A New Year, a New You?

New Year's Eve is tomorrow. Time to celebrate the end of one year and the clean slate beginning of the next one. Let's all be honest here: most of our New Year's Resolutions should more appropriately be called New Year's Day Resolutions, because that's about how long they seem to last. I've done it before so many times, telling myself this is the year I'll learn a new language, get six-pack abs, learn to play guitar, learn a programming language, and, more recently, finally get published. Well, this year, I mean them. ;)

And they still may not last. Last year, I came up with twenty such resolutions. I followed through on just eleven of them, and that's being fairly generous on what constitutes keeping those resolutions. I now have a list of twenty more resolutions for this next year, some of which are the same ones I had at the beginning of the current year. Will I keep them all? Almost assuredly not.

Why? That's the question, isn't it? And the answer is simple: I'm resolving to change my actions and not my heart. I somehow believe that my life can be better by changing habits and leaving my heart the same. It's a losing battle if my heart is in the same place it's been. Sure, I may have the willpower to swear off Oreos for a year (for those who don't know me, I've had a lifelong love of Oreos. "Oreo" was actually the first word I learned to spell, so giving them up for a year sounded insane to family, friends, and most of all, myself.), but do I have the willpower to not do something more detrimental to my future or to make myself do something that will change my future for the better?

Perhaps more important is the question of why I am not trying to change my heart. I don't love people like I should. I don't get into the Bible as often as I should. I don't pursue God like I should. In all of these things, my heart is in the wrong place. And yet, "Love God more" isn't on my list of resolutions, neither is "Change my heart to love others like God loves them and me." I will put these things on the list, but why were they not the top things I thought I needed to work on?

As humans, we have a tendency to put the cart before the horse. We want results first before our actions change. We want a raise so we'll work harder. We want a relationship to help us work on our insecurities. We want our needs met before we'll trust God. With our actions, we want to change our actions and think that doing so will change our hearts. Everything is backwards. We must first analyze our hearts and then change them (asking God to help us do that) and then our actions will change of themselves. When our actions change, our results will naturally change.

Think about it this way: you know, of course, how you dress in the morning. You have an image that you are comfortable with people seeing you in. It's like in the Matrix when Morpheus is teaching Neo about the Matrix and says that the way Neo looks in the Matrix is how he pictures himself to be. If your style is not flashy, you won't dress flamboyantly. If you like lots of colors, you probably won't be going out in black, gray, and white. If you think of yourself as smart and powerful, you're more likely to wear a suit or nice shirt and slacks or dress. If you're laid back, jeans are more likely. How you see yourself determines your choices. Change how you see yourself and your choices change. Change your choices and your results change. If you want to be a new you in the new year, you have to change your heart first to line up with the person you want to be. Once you do that, you'll naturally keep your resolutions.

Dependency on God

There's a story that Bill Gates once visited an African village and donated some money to help them build a well, have decent food and clothing, etc. One reporter asked one of the women in the village if she knew he was the wealthiest man in the world. She replied, "He's an American. They're all wealthy." And, in a lot of ways, we are. We turn on the faucet and we have drinkable water. We can easily afford devices to make that water almost perfectly pure. We have the latest medical advances, cars, TVs, and computers so we can read blogs like you're doing right now. Our biggest concerns are often dealing with our difficult bosses or co-workers or handling a little relationship trauma, not trying to avoid starvation, guerrilla warfare, and slavery. We don't pray to God that we'll live another day; we pray that we'll find a parking spot at the grocery store.

In short, because our needs are so much less, our dependence on God is too often less than it should be. And that's the situation I find myself in and just recently realizing I'm in. As you may have guessed if you've been reading this blog, I've had issues with needing a relationship for the longest time. I needed someone to validate me. Now that I'm finally ok with who I am, I don't feel that need, and so don't need a relationship, and so haven't been depending on God for one. I have drifted away from God because I no longer felt the need for anything He could give me.

What I am really saying when I do this is that the relationship, or perhaps better said, the validation from a relationship was what I wanted more than anything, even more than getting to know Him.

It's astonishing how often we treat God like a vending machine. We put in our prayers, a few good works, a little time in the Bible, and then expect that He will grant us our prayers so we can live our lives without Him. Instead of praying God out of our lives, we should pray Him into our lives. We should ask for more dependence on Him, that He work in our lives what He wants and not stress out about it ourselves, that He would become so enmeshed in our lives that going to Him is not a last resort, but a first resort. Even more than that, we should know Him as Father, friend, and king.

I've written about this before, but consider again the Lord's Prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread." It doesn't read, "Give us this day our year's supply of bread," or, "Always provide us our bread every day," it's a prayer of constant dependency on God, day by day by day. It is a constant walk, not God shooting us out of some holy cannon toward a goal or us wandering around aimlessly until we've stumbled into a lion's den and need Him to rescue us, deposit us back on the path, and then leave us again.

And that, I think, is the biggest reason why God so often doesn't grant us the desires of our heart: because our desires would lead us away from Him. They may not be bad things - love, marriage, kids, a promotion, a great job, money - but if they are things that will lead you to depend on God less if He grants them, He will not grant them. Focusing on God is the most important thing for all of us, not just because He wants us to, but because it is what is best for us to do. When our dependence is on God, we can allow Him to work His will in our lives, and not our will. We can trust in Him and not worry about whether things will work out because we know He won't fail us. We don't have to concern ourselves with whether we will be happy at the end because what He has in mind for us is even better than what we have in mind for ourselves...and at the core of that is a better relationship and more dependence on Him.

'Tis the Season

The four weeks from Black Friday through Christmas Eve will mean untold billions of dollars spent for loved ones, particularly children. Hundreds of dollars on new gaming systems and games, dollhouses as big as the girls who get them, and cameras, jewelry, GPS systems, and more for the older kids or adults.

To a certain extent, this largess is a good thing, for it is a way to demonstrate to those close to us that they mean more to us than our wallets, that we're willing to spend some of our hard-earned money or, in other words, work at our various jobs for a given number of hours, solely to provide them with some happiness.

And yet, there are five love languages, and only one of these is gifts. I don't know the percentage of people who have gifts as their primary love language, but if it's the obvious answer of 20%, it means that, for 80% of us, what we're giving won't mean as much to the person we're giving it to as what we could be giving them.

More important even than this, though, and the reason behind this posting, is to call into question how much we spend on Christmas gifts vs. how much we spend on charity. Yes, charitable giving is higher at this time of year, but is it really better for our children to have a Playstation 3 than it is for three children in Africa to eat for a year? Is it better that our girlfriends or wives have a diamond necklace than it is to support those who go into our prisons to preach the Gospel? Ladies, does your boyfriend or husband need that GPS system more than a missionary to China needs money to smuggle Bibles into the country?

I'm not saying no gifts should be given, or even that no expensive gifts should be given. My point is that we should consider what we spend our money on and the other possible uses for that money. Buying everything under the sun that the receiver wants may make the receiver very happy and, if gifts is their primary love language, make them feel wonderfully loved, but before you go on a shopping binge, just consider that doing this for that receiver means you can do fewer things for people who need them more.

The mention of love languages brings up another point. For my mother, gifts are one of the ways she tries to show love the most. For me, gifts are my least powerful love language, so there is a huge disconnect there. She knows this, but insists on giving me things because it's what she wants to do. It doesn't matter to her that I don't want her to spend a small fortune on me (a relative term, of course, as our side of the family was far from wealthy as I was growing up); she wanted to spend as much as she could to show how much she loved us rather than doing what mattered most to us.

Search your hearts and ask whether you are really giving gifts to those in our life because these gifts will make them happy or because it's just how you express your love. Love is always best expressed in a way that the receiver acknowledges it rather than that it is natural to the giver.

What is worse is when you give to win some sort of competition, as often happens with parents after a divorce. Each tries to shower the kids with presents to say, "I love you more than your mother/father." Let your love throughout the year and in the way that means the most to your children show how much you love them and let them be loved by the other parent, regardless of your feelings toward him/her.

Just as bad is when you give to validate yourself, telling yourself that you're a good person because you gave so much. Both this offense and the prior one show that your real goal is not loving the other person, but loving yourself, which is not the reason for the season at all.

For those reading this who are not Christians, you may read this next part and ignore it, and I understand that, but try to consider the effect just one person can have and do likewise. For those who are Christians, remember that the original Christmas gift was Jesus himself, who would sacrifice himself that we might know God and go to heaven. His goal was our benefit, not his own, and it was his love that paved the way to salvation for us. He had it all and gave it to those who have and deserve nothing. This Christmas season, be thankful for what He has given you, and consider giving to those who have so much less.

Forgiveness

I struggle with keeping grudges against people. Those whom a I barely know or who I've not served are easy to forgive. I feel like they don't owe me anything save for common courtesy, so when that's denied, it's understandable since I know human selfishness is present in all of us. It's not right, of course, and I sometimes still get upset when it happens, but I can forgive it fairly quickly and easily.

It's when I've become close to someone and they hurt me that I keep a grudge. When I'm close to someone, I try to find ways to serve them and I actually get frustrated when I can't. And when I serve someone, part of me, in the back of my mind, thinks that they owe me more than just common courtesy, that they owe me some measure of love in return.

I guess it's the same thing as when you help someone move, you expect a meal or something. If you don't get it, you feel a little shorted, but it's only a few hours of your time, so it's not a big deal. But if you worked a job for years and did great at it and then your boss just stopped paying you and started giving you trashy assignments and mistreating you, that would be a lot worse.

I keep trying to tell myself that the people I've been close to who have disappointed me are just like those whom I don't know in that they're human, and all of us are selfish at our cores. The problem is that this part of me has a hard time shouting over the part that argues that I wouldn't treat someone like they've treated me and, to be perfectly honest, I can't think of a case where I in the last seven years.

What brought all this on? In my post on 10/29, I mention that I'd been going through a rough time. The person who caused this just sent me a letter (her second attempt to reconcile) and I am about to read it and respond. I responded to the first one poorly, mostly because I was hurting and feeling so insecure. I actually got more upset about that letter later than the original offense because her reason for the offense came out in it. So now I'm wondering whether it is right to be reconciled with her and to what degree.

I can make the choice to forgive her now, but it is still, unfortunately, not my heart's will to do so. But does forgiveness mean reconciliation? When Jesus told the parable of the king who'd lent a subject a large amount of money and then forgave it, only to have that subject take another by the throat over a pittance, did the king grant the subject another large loan just as soon as he'd forgiven him? No. Had that subject forgiven his debtor, we don't really know whether the king would have ever lent the subject money again.

And yet...in the parable of the prodigal son, the father welcomes the prodigal son home with a feast and open arms. Maybe it's easier for God to do this than it is for us because He knows when we're going to betray Him ahead of time so He's never surprised or disappointed. Maybe it's easier because God cannot be hurt by anything we do. Maybe it's easier because He sees the end result of everything so clearly while we don't even see the present clearly.

But does that give us the right to not even attempt reconciliation? I honestly don't know. How can I trust someone again who lied to me and pretended to be my close friend for five months?

And this is, I think, where God has to come in to the picture. I know that my sins against God outweigh hers toward me and that God has willingly forgiven me and so I should willingly forgive her. God welcomes me back time after time after time with open arms and here I have told her that I don't want to see her or speak to her again.

I realize this post is rather out of line considering the stated purpose of this blog, but this is one area where even though I may have the answer, I can't seem to live or make myself even want to. God, please help me in this. Where I am weak (which is a shockingly large number of areas), please be strong and help me.

Giving to the Poor

Well, it's after Thanksgiving and you know what that means: all those bell-ringers outside your favorite stores, asking for your change. I passed one today, coming out of Wal-Mart, and I had change in my pocket. I kept walking. As I got out into the parking lot, I remembered the verse, "Even as you do unto the least of these little ones, you do unto me." I paused, and I would like to say that I turned around and gave him my change, but I didn't. I promised myself, "I'll give to them next time." And then I got in my car and drove home.

I help out on an excel forum regularly, too. There are some interesting problems people have, issues where I have to spend 20 minutes trying to come up with a solution for them and am forced to get creative to do so. But then there are issues that seem so simple to me that I have to wonder whether the poster even tried to solve the problem on their own and annoying posts where the poster does a poor job explaining his/her requirements and the thread quickly becomes 12 posts when 3 would have done it. Sometimes, when I feel like not answering, I remember the verse, "And who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is a sin." I wish I could say that always makes me stay on and answer these questions as best as I can, but it doesn't.

What's the point of writing all this? That good is so hard to do? No, we all know that already. Sometimes, we just get selfish, be it with our time, money, or even love. I'm writing this to question rather how much is good to give. Can we give too much of ourselves? Does it become wrong at some point to continue giving?

Mark 12:41-44 has the story of the widow who gave two mites, and Jesus said she gave more than all the rich men had because she gave all she had. The Bible also says, though, that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children (Proverbs 13:22), which seems to say we're not to give away all. How do we reconcile the two?

In America and most other first-world countries, it is expensive to bring up a child. It is expensive to feed the homeless here, too, or to take care of those who can't care for themselves. Is it right that 50 African children should starve so that our child may eat and have a good time with his or her friends? Is it right that the man on the street should be denied because it costs more to feed him for a day than such a child for a month?

Conversely, how can one justify denying one's own children when one has the resources to avoid that denial? How can one say that man on the street is not valuable enough to be saved?

And how much of our earnings should we devote to helping others? How much of our time? How much of our love? Is it counted righteous for us to work second jobs so the money from those jobs can help the poor? Would it be better for us to instead use that time to counsel those around us?

The only answer I have, unfortunately, is one that doesn't address anyone's specific situation. It is two things: 1. that we must always be willing to give as God wills us, even if that means our very lives for His sake (though that particular sacrifice is only asked of a relative few), and 2. that we have a heart to serve others.

We don't know whether God asked the widow to give all that she had. We don't know what became of her on this earth. But she had a heart to give to God, and that heart burned so brightly that there was nothing she held back from Him. She may have been rewarded richly on this earth and lived like a queen from that day forward. She may have died in poverty, starving. We don't know. What we do know is her love for God was worth more than anything she had on this world.

Is it worth that much to you?

Good Enough

For years, as I've mentioned before, I've been killing myself to be good enough. It started when I was a child and my father ignored me the vast majority of the time while my mother smothered me with ridiculous praise, but seemed especially proud when I accomplished something. I took those times to be what really made her appreciate me and dismissed the rest as bunk. The situation was exacerbated by my peers, who would often bench me if I made a single mistake in any sport (I have never been particularly athletic). I soon taught myself that I had to be perfect to be accepted, that love is earned.

One of the offshoots of this, aside from my spending the next twenty years killing myself trying to live up to impossible self-imposed standards, was that when I wasn't loved, I tore myself apart looking for the flaw, for what separated me from others. I did this most often in relationships, or rather, my lack thereof. Even when my confidence improved in other areas, it didn't improve much in this one.

I analyzed every last part of me I could think of: looks, intelligence, sense of humor, abilities and talents, how I came across, mood, tone and tenor of voice, body language, money, and a host of others. Except for being a bit moody sometimes, in none of these was I markedly worse than anyone else I knew who was going out on dates. I asked and practically begged friends to tell me what was wrong with me and none of them had an answer.

And then, it finally hit me: the answer was that I was obsessed with finding what was wrong. People could tell, either by me verbally telling them or just reading it on my face that I didn't like myself, that I was trying to prove myself to them. I was giving them power to determine my self worth, particularly with women I was interested in. I tried to be so super-nice to them that I probably came across as even more insecure than I was and, when I talked about how dismal I thought my situation would be in the future, I gave rise to feelings of pity in them and I don't believe a woman can truly be interested in a man she pities. She can pity someone she respects, but I think that respect has to be not only developed first, but remain strongest or else interest will dissolve or become impossible to spark.

So, in short, women pitied me and therefore couldn't respect me and so couldn't be interested in me. Men saw that I thought myself weak and so didn't look to me as a leader, which also hurt because that took away from what little respect I may have had among the women.

And all of this is being stripped away quickly by the realization that there's nothing special wrong with me. I'm far from perfect still, and always will be, but I'm not worse than anyone or undeserving of them. I'm every bit as valuable as they are. Accomplishments mean so much less now, my longing for a relationship to validate me is going away, my need to talk to people often (and usually about myself) has almost vanished - everything is just so much clearer now.

Except for one thing: in this, I have turned away from God. I know it's not right in my head, but I feel proud now of myself for having realized I already am what I wanted to be: good enough for others. I feel like I solved my own problem and, since it feels I did it without God, I have the ludicrous feeling of not needing Him. I need to turn back to the Bible, to pray again, to worship, to kneel at the feet of He Who loves me enough to die for me, to realize that the hurt I've gone through this past month from someone has been almost exactly what I've done to Him time and time again.

And here's the weird thing: all of this time that I've killed myself to be good enough for love has been a waste, not only because I was always good enough for others and just didn't realize it, but more importantly, that God loved me and I didn't have to be good enough. I couldn't be good enough. Even had I become the renaissance man I had thought everyone else demanded I be, I'd have not been good enough for it. And yet it was freely being offered. There is no anger at how many times I've rejected Him, no hurt feelings that I seek my own ends above His more times than I can count, no vindictiveness when my actions lead me into an emotional pit. There is only love, a love that always welcomes me back with open arms, a love that seeks to be my primary source of happiness because it knows it won't disappoint me, a love that seeks always for my good.

I don't know what it is about me that makes me not long for God with my heart. Perhaps I need to realize, now that I know I'm good enough for others, that I'll never be good enough for Him and that He'll still love me more than all of the others in my life ever could combined.

Dark days

"Eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani!" Jesus called out. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It feels like that sometimes, doesn't it? That God is nowhere to be found, that He is hiding from you, that He has left you to perish on the rocks like a deformed child born in Sparta. And yet, God is always by our sides.

I went through some dark days recently, for nearly three weeks. I forced myself to work (being self-employed, it would have been easy to dismiss work entirely), but my off time was spent berating myself for my own failure and devising various dooms for one person who had hurt me deeply. I was merciless, particularly toward myself. There was no insult that was unfair, no curse strong enough, and no expression vile enough to spew out all the venom and hatred I had against myself. I was suicidal.

I left the group I was hanging out with because it was painful for me to be around them. They had hope and I had none. They had what I was desperately seeking for or at least hope they would get it. I had no hope. What was worse was that I didn't want any. I viewed hope as something that would bring me up only to crush me again.

I went for a walk last night and forced myself to pray about it. I didn't want to. Then a worship song just popped into my head, and then another. It didn't drive out all the insults and prophecies of a painful, long life that I was giving myself; in fact, it made them stronger. But the music kept playing. I found myself unable to focus on either and eventually just threw up my hands and prayed that God would take this away because I couldn't fight anymore.

I didn't think about it much for the rest of the night. My self-hatred resumed its mission of destroying me, but it seemed muted somehow. When I woke up this morning, my head just felt clearer. I'm not happy. I don't want to give the impression that I prayed once and now everything in my life is perfect. I'm still both a bit depressed and very disappointed in the situation I find myself in. But the anger is melting away and hope is being revived.

The Bible tells us that these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. The first two we have already. We can't kill our hope, even if we want to and try to. We have faith in something, even if that something is negative. We all have beliefs we cling to and will not willingly or easily let go. And pure love, of which we can offer only a poor counterfeit, is from God.

And yet each has its problems. Our hopes can be in the wrong things. We can seek fulfillment in positions, relationships, money, sex, success, or a variety of other things. We hope WE have what it takes to get that fulfillment. We hope we get what we seek without considering God's will for our lives. In all of these cases, our hopes are misplaced. Our hope for fulfillment needs to be in God. We must realize that we cannot have what it takes to get that fulfillment on our own, that we need Him. And for other blessings that He gives to or withholds from us, we must consider whether it is in our best interests, His will for us, to have that. God's will for Jesus was a painful death that we might all be saved. It wasn't what Jesus, as a man, wanted, but he was willing to submit himself to God's will because he put God's will above his own.

Faith is a tricky thing in a way. The Bible has quite a few passages where people pray for something and get it and where believers are told to pray and believe and they'll get what they're seeking. First, what we're seeking has to be inline with God's will or we won't get it, not from God at least. We can have all the faith in the world that we'll win the lottery, but if God does not want us to win, He won't let us. Second, there's a difference between saying you believe and actually believing. We go to movies and watch superheroes lift cars and have bullets bounce off them and, within minutes of seeing that, we understand and have faith that the superhero will be able to do that for the rest of the movie. But in real life, none of us try that because we have faith that we'll just strain our backs trying to lift the car and that the bullets will pierce our skin and possibly kill us.

To bring out the example from my life, I had a great amount of hope that something would happen and almost as much faith that it wouldn't. Once your hopes are lined up with God's will, it is faith that brings results. Your hope alone is not enough if you don't believe anything will happen. A number of times in the Bible, Jesus asked those who came to him what they wanted (i.e., what they hoped for) and they named the curing of whatever ailment they had. When they said, "If you're willing...," he responded, "I am willing." And then he told them it was their faith that had made them whole. They had all hoped for healing for years, no doubt, but coming to him in their faith was what cured them.

Last, but greatest, is love. We cannot provide true love of ourselves. It is something that must flow through us, that we have to be a conduit of from God to others. In what I was going through, I realized that I was completely devoid of love because I didn't feel loved. That makes any love I could have pointed to not love at all because it had requirements attached to it. It's the same with all of us. To really love others, we have to understand how God loves us and let His love flow through us to them. On our own, we just can't do it.

The thing I was struggling with the most was self-image. I had absolute faith that who I am wasn't good enough to get what I wanted. Faith held for so long is a hard thing to change, so I don't mean to say that I have completely changed my outlook in just one night. What I am trying to say is that my self-image was being fed by results, which came from my faith that I would never have what I wanted. My never having what I wanted led me to feel unloved, which made the hope I had painful. In other words, a poor self-image destroyed faith, hope, and love for me.

I know in my head who I am in Christ. Knowing that in my heart is far more difficult. It's something that I believe we all struggle with: letting others or our own situation determine our self-worth. Our true worth is both nothing and everything, though. We, ourselves, are but dust, but God viewed us as so valuable that His Son was sent to die for us, not to make us slaves forever, but to make His friends, His children. We get welcomed into His kingdom when we die to live out eternity in His presence. And yet, because that wonderful end is not ever-present in our minds and the cost of it is not always in our hearts, we look at a certain someone and tell ourselves, "If they like me, I'll be happy. If not, I'll be sad and will feel worthless." Or we say that about a certain job or income level or whatever.

I don't know how to get a good self-image and keep it constantly. What I do know is that it means losing myself and finding myself at the same time, letting go of all that I was and embracing all that God intends that I be. It is only when I can do this that I can live as He intends me to live, as a child of the King.

Christianity in a Nutshell

I was at espn.com this morning and saw an article on Tim Tebow, the outspoken Christian QB of the Florida Gators. I just had to read the comments that were posted there and it never seems to fail that someone will bring up the punishments of the Old Testament for things like cursing one's parents or working on the Sabbath (death for both). They use these as arguments that Christianity is ridiculous and way too strict and judgmental.

First, allow me to point out that all the references they use are Old Testament references. The Bible says that man fell in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We learned right and wrong and, in so doing, committed the first wrong. It was our human nature first manifesting itself and leading us to selfishness.

Over the years, mankind, without God's laws, seemed to get worse and worse and worse. Certain actions, like murder, seemed to have always been against God's law. But mankind kept falling into deeper depravities until God, that we might stop digging ourselves a deeper hole, decided to start over with Noah and his family. Even after that, there was the Tower of Babel, all the various religions that sprung up within just a few hundred years of Noah, and all the atrocities committed by man against man.

When God led the Israelites out of captivity, he gave them the Ten Commandments and a long list of other commands. This was both to keep them inline and give them some standards to adhere to, but also to show them that they still needed God's mercy because none of them could ever live up to the law of the Old Testament. Because all sinned, there needed to be sacrifices offered to atone for the sins.

In the New Testament, Jesus became that sacrifice, fulfilling all the law (something we could never do), and then dying for us. The old law, in Him, is not washed away in the sense that it's like it never existed, for God is still holy, but it is washed away in the sense that we don't have to try to fulfill it anymore. Jesus fulfilled it. We now have to follow Him and try to live as He wants us to. Even in that, it is not by works that we are saved, but by faith.

That is the point in which Christianity differs from all other religions. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., all have a list of laws that must be fulfilled. Christianity has the requirement of faith in Jesus and love for God. It may seem like it's so much easier, and, in a way, it is, because once someone is saved, they are guaranteed Heaven. In other religions, once you join up, you still have to earn your way to Heaven. But living a Christian life is also far harder than in other religions, for the law of those religions may proclaim love, but one can't love out of adherence to a law. One has to love out of choice or not at all. Thus, a Christian has to choose to love, to put the needs of others above their own, when that is directly against human nature.

Following the law, by comparison, is easy, because if you do A, B, C, and D and refrain from X, Y, and Z, you get what you want. You may not know where you stand exactly, but there's no question of whether you're doing what you should be doing. But this makes religion nothing more than a contract. If you obey the laws, you get what you want. Otherwise, you don't. There's no love in such a contract and, since you're not the judge of whether you've fulfilled the law, there's no surety that you have met its requirements.

With Christianity, there are no requirements to fulfill, save to belief in Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins, that He lived a perfect life, that He rose again after death, and to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. We can't do either of these last two on our own because, let's face it, we can't love unconditionally. Only God can do that. So even in our "lighter" requirements, we fail miserably, perhaps more miserably than most adherents of other religions, because our fulfillment is based on our hearts and not our actions.

But Christians have God to help us to love like He does, which is another difference between Christianity and other religions. God helps us to will and to do according to His good pleasure. Other religions leave the believer to struggle with fulfilling the law on their own willpower.

Christians and non-Christians alike seem to think that Christianity is about rules and regulations. It's not. It's about love. It's about putting God before all and others before yourself, the very values that others say they laud in people. (Who doesn't get touched by a story of a soldier diving on a grenade to protect his platoon?)

Christianity requires only love for God, faith in Jesus, and love for others (including forgiving them). It's so much simpler than everyone makes it out to be. And so much more difficult to live than they could imagine. But we have God with us, perfecting the work which He has begun in us. In Him, we have finally found our life.

I'm on a boat!

My mother is going through a rough time right now. She has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain Syndrome, a degenerative back condition, and a pancreatic tumor. She gets migraines constantly, too, and a recent mammogram showed some suspicious-looking spots. She's been out of work on disability for almost three years now. My faith in God when this all started was pretty much nil. I hated Him, to be honest, for letting all this happen.

Then, He started working on me, beginning about April of last year, but really picking up speed in November, and then kicking it into overdrive at the beginning of this past May. I can easily find my peace in Him now...

Or so I thought. My mother just got out of the hospital for yet another problem. This time, her heart, pancreas, and liver teemed with enzymes and made her feel like she was having a heart attack. She had a friend take her to the hospital where they found the real culprits, but not the reason behind them. They don't think it was the pancreatic tumor, but rather all of her pain medications that were causing it.

It was bad news, because the only cure would be to get her off her medications, but that would mean no way to cope with the pain from the other ailments. I was at a party when I heard and ended up having to leave early so that I didn't bring down anyone else. I got home and opened the Bible to Mark 4. Over my years of ignoring the Bible, I had forgotten a lot of references, even though I still knew a lot of quotes and stories.

In Mark 4:35-41, Jesus tells his disciples that he wants them to cross to the other side of a sea. While they're crossing, a storm arose and waves washed over the boat, threatening to sink it. The disciples found Jesus sleeping in the stern, woke Him up, and said, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Jesus got up, calmed the storm, and then rebuked them for their lack of faith.

Jesus was in the boat with them. How could the disciples believe that God would let Jesus perish along with them? As long as Jesus was there, they were perfectly safe. Jesus wasn't even concerned with the storm, because He knew it had no ability to harm Him. He was taking a nap!

And sometimes, that's how it seems in our lives. We know we have Jesus on our side, but it just feels like the storms of life are about to overwhelm us and, instead of lending a hand or just calming the storms, Jesus is snoozing in the stern. It is but a trial of our faith, for God is still in the boat with us. He doesn't have to be - Jesus could have walked on water or teleported as He did later - but He chooses to be, and as long as He is in the boat with us, no storm in life can sink us.

The Prodigal Son and His Elder Brother, Part 3

The elder brother is not talked about too often. People love the feel-good story of the younger brother and seem to ignore the elder one. The problem is that I believe the story was told at least as much for their sakes as for the sinners' and tax collectors' sakes.

In the two parables before this, a shepherd loses a sheep, goes out to look for it, finds it, and brings it back; and a woman loses a coin, searches her whole house for it, and finds it. Both stories end with celebrations over the lost object being found. This parable has those same elements, but doesn't end with the feast. The elder brother refuses to go in. In those days, eating with someone was a sign of unity and togetherness. The elder brother is separating himself from the father because of how the father is treating the younger brother.

When the father goes out to plead with the elder brother, something that he was not required to do at all, we see the elder brother's heart. He says that he has served the father faithfully all his life, never once doing anything wrong, and yet feels he was given nothing. He then points out that the father is now giving a grand feast to welcome back "this son of yours" (he refuses to even acknowledge him as his own brother), despite what the son has done. He's saying that he deserves more than the younger brother because he has served the father. He, too, is after the father's things and not serving the father because of a love for the father. His goal for his service seems to be getting a young goat to eat so he can have a small party with his friends, rather than enjoying being with the father. Service has become a way for him to earn things and not a way to show his love.

Essentially, he, too, is saying he wishes the father were dead so he could have his things.

The father here responds with as much grace and kindness as he did when his younger son said the same thing. He doesn't dispute the son's claim to perfection, though we know that no one save Christ has ever been perfect. This was done to show the Pharisees that even were a man perfect in the law, he can be separated from God if his motives are not to love and serve God from that love, but to get things from God. The Pharisees all knew they had sinned and so were worse than this son, yet the message that the son was separated from the father still was unmistakable.

The father then goes on to say that, because the son is with the father, all that the father has was always his. He could have simply asked for the goat to celebrate with his friends. He probably could have had the fatted calf if he'd wanted it. He could have had money or property, too. The father didn't withhold anything from him. "All that I have is yours." The father was still offering both his presence and all that the son was working for.

Notice also, that the father never said, "Because you served me so well," or, "If you continue to serve me," he said, "Son, you are always with me." That was the only requirement to get what he wanted, to be with God. The son's right to the father's things was an act of grace on the father's part and not due to any service the son had performed or any disgrace he had shunned.

It was his pride and self-righteousness, though, that were separating him from the father's feast. He thought he had more of a right to the father's things than his younger brother did. The Bible doesn't say this specifically, but you get the feeling that the elder brother, had he been in charge would have either made the younger brother grovel and beg and plead for forgiveness or dismissed him altogether and, if the younger brother had been accepted, that it would not have been the full acceptance of a son, but the semi-acceptance of an unworthy indentured servant.

A lot of us have been in the church for a long time, some of us since we were children. Some of us can tend to side with the elder brother because we haven't gone through a stage of raucous partying, have been saving ourselves for marriage, haven't dismissed God, haven't gotten into trouble with the law, haven't tried drugs, and have honestly tried to live according to the Scriptures. If our motives for doing or not doing these things are so that God will bless us, we are just as lost as those who have gone and lived however they wanted. We may be even more lost, for when we view ourselves as righteous because of our works, we mean that we view those who have not matched our works as unrighteous and, therefore, as less worthy than we are. We look down on those who have fallen, particularly on those who should have known better.

In doing so, we separate ourselves from God and his loving mercy. The Lord's prayer says, "And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." There is no room for unforgiveness for a true Christian. That doesn't mean a true Christian has to be everyone's doormat and can't stand up for themselves, but no one will ever sin against you as much as you have sinned against the Father. He has forgiven you willingly and eagerly and you are to forgive others just as willingly.

Furthermore, notice that the first two parables had one element that the third one did not: a search for what was missing. The shepherd searched for his sheep and the woman searched for her coin. There is no search in the third parable, but there should have been. The elder brother should have gone out after his younger brother and tried to bring him back. His pride made it impossible to love his younger brother as he should have, though. His self-righteousness made him feel that he and he alone deserved the father's blessings, and so the son who rejected the father had no right anymore to anything. In truth, neither the holy or sinner deserves anything from God, for none of us are truly holy and, when we think we are, we prove conclusively that we're not.

If you are an elder brother type, put away your pride and self-righteousness. Remember the times that you have rebelled against the Father. Think of how your world has been changed by His mercy and kindness. Remember that He owes you nothing, that "all of [your] works are as filthy rags." You are his child only because of His mercy, and you are dependent on Christ just as much as someone who has been a drug-addicted prostitute who's had multiple abortions, just as much as a child-molesting murderer.

If you are an elder brother type, remember how wonderful it is to be with God. And how much the younger brothers are suffering out in the world. It may look like they have it all, but without God, they really have a huge hole in their lives. The wages of sin is death. They have no future, no hope, no chance if they don't receive Christ.

If you're a younger brother type, remember how great the cost of salvation was and avoid turning into an elder brother. "For by grace you were saved through faith..." It is not anything you have done or could ever do that saved you and, because of that love shown, you should try to live as God wants you to rather than repenting only when at the end of yourself.

The Prodigal Son and His Elder Brother, Part 2

The prodigal son is one of the most famous characters in Jesus' parables. He is, in many ways, like a lot of younger siblings: perhaps a little spoiled, has a sense of entitlement, doesn't like rules, and doesn't respect authority. He does perhaps the worst thing he can to his father outside of actually killing him: he says he wishes his father were dead so he could have his inheritance. If you have children, imagine them coming to you and saying they can't wait for you to die so they can get your stuff. It's a powerful expression of greed and a lack of love to say that, but that's just what this son does.

The father, who, of course, represents God, doesn't disown his son as he has the right to do, doesn't yell at him, doesn't try to change his mind, and doesn't even mention his disappointment or the shame it's caused him. God does that with us. He won't force us to stay with Him or love Him. If we wish to go our own way to try to make it on our own in the world with the gifts He's given us, He'll let us go.

Instead of using his inheritance to settle down, buy some land, get married, and start a family, the younger son spends it selfishly on parties and women. We don't know how long he was able to survive or how wild he really was, but he led a Dionysian lifestyle until he ran out of funds. We don't know if he thought about his father and brother during this time at all, but he never returned to them. He was partying and focused on himself.

Eventually, though, he was forced to stop when he ran out of money. He was dirt broke and apparently hadn't acquired much in the way of marketable skills, either, because the best job he could find was feeding pigs. The job paid so little that he was jealous of what he was feeding the pigs. Finally, he comes to the end of himself. His pride is broken. He realizes how far he's fallen and how in need he is of something better.

That is when he starts thinking of the father. The interesting point is that he didn't think of how much he missed and loved his father. He didn't think of how badly he had wronged his father and needed to make things right. He thought of food. He remembered that his father's servants had plenty of food and that was his motivation for returning. Even when he was doing the right thing, he was only able to do it for selfish motives.

That's how we treat God a lot of the time. There's a story of a professor who gave notoriously difficult tests. One time, he began the class after the exam with this statement, "God thanked me the other day for the test I gave you. He said He hadn't heard from many of you in years." God knows that, without Him, the world is too powerful for us, that we will come to the end of ourselves, and that that is what we need to turn to Him.

The story gets even more interesting. The son tries to offer himself to the father as a hired hand. He was finally willing to serve, even if it was only for his own benefit. The father, though, sees him from afar. How was he able to see him? The father was looking for him, hoping he would come back. He runs to his son, overcome with joy. He had to have noticed the son's needs, seen his bare feet, looked at his gaunt and haggard body, smelled the stench of pigs on him. His son was doubtless absolutely filthy and disgusting. The father didn't care. He falls on his neck and kisses him.

The son then starts his speech of repentance, but the father doesn't even seem to hear him. Through this, the father has ignored how fallen his son has become, ignored the pain of his own loss through the years, even ignored the repentance of his son. All that mattered was that the prodigal son had returned. There was no demand made of what his son had been up to; no chastisement or punishment for blowing the inheritance on wild parties and prostitutes; no waiting for an apology or groveling; no sense of disgust at what his son had become and how far he had fallen; and no requirement to pay back what he had spent. There was only love and joy.

No matter what any of you have done, no matter how far you have fallen, there is God waiting for you, eagerly hoping you turn to Him. He is waiting to embrace you, even in your worst state. He won't make you pay Him back for all the wrong you've done, you couldn't even if you tried. He won't yell at you for what you've done or make you feel like a horrible person. He doesn't even want you to make yourself feel like a horrible person.

When the father cuts him off, he starts seeing to the needs of the younger son. He brings a robe to cover him and a ring so he can buy and sell in the family's name and sandals for his bare feet. These things far exceeded the son's needs and expectations and welcomed him back wholeheartedly into the father's house. The father feeds the son with a feast, inviting all his neighbors. The father isn't concerned at all about what the feast is costing him or what his son had cost him. There is only the fact that the son has returned.

For many people reading that story, they think salvation is free and restoration to Christ is a gift. To an extent, that is true. It is free for us. But the other side is the high cost to God. When the father welcomed his son back, he made him an heir again. He gave him the rights to sign contracts in the family's name again. He made his resources his son's resources, too. That was after all he had given his son.

For God, the cost was much greater. It was the life of Jesus, His Son, tortured and beaten and killed for us.

There are those who have the attitude of, "I know I'm wrong, but I'll just get saved later. If salvation is free and it doesn't matter what I've done, then why lose my freedom earlier than I have to?" Others, who have become Christians, think, "I'm forgiven no matter what I do and God already knows what I will do, so I'll just do what I want and repent later." Neither viewpoint is one of love for God and respect for the cost of our salvation. It is saying that God doesn't matter, nor what He gave up to pay for our sins, only that we are safe from hell. It would be like the son coming back, being welcomed into the family, then immediately asking for money so he could go back and live his old lifestyle a bit more. He'd be spitting on his father's mercy and kindness.

Yes, once we give our lives to Christ, we are forgiven no matter what we do, but it is because that forgiveness was so expensive that we should strive to need as little of it as possible once we're saved. We're never going to be perfect and we're not saved through our works, but we honor God and show Him love by honoring the sacrifice He made for us. We turn from being prodigal sons into loving sons...

Or into elder brothers, which we will look at tomorrow.

The Prodigal Son and Elder Brother, Part 1

There is a book titled The Prodigal God by Tim Keller, in which he discusses the parable of the prodigal son. You've all probably heard it, even if you're outside the church. For those who haven't, it goes something like this:

A man had two sons. One day, the younger son went to the father and asked for his share of the inheritance. The father gave him the money and the son went away, blowing the money on parties, prostitutes, and riotous living. Eventually, he runs out of money, just as a famine hits the land he's in. He hires himself out to a pig farmer and then finds himself jealous of the pigs because they're eating better than he is. He remembers that his father feeds his servants much better and decides to go home and ask the father to hire him, telling him he's no longer worthy to be called his son.

When he gets close to home, the father sees him and runs toward him. The son begins his "I'm not worthy" speech, but the father cuts him off, orders the servants to bring a robe, ring, and sandals, and then orders them to kill the fatted calf and prepare a feast. He welcomes the younger son back to the family with open arms.

For most people, this is where the story ends, but this is only half of it. The elder brother is furious when he hears his brother has been welcomed back. He won't go into the feast, shaming the father in front of what is probably the entire village. The father goes out to plead with him and the elder brother says he thinks he deserves more than he's gotten for how faithfully he's served the father. He demands to know why the younger brother is getting treated like royalty when his own service seems to go unnoticed. The father tells him that all the father owned was already the elder brother's. The story ends without a resolution. We never know if the elder brother relented and went into the feast.

In this post, I'm going to discuss the context of certain elements of the story. In the next, I'll discuss the younger brother. In the last one, I'll discuss the elder brother, who is the least understood and talked about character in this parable.

First, this parable is directed toward both sinners and the Pharisees. In Luke 15, it says Jesus' audience was tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, and scribes. The first two were outside the synagogue and the latter two were pillars of the synagogue, the unrighteous and the righteous. The younger brother represents the sinner and the elder represents the Pharisees.

Next, the father had a right to disown the younger son for his request. The younger son basically told his father that he wishes the father were dead so he could have his things. It was a horrible slap in the face, particularly in such a patriarchal society. Also, most wealth then was tied to the land and livestock. It wasn't easy to get at like today with stock markets and bank accounts. The father had to sell a third (the eldest son was entitled to a double share of the inheritance, so he got two thirds and the younger got one) of his property to meet the younger son's request.

When the younger son has to feed pigs, that was rock bottom for that culture. Pigs were unclean animals in Jewish society. The son had come to the end of himself and sunk as low as he could have fallen.

When the father runs toward him, that also would have shocked the listeners. Running was for women and children and sometimes for young men. Patriarchs did not run. But this father is so excited that he does. He calls for the best robe, which would have been an unmistakable public sign that he was in the family again; a ring, which was how they signed contracts back then, thus giving the son legal authority in the family again; and sandals, which is significant because only members of the household had sandals. Servants went barefoot.

The fatted calf was a prize possession, saved only for the greatest events. Meat was uncommon back then at meals because of how expensive it was. Killing the fatted calf meant the father couldn't have been happier about his son's return. It also meant a village feast, since the calf would have fed 75-100 people.

The elder son also could have been disowned for shaming his father. He was refusing to take part in what his father did and this was a very public humiliation.

Both sons deserved to be disowned. The father disowns neither of them, but invites them into the feast. Next time, we'll look at the younger brother, his descent, repentance, and restoration.

Daydreams and Peace

Ok, so we all catch ourselves daydreaming at least once in a while. We imagine ourselves getting that big promotion, meeting that special someone, winning the lottery, or we do a little revisionist history on what if we had just done this instead of that. These daydreams all seem to have one thing in common, though: they are about US. They are about our wants, our fantasies, our hopes. At best, they include our families and friends; at worst, they don't even include our morals or respect for the others in the daydreams.

In short, there is no God in our daydreams. We don't daydream of people getting saved in droves or getting healed. We don't imagine people sharing their testimonies in front of their congregations and encouraging their brothers and sisters in Christ. We don't see in our mind's eye people giving glory to God. Even when we picture what we are getting for ourselves, how often in our daydreams are we giving God the glory for it?

When we talk to others about what's going on in our lives, do we mention God? The Bible says in Luke 6:34, "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." Another translation ends, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." What you think about and what is truly important to you is what will naturally flow out of you in conversation.

Is it wrong then to ever discuss anything other than God? Of course not. God knows we have struggles and trials and temptations; He knows even better than we do what we're going through. But God should be in our hearts. He should be coming out when we speak.

It is when we put our trust in Him, when He is the delight and the first desire of our hearts that He will give us the desires of our heart. And when that happens, we get more of Him! We get more of the "peace that passes all understanding". We get more of the unending, undeserved, and pure. We get closer to Him and to His will for our lives.

We can't know what real pure love is outside of Christ. We can't love with that love apart from His strengthening us to do so and flowing through us. We can't love others nearly as much when we put them first as when we put God first. God enables us to love others as He loves them because His love is pure and does not seek it's own end.

All of our selfish daydreams are foolish. They are foolish because if they are not God's will for us, we will not be as happy with them as we would be in God's will. I'm not saying that for those in God's will, the ride is always smooth and paved with rose petals. Jesus told Peter that Peter would be crucified. Paul was beaten and imprisoned regularly. But they both knew the joy that comes by being close to God.

Also, regardless of what happens to us on earth, good or bad, there is Heaven awaiting us, where all of our wildest dreams will seem but moldy crumbs compared to the steak set before us. God wants the best for us and wants us to be blessed, both on earth and in Heaven, but our purpose on this earth is not to seek our own gain, whether that gain is financial, relationships, power, or anything else. Our goal on earth is to seek to give Him praise and to follow Him in the will He has for our lives. Our daydreams should be of walking ever closer with Him and about our dependence on Him for even our next breath.

The Golden Standard

A lot of times, I used to feel I wasn't good enough. I felt this way primarily because I'm still single and always have been. I don't mean single as in that I've never been married, but single as in I've never even gone on a second date. Essentially, I feel that if I were better in some way, I could get a woman to actually be interested in me. I feel I'm missing some quality that everyone else has or that I have some negative attribute that I'm not aware of that no one else seems to have. It may sound ridiculous and, in my head, it is, which is also why I'm very frustrated with the situation.

I've always kept myself to a very high standard. No report card was good enough if it had an A-, no performance at a game was good enough unless I made no mistakes, and no test was good enough if I missed a question. Did I say very high? I meant impossible. Now that I'm no longer in school, I don't feel the pressure of a high GPA and now that I don't play competitive sports, I don't feel the pressure of having to be a good player (which I never really was). What I do feel pressure to be is everything a woman wants.

There are two problems with this. The first is that I can't be everything a woman wants because women look for different things in a guy. Almost every woman likes a sense of humor, but what they find funny is incredibly different. Some women like exciting men of action, even if rash, and some like men who have a calming influence. Some want a tough guy who doesn't show emotions much and some want a man who will be open with his feelings. Then there are all the different interests. Some women like gardening, others like cars, sports, cooking, hiking, animals, art, knitting, and almost anything else you can think of. I'm not interested in all those things. To set myself up as someone who will be everything to a woman places an impossible burden on myself and, far more dangerously, makes me more important than I should be, in both my own eyes and, should I come even remotely close to succeeding, in the eyes of the woman I end up with as well.

I should not be my wife's source of happiness. I intend to do all I can to lead her to the best of my ability and to make her as happy as I can, but even at my best, I fall far short of Christ. It's going to take God's strength and wisdom for me to lead her as I should, for that leadership will be putting her needs and our children's needs above my own, not once, but consistently, time after time after time. Even then, the greatest good I can do for them is to lead them to the Father and have them see Him as the source of all good things and depend on Him. As happy as I can make her, I can't heal all the brokenness in her heart or fill all her needs for love. I can't even love her unconditionally, for I would always need her love in return.

It is a stunning blow to my pride that I am, of myself, able to accomplish only failure, however well-intentioned I may be. And yet it is wonderfully calming to know that I won't have to face the challenges of marriage by myself.

The second problem is that I have become guilty of the thing I had wanted my wife to be guilty of: seeking her happiness in a relationship rather than with God. I want to experience the rapturous joy of being in love with a woman more than I've wanted to draw closer to God. There are times I've wanted a certain friendship or even my reputation of being someone who is trusted and considered wise more than I want God. It's no wonder I'm frustrated; I'm seeking gold where there is only tin. It may be shiny, but it is worthless compared to God. Moreover, I have been killing myself to get this tin when the gold is being freely offered.

How, then, do I begin to desire the gold? Simply saying that I need to put God first is much like telling a homeless man he should live in a house. It's true, of course, but not helpful because you haven't told him how to get a house.

It's long been axiomatic that a man and woman can't be best friends without romantic interest popping up in at least one of them. The closer they become, the more likely it is to happen. I can't imagine that God would design us to be like that with each other and not have it work the same with Him. When I spend time in the Bible, pray, and sing praises, I want God more.

But this goes beyond simply making God my best friend as well as my King. It goes to seeing others and myself as He sees us. I have tried to make myself perfect and think it is good that I continue to make myself better, working on my weaknesses and enhancing my strengths and developing new competencies, but I am, at my core, flawed. I am weak, selfish, prideful, judgmental, and feel I need others' approval. And all of us are like that. We have all sought each other or our own desires above God. We are all equal in that and have no right to reject each other. But God knows we are flawed and He loves us anyway. We don't have to earn His approval, we CAN'T earn His approval.

I know in my head how silly it is to desire the approval of others more than God's. This is a heart issue. When I seek others' approval, especially so strongly, I'm really revealing that I'm valuing them more than God.

It's not something that I expect to snap out of instantly and I might struggle with it all my life, but the approval that I've been working so hard for and worried so much about being denied has been waiting for me all this time from the Father. He has seen my flaws and declared me perfect, He has seen my heart and declared me pure, He has looked into my mind and declared me worthy - all because of what Jesus has done for me. No friend, no wife, no child, and not even I can know myself like He knows me and none of them can love me like He does and (this next one is perhaps the most pertinent) none of them can love without asking for anything or any standard in return.

Goodbye, Regret!

For a long time, I really disliked my life. My parents separated when I was seven or eight, finally got divorced when I was fourteen, and we were often neglected on visitation with our father. He fought hard with our mother over child support, alimony, and a settlement, and she gave in time and again in an effort to gain us more rights on visitation, which he then consistently ignored. The end result is that we were poor, deeply in debt, and the stress the divorce put our mother through has led to a string of medical conditions, severe enough that she is disabled from working. Our financial situation meant I couldn't go to the college of my choice and had to settle for a different one.

It was there that I met a friend who got me the job out here that has allowed me to get my mother nearly debt-free, support her when she became disabled, and pursue my dream of writing. I could not understand as I was going through all of this what God's purpose for it was. Now that I am here, I can see that His purpose, at least in part, seems to have been to bring me to this point.

It is not easy to stop wondering what would have happened if only... Maybe I'd be a multi-millionaire by now, maybe I'd be married and have two kids, maybe I'd have fallen into sin and messed up my life pretty badly. I might have even been killed in a car crash or something. The point is that I wouldn't be here and that here is where I am supposed to be. As I slowly realize this in my heart and not merely my head, my frustrations with how my life has gone have started to melt away, taking with them the anger I've harbored over the years.

As usual, my point is not simply to relay what is happening in my life. It's to encourage everyone who has had situations that have happened to them that they don't understand to realize that God has a plan. It may be leading to something years into the future that you couldn't possibly guess at, but there is a plan, and it is good. Realizing this won't end all the pain you might be going through and it might not be enough to even make you smile, but a true realization of this can bring peace to your hearts.

And so I am bidding goodbye to all those regrets, slowly but surely, that have come from things that have happened to me, rather than that have been done by me. For the latter, I continue to regret some of the things I've done, not so much for the consequences as for that I was weak and stupid at the time I did them. I have realized, of course, that I can't take them back and have only a limited ability to rectify them, and so it is only sensible to attempt to learn what lesson there is to be found in making them. I don't believe in most cases that the lesson has been worth making the mistake, particularly when talking about sin, which in my case is usually saying things in anger I shouldn't, because it would have been better to have been strong enough to have not committed the sin than to have committed it and learned a lesson.

But I believe also that there is a difference between wishing you hadn't done something and not forgiving yourself for it. It is good to wish I had not done wrong; if I were to give that up, it would be in my mind a validation of wrongdoing. It is good to forgive myself, too, because I have already been forgiven by the One whose opinion actually matters.

And by knowing that nothing I have done has taken me out of God's will for my life and that all that has happened to me from the outside has brought me where I am meant to be, I can rest knowing that my God is greater than my stupidity (which can be pretty awesome at times), greater than my selfishness (which can be even more awesome), greater than all that life has thrown my way, and greater than anything I will ever endure.

There may be things in our lives right now that are happening to us as the result of our bad decisions. There may be tragedies and trials we don't deserve. We are outside the perfect will of God because we have all fallen short. But we are also all within His permissible will; nothing that has ever happened to you has befallen you without God allowing it. I used to be furious with God for that, because He allowed bad things to happen. Now, that same thought brings peace, because I know that if God allowed it, He will give me strength to endure it and bring me toward a better future with Him.

The Little Things in Life

I struggle with depression. I have since I was about 16. It comes and goes and can last anywhere from two days to three weeks. I've never had someone able to snap me out of it before, despite people's best efforts at talking to me, sometimes for over an hour and trying their hardest to sympathize. It has always been simply a matter of time before I start coming out of it.

That's changed recently. I have a close friend who has found half of the secret to getting me out of these bouts (the other half being burying myself in the Bible and prayer): simply doing something nice and unexpected for me. The first time was toward the end of March. She and another friend just got some toys and candy at the dollar store and left them by my car with a card that had an encouraging Bible passage hand-written in it. The second time was just last night, when I had gone on a long walk only to find the road that I thought would have a sidewalk for miles became a small one-lane-each-way-with-no-shoulder-in-the-middle-of-a-forest road. I called her to ask if she'd look up another way for me to return home and, once she found where I was, she insisted on coming to pick me up.

Two small gestures, nothing earth-shattering about either one, nothing expensive or over-the-top - but they made a world of difference to me. This morning, I had the opportunity to do something small for her to thank her and it seemed to make her day. I've seen a few postings on facebook from guys who tell everyone what kind of meal their wives made them and then each claim that they have the best wife on the planet.

The point in all this is not to relate a couple anecdotes; it is to serve as a reminder that grand sweeping gestures are not the only way to have a dramatic effect on someone. It is the small things in life, particularly the unexpected blessings, that really matter to people.

As I think about this, there seem to be two keys that separate the moments that warm my heart from the moments that simply make me say, "Thank you." The first is that the special moments are unexpected. When you get a birthday present from someone really close to you, it's always nice and appreciated, but not entirely unexpected. You know that person was thinking about you for that specific reason and, while you like that they thought of you, it was an expected time to do so. When my friend thought of me, it was totally out of the blue and made me realize someone cared about me on days other than my birthday and Christmas.

The second key is that these moments are tailored to the other person. Sometimes, this means going out of your way to get them a little something they want, something they have mentioned they like, or something you think they'd like based on what you know of them. If the person you want to bless is a science nerd, get them some small science toy. If they like sports, a little Nerf football works. If they have a certain need, going above and beyond what they ask to meet it works wonders. Or it could be as simple as a compliment directed very specifically at them, naming something they've done and extolling it and offering some encouragement.

I believe that God can heal our hearts without using other people. He's God, He can do as He pleases. But I do think that He most often wants to use us to help each other, to reach out and love one another as He has loved us. While we were not even aware that we needed Him, He was dying for us. In our deepest need, He went above and beyond anything we could ever have deserved. He tailors His response to our prayers to our individual hearts and He knows our hearts better than we do.

I would encourage you all to find someone today who needs to have their mood brightened, and do something to brighten it. If everyone around you seems content, try to make one of their days. It is not the little moments that keep us going between the big moments; it is the little moments that can make the biggest differences.

The Necessity of Justice

Most people, Christian and non-Christian alike, are at least passingly familiar with the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal...it's a list of do's and don'ts that most people have broken at least a few of in their lives. You may not have murdered or committed adultery, but have you shoplifted? Have you coveted what someone else has? Have you ever told a lie?

There are a number of other laws in the Old Testament, regarding everything from what to eat and what to wear to using fair measurements in trade to how to purify yourself to go into the temple. Many people think of these rules as onerous tasks that must be observed in order to get to Heaven. There is a measure of truth to that, and that measure is that we could get to Heaven if we followed every last rule all of the time without fail.

Here's the problem, though. We can't. We have already failed. We will continue to fail. Most of us, myself included, have failed today.

In the Old Testament, a priest could go into the Holy of Holies only at a certain time, and he had to be purified in a certain way, too. If he failed in this preparation or went in at the wrong time or with the wrong heart, he was killed instantly because the holiness of God will not allow anything unholy in His presence. The other priests had to tie a rope around one of this priest's legs and the priest had to move constantly to jingle little bells and let those outside the Holy of Holies know he was still alive. The point is that one mistake, just one, was a death sentence.

Where, then, does that leave us? Right where God wants us, fully dependent on Him.

When Jesus died for us and offered us His blood as atonement for our sins, He was NOT removing the law or invalidating it. He was fulfilling the death sentence on us all that the law demanded. In modern legal terminology, this would be called "double jeopardy." You can't be tried twice for the same crime. If your sentence has already been carried out, it cannot be carried out again. Jesus offered himself to take your punishment. You can accept it and be freed from your sentence, or you can accept your sentence.

Why is justice so important in this? Why couldn't God have just wiped out the law? Why did Jesus have to offer himself up for us?

God is holy and pure. He is so powerful that to come into His presence requires that we be pure. In the early days of the space program, they were worried about diseases that might be contracted out in space and so the astronauts were quarantined upon their return to earth. They had to be pure in terms of harmful diseases before they could rejoin the world. We can't taint God with our sin, but He does demand that we be spotless before we can join Him.

Thus, there are two ways into His presence. The first is through obeying all the law, choosing Him 100% of the time in all things in our life. But if we did that, we'd have no need for God. We would be self-sufficient. There would be no need to have a relationship with Him, but the problem is that the relationship is the greatest thing He offers us.

The other way is through accepting what Christ did for us. It opens the door to a relationship with God and makes us fully dependent on Him, like a child is dependent on his or her parents.

Without justice, there would be no need for either Christ or for a relationship with God. If there are no laws, or if there are laws but no punishment for breaking them, then there is anarchy. There is no safety or security for anyone, no way to have any sort of society. If you could do whatever you wanted with impunity, you would not need God because you would get to heaven anyway, but you would miss out on the best part of life. Because a relationship with God is the greatest thing we can have, and because God is holy, His justice bids us to draw closer to Him. It is for our benefit that there is justice, not for our harm.

Justice and mercy are then two sides of the same coin: opposite in one respect, but strikingly similar in another. Yes, God's laws carry punishment with them for violating them, but that punishment has been carried out on Jesus if we just accept it. It is God's justice that makes it necessary to have a relationship with Him, and it is His mercy that allows us to.

Mirrored Questions

I had a hope disappointed this weekend. It was something I thought it reasonably likely I would get, and most signs were positive. Because I had wanted it, in one form or another, for a long time, having such a promising opportunity fall through hurt, all the more so because it was unexpected.

For a brief while that day, I began questioning God. I started doubting His love for me and wondering why He created me only to give me pain. I have grown much in my trust in Him, but this trust was also called into question. God felt so far from me.

Then this morning, I had a revelation. When we begin questioning God, we should really be calling ourselves into question. When we question God's love for us, we are saying, "If you loved me, you would give me what I want." In reality, what we mean is, "I will only love you if you give me what I want." That's not love at all. When I questioned whether He loved me, what I meant was that I didn't value Him or the love He had shown me as much as what I was after. I wanted Him to earn my love when He had already earned more than I could ever fathom repaying and was worthy of my praise simply for who He is.

When we question whether God wants what is best for us, what we really mean is that our selfish desires mean more to us than His will. I have begun to trust God in the last six months more than I have since I was a little boy. I have begun to see His plan for my life and have looked back in awe at how my life seems to have been orchestrated to bring me to exactly where I am now. And yet, with one disappointment, all of this trust was called into question. Why? Because His will for my life was taking a backseat to my desire for this. Doing His will is to be my purpose on this planet, not getting what I want. What I wanted was not a bad thing, but when considered more important than God's will, it becomes an idol. I was telling God that I would trust Him with my life, but not when it comes to this one thing, that in this one thing I know better than He does what is best for me.

In Job 38-41, God rebukes Job for having questioned Him. He reminds Job of His infinite power, of His mighty works, of His great wisdom, and that He is eternal. In other words, He reminds Job of who He is: God, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, and holy. He has the power to do what He pleases in our lives, and yet gives us free choice that we might choose to love Him. Part of this love, as with any relationship, involves trust. If God is infinitely powerful, wise, and loving, what sense does it make for me to question that His will for my life is better than my will?

When we wonder where He is, we should wonder where we have gone. Imagine that you are going to New York City. If you look at a map and find that you are further from there than you were an hour ago, do you question where the city moved to? No, you wonder how you got so lost and then you figure out how to turn around and head back. You know that the city hasn't moved.

Why, then, do we keep imagining that God has moved further from us? He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the one who will never leave us or forsake us. If we are far from Him, we are the ones who have moved.

I am still human and the pain of disappointment is still in me, as is the desire I yet have. By God's strength and grace, however, I will cease to question His goodness in denying me what I want, trust in His will for my life in all things, and turn back to Him. My questions may not have revealed when or if I ever have this desire granted, but they have revealed to me part of my heart, and may I always remember that I should be questioning myself when I am questioning God.

Relationships, Part II

I had written my friend a five-page letter, detailing both the hurt she'd caused me and my concerns about her. It was written, as much as I could make it, in love and much thought and prayer went into it. I then took a long walk to think about it and how the situation had gotten as messy as it had.

It was on this walk that I was reminded of compassion. It is hurting people who usually hurt people. The fact that my friend was willing to hurt me and not care how I felt spoke loudly of the pain she herself was feeling. Does it make what she did right? No, nor does it make it hurt less, but knowing that she must be going through something worse softened me in how I felt toward her.

Sometimes, when a person is drowning, they fight violently, even against the lifeguard or good Samaritan trying to save them. In such cases, the lifeguard can restrain the victim or even knock them unconscious if the fighting is bad enough. Bruises are still received, and fighting is still wrong, but what is important is that the drowning person be rescued. Compassion triumphs over wrongdoing.

It would have been easy and it was actually tempting for me to write off my friend, to simply tell her that our relationship was over. I could have left her to her pain because of how she'd treated me. I may have been justified, too, but I would not have been compassionate.

The Bible tells the story of a man who owed his king millions of dollars and couldn't pay. The king ordered that he be arrested and he, his wife, and children be sold to pay for at least part of the debt. The man cried out for mercy, and the king took pity on him, released him, and forgave the debt. This man then found another who owed him a few thousand dollars, took him by the throat, and demanded he pay everything. When this other man couldn't and begged for mercy, the first one threw him in prison. The king heard of this and had the first man taken and tortured.

What my friend did to me was far less than what I have done to God. How can I not forgive her? When I know that she is acting from pain and not from malice, how can I refuse to help even when she fights me?

The people in your life who seem to hurt others the most are probably the ones who are hurting most themselves. You should view the sins of people against you in light of what you have done against God. Forgiveness may still not be easy, as our human hearts cry out for justice when something is done to us and mercy when we do it to others. That cry, ironically, is the great failure of humanity: that we are selfish. "Charity may begin at home, but justice begins next door," as the old saying goes.

When I was a boy, I wasn't popular. Looking back on how I behaved, I can understand why not. My mom told me that if I wish to have friends, I must show myself friendly. Compassion and mercy are like that, too. If you want it for yourself, you must show it for others. If you are waiting for it to be shown to you, remember that it already was by Jesus nearly 2,000 years ago, and you received more of it for yourself than you will be called upon to show to others.

Relationships

A friend of mine recently hurt me very deeply, becoming cold and distant after we had been close enough to tell each other almost anything. She hurt me worse by lying about, or at least hiding, the reasons for this change. I felt I had done nothing to deserve it, I still feel that way. But I began to change one night when I was praying and, well, complaining about how unfair this was. The answer came back, "Relationships are not about justice, but love."

It stopped me dead in my tracks. I had been searching so hard to see if perhaps I had done anything wrong and, when I found nothing worthy of this treatment, I lambasted her in my mind. In truth, what I was doing was revealing I felt she owed me better for what I had done for her. My love was not unconditional; it was earned. I had been willing to give it in advance, but not willing to accept no return on it, thus making it not real love at all.

It is, thankfully, not the way God treats us. His love is pure, unearned, and eternal. Nothing we can do can increase or decrease His love for us.

I've been reading a book entitled "Relationships: A Mess Worth Making". In it, the authors say that when anything other than God is first in our lives, it makes it impossible to have the kind of relationships we were supposed to have. We can't, of ourselves, love purely, and so attempts to do so without God inevitably end in failure. Ironically, when we do have God first, we can love others more than if they were first in our lives.

I'm honestly not quite to that point yet. If I were, her rejection and dishonesty wouldn't have bothered me so much. I could have been hurt, and I had the right to be, but I wouldn't have let that hurt control me. I'd have realized that God was still, and will always be, in absolute control. He can tug gently on the strings of her heart and lead her where she should infinitely better than I ever could.

Part of my hurt was that I felt I was being rejected for no fault of mine; another part was because I thought I could help her. I had a Messiah complex. Essentially, when I got upset about her rejecting me, part of it was because I didn't trust that God was able to help her without me. God doesn't need me to help someone any more than a carpenter needs a carpenter ant to build a house. I may be called to help, but God can do whatever He wants with or without my assistance.

What it all boiled down to was that I was seeking something from my friendship with her that was more important than either God's will in that relationship or what was truly best for her. I still have what I believe are her best interests at heart, even if she and I disagree as to what those are, but my anger showed that it was not all I had in mind concerning her. I was seeking her respect, I wanted her to tell me how much I had helped her, I wanted to be extremely important to her. I didn't want a romantic relationship with her, but I wanted to be the most important person in her life and when I was rejected from being even a close friend anymore, I was hurt.

What is God's will going forward in this relationship? First, that I forgive her. Second, that I change my heart to seek what God wants in this. Third, that I be her friend as much as she will let me and trust that God will bring someone else in her life to continue to help her.

Many of our relationships have elements from this story present in them, particularly the seeking of something else aside from God's will. Selfishness and fear creep in and change the relationship from something beautiful and mutually beneficial to a struggle to get what we want, even at the expense of the other person. Examine a few of the relationships in your life. Look at areas in which you seem to get into an argument with that person and ask why you feel the way you do and what you truly want in your relationship. If God's will is not first, you can never have the type of relationship you were intended to have.

Moving Day

I am moving tomorrow. My lease at my current apartment is up and I'm moving into a townhouse a couple miles away. It's an incredible deal and I'm pretty happy about it. But there's just so much to do here. Alerting the Post Office, bank, DMV, cell phone company, car insurance, and others that I have moved; packing; cleaning my room and bathroom; doing laundry; and examining my room for any damages that might come out of my deposit all have to be done. I also have to clean out my car and have had to get a small crew of friends together to assist in the move.

And even though I'm not particularly thrilled about any of these things, I am looking forward very much to my new place. It was when I thought this that an analogy for our live and Heaven popped into mind. We have our list of things to do while we're here and, if we know when our lease is short, we have to do many things quickly. We can't move before we are allowed into our new place. Even though we may look forward very much to our new place, we can't rush things to get there. We have to do what we should in our current place and wait until we can move in.

Here, though, is where the analogy breaks down: we don't know how long our lease on life is. We don't know when we'll have to move out. We often live our lives like we assume we'll be here ten years, twenty years, even fifty years from now. We might not be here another hour. I might get killed by a drunk driver the next time I drive somewhere. I could get mugged and shot. I could catch a fatal disease. So could you.

So the question is: if today were your moving day, would you be ready for it?

None of us has ever done all that we were intended to do on this planet. We've missed opportunities to help people, sometimes because we weren't looking and sometimes because we had bad days or didn't like the person we were supposed to help or just didn't care. We've all hurt people, too, and not just through constructive criticism that they needed to hear at the time. But how much of the things you were supposed to do will you have accomplished?

God has a plan for your life. Will you have done your best to live it? He has tasks for you to perform. Will you have performed most of them? There are people He means for you to touch. Will you have reached out to them? God has a timeline for you to finish all these things. Will you have finished them before your moving day?

A Bleating Heart

Sheep are incredibly stupid animals. They are almost completely defenseless, are scared easily, and have a tendency to wander off. They will see a patch of grass on a narrow, rocky ledge and try to get to it, not considering either how they will return or the strong possibility of falling to their deaths should they slip. When they are rescued, they will not follow behind the shepherd like a dog would; they have to be either constantly guided or literally hog-tied and carried. When in the flock, they follow other sheep, to the extent that it's possible to get sheep to go in a circle for hours.

And the Bible calls us sheep. It's not a compliment, nor is it meant to be one. It is meant to show us what we really are. Consider your life. If you are a Christian, how many things do you do that you know are against the Bible or God's will, yet you justify them because they're not as bad as some other sin or because you feel you need them or even because you deserve to have a reward for how good you've been? How often are you going for that little tuft of grass on the edge of a cliff?

If you're not a Christian, consider how many times you've done things you've regretted. Perhaps you got angry and said something terrible to a friend or coworker and ruined that relationship. Perhaps you got drunk and went home with someone you couldn't even remember when you woke up. Maybe you spent your money recklessly on entertainment and then had to scrounge for rent while avoiding your landlord.

And yet, how many times have we gone back to these things, done them over and over and over again, knowing full well that they are no good for us? How many times have we promised ourselves we'd never do that again, only to do it again the very next week?

I'm not trying to bash anyone's heads in or make anyone feel bad about themselves. I've done (and continue to do) stupid things myself. All I'm saying is that we fail constantly to live, not according to some moral code (which I understand that some of you reading this may not agree with), but in our best interests. Christianity is not about a moral code that everyone has to live up to. It's about letting yourself be rescued from yourself. It's about letting someone Who is omnipotent and omniscient and cares for you far more than you could ever understand guide you, trusting that when He guides you away from something you want, it is to lead you to something better for you. All you need is a heart that bleats for Him.

Focus

Last night, I went bowling with some friends. I sucked on an epic level, not seen since I was 13. I had only 47 at the end of seven frames, and I had followed the two spares I'd managed with a 1 and a gutter ball. As a very competitive person, I was furious. My friends were trying to help me feel better, trying to tell me it was just a game. I ignored them completely, partly because a few of them are just as competitive as I am and would be in almost as bad a mood, and partly because in that state, I didn't care. I ended up cussing a lot, some of it directed at them, and leaving the bowling alley before the first game even ended. It was terrible and childish and I felt bad that I was doing it even as I walked out.

Of course, I apologized to everyone that night, but the damage had already been done. An apology can influence people to forgive you, but forgetfulness is not so easily achieved.

I had gotten a ride to the bowling alley from a friend's house and so had to walk the 1.5 miles back to get my car. On the way, I started analyzing why I had reacted that way and I realized that I had made my own performance (and ultimately others' acceptance of me because of that performance) more important than anything else. I had put performance above social etiquette, above morals, even above God, and in doing so, I went against all three of those things.

It sounds melodramatic to say this about a game of bowling, but this is not about bowling itself. It is about performing well in front of those whose opinions I valued and placing too much emphasis on that performance. When I was awful, I was subconsciously believing that they would make fun of me and think less of me because of how terrible I was. I reacted that way because my hope of happiness was crumbling and I was getting buried beneath the rubble. I felt like I had nothing to show for all my efforts and was losing their respect with every ball thrown.

It is why I need God to be the center of my life. He will not crumble. He will not change or leave or let me down. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Putting our hope of happiness on anything else will only guarantee that at some point, you will feel exactly as I felt last night, or worse. Relationships come and go and often disappoint along the way. Money doesn't last. Cars and gadgets break and deteriorate. Companies can go bankrupt in a matter of a few weeks. Jobs can be lost. Only God remains the same.