Gospel

From death to life: the blessing of communion

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Jumping in leaves at Nana and Papa's house (my in-laws).

Jumping in leaves at Nana and Papa’s house (my in-laws).

For two mornings I have been disgruntled with my younger children.

Picked at faults, pointed out shortcomings. Ranted about the fact that—though I have made a bulletin board with pictures that “tell” them all they need to accomplish in the mornings before we get in the car (so even my beginning reader can understand)—we have experienced the “we’re going to be late” scrambling rush two days in a row.

After driving to school the second morning, I came home and sat in my sin for a bit. I tried to shut down the excuses and even the premature/slightly false confession and asked the Holy Spirit to help me simply listen.

DSC_0485The Spirit peeled back a few layers and I saw some of the roots of my sin.

Then, more painful, I saw what these sins are doing to my kids: in bearing down on my children with a harsh spirit, I am crushing them; I am cutting off communication with them; I am modeling for them the very things I tell them they shouldn’t do to each other (pointing out faults, not allowing for differences, assuming that everyone should regard their time/likes/dislikes as most important, being inflexible, losing their sense of humor and grace.)

DSC_0486In doing all these, I practice hypocrisy right in front of them.

I was all set to wallow in this (oh, how often I forget the second part of repentance: to turn TO God) when I remembered a conversation I had earlier this fall with my mother-in-law. She shared that one Sunday morning a few weeks before, she’d been disgruntled. She’d snapped at her husband and said harsh words to her granddaughter (who was staying with them at the time). Though she then apologized, she’d gone to church still bruised with guilt. Once there she remembered she was supposed to serve communion. She leaned over to her husband and whispered, “I don’t think I should serve communion this morning.”

DSC_0490When she told me this story, she paused at this point. Then she said, “A few minutes later, Dad passed me a note. He’d written Romans 8:1 out for me to read. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

“I served communion,” she told me.

She served it—and took it—in the exact mindset in which we should always participate in communion: authentic gratitude.

The Holy Spirit brought this conversation to mind because I, too, was being invited into communion. In my state of guilt and hopelessness, my eyes were drawn to Christ, to His broken body and spilt blood that accomplished for me what I have no possibility of accomplishing for myself. I was invited, once again, to move from death to life, to receive grace.

Suddenly, I longed to have my children home from school. I looked forward to the moment when I could pull them close and say, “I’m sorry, truly sorry.”

From death to life, once again.

The blessing of communion.

 

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.

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”

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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

the mess that’s me

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Dog and husband hanging out in our new bedroom/my office. Yes! After 9 months of moving our bed from laundry room to old playroom to new playroom--as our great contractor Ben remodeled our basement. Our new bedroom has a door! A door! Woohoo!

Dog and husband hanging out in our new bedroom/my office. Yes! After 9 months of moving our bed from laundry room to old playroom to new playroom–as our great contractor Ben remodeled our basement. Our new bedroom has a door! A door! Woohoo!

It’s summer—but the pool’s not yet open, so my kids have been home a LOT! Every time I enter a room, be it their bedroom or a family area, I discover a new mess. We’ve already had the conversation about Mom not being a personal slave, about how my job in regards to their cleanliness is not to pick up after them so they can continue to be slobs for the rest of their lives but to prepare them to be good roommates (perhaps even spouses) and employees who notice and take care of their own messes. (There was a lot more, but I’ll spare you! I probably should have spared them!)

Ah, that word “notice,” as used in “notice their own messes.” It’s key for any sort of progress. Yesterday I sent the boys off to clean their room. They returned in three minutes. “Done,” they announced.

No way. I’d seen it that morning—and hours had passed since then, enough time for unheard-of chaos to happen.

I was right—shirts dripping out of drawers, dirty underwear peeking from under the dresser, a pile of clothes that looked like PJ had worn them in a mud wrestling event, granola bar wrappers on the floor, Legos in various stages of construction on every surface…

But here’s the thing: THEY thought it was clean.

I John 1 metaphorically fleshed out.

“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” NLV

The Amplified expands that first phrase to “(If we) refuse to admit that we are sinners.”

Sinners: unlike God, missing His mark of perfection, incomplete in strength and knowledge and will.

Here’s my version of that first phrase: “If I refuse to admit that I am messy.”

Messy: not perfect, prone to do/say/feel the wrong things, carrying baggage (some of it unknown), unable to truly know and follow the “right way.”

This past weekend—graduation weekend—I had a conversation with one of the international students that went something like this:

International Student (IS): I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t think I’m doing a good job saying goodbye with my friends, and there’s so much to do, and I know I’m not spending enough time with God, and that makes me feel worse and…” (She’s crying now.)

Me: What do you mean by “not spending enough time with God”?

IS: I’m not having devotions or praying. I can’t seem to get it all together so that I can.

Me: You don’t have to. Actually, you CAN’T. And He doesn’t want you to try. He wants you to come IN your mess, IN your humanity, and He wants you to cry out to Him. Right now you feel like God’s withdrawn because you’re so confused. He hasn’t; you’ve just built a wall between you and Him. He knows your mess and your inability. He died for it! Now let Him come into it and comfort you.

Lots of tears then, lots of hugging. So much better.

And as the old perfectionist (that’s me J) shared advice with the young perfectionist, I was preaching to myself.

I often don’t acknowledge my own messiness to God. I often try to deal with it in my way—which is the equivalent of my boys shoving clothes under beds, cramming overstuffed drawers halfway closed, and brushing litter into a pile in a corner.

In doing this, I cut myself off from the Gospel that God wants to work out in my life every day. I hold back from redemption.

If I’m going to embrace God’s redemption, I must also embrace an acknowledgement of my messiness.

He loves to cleanse.

And I need it…

‘Cause I am messy!

Our Passover

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We are in the process of converting the 1970s cowboy-themed basement family room into Dave's and my bedroom (with office space for me!). When Dave painted all the rough wood, this crack-- in the shape of a cross--emerged!

We are in the process of converting the 1970s cowboy-themed basement family room into Dave’s and my bedroom (with office space for me!). When Dave painted all the rough wood, this crack– in the shape of a cross–emerged.

Younger daughter Maddie was looking at the calendar this morning. “Mom,” she asked, “why don’t we celebrate Passover?”

“Oh, we do, hon,” I answered. “We celebrate the biggest Passover of all.”

“We do? But Passover is today. It says so on the calendar.”

“EASTER is our Passover, sweetheart—Good Friday and Easter together. It’s the ultimate Passover. The very first Passover and all the celebrations after were pointing to THE Passover, when God allowed His firstborn to die so that we might live.”

God allowed His firstborn to die—so that we might live.

I am sitting across the table from my firstborn right now. She is eating her cereal; I am drinking my coffee. We have just had a conversation about how great I think she is, about how glad I am to be her mom (she really is a pretty cool kid).

And I am reminded of how God felt about His Firstborn:

“This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”

Can you imagine the gladness that enveloped the Trinity in that moment? The Spirit-Dove descending, the great voice shaking the sky, the Son letting the blessing of love and favor fall upon Him!

My heart is full as I write these words. My God knew full well what was going to happen to His Beloved when He spoke that blessing.

But for the sake of me and my firstborn and all my other children—and you and your beloveds, too—He suffered, as Father and as Sacrifice—that we might be set free to LIVE in HIM.

That He might whisper in our ears, “You are Mine! And I love you.”

Thank You, Passover Lamb.

Thank You, Father God.

Turn TO

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Judy is 16! Cake by Emily.

Judy is 16! Cake by Emily.

Last week I tried on a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn in several weeks and discovered they were a bit tight. That prompted another thing I hadn’t done in awhile: I stepped on the scale.

It was certainly not the result I was hoping for. (By the way, weight loss is NOT the focus of this blog post.)
I stepped off the scale and thought of the week ahead of me—a week full of baking and sweets for three of my kids’ birthday parties.
Not a good week to try to cut back.
So I came up with a self-control strategy: I would wear those slightly-too-tight jeans to remind me that I needed to resist.
It didn’t work.
In fact, it had the opposite effect: I felt slightly depressed, and chocolate seemed like a good antidote. After scraping brownie batter from the mixing bowl into the pan, I eyed the spatula in my hand and the leftover batter on the sides of the bowl. I shifted my jeans with my free hand and thought dark thoughts, like, “Oh, why not? It’s not like these are ever going to be completely comfortable again.”
Today I went back to wearing my comfy, stretchy jeans.
And I had a complete change in attitude! I felt good, relaxed but also confident. Yes, you CAN say no to that, I told myself when I pulled rolls hot from the oven. You can have an apple instead.
I’ve realized there is a correlation between my tight-jeans strategy and my attitude toward my sinfulness.
I’ve been writing about my sin a lot lately. I find that the closer I grow to Jesus and the more I study Scripture, the more aware I seem to become of my own sinfulness—that it’s not just actions or even thoughts but a selfish focus rooted deep in my core.
I identify with St. Anselm, who said, “My life affrights me. For when carefully reviewed, its whole course shows in my sight like one great sin; or at least it is well-nigh nothing but barrenness. Or, if any fruit is seen in it, that fruit is so false, or so imperfect, or in some way or other so tainted with decay and corruption, that it must needs either fail to satisfy God, or else utterly offend Him.”
I don’t think I would have understood Anselm’s quote as a young believer. I used to think I was okay, not such a bad person, but now I see my faults much more clearly. And I know that as I grow older, my sinfulness will grow even more apparent to me.
I understand that Christ’s death was the once-for-all payment for my sins: past, present, and future, but how do I deal with this growing sense of my sinfulness?
The answer is this: I repent—again and again, like the first of Martin Luther’s 95 theses: “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said, ‘Repent,’ He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
“Repent”: to turn from sin and turn to God. It has TWO parts, but all too often my approach has been like my wearing the too-tight jeans last week: I stay, at least subconsciously, halfway between the two. “Oh, I see that, deep down, I am not patient. I am not kind. I am mean and self-centered, and even my goodness is NOT good—not true GOOD.” I turn from my sinfulness in horror, but I don’t complete the “turning to.” I stay in between in a state of guilt and shame.
It’s not true repentance if only do the first “turn.”
Hudson Taylor, the founder of China Inland Mission, regularly asked his believing friends, “Have you repented today?” Now obviously Taylor was asking if they had done some self-examination, if they had asked the Holy Spirit for conviction. But Taylor didn’t want his friends to stop there. He didn’t want them to mope through their days, laden down with a consciousness of their sin. I know this because I’ve read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. It took years of spiritual self-beating for Taylor to realize Christ’s finished work and CLING to the cross as full payment for his shame. He wasn’t about to suggest that his friends go down that same path. No! He knew that wallowing in an acknowledgement of sin is not good! This becomes a denial of Christ’s amazing work.
Taylor wanted them to fully repent: to turn from AND turn TO.
I have several Biblical examples that help me understand complete repentance: Isaiah was “undone” by the contrast between himself and the Holy God; Peter was crushed by the realization that he had denied his beloved Jesus; David wrote, “…my sin is ever before me” after Nathan confronted him with his adultery and murder; and the Prodigal Son said, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
Yet all four were quickly restored. Isaiah’s mouth was touched with a burning coal and moments later he was jumping up and down, saying, “Send me, Lord, send me (to do your work)!” After only a short (though very meaningful) conversation, Jesus restored Peter and charged him: “Feed my sheep.” Three verses after his proclamation of sinfulness, David asked, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness… restore to me the joy of Your salvation.” The Prodigal Son’s Father ran to him, embraced him, kissed him, and threw a party in his honor.
Turn from—fast.
Then, turn TO.
And find that GOD is turned to US.
Because of Christ, He has arms wide open, ready to embrace us and draw us into His limitless love.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9

I want to see

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Bartimaeus the beggar was sitting alongside the road when he heard a great crowd pass by. “Hey,” he asked someone nearby, “what’s going on?”

“It’s Jesus!” they said.

Now Bartimaeus may have been blind, but he was in the know. He had heard of Jesus.

And Bartimaeus had no shame!

I love this about him. He understood his great need, and he let go of inhibitions and the desire to please people.

“He shouted, saying, ‘Jesus, Son of David, take pity and have mercy on me!’

But those who were in front reproved him, telling him to keep quiet; yet he screamed and shrieked so much the more, ‘Son of David, take pity and have mercy on me!’” (Luke 18:38-39, Amplified version)

This past Sunday night our church held its monthly prayer/worship night. Philip, who is from Uganda, led the service. “We must realize how desperate we are for God. Only then will we really seek Him,” he said. “People in my country are desperate because their needs are obvious, as basic as food, medicine, jobs. Great needs and loss surround them. Here in the U.S., we are not so desperate for physical things. But if we want to really follow after God, we have to realize that we are just as desperate spiritually. Then we will seek Him.”

It reminded me of something I heard a pastor from Ghana say. He was asked what advice he would give to U.S. believers. “You have a decision,” he said. “Will you seek God out of desperation or devastation?”

Bartimaeus recognized his desperation. It was easy for him to: he was blind; he was a beggar.

We, too, are desperate. Appearances may testify otherwise, but Scripture tells us that without Christ, we are blind, lost, and imprisoned (Acts 26:18). We are sick and injured (Jeremiah 17:9). We are walking dead—true zombies (Ephesians 2:1).

It just isn’t easy for us to realize this in our culture. If we’re not in a place of being devastated, it’s really easy to forget that we are desperate. We distract ourselves with stuff and activities and media, and our desperation stays hidden.

But when we don’t realize our desperation, we don’t cry out. We politely ask for growth and help. We share requests and sometimes remember to pray for others.

But desperate prayers are different. Bartimaeus is a good example of that. Out of desperation he cried out! More than that, he screamed and shrieked! He was NOT going to let anything keep Jesus from hearing him. Even when the crowd “reproved (him) and told (him) to keep still, … (he) cried out all the more” (Matthew 20:31).

Jesus, of course, answered Bartimaeus’ plea for mercy and pity.

“Then Jesus stood still and ordered that (Bartimaeus) be led to Him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (Bartimaeus) said, ‘Lord, let me receive my sight!’”

Jesus will answer our pleas, too.

But we have to ask. Really ask. Desperately ask–because Jesus knows our hearts. He knows when we’re simply going through the motions, mouthing prayers, checking devotions off our to-do list.

We MUST recognize our desperation to cry out authentically. Desperation is an absolutely necessary step. All other steps follow it. Again, Bartimaeus serves as an example: out of desperation, he cried out; Jesus met him and healed him; and then Bartimaeus followed Jesus. Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52). But because Bartimaeus realized he been saved out of desperation, he saw with greater than physical sight. He knew his way was now with Jesus. “(He) began to follow Jesus, recognizing, praising, and honoring God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God” (Luke 18:43).

I often want to skip right to the following part and the praising part. I want to be a witness to others.

But an acknowledgement of desperation is a prerequisite for all of it.

God, I need you desperately—and I need to know that I need You.

Help me, please.

I want to see.

The guilt of simply being human

/ jdunderwood / 1 Comment
I'm so thankful for the view out my kitchen window! Beautiful!

I’m so thankful for the view out my kitchen window! Beautiful!

Yesterday, after reading a Facebook message from someone I had unintentionally hurt, my stomach was in knots.

When I shared both the Facebook message and my guilt with my husband, he looked at me in surprise. “Jen, why do you feel guilty? You simply weren’t able to do what he needed. It wasn’t possible.”

But I still wrestled with the feeling of guilt.

The guilt of being merely human.

The guilt of thinking I should be able to do it ALL (in other words, of thinking I am like God [the oldest sin of all]).

The guilt of forgetting that I am completely incapable.

To deal with this kind of guilt, I needed a broader definition of sin than the one that defines it as intentional actions, thoughts, and words that “break the rules.” That is a very limited—and unbiblical—definition of “sin,” and it didn’t help me deal with my Facebook situation.

The New Living Translation of Romans 3:23 defines sin as “(falling) short of God’s glorious standard.”

I fell short with my friend—not because I wanted to, not even because I had another choice, but simply because I had no capability to meet his expectations. I’ve “fallen short” in some other areas as well lately, and, for reasons only God knows, He has made me sit for awhile in the discomfort of my own inadequacy, my own “falling short.” I have tried to mute the message, tried to distract myself with writing and meal prep and people and the radio, but uneasiness has burrowed into my soul, and my thoughts circle constantly around my feeling of guilt.

So this morning I took a long walk in the thick snow at the dog park. Two women were there when I arrived, but they soon left, and I was alone—with my thoughts.

Still wrestling.

Round I walked, breaking through the snow crust, doing battle in my mind, swinging like a pendulum from excuses to accusations.

On the third lap, I stopped. “God,” I said, “I want to prove myself right in this situation. I want to ‘feel’ right. And I have been doing a whole lot of talking in my own head trying to figure this out. But I can’t–because I’m not capable. I fall short—both of a complete understanding of this situation AND of any ability to fix it. I am only human. Help me to see myself—and then see YOU—as I should.”

“Please, God, I need You!”

Then, finally, rest came. I could admit my own inability, my own “falling short.” And I could glory in the fact that the God who loves me has NO limitations. He is not bound by time. His strength is unlimited. He does not run out of energy or patience or goodness. He never forgets, not ever. He never fails—not at anything He does.

He IS the glorious standard.

And He is fully aware that there is no way I can reach His standard. In fact, I think He gets tired of my thinking I can.

So when I let go of trying to reach His standard on my own, I see HIM and His grace far better.

And I am awed by the Glory!

I continued my walk, joyous now, rejoicing in the beauty, and just before I left I did what I could not have imagined doing twenty minutes earlier.

I fell back into an untouched patch of snow, gazed up at the tops of the trees, and made a snow angel!