Exactly What I (Didn't) Want To Do Today

 Part of my job is to field a lot of strange requests. In a particularly heavy request week, one came in that sounded doable; an older lady needed some stuff taken to the dump and some trimming done. After saying no all morning, I decided to say yes. It was the smallest "yes" I could have said, but at least the whole day would not have been full of "no."

I asked my family (husband, mom and dad) to come and help, because they are wonderful people and that way we could spend our Saturday together. then I spent the next few days hoping it would rain and we wouldn't be able to go. Weather is one of my favorite excuses for not doing things.

Saturday came and the rain was gone. I came with a, "Let's get this over with" mentality. We found piles upon piles of moldy garbage that had never been thrown away. The "light trimming" ranged from whole areas that needed clearing to pruning trees 40 feet in the air (we said "no" to some of that). We got to work. It took longer than I thought, but maybe four hours later, we had done what we said we could do and packed up to leave. 

When we got back in the car, my mom said, "That's exactly what I wanted to do today." 

I was floored. I had spent the last few hours doing a kind thing, but my heart was unengaged. And here was my mom, who I drug into this crazy thing because saying "no" too many times in a row is hard for me, choosing this dirty, smelly work for someone will may never see again, saying that there was nothing more desirable for this day than to be doing what we did. 

Wholeness and Holiness

Sometimes I wear glasses. Without them, my eyes can’t see very far and I often stumble into stuff or trip over things. With my glasses on, I see more clearly, unless my glasses get spattered by mud or rain or any number of other things.
 
Just imagine that you are the glasses, designed for other people to help them see God, someone they could not see without you. They know that with you they can see sharper, more clearly. But you have this nasty habit of attracting dust, grime, spots and scratches, making it harder to see whatever they are looking at.
 
In order to be clean, really clean, you need God’s special solution. It cleans up all the muck, smooths over the rough places, and leaves you sparkling. That’s the process of sanctification, the process of being made holy. God knows how to return you to the original, the created design, and then you can be a useful lens for others to see God. Somehow the process of being made whole and being holy are linked.
 
For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 1:9
 
Are you a clean lens, or has something splattered all over you? Ask God to continue the cleansing process, so that you can be made new and really help people see.

In Pursuit of Perfection

The summer after my first year in college, I joined a group of twenty freshman Christians who wanted to change the world by serving in the inner city. We spent a week sleeping on the floor, serving in homeless kitchens and talking about what Jesus really meant when he said, “Love your neighbor.” We spent a couple hours each evening studying the Sermon on the Mount, talking about how wonderful life would be if we really lived that way. It seemed to be challenging, but totally possible, until we came to this single sentence: “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48. That’s when I realized, this whole thing is simply impossible. I can’t be perfect like God is perfect.
 
It’s not like I haven’t tried to be perfect. I am after all the oldest child and a straight A student and a leader in my high school youth group. I was too “goody goody” for many of my peers. I had reached and reached for perfection, but all that reaching led to stumble after stumble. I could cover it up, but I had failed perfection, and I knew it. It’s not like you get do-overs on perfection. One mistake, one slip and perfection is forever gone. Why would God give such an impossible command?
 
What I learned was that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is showing us how the world was designed to be and the fact that we can’t reach it on our own shows us just why we need Jesus.
 
Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. Colossians 1:22
 
Jesus knew that we would strive for perfection and never reach it, so he reached the goal for us, then died and rose again, so that we don’t have to reach anymore. Because of Jesus, God sees us as perfect, without a single fault. Then he shows us piece by piece the world he wants us to recreate and suddenly the impossible is possible.

I am a Pharisee

Confession: I am a pharisee. I love rules, order and being right. Oh, how I love right and wrong. Mostly I love being self righteous, convinced I’ve got it all figured out. Honestly, when I feel all self-righteous and proud, I’ve got it completely wrong. Just like the Pharisees in the Bible, I can get so far from the heart of Jesus that I damage what He is doing in this world. Hear these words from Andy Stanley: “Jesus died at the hands of men who were convinced they were doing the will of God, men who were committed to protecting and defendng the law. Tragically, they protected and defended it to the exclusion of its purpose.” Those words pierce my heart because I am like these men, loving the letter of the law and abandoning the heart of the law giver.
 
But don’t lose hope, because all is not lost for us Pharisees. Take, for example, one of my favorite men from the Bible, Joseph of Arimathea. This guy was a Pharisee, probably saw or heard about (maybe even participated in) the three am interrogation session in which the Sanhedrin declared Jesus a blasphemer and sentenced him to death. At the same time, he was a secret follower of this same Jesus. After Jesus has died, Joseph’s compassion for Jesus overrules his desire to keep to the rules, so he asks for Jesus’ body to give it a proper burial. How strange that this man stands up for Jesus when his disciples have fled, the world condemns, and the enemy thinks he’s won. Joseph the Pharisee carries on the gospel story when the main players leave the stage because his rule-abiding heart recognizes and responds to the heart cry of God. 

That is the core of transformation -- God changing us from the inside out. Switching the character of our hearts. Read his short story in Mark 15:42-47.
 
Jesus changes our whitewashed tombs filled with decay (Matthew 23:28) to empty tombs because he has brought new life! Because of God’s transforming work in me, the Pharisee in me is dying, being replaced by a new humanity: one filled with compassion, seeking the purpose of God and being a willing agent in his movement. I am following the steps of Joseph in unexpected empathy. Where does your heart need to be molded away from rules and toward grace?

The secret to fasting

“No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind. Then when you call, the LORD will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.”             Isaiah 58: 6-9
 
So often when we talk about fasting, it is framed in the context of self benefit: I am fasting because I want this answer from God, or to show God that I’m serious about x, or as a spiritual strengthening exercise, ‘cause that’s what serious Christians do. Lately, I’ve become convicted that we’ve got the whole fasting thing wrong. Though it’s quite true that fasting can bring you close to God, or give you clarity to hear his heart, fasting should never be selfish. These verses in Isaiah state clearly that the kind of fasting that pleases God is the one in which we sacrifice to benefit another.
 
This doesn’t just apply to fasting, but to any kind of sacrifice. If your sacrifice doesn’t directly benefit another human being, what good is it? Jesus’ sacrificed on my behalf, not just to earn God points. So why do I think just about me when I am considering a sacrifice? I think about only what I will lose, or what I will gain. What would change in me if I saw you in my choice to sacrifice?
 
What if I gave up a meal and gave the money I would have spent to the Christian Aid Center? What if I sacrificed my day off to visit the sick, or pray with a friend? What if I could see sacrifice in its true context, giving up myself for love of another?
 
I think that is the kind of people God wants to make in this world: people that see each other as more important than themselves, who understand that they will have everything they need as they pour out themselves for their neighbors, family, and community. That when we stop taking care of ourselves first, the whole world opens up to beauty and light and healing.
I want to live in that world.

The Value of Relationship

A couple weeks ago, I attended my husband’s grandmother’s memorial service. What struck me as I listened to people share stories about her life was that though her accomplishments and passions were mentioned, what really stood out in so many memories was the way that she cared about people, the treasured relationships that she developed that lasted for so many years, and the way that she invested herself in others. So much of my life is spent in accomplishing good things, but I am beginning to discover that accomplishing good things means very little if no relationship is being developed. Tasks will come and go (some of them just hit the repeat button for our whole lives), but relationship endures, even beyond the grave.
 
Jesus shows us this principle in his interactions. How many times did Jesus address the relationship before he addressed the pain? Think of the woman about to be stoned. Jesus said first, “I do not condemn you,” then “sin no more” (John 8). What about the man who was lowered into the house by friends. His first response is “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:5). He doesn’t even care about the circumstances of the guy’s disease, the things they want him to do for this man, he cuts straight to the most important thing: this man’s sin, the barrier in his relationship to God.
 
Often in our lives, it takes pain for us to come to God, and when we do, what we think we really want is for the pain to go away. But Jesus sees deeper into us and fixes first the thing we need most, our primary relationship with Him. Lent is the perfect time to reflect on what is holding up my relationship with God. Is there some barrier in the way? Because nothing else will go right if this foundational relationship is damaged. Spend some time today praying and examining what things are standing in the way of a deep, open, vibrant relationship with God. Then ask Jesus to clean those things away.

Redeemer

God does amazing work redeeming us, and it is good to be grateful. If that were the end of the story, it would be amazing, wonderful, and enough. But that’s not enough for God. He wants more. He wants you to become a redeemer like Him. He extends the same offer to you and me that He first made to his disciples, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19.
 
God invites us into partnership with Him, allowing us to use the story of our redemption to reach others who haven’t yet heard or understood God’s incredible offer. It’s not that God needs us, but he desires our partnership. He knows that we are our best selves when we have a cause bigger than us that can only be accomplished when we are dependent on Him and still actively striving to reach. Have you ever really stopped to think about it?
 
God wants you. Just for you, but not just for you. God wants you to be instrumental in redeeming others. The story doesn’t end with your rescue, but continues as you learn how to be a rescuer. With your everyday words and actions, you can be a redeemer, a restorer of humanity, as God intended it to be. 
 
So redemption is not a singular event, but an ongoing process in you and through you, spreading to others until it’s spread all over the world. Turning bondage to freedom, darkness to light, sorrow to joy. Now who wouldn’t want to be part of that?