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.

Grace vs. Works

“For by grace you have been saved through faith…” Ephesians 2:8-9 begins, “…And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” God has offered us salvation freely, knowing we could never earn it, knowing that the longer we are here on earth, the more need we have for this salvation.

And yet the Bible says that we were created unto good works and that faith without works is dead. We have each a calling on this planet, and that calling, of course, involves us doing something. So what place do works have in the life of a believer?

God gives us a wonderful example of the proper relationship between love and works in a marriage. When two people love each other, they will do things for each other, not to earn the other’s love, but to show their own. Flowers for no reason for her, his favorite dinner for him, little gifts or sweet nothings whispered – all show love for the other person.

Just as importantly, if these things are all absent from a marriage, even if one person claims to love the other, it is easy to see that love doesn’t really exist. If a man tells his wife he loved her every day, yet refused to do anything for her, whether she asked him or just to show her he loved her, how long would she believe that he loved her? For a while, she might believe it, might pawn it off as his being immersed in work or something, but it will eventually lead to her questioning whether he means what he’s saying. If this continues for long enough, she will eventually realize that these are nothing but words to him.

So it is with God, save that God can look into our hearts and see the deepest places of our souls. There is no fooling God as to whether we really love Him, but true love will inevitably cause works to be done to show it. It is one of the most observable phenomena in human psychology: the combination of our realization of our own fallen state and pure love, which by its definition is undeserved, serves to bring out one of two responses:

1. The loved person will devote a great deal of time, effort, and resources to pleasing the one giving the love in some attempt to earn what is being given. When it is realized that it can’t be earned, the efforts are merely redoubled in gratitude.

2. The loved person is more overcome by their fallen state than they are by love, in which case they set about trying to make the one giving the love dislike them so much they are not loved anymore. It is not that this person does not want to be loved; it is that they are so wrapped up in the idea that they have to earn it that they cannot just let themselves be loved.

God knows how much you really love Him. He sees past works, even those done in His name, that were not done in love. He sees past empty words and songs of worship sung without a heart of worship. But the works, the words, and the songs come as readily as fruit to a tree; if the love, like the tree, is strong, the works are the necessary fruit. Trying to grow fruit without the tree is impossible; it simply cannot happen.

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that humans have put the cart before the horse. We do works to earn love. The works come first, and then we expect to get love because of all we have done for someone. We do not expect to be loved before we have given someone else a certain amount of service, gifts, quality time, etc. Once we have given that amount, we expect that we will be loved, that we have earned love. We even get very angry and hurt when the other person does not give us that love despite all we have done.

God’s love is pure and is completely different from ours. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a. The Bible says that while we were yet sinners, God sent Jesus to die for us. John 3:16 gets the order right, “For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son…” He loved us first, then did works to show His love. He didn’t try to earn our love through this; He simply loved us.

Because we can’t do anything to earn it, it is impossible for us as humans to fully understand and embrace it of ourselves. It goes completely against all of our interactions with each other. The closest we can come is probably a parent’s love for a child. Even that, though, has its limit, where the child can ignore and hurt the parent so badly that the love finally ceases or at least cools off significantly. God’s love never does.

We can do nothing to earn His love and so our works must either be to show our love to Him or they are meaningless. By grace we have been saved through faith, so His love has been given to us to walk in without our having to do anything. What more could He do to be worthy of our love, our lives, and all the works we could ever do?

Sin and Guilt

Many people, both inside and outside the church, seem to believe that not only is the moral code of the church restricting, but that it is the sacred duty of those who uphold that code to bash those who don't over the head with a stone copy of the Ten Commandments. There are two things I would like to address about this statement.
The first is that the moral code of the church IS restricting, but that the purpose of it is not because God wants us miserable. Sure, it would feel great to go out and have sex whenever you want and with whomever you want, but sex-based relationships are empty and can often end in pregnancies or STDs. It's not that the sex itself shouldn't be fun - sex was meant to be a whole lot of fun - it's that sex outside of its proper context leads to more problems than it's worth.

Think back to when you were a child and you wanted dessert, but not dinner. What did your parents tell you? If they were anything like my mom, you heard, "Finish your vegetables and then you can have a cookie." The cookie, in and of itself, was not a bad thing, nor something I was not meant to have. It was something that I had to wait for and accomplish something productive before I could have it. Left to my own judgment, I would have consumed a vast quantity of cookies and enjoyed them all...until I became obese, developed heart issues, and became diabetic.

Likewise, things that are restricted in the Bible are not restricted because God wants us to have no fun down here. It's because He loves us much like your parents loved you; He knows you want something, but there is a better way for you to live than to have it given to you any time you want it.

The better way is to live in love. It will be hard sometimes and something you don't want to do anymore than you wanted to eat your vegetables as a kid, but trusting that God knows what is best for you makes it easier to accept His rules for our lives.

The other point I'd like to address is guilt. Our parents had the right, power, and responsibility to make us do certain things. God certainly is more powerful than our parents, but he chooses to let us make our own choices in everything. Because of this, you will continue throughout your life to make choices that are opposite of what God wanted you to choose. That is perhaps the simplest definition of sin: choosing what you want over what God wants.

Here's a big secret: God already knows what you're going to choose. You're not surprising Him, you're not confusing Him, you're not even disappointing Him. He's infinitely patient with us. He'll correct us, just like any good parent would, but He won't condemn us, won't throw us away as worthless, and won't forsake us, no matter how many times we choose ourselves over Him.

In short, God doesn't use guilt. He may tell you that what you are doing is wrong, but it is always in the sense of trying to help you, rather than calling you a horrible person.

It is unfortunate that there are people (both inside and outside the church) who condemn people. When they do, they commit the sin of pride and so are sinners themselves. It is not anyone's place to judge another person's heart; God alone sees that. More importantly, God alone has the right to judge. This means that if you are judging now, stop and realize that you are trying to play God. If you are afraid of being judged by others, realize that they have no right to judge you and are wrong themselves for trying; also, you should be receiving your affirmation from God and not from other people. If God says you are worthy of love, who is anyone else to disagree?

A Heart of Worship

When I quit my job to become a full-time writer, I calculated very carefully exactly how much I had in financial resources and how long it would last at various levels of comfort. Seven months later, God has blessed me so much that I’m actually worth more now than I was when I quit my job, even though at the time of this writing, I have sold none of my work. I was starting to praise God for this when I found out but felt it wasn’t quite right. I prayed about it and feel that my praise didn’t come from the right motivation.

God is good. He wants only good things for us and will give us what is best for us. He always has our best interests in mind. When we get good things, it makes Him happy, just as when you give a gift that makes the receiver happy, you’re happy, too. It is right that we should praise God for what He gives us in our daily lives. What is not right is when that is the only or core reason why we praise Him. Praising God only for what He gives us implies that if we don’t get what we want, we will offer no more praise.

A child asking for something from his parents may or may not get it, depending largely on what it is and the parents’ ability to grant the request. If the child asks for something simple, such as an apple, he’ll probably get it because it is healthy and good for the child to have. If he asks for more cookies, he may not get them because those are not in the child’s best interests, even though the child thinks they are. Whether the child gets what he wants or not, he should still love his parents. It is right for the child to thank the parents if they give him what he wants, but that should not be the only way love is shown.

Likewise, our main reason for praising God should be out of love for Him, not for what He can offer us, but for who He is and how much He loves us. Even if the rest of our lives were miserable, God is still good and worthy of our praise, for He has offered Jesus to die for us so that we can spend an eternity – eternity! – in Heaven, a place so wonderful we can’t imagine it. Even better, we get to spend that time in the presence of God, not separated by any barriers. We’ll be able to look at Him, talk to Him, learn from Him, and actually know Him. He loves us more than we can possibly fathom, loves us in spite of how many times we’ve chosen ourselves over Him, been ashamed of Him, or cursed Him for not giving us what we want. It is for these reasons that God should be praised. God is good, and that is reason enough for our worship.

The Modern Church's Image

Christianity has been much maligned in today's society. There have certainly been those who have done their share to earn the church a poor reputation by judging others, committing various crimes, focusing on money or attendance rather than the needs of the people, or through hypocrisy. The church, however, is made of humans, just like any other organization. The fact that those inside it are not perfect should not detract from the message of the church, but rather remembered by those both inside and outside it.
I do not defend the actions of pastors or priests who have embezzled, cheated on their wives, touched little children, or committed other various infamies. I would only ask that the message of the church not be dismissed because of their actions, but called to the forefront as necessary for those committing them. The message of the church is forgiveness and love. The message of Christ is that none of us can fulfill the law and so we all need to accept his sacrifice for us, so that our sins can be forgiven. There is no room in the message for condemnation of the individual because we are all lost without Christ.
When a church leader sins, their sin itself is no different than a sin by someone outside the church because it is, at its heart, the leader choosing themselves over God. It is more noticeable because the person is a leader in the church and is held to a higher standard, but the leader is first and foremost a human still and subject to falling.
Perhaps the bigger reason many outside the church reject it is that they feel condemned when inside the church. They hear the Ten Commandments and think that is what they must do to be accepted. In truth, they are accepted by God already. It is they who need to do the accepting of what Jesus did for them.
Some know the message is one of forgiveness and feel condemned, not by the Bible, but by those in the church. Any condemnation of an individual by someone in the church is wrong itself. Someone may be told that what they're doing is wrong, but even this can be done in love and not judgment. Sin is not something that makes someone unworthy of the company of Christians; it's what is keeping a barrier between them and God. Because of that, non-Christians should not be talked down to, threatened with hell, or judged as though they are raging against God with a furious enmity, but rather counseled in love, with the non-Christian's best interests in mind.
There are undeniably those in the church who have committed many sins against God and their congregation, but that should not invalidate the message of the church; it should be a chance for the rest of us in the church to exemplify it.