.

Everyday Gospel, continued (part 2 of conversation with Jake)

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Game pieces? I think so. Why? Not sure. Because he's a nine-year-old boy? Good answer.

Game pieces? I think so. Why? Not sure.                       Because he’s a nine-year-old boy? Yep, that’s probably it.

Sunday night Dave took the crew out for ice cream. Jake decided to stay behind. As soon as everyone left, I found out why.

“Mom, I need to talk to you about something.”

He’d been waiting for just such a quiet moment.

“What’s up, bud?”

“I think I have an idol.”

It took me a moment to process that one. It’s not a phrase a 9-year-old boy often uses.

“Where did you hear…? Never mind. How ‘bout we sit down together.”

After we were snugged into the chair-and-a-half, with Jake’s hand rubbing the back of my hair, I asked, “What do you think your idol is?”

“Legos.”

“Why do you think Legos are an idol?”

“Because I think about them so much. I would rather play with them than read my Bible. I know that reading my Bible is good, and Legos are keeping me from doing as much of it as I should. I think they’re an idol.”

Ah! A repeat of our conversation the week before.

I held my hands up as if they were scales and launched into an explanation of how we can never do enough “good” to earn God’s acceptance. It’s impossible, which is why He made another Way.

But the anguish in Jake’s face stopped me.

I thought of what I’ve learned through spending time with believers from other cultures—how our Western view of salvation as a transaction is not the only way God presents the Gospel in Scripture. It is justification, yes, but it’s also reconciliation and restoration. It’s relationship, made possible through Christ.

“J-man, what do you think your dad would say if you told him, ‘Dad, I know you’re a runner, so I’m gonna’ start running four miles a day to make you love me more’?”

Jake’s face screwed up as if I’d bought him a hot pink shirt. “Mom, Dad already loves me. That’s not gonna’ make him love me more!”

I grinned.

He was quiet, his brain connecting the dots, seeing in them a picture, a constellation of beauty.

We talked more, about how we know someone loves us, then specifically about how we know God loves us. We talked about God’s joy in Jake’s enjoyment of Legos, how Jake’s creativity, imagination, and collaboration please God; they are gifts from God. We talked about how good things CAN turn into idols (and I thought, “Even Bible reading, clearly!”) and what we do about that.

At one point Jake said something truly beautiful. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like this: “So God wants me to read my Bible so I can know better that He loves me! It’s NOT so He will love me more! That’s not it at all.”

I laughed aloud in delight.

But part of my heart grieved.

Not at his words, but at this truth: my son, like I, will forget, time and time again, that God loves us simply because HE IS LOVE. Jake, too, will wrestle with guilt over “not doing enough.” He will lose the joy of being loved freely by God. He will equate “doing” with relationship, and he will wonder what he has done–or not done–to feel so far from God. He will assume God has withdrawn in anger and fail to realize that his own efforts and guilt have actually pulled him away from God rather than to Him.

I am grateful, not only for strange but wonderful conversations with Jake but also that God is revealing my own tendencies through my son.

But I still don’t want him to wrestle with my struggles. I want him to feel as sure of God’s love for him as he is of his dad’s (and, boy, am I grateful for that!). I want him to draw near to God with full confidence in His grace and mercy.

I want him to fiercely love God—because he knows God first fiercely loved him. I want him to know that God never, ever stops loving him.

I want for him what I want for myself.

And I can be confident that God, Who is a far better parent than I, wants the same for both of us.

The gentle power of God’s pursuit

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God’s pursuit of a human is a wonder.

Yesterday, God pursued me.

He had to.

I’d woken for several mornings with a numb heart. I didn’t want to feel too much, to have my heart stretched by His great Presence. Nothing was “wrong.” I simply wanted to stay cocooned in a tight chrysalis of control and predictability. I didn’t want my days rocked by eternity. I didn’t want to see myself as part of something bigger. I wanted my cocoon to be IT, cozy and snug. Nothing else fit—and I didn’t want it to.

But here’s the rub—the truth. If I want my tight little cocoon, I have to let go of ALL the things that don’t fit, like fullness and joy and inexplicable peace. Like amazement and wonder. I can’t have “control” AND fullness of life. My chrysalis tightens, and my focus narrows, my heart squeezes, and my vision tunnels. MY to-do list magnifies and lengthens.

After only a few days of a numbed heart, I sensed this narrowing, but rather than open myself to God’s gentle knockings, I avoided. I read a book; I checked e-mails—again; I worked—past quitting time. All fine things, except when they’re used as a substitute, as anesthetic to numb myself to God’s touch.

But yesterday God used “little” things to break through my shell. Son Jake had a dentist appointment in the morning, so I had to delay emails and writing assignments. We went to the dental office and learned our appointment was delayed, so we had some extra time together—REAL time, not like the working-on-homework-together time we’ve had so much of recently.

Of course, Jake, being Jake, asked questions I couldn’t answer out of myself. I had to silently cry out for help.

Then I had an interaction with an employee at a store—a good interaction, though nothing “big”—and in it was this reminder: if I want to spread Christ’s love to others, I have to be open to it myself. I have to be a receiver FIRST and ALWAYS.

My chrysalis was cracking; bits were flaking off.

I dropped Jake off at school, and there was silence. My phone was quiet. The radio was off.

I reached to turn the radio on—and stopped. Into the stillness came this thought: If I didn’t allow God to break my cocoon, it would only get smaller, and what could fill it then? It wouldn’t have room for Him. It could only be filled with ME, with a me that would have to shrink to fit, a me that would become smaller and more self-focused by the day.

Ugh.

The last remnants of chrysalis shattered.

And my heart took a deep, deep breath.

 

Oh, Lord, help us to open our hearts to You. We know this is not a painless process. Your presence draws up deep hurts done to us and reveals our own hurtful ways. Your presence expands our hearts so we can sympathize with others. That, too, is painful. Yet with Your presence there is fullness of joy! There is LIFE. (Psalm 16:11)

I need the Gospel–everyday

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Yesterday afternoon nine-year-old Jake told me he needed to talk to me “in private.”

“Mom, lately I’ve been struggling with the idea that God is mad with me.”

“Why, sweetheart?”

“Because I haven’t been reading my Bible as much lately, but when I am reading it, I’m doing it so He WON’T be angry with me, so I know my reasons are bad, so I think He’s angry with me.”

Oh, we don’t need a DNA test or even pictures of childbirth (thankfully there are none!) to have proof that this child is MINE!

“Do you think Jesus is mad at you?”

“No.”

“Well, who is Jesus?”

“He’s God.”

We talked about how Colossians tells us that Christ is the exact likeness of God. He is the visible representation of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:16, AMP version). Christ is not different from the Father God. Rather, He reveals Him as He is to us weak, frightened, rebellious (which only makes us more frightened) children. Through Jesus–and because of what Jesus did for us–we can know God and His love for us.

“But what about my reasons for reading the Bible? How can I read it if my reasons aren’t good? How do I make them good?”

Simply more proof that Jake is my son!

Another conversation—about how we can’t make them good, only God can, and He knows full well that we aren’t capable of purely pure motives in the here and now anyway. “We just tell God,” I said. “We tell Him we know that our hearts aren’t right, that we can’t make them right, and we ask Him to help us. Then we do what we know is good and right to do—even with our impure motives—because we trust that God can work good and right out of them.”

It was a joy to have this “private talk” with Jake.

It was also necessary.

Not just for him, but for me.

I needed to be reminded of the Gospel, of Grace.

In preaching the Gospel of God’s marvelous Grace to Jake, I was preaching it to myself.

And I need that—every day.

Living in GRACE

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We leave for a trip to Africa on July 7. Dave and I will go with 12 girls from his soccer team, our oldest child (Emily), one of his assistant coaches, and two soccer moms to Kenya and Uganda.

Dave gave each girl going on the trip a copy of Kisses from Katie, and he asked me to write devotions for each day of the trip using Scripture and sections from the book.

“I would love to,” I told him.

Well, I still “will love to,” and I probably will post many of them here on the blog, but I have to admit that the book sent me into a spiritual funk for about a week—sorry for the silence.

Kisses from Katie is the story of a young suburban-raised girl who decided to visit Uganda during Christmas break of her senior year in high school. Then she just had to go back after graduation for a gap year before college. (I know, this sounds eerily like the story of Jody—who rescued our PJ). Katie’s “job” for the year was to teach kindergarten, but she soon felt led by God to rent a house, and abandoned children began showing up on her doorstep. She is now in the process of adopting 13 Ugandan girls and lives full-time in Uganda, coming back to the States only for visits and fundraising purposes. Her life is filled with sharing Christ—through words and actions—with the poorest of the poor.

I’m not doing enough. I’m not doing enough. This nasty chorus ran rampant through my mind as I read the book—though I knew that was not Katie’s reason for writing it and I also knew it wasn’t good theology.

What dug my spiritual funk deeper was the fact that I had bought a rug for the living room the day before beginning the book. Like we needed a rug, I thought as I read about Katie raising money to pay school fees for the children in her village. I should have sent the money to World Vision!

(BTW, I felt quite a bit better about the new rug when we spread the old rug out on our grass for the yard sale we had last weekend. Sunlight exposed a LOT more than my living room lamps did. The all-ivory rug may have worked for the empty-nesters we bought the house from, but with our six kids, their friends, our dog—yeesh!)

As I read further, I defaulted to guilt wallowing, and God felt very, very far away.

I know now—and knew then—this kind of guilt is not from God, but I was stuck and digging in deeper. Saturday morning, I woke tired, glum, discouraged already. But this was yard-sale-for-Africa day, filled with opportunities to meet neighbors, make new friends, share life.

Oh God, I prayed, I don’t have the strength for this, and I am so spiritually bankrupt right now. I can’t do this. But rather than drawing me closer to God, my prayer made me more convinced of my failure.

But a beautiful thing happened as the day went on. One of the soccer moms came and helped, and we had genuine fellowship. I met a lovely little woman from Syria who asked me to pray for persecuted believers in her native country. Before she left, she pronounced Christ’s blessings on us and our trip. I met another neighbor, large with her third child, who had moved in just that day down the street. I liked her; Dave hit it off with her husband; Em was ready to babysit. Dave had fun conversation with our next-door neighbor when he asked, “So why are you going to Africa?”

As soon as the yard sale was over, though, the cloud descended again.

All week Dave gave me funny looks when I answered, “Fine,” in response to his, “How are you?” Finally, on our early Sunday morning run (yes, we’re running again, and, oh, I am so sore!), he didn’t let my “Fine” slide by. “No, you’re not,” he pressed. “What’s up?”

“I’m missing God,” I cried. “I just feel like I’m not pleasing Him, that I’m so filled up with self I’m missing Him. I’m trying and trying, but all I can think of is what I’m NOT doing, and then I feel guilty and farther away than ever.”

Dave didn’t let that answer slide by, either. He pushed quite a bit on my faulty theology—and I said, “I know, I know! My head sees it, but what do I do with my heart?”

What ultimately led to a breakthrough was this question he asked: “If you’re so far away from God, then what was going on yesterday at the yard sale?”

That stopped me. I’d gone into the yard sale with dread, with a lack of strength and purpose—with guilt at my attitude.

But somewhere during the day, I’d forgotten ME. I’d forgotten to try so, so hard. I’d let go of guilt and let others minister to me (oh, how Christ works through His body!), and in the process I was able to share myself with them and others. I’d felt joy and peace—and I know where those come from. (Galatians 5:22)

Later on Sunday morning, when I had a few quiet minutes to be still, I wrote in my journal: “If MY doing never truly accomplishes anything—for myself or anyone else, then why do I try so hard? If I really believe that my ‘righteousness is as filthy rags,’ then doing more in my own strength, out of my own guilt, accomplishes no good.”

Not long ago, I listened to a sermon by Rick McKinley, pastor of Imago Dei Church in Portland, about the importance of the Gospel in our lives AFTER salvation. He said something like this: We Christians have little problem seeing our need for complete grace for salvation, but then we act as if we have to accomplish the Christian life on our own. We need the Gospel just as much after salvation as we did before.

In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabus are speaking to people who have just trusted Christ. The two missionaries “urged them to continue to rely on the grace of God.” (emphasis mine)

It’s so, so easy to abandon grace in our daily lives. My tendency is to forget that I have no ability to please God on my own; I feel I must do more, do more, do more to make Him like me. What heresy! And it has such terrible results: guilt, broken sleep, fatigue, a broken spirit.

I wasn’t relying on God to work in me and through me last week. I put far more responsibility on myself than He ever wants me to have. HE guides; HE convicts; HE leads and directs.

I must live in the Gospel:

I need rescuing, every day, often from myself.

And my God is a God who saves.

God’s ONE “language of apology”

/ jdunderwood / 2 Comments

I recently listened to a radio interview with co-authors Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas about their book, The Five Languages of Apology (http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Languages-Apology-Relationships/dp/1881273792). Basically, the gist of the book is that we humans have different languages of apology. Chapman and Thomas say that we need to learn the language of the person to whom we are apologizing: for some it may be expressing regret; for others it’s accepting responsibility; for others it’s making restitution; for others…

As I listened, I thought about how difficult our human relationships are. Each of us sees only part of the big picture—and we see even that part dimly, from the narrow corner of our own perspective—and we relate with fellow humans who do the same. Even when we apologize and “make right” the wrongs we do—in ways that are accepted by the other person—there is restitution to be made and a period of re-connecting and re-establishing relationship and trust. Sometimes this can take a really long time, and sometimes relationships never completely recover. I’ve often thought it’s pure grace for us humans to have any kind of good relationship at all. With our selfish human natures, the odds against that are stacked incredibly high.

The odds are stacked even higher—higher than we could ever reach—in our relationship with God. R.C. Sproul says this about the wrong we have done to God: “No traitor to any king or nation has even approached the wickedness of our treason before God.”*

We have greatly wronged God, and no amount of apologizing will fix it, no matter what language of apology we use.

But Christ fixed it.

He accepted responsibility for wrongs He didn’t commit; He made restitution with His body and blood; He made it right.

NOW we can have peace with God through Christ, through His apology for us.

And here’s the beautiful thing—as if that wasn’t gorgeous enough!: Christ continually grants us peace with God.

I still wrong God daily. I break our fellowship.

But to restore it, I don’t have to worry about figuring out His language of apology. I don’t have to say it just right or do the right amount of penance or wallow in guilt for a certain amount of time.

I’ve certainly tried all those things. I’ve beat myself up and tried to make myself feel “sorry enough” for my failings, but those are not only NOT God’s language of apology; they are counter-productive. They pull me away from Christ rather than to Him. They let me think I can do something to make God like me more.

I can’t.

The only thing I can do is come to God and say, “I blew it. I was wrong. I can’t make it right. But I can do this: I can cling to Christ and what He—and You—did for me!”

And when I simply come to God with sorrow over my sin (even when my repentance is tainted with self-focus, as it always WILL be this side of heaven), He draws me immediately to Himself. He tells me He “blots out and cancels my transgressions,” that He “will not remember them” (Is. 43:25, Jer. 31:34, Heb.8:12 AMP). He promises that His mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23), and His forgiveness does not come with strings attached. There is no waiting period before I am restored to fellowship with Him. He tells me to “forget what is behind” and “press on” (Philippians 3: 13); He tells me I will not be “confounded or depressed” and I can “forget the shame” (Is. 54:4 AMP).

This is the only relationship in which complete restoration and a fresh new start are possible each and every day, in which I do not have to carry the baggage of my failures and sins.

Instead God encourages me to walk in the freedom of His one language of apology.

In CHRIST!

 

*Sproul, R.C. The Holiness of God. Tyndale Publishers, 1985. Quoted from chapter 6, “Holy Justice,” page 151