My Way or the Highway

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. –Romans 14:19

               

                Expectations are set ups for disappointment any time of the year, but the time period beginning with Thanksgiving and ending with Christmas is a mine field of feelings waiting to be stepped on.  No other days in the calendar year are so fraught with family tradition and nostalgia. Each of us has a desire to recreate what was or to create what we always wanted and never had. Certain foods, certain days to do certain things at specific times with specific people – these things suddenly are of paramount importance. Normally complacent people become adamantly insistent on having their way.  Compromise is seen as defeat. Relationships are strained, friendships are threatened.  People entrench themselves in their positions and refuse to budge. What should be a joyous time of year becomes a battle zone.

            Why can’t we all just get along? It’s a valid question. It is so perverse to demand our own way at the expense of everyone’s happiness, including our own, yet we do it. Why? Sure, we have experiences which were meaningful to us that we wish to pass down.  We want to share the things that gave us pleasure with our loved ones. We have only noble goals.  But those goals are ruined at the root by selfishness.  This selfishness says the other person is the unreasonable one. This selfishness says that person is ruining my holiday. This selfishness says, “Why do I always have to give in?” This selfishness draws the line in the sand and says,” I will not be moved even if everyone is miserable as a result.”

            So, what is the answer?  Do you just give in and become the righteous martyr? Well, not exactly.  First of all, you recognize that you are not righteous, by any stretch of the imagination. Then, you remember who is, and you run to him and tell him what is going on and how you are feeling about it (because he loves you and is not going to stand there with his arms crossed and foot tapping with a disapproving look on his face!) Then, after you have poured it all out, you ask him to show you what to do and how to do it, graciously and with a loving heart. And he will.

            Have a grace-filled Christmas season!  

                                   

Life is Meant to be Frustrating

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. –John 16:33 

                I found something in scripture this week that rocked my world enough that I think I will experience aftershocks from it for a long time. It is in the book of Romans, which is my personal favorite; a book I have taught many times and am teaching now in my Senior High Sunday School Class. I was not expecting to find anything new. I was calmly preparing my lesson on the second half of Romans 8, when I saw it.  It’s in a verse I’ve read so many times; but suddenly my eyes were opened to an entirely new depth of meaning.

            The verse is Romans 8:20 and the hard-hitting truth is found in the first seven words:  “For the creation was subjected to frustration….” I quoted it in my blog, Life Hurts, but apparently I wasn’t paying attention even then.  I have this wonderful Bible that has both Old and New Testament Lexical Aids, which simply means you can look up the Hebrew or Greek words in a verse to see what the words meant in their original language. In this instance, I looked up the word translated as “frustration” – Mataiotes in the Greek. It means “Vanity, futility, meaninglessness, worthlessness. Not the absence of purpose, but the absence of true purpose and meaning.” Verse 20 goes on to say that the creation was subjected to this state by God.  

            Immediately those words brought the book of Ecclesiastes to mind. That book basically begins with the words, “Meaningless! Meaningless...Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (Eccl.1:2) and then repeats it over and over throughout the remainder of the book. So I looked up the word translated “Meaningless” – Hebell in the Hebrew. And, lo and behold, it means “Vanity, futility, meaninglessness, worthlessness, emptiness.” The same word in the Hebrew!

            Stay with me here, I’m getting to the point. Solomon, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes (as well as most of Proverbs and the Song of Songs), was given a very special gift by God. In 1 Kings 3, God told Solomon to ask for whatever he wanted, and Solomon asked for a discerning heart. God was pleased with the request and said he would give Solomon “a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.” (1 Kings 3:12) Then, in 1 Kings 4 it says, “Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.  He was wiser than any other man…. “ (! Kings 4:30-31)

            While no one seems to have a problem with Proverbs and Song of Songs (except for the racy content), many Christians seem to be uncomfortable with the Book of Ecclesiastes. You’ll have to read it and draw your own conclusions, but I look at this book as Solomon’s Extraordinary Social Experiment. Using the unparalleled wisdom which God gave him, he set about trying out all of the things the world had to offer, and then reported on it.  He dove into all the typical pleasures the world holds dear – He had great wealth and power, he amassed property, built grand houses, planted vineyards, gardens, parks;  He had more than 1000 wives and concubines, he had people to wait on him, hand and foot.  He says, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired.”  (Eccl. 2:10) He always makes a point of repeating that, during all of this experiment, his wisdom stayed with him, and, in the end, he reported, “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless….” (Eccl. 2:11) He had the same thing to say about all the oppression, the labor, all the chasing after power and advancement, the quest for knowledge, all riches, all folly and, finally, even wisdom itself (although it was better than folly).

            The conclusion of the experiment was that everything this world has to offer, which seems so dazzling and desirable; which seems so necessary for happiness, is chased after in vain, because, in the end, it never delivers what it appeared to promise and ultimately leaves you empty and unsatisfied. Everything is worthless and without true purpose or meaning. And, why is that? Because God subjected all of the things of this world to that futility, so that when we experience the frustration and dissatisfactions of this world, we will turn to him.

            I have known so many people over the years who have lived as though they believed God was trying to keep them from enjoying the good things in life. As a matter of fact, wasn’t that the original lie Satan told Eve? God was not only trying to keep her from enjoying the luscious fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but he was also trying to hold her back from ultimate fulfillment by keeping her from reaching the level of a god herself. We humans still hold that lie close to our hearts. Many believe they can “have the best of both worlds” not understanding that the only true fulfillment, the only true purpose or meaning that can be found in all of creation, is found in God alone. 

            I can already feel this perspective, that God has intentionally subjected the things of this world to meaninglessness, changing the way I look at my life.  Why would I want to waste my time and resources on what I know God has purposely rendered futile and worthless?  Lord, show me how to stop chasing the wind.

Even When I Do Not See

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  --Psalm 34:18

                “If there is a God, what good is he anyway?” I uttered those words from the pit of despair about 25 years ago. My husband was out of work. We had been forced to move, with our three small children, far away from all of our family and friends. Those were the days before cell phones and cheap long distance. I couldn’t even afford to phone anyone to hear a friendly voice or have someone pray with me. What little savings we had was quickly running out and I saw no light at the end of the tunnel.  I had prayed and cried to God for help until I felt I had no tears left. If God existed, he had abandoned me, I declared, and there was no point in praying anymore.

                You would have to know me to truly understand the magnitude of that statement. All of my life I have prayed. Praying is my answer to everything. It is my first response to both good and bad news. I remember getting in the shower that morning and automatically beginning to pray, because that was my only private time away from my children and I used it to talk to God. But darkness fell over me like I had never before experienced; a total sense of hopelessness, because, for the first time in my life, I felt I had nowhere to turn.  My tears mingled with the water that cascaded over my body.

                I tried to function normally that day, for my family’s sake. I cooked and cleaned and played with my children, but my world was empty because God and I had turned our backs on each other. I was completely alone. 

                Then, in early afternoon, a UPS truck pulled up in front of my house. I wasn’t expecting anything and figured the driver had the wrong address.  Because it was nap time and I didn’t want him ringing the doorbell and waking my children, I walked outside to meet him.  In his hands he held a package addressed to me. I signed and walked back inside, intrigued. I looked for something that said where the package came from, but there was nothing on the outside. Curiously, I opened the box and inside was a book with only a packing list from the book store, no note. The book was entitled , You Gotta Keep Dancing, written by Tim Hansel.  I had never heard of it, but under the title was a verse, “You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance.” Psalm 30:11.  My heart went still.

                With wonder, I opened the book and read the flyleaf. It said, “Life can be tough. Stress, disappointment, heartache, hurt—all are part of the human condition. But while pain is unavoidable, misery is optional!”  Who had sent this to me? I had not been able to tell anyone what I was feeling. Who knew how drastically I needed this message? The answer was in my heart already. God knew. He was the only one that knew, and in his perfect timing he sent me an unmistakable message that he was with me. I had not been forsaken.

                I devoured that book until my children woke up, and then continued reading after they were in bed that night. The book is Tim Hansel’s own amazing story of incredible physical and emotional pain, and how God showed him he could choose joy in the midst of any circumstances. It was the very message of hope I needed. Our circumstances did not change right away, but my heart did.

                Since that day God has continued to teach me that He is not primarily interested in my earthly happiness and that I need to remove my focus from my desires and surrender to his perfect will in my life, trusting that he is always with me.  When I am tempted to fall into despair, I remember that day – the utter emptiness and hopelessness I felt, thinking I had nowhere to turn.-- and I raise a prayer of gratitude for the knowledge that he is always working for my good, even when I do not see.

Note: Yes, God did send me that book. The human instrument he used turned out to be my precious friend, Glenna Hadley, who has often been  there to help me through the trials of this life.

The Law of Love

Think of the most difficult class you ever took.  For me it was physics. Science and math were not my strong points. I’m a word person, but I needed another science in high school and one of my best friends somehow convinced me it would be fun to take physics together. As it turned out, we did not end up in the same class, and she was never available to help me with homework, so I was on my own. 

I remember sitting with my open text book and a dictionary, crying because I could not, for the life of me, understand what the text book was saying. I had never struggled like this in any other class. Looking back, if my teacher had come to me and said that he was giving me an A in the class so I wouldn’t have to be afraid of failure and that he would then teach me the material at my own pace, in a way that even I could understand, my joy and relief would have known no bounds.

The analogy I have used many times over the years in my Senior High Sunday School Class is just like that. In the Class of Salvation the stakes are high. We are required to have a perfect score, unable to miss one point, or we are eternally lost.  But Jesus offers to give us an A, the A he earned, and he in turn takes all of our missed points, all of our failures, as his own. Then, he gives us the Holy Spirit as our personal tutor, who provides a personally designed course of study to help us learn the material, in ways that even we can understand. The fear of failure is removed, and that makes all the difference!

My blog entitled The Law of Moses was comprised only of scriptures which talked about Jesus fulfilling the law of Moses for us by his life, death and resurrection.  That is the A he obtained for us. The righteous requirements of the law were met by Jesus, for us. The fear of failure is removed.

The verses below, then, are the key to the rest of what God intends for us – the personally designed course of study to help us learn the material.  “…we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6) With confidence that we are not condemned for the many times we will fail, we have a “new” standard (which is really the original; much older than the law of Moses). It is Christ's command to love others in the way we have been loved. 

This “law of love”, is intended to be used by the Holy Spirit as the transforming agent in our lives. There is no more need to try and remember all the endless rules of do’s and don’ts. Now there is just one thing to remember, Love others the way God in Christ loved you.        

Granted, it’s a higher standard, maybe more difficult than all of the endless rules, but as we measure our thoughts and actions against it we are challenged to learn and grow; we are encouraged to become like the one who first loved us and asks us to pass that love along – not to earn our salvation, but to share what we have been given.

Again, please read them all. Read together they are so powerful!

1 John 3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

Galatians 5:14
The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.

James 2:8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right.                                                                      

Romans 13:8-10  Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Galatians 6:2
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

John 13:34-35. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

John 15:16-17  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

1Peter 4:8  Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1John 4:9-11  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

John 15:9-12  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Let Go of the Wheel

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.                                   –Isaiah 42:16

           

                I walked into my dark bedroom and fell onto the bed in exhaustion. It was March of 1994 and I had just returned from the Veterans hospital in Washington, DC where my husband was being treated for a near fatal heart attack.  It was hard to leave him there, but we had three children at home, ages 11, 12 and 14, who needed comfort and reassurance. At that moment, however, I didn’t have it to give. I was full of fear and dread. I didn’t know what to tell them because I had no idea what lay ahead. I just needed a few minutes to regroup, I thought, as I closed my eyes. Immediately, I fell asleep and began to dream.

            In the dream I was driving my husband to the hospital. It was nighttime and rain was coming down in torrents. Every muscle in my body was tense as I gripped the wheel, trying to peer through the darkness and driving rain at the road before us. We were on some major highway and there were many other cars surrounding us. I was concerned because we were all travelling at a high rate of speed even under these bad conditions and I assumed everyone else was having the same problem seeing the road as I was.  All of a sudden, the inside of our car began to fill up with a dense fog. I was unable to see anything now. I gripped the wheel even harder and tried to continue steering but I had lost all sense of the road and where I was in relation to the traffic around me. Then, the car began to spin! Terror and panic seized me as I futilely tried to right the car, and then instantly I understood that the only way to survive was to let go of the wheel, and I did.

            I woke up then, my heart still pounding, but immediately I understood the meaning of the dream. This situation with my family was far beyond my ability to control. I needed to acknowledge that and surrender that control to the One who could steer us safely through whatever lay ahead. Now I knew what to tell my children.

The Law of Moses

Please read these verses all the way to the end.  To me they are so powerful when you see them all together! Let me know if you agree.

Romans 10:4
Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Galatians 3:21-25 For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed

So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

Galatians 5:4
You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 

Acts 13:39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.                                                                             

Romans 3:20-21 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.  But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

Romans 3:28  For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Romans 4:14  For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless.

Romans 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Romans 8:3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

Romans 10:3-4 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Galatians 2:15-16  We...know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 2:21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

Galatians 3:11  Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith.

Philippians 3:8-9 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Colossians 2:13-15   When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

1Cor 15:55-57  "Where, O death, is your victory?
      Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Life Hurts

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  –Isaiah 41:10

                Life hurts.  We are constantly misunderstood. We are not loved the way we want to be loved. Our health deserts us. We fail as parents. We fail as children. Family members and dear friends die. Our jobs do not give us the meaning, money or prestige we were hoping for. We may achieve our goals, but we still feel empty. Overall, life seems disappointing at best, hopeless at worst. It may sound strange for me, as a Christian, to say this.  But I have come to believe that, as a Christian, it is an important truth to state.

                This world is not heaven. This whole earth was “subjected to frustration” (Romans 8:20).  We want to be happy. We want our family and friends to be happy. We view happiness as the ultimate goal. There is a good reason for this.  God created us to live in a perfect world. We still retain the expectation of that perfect world in our DNA. But earth is not that perfect world. Sadly, our lessons here are best learned through suffering.   If the pursuit of earthly happiness is our focus, even “wholesome” happiness, we are missing the point. God is not as interested in our comfort and contentedness on this earth as we are. The painful realities of this world are meant to point us to the only one who can help us and give us hope. Our lives here are to be about acknowledging him as our Lord and Savior; surrendering our hopes, dreams, expectations, even our “rights” to him, and trusting that his hand is leading and guiding us through the pain and disappointment of whatever circumstances we face.

                One day there will be a new heaven and a new earth. One day “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”  One day “He will wipe every tear from [our} eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things [will have] passed away.” (Rev. 21:4). Until that day, know that God is with you and is holding you.