Lies Meet the Truth Part 2, What the Truth Did

The Truth is not a collection of ideas. It is far too big to simply pass through my mind or to be tainted by lies. I’ve been trying to make it in the image of the lies I’ve known. But a lie isn’t the opposite of Truth any more than a cat is the opposite of a dog. They are different breeds entirely.

Just as I’ve tried to shove the lies out; I’ve tried to drag the truth in. It doesn’t work. It’s like trying to push water aside; it will make you move, but you’ll never move it.

No, the Truth is not a collection of beliefs or the opposite of lies. He is a person; He is love embodied.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I wake in a clean bed, in a cool room. Calm, but a bit confused. Where am I? Wasn’t I in my filthy house overrun by disgusting lies? Wasn’t I cowering in a corner helpless, wounded, afraid and angry? Where am I?

I slowly realize. Reality begins to separate from dream. Because it was a dream. I mean, it wasn’t all a dream. No, I really lived through it, I see the scars on myself as proof. The lies were real and so was the pain. But so was the Hero. He did come for me, and He took me away immediately. I was safe the moment He was there. The lies never touched me after He arrived.

I had been delirious. I couldn’t tell the difference between today, yesterday, and tomorrow. I didn’t know that the pain I was feeling was no longer from abuse, but from painful wounds being healed. I knew that He had come but I didn’t remember Him taking me away. I knew that He promised to save me, promised I would always be safe, but in my feverish tossing as He cared for me, I didn’t know that He was still here.

But He was. He is.

I am still weak. Still content to lay in bed and try to get used to these new surroundings. I’m still trying to think through what has happened to me. A lot has happened. But I’m awake. I know the difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I’m sane again. The past is gone, and so are the continual nightmares of it. Tonight, when I go to bed, there is no guarantee that I won’t have bad dreams. But dreams will stay dreams, and no longer masquerade as reality.

I am scarcely involved in, much less responsible for my own healing. Unless you count accepting rest and care. Unless you count accepting Him. I’ll lie here, with nothing to do but watch the Healer as He cares for me. Nothing to do but consider the fact that He must, actually, love me.

Lies Meet the Truth Part 1, How the Lies Came

When I was young and naïve they came to me, these lies. Only one at first. It promised to help, to fill the emptiness, calm the fears, and bring order in my chaos. It never mentioned any price it only wanted to be a friend to me. So I accepted.

As soon as I let it in it made itself at home and I found we weren’t just friends, we were friends with benefits, or else. Somehow, I never considered tossing it out. Once you give yourself to something it’s hard to throw it out and far from alleviating my fears it magnified them. No, I didn’t try to get rid of it, I protected it. But this lie wasn’t being helpful as it promised at all. It was abusing me and now I was more desperate than ever.

So more came knocking on my door. Like salesmen with the latest model. “We’ve heard your screams and we have the answer to your misery.” They would help, they didn’t require anything in return. They only wanted to be friends. So in desperation I let one in after the other. Until I was less than a slave in my own heart.

Each one made themselves at home. They formed relationships with one another. Some hated each other and fought all the time, I was always collateral damage. Others worked together to make my misery worse.

And they all, separately, required their benefits. Intimacy, forced, whenever they wanted, however they liked. I still hoped naively that each new one would be the hero to deliver me from the last ones. But it never worked like that.

Each one fed on the ones before it, more of a monster, more abusive, more controlling, and always requiring more of me.

Then there came a time when I quit looking for a hero. I quit answering the door. I was too busy cowering exhausted and naked in my corner hoping none of them would notice me. But it didn’t help. They were only too happy to answer it for me and invite their relatives in.

But all this was only in my head. So I learned two defenses. Try not to think, because my head was full of only lies that I no longer wanted any part of, or plot revolt and revenge. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the lies themselves taught me these defenses. Little help have they ever been to me.

But a Hero has come. I don’t really know what He is up to or how He got in. I wonder sometimes, why He doesn’t throw them all out immediately. I think maybe they are in too deep for a quick fix. He won’t yank them away, He will care for me until I throw them out myself. Sometimes I hate Him for this.

I haven’t tasted much of His Peace, but sometimes I smell it, like fresh baked bread. To be hungry and smell food without tasting it. Well, I hate Him for this too sometimes.

I know that some of them have gone. I know it’s because of Him. I think I might have had something to do with it as well, but I don’t know what. Sometimes I look for Him and can’t seem to find Him. As though He left me to them again for a while.

I get the idea that I am supposed to have power over them myself, but I don’t understand that either. Sometimes it seems like I have, sometimes not. So I keep plotting my escape, often in despair, or I try not to think.

I know that the Truth is laying around here somewhere but why does it seem so laid back? Why does it seem that I have to prod it into action but lies are animated on their own? Isn’t Truth supposed to have a life of its own?

I want easy answers. I want quick relief.

Even here I see the influence of the lies. They seep out of everything I say and do. Nothing is clear of them. This is what I hate the most. This is why I try not to think. Because every little idea is marred by them. I recognize their mark but I don’t know how to remove it.

I determine to meditate on the truth, I determine to ignore the lies at least for a moment without the escape of not thinking. And I find even the Truth is not unstained once it has passed through my mind. When will I be free?

Worship: Sharing the Thoughts of God

I recently realized that I pray and worship nearly without stopping through my days. Of course I've always known the verse "Pray without ceasing," and, with most other Christians, just stared at it with an uncomprehending look on my face. So to realize that I was, in fact, more often than not fulfilling that verse was quite mind-blowing.

wor·ship: Adoring reverence or regard.

"Wait a second!" I thought, "I haven't been working on this! Shouldn't praying and worshiping be much more trouble than this? Surely I'm not . . ." But the truth is, I was. So I tried to figure out how this miracle had happened.

Whenever I say that I am trying to figure something out, that usually means that I am talking to God about it. I asked God if this could really be true about me and how in the world had it happened. He began to give me a short history of myself. In fact, though not in nearly so many words, I'm pretty sure He told me a story.

"Once, there was a girl named . . . well, okay, there IS a girl that is you. Anyways…You eventually began to get the idea that I loved you…That I liked you…That I liked hanging out with you, that I thought you were perfect and beautiful…That I liked you all the time, not just when you were on your best behavior.”

"When you FINALLY started to believe Me on these points... ('Cause, good grief child, you took a time being convinced.) …you started to forget about yourself and enjoy being with Me. You quit pretending that I was sometimes far away because you quit being ashamed for Me to be near. So we were always together.

"The more we hung out, the more you liked Me. The longer we were together the more you realized what it meant that I loved you perfectly. ('Cause if I do say so Myself, it's a pretty amazing love.) So you loved Me even more.

"We got comfortable around each other. It's not as though everything was always rosy. I'm pretty sure you could pick a fight with a fence post because you picked all sorts of fights with Me. They often ended with Me holding you while you cried. Sometimes they ended with you looking sheepish after finding My answers amazing and delightful. Don't worry though, you're learning to ask questions nicely before you pick a fight with the Lord of Angel Armies and your Loving Redeemer. Not that I mind. It just causes much less emotional trauma for you.

"In the mean time, we shared the way we see the world. I showed you millions of glimpses of what it was like before the curse came. I showed you what I saw when I called it all "good." I showed you that only eternity matters and that eternity is made of the moments called "now." I shared your pain, confusion, and darkness. In return you shared My dreams, my delight in people, my joy in my own creativity.

"Now we're up to the present. You declare beauty in the world around you because I declared beauty in You. You have love for me and those around you because you have accepted my love."

beau·ty: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction

I don't go through my life spouting Christian songs (not that there's anything wrong with that but believe me, you should be grateful I don't). I don't go around quoting Psalms. I don't recite the Lord's Prayer non-stop. My thoughts act very much the same as they always have. They wander, they remember, they get distracted, they imagine, they process and they are impossible.

The difference is that I know that God is here. All my thoughts belong to Him, they are His concern to mold, to sort through, to keep, to discard, to mature. I do not say that I pray because I continually ask things of God. I say that I pray because I am in continuous communion with God.

I do not say that I worship because I continually sing. I say that I worship because I live in His thoughts. His thoughts are mine to treasure, to keep, to hold, to love, to wonder at. I am continually amazed by them and this adoring amazement is worship.

I find that worship itself is not hard work, prayer is not either. They both come very naturally. What is hard is believing God's thoughts towards me. Countless times I have tried to talk Him out of His love towards me. I have often doubted His delight in me. Many times I have refused to believe that He has redeemed me fully, perfectly. So many times I have struggled to believe that my actions cannot separate me from Him.

When I am hindered from believing God's thoughts, prayer ceases and worship withers into worry.

Worship springs from Love. Don't determine that you will pray more often, or for longer periods of time. It won't work. Determine that you will accept God's love whether it comes like a gentle spring rain or a tornado swirling and ripping through your life. Accept it whether it is as ridiculous as a green one-eyed alien knocking on your front door or as sensible as your mother fixing you supper.

[The post When God and I Do Lunch is a small example of when God shares how He sees something with me. I hope to write of many more moments like this one to make myself clearer. These times happen so quickly and are so simple it is hard to grab them and put them into words.]

I have this picture on my desktop right now. I took it myself so I know the actual events surrounding it. I hadn't seen it for a few months though, and running across it the other day it wrote a new story in my mind. It reminds me at the same time of distant shores and of coming home. The water and the sky are grey and troubled. The rain may be coming or going. Somehow, it still speaks peace to me. It's beautiful and hope clearly shines on the horizon.

To Those Who Know Me

Friend ... that loaded word.

I love people. I adore them actually. When I people watch, I sometimes literally feel sorry for myself that I can’t get to know them. I know it’s terribly sappy and ridiculous, but I’m trying to be honest here.

The even weirder thing is that in spite of this wish to know every interesting person in the world. (Okay, there might be a few exceptions.) I am often afraid to get to know my own friends. There is always one question looming over me. “What if I fail them?” This comes in a few varieties, including but not limited to, “What if I end up being that one person that they learned to count on and then isn’t there at the critical moment? What if I don’t talk to them very often? What if I do something that makes them feel judged? What if I hurt them?”

With my weird and bad health thrown in, some of these questions felt even more pressing. What if this person knew that all I can think about when I talk to them is how tired I am? How would that person be able to trust me again if they ever found out that for a few moments I absolutely could not remember who they were? How could I ever explain that even my love can’t overcome my physical weakness?

I’ve even gone so far as to tell people, “I love you, but I can’t promise to be there for you. I’m simply not reliable.” I’ve explained to people, “You can call me, but don’t be surprised if I don’t return your calls. You can write me, but I’ll probably forget to write you back.”

I said these things because I thought they were true, I wanted to be honest, I didn’t want to disappoint. I said these things because I wanted to be perfect for you and I knew I would fail. I thought I was breaking it gently, but the truth is that I wasn’t trusting God.

I thought that you needed me to be there all the time, preferably in the same town, or even the same house with you. I thought you needed me to be able to have hours and hours of phone conversations and encouraging letters every month at least, and regular Friday night hangouts, too. I thought you needed me to never be awkward or just plain wrong. I thought you needed me to never disappoint you. Now I realize, I thought you needed me to be God.

The strange thing is that none of you ever asked this of me. I’m the only one who decided what kind of friend I should be. I’m the only one who let friendships die, not from lack of communication, because some of the people I communicate the least frequently with are some of my closest friends. Instead, I let fear starve my friendships. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to be there all the time, so I eventually wasn’t there at all.

I’m writing this to tell you that I am so sorry.

I’m writing this to tell you that I’ve missed you. I’m sorry that I convinced you that I’d never return your phone calls. I still might be terrible at it, but I’m grateful for every chance you give me. I’m sorry my health sometimes makes me boring, forgetful, moody, and airheaded. But if you can put up with a friend that is all those things, I am so willing. I’m sorry that I’ve wasted so much time wishing I could be God to you, but if you want a friend who struggles with a God complex then I’m the person you’re looking for.

I’m sorry I don’t have all the time in the world but if you’re willing to work with whatever God gives us, then I am more than willing to treasure the moments He gives us to share. I’m sorry if I’ve ever communicated that we can’t be friends because we believe differently. Believing differently had nothing to do with it; we couldn’t be friends because I was too afraid.

I’m especially sorry for those of you in the past that I judged and condemned. I was playing God then too, and I’m terrible at the part.

If you are willing to remind me that you don’t need me to be perfect, then I want to be there for you during those times when you do need me. I don’t want fear to steal any more of the lovely relationships I could be sharing. Thanks for being patient with me and giving me more grace than I was even capable of accepting.

Emotions & Reality part 2

Once, when I was raving to God about how unfair and stupid it was that I had to deal with this ‘evil’ emotional part of myself, He kindly reminded me that He was the first one with emotions. After that, all sorts of my ideas about emotions had to change. First to go was the idea that emotions were stupid, embarrassing, or weak. They’re not. In fact, they are godly.

“Okay, okay,” I reasoned, “They aren’t all stupid, embarrassing or weak, just most of them.” God momentarily complied with me for the sake of argument, but then He brought up this question, “Who decides which ones are good and which ones are bad?” You may think it’s obvious, as I did. Joy, excitement, happiness . . . these are good. Anger, sadness, anxiety . . . these are bad.

The problem is that God and/or Jesus have been described as having all of those, the ones I called good and the ones I called bad. If you think Jesus never felt anxious, read about the night in Gethsemane. I think it’s safe to define “sweating drops of blood” as ‘anxious.’ God reserves the title as “Judge of Emotions” for Himself. Anytime I try it, I have to stop and choose to trust Him instead. I will not be fooled into letting another person judge my emotions, either.

I have also learned that no matter how silly I feel my emotions to be, they are all valid. (Do you ever notice that you feel all sorts of things about your feelings? So confusing.) This means I am not allowed to pretend that any of them don’t exist. The sooner I am honest with myself and God about what I’m feeling, the better. My emotions cannot and will never change the Truth. This is very relieving for me to realize. Just because I feel unlovable doesn’t mean that I am unlovable. Sometimes I must trust the Truth in spite of what I feel. However, even when I don’t trust the Truth, it still doesn’t change.

As I practice trusting God with my emotions instead of controlling them myself, He is actually convincing me that they are more useful than I ever believed possible. He uses them to show His own feelings to me. Have you ever had a certain feeling, perhaps joy or protection while watching a child, and heard God whisper to you, “That’s exactly how I feel about watching you.” Nothing compares to feeling the emotions of God.

Other times He has used them to delicately and gently bring up places in me that He wants to heal. Many times these were places that I was so used to being broken, I didn’t know they could or should be healed. Trusting Him always brings healing.

Sometimes my emotions are simply a sign pointing to a physical need. When I don’t get enough sleep I may feel like everyone around me is a selfish jerk. They probably feel the same thing about me. When I need to eat, I sometimes feel depressed and that life is just too much to handle. When I have a cold and I feel weak, I am much more likely to cry. These are the emotions that really annoy me. I don’t want my body to have that much control over my soul, but it’s better to grudgingly admit it than to ignore the truth. These too, I can trust God with. Also, because I’m able to be honest about it with my family, they don’t take my moods so personally, but can remind me that maybe I just need something to eat. I don’t know about you but it’s always a relief to me to remember that I’m not a jerk; I just have low blood sugar.

There are only a few emotions that God has tagged with “These are not from Me” signs for me. Also, these are three emotions that you will never catch God having. They are guilt, shame, and fear. Don’t get me wrong, there is a healthy fear. If a gun is pointed at you and you don’t feel the flight or fight fear response, something is probably very wrong. (Since Jesus had as human a body as I do, I’m assuming he felt the flight or fight sort of fear a few times.) However, most of the fear in my life is not this sort of fear. Most of the fear in my life is the kind that perfect Love wants to cast out. This kind of fear can be defined as “A lack of trust towards God.”

He wants me to understand that I am totally safe in my relationship with Him. He wants to smooth away all my fears because He is big enough and kind enough to handle whatever it is I’m afraid of. He loves my fear away. When fear of this sort comes up it is a chance for me to understand His love in a new way. It’s a chance to ask, “Who are You that I shouldn’t be afraid of this?” I promise His answers are worth it.

Guilt can also be a good thing, if I had never felt my guilt I might never have felt my need for God. But now that Jesus work is completed my guilt is eternally removed and to return to it is to disbelieve that Jesus work is final. Since I acknowledged my need for God, He has never used guilt again. This is not to say that I have never technically been guilty again. With Jesus’ completed work, guilt is no longer an issue because I am eternally forgiven. At this point the memory of my guilt only serves to make me think that I am somehow cut off from God which will never be true again.

I don’t remember any time that shame was from God. In my experience it has only had one terrible function, to keep me hiding from the One who could heal my guilt.

My emotions are still annoyingly messy. I still usually feel that I would be better off without them. I regularly tell God that if I’m not allowed to control them then I should at least be allowed to give Him pointers about how He should be controlling them. But I’ve been without emotion, and I don’t ever want to go back. The trust being built out the mess of my emotions is more than worth it.

Emotions & Reality part 1

I believe that humans are made of three parts: spirit (the breath of God), soul (mind, will, emotions) and body. These three things are both united and separate much like the organs of a body are united and separate simultaneously. If you study human anatomy for any reason you will find that teachers and text books immediately start breaking it down into systems and organs and pieces that they will identify and separate and then separate what they separated. At the same time, people usually study human anatomy to learn how to keep it going, working, functioning, and surviving, as a human. They don’t study it to dissect it; they dissect it to understand the whole.

So I, too, am going to do a bit of dissecting, but only so I can understand the whole. These things can be mentally separated for ease of understanding, but they will never actually be separate in experience.

I’ll start with the most basic one, the body. I think you should know what this is, your physical existence, the one that gets colds, and headaches, and the thing everyone looks at in pictures and recognizes as you.

Then there’s your soul. Your soul is the part of you that comprises your likes and dislikes. This is the part of you that you get to share with other people as you choose to. This is the part of you that makes you really, really, uniquely only you and no one else. Your body and soul combine somewhere between your brain and your hormones. Your soul is the part of you that has thoughts, emotions, and makes choices. Your mind, will, and emotions comprise your soul.

Then spirit. This is the part of you that has life like God does. This is what separates you from the animals, what makes you particularly ‘in the image of God’. This is the life in you that doesn’t end when your body does. Your spirit makes your soul eternal.

I think the easiest and most honest way to explain better what I’m thinking will be to stick with what I’ve learned and know about myself.

I know that as far back as I can remember my spirit was broken. There was a time when as far down as I could look into myself there was only darkness. I don’t mean depression, I don’t mean evil, I mean emptiness. Like an empty room, but worse. More like when you see something dead and it makes you remember that there could be, and should be, life in that body, but there simply isn’t.

I believe that this emptiness is a human condition passed down all the way from Adam as a result of his and Eve’s choice that they, too, should have the right to judge what is good and evil. That’s when their spirits went empty, died. Because it is spirit, it doesn’t pass away like a body does; it continues sitting there, empty. It’s like a lung without air. I believe that every person is born with their spirit in this condition -- empty existence.

In me, this emptiness produced all sorts of conflict in my soul. I wanted to choose what was right, I wanted to be selfless, I wanted to give love, but my emptiness always dragged me down. I wanted to make other people’s needs more important than mine, but I simply couldn’t. I needed perfect love so bad that I would find myself trying to take it from others. I needed respect so bad that I would find myself demanding it of others. I needed to survive so bad that sooner or later I would take what I needed which caused me to hurt those around me who were also trying to survive. I hated myself for this.

My soul was full of confusion and conflict because my mind knew what was right. I knew I shouldn’t be selfish. My emotions would fluctuate wildly between guilt because I should be doing better, pride because I was doing better than others, depression because I’d never get better, and elation because I finally got something right. My will would sometimes follow my mind, and sometimes follow my emotions. I had nothing stable within myself.

My body was full of stress. I was regularly tired and after 11 years of living like this, I was chronically exhausted even though I was only 19 years old. Of course, body, soul, and spirit work in many directions, much like the old question, which came first the chicken or the egg? I believe that my body was unhealthy anyway, but the stress of my soul in turmoil certainly didn’t help. I believe that both were involved in the depression I’ve been through, and I can’t point to either as the cause or either as the relief. My body needed relief from my soul and my soul needed relief from my body. My empty spirit had no relief to offer to either.

This was all before I understood the completed work of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Jesus came to deal with broken humans from the inside out. He came to fill our empty spirits, which frees our conflicted souls, which gives our broken and dying bodies relief from the inside until He gives us new ones in the future.

In accepting Jesus’ completed work, my spirit for the first time was filled with life. I had a consistent and flowing source of life in my deepest place. I had an eternal source of love, acceptance, and respect. I no longer had to grab for these things or suck them out of other people. For the first time I was copiously full. I was satisfied. I also knew who I was. I was Loved.

My spirit was immediately and forever totally altered. My soul took much longer. My mind is still getting used to new thinking habits; my will is still learning to live out of my spirit’s fullness. My emotions . . . well, they are still emotional but they are learning not to despair.

The fact is that my emotions seem to be the most unstable part of my soul, and maddeningly, my mind and will follow my emotions more often than not. Thankfully, this is not a problem for God. My mind can be convinced with reason, my will can follow the reason my mind produces but the only control I have over my emotions is an on or off switch. When I have tried to protect myself from my negative emotions, I stop feeling any emotion.

What do I do with emotions then? If I deny them, I lose a part of myself. If I follow them, I will go everywhere and end up nowhere. Is there another option? Yes, there is another option; it is simple, but not easy. I can trust God with them. As I have done this, God has taught me a few things about my emotions and a few things about Himself.

Thoughts on Sin & Righteousness

I believe that it wasn’t my acts of sin that I needed redemption from because they were only a symptom of a spiritual brokenness that was passed down all the way from Adam to me. I needed redemption from the inside out, from my spirit to my actions.

The law is good for two things, for making the symptom, sin, all the more evident and secondly for revealing the life we were meant to live before Adam’s rebellion. We were created for perfection but none of us since Adam have any idea of what that might look like. The law helps fill in this gap by showing us what perfection looks like (obviously Jesus revealed this even further in His person). The law was never given the power to free us from sin. It was only given the power to reveal sin to us.

So then, Christ arrives born of a virgin, the first man since Adam to have a spirit unmarred by the sin of his father, he meets all the temptations known to man and falls for none of them. (When I considered what this meant, 33 years of being constantly bombarded with temptations and never giving in, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the suffering of Christ.) I now have two options, to live in Adam or in Christ. In Adam I am aware that I was created for holiness but I can never attain it because I can never overcome the heritage of brokenness/law of sin that I was born into. (The fact that I was born into sin through Adam does not by any means lessen my own personal guilt.)

In Adam I was a proud, idol worshiping, blasphemous, covetous, lying, murderous, thief, whose heart was deceitful and wicked. Even if by the Law of Moses I missed becoming a few of these, Jesus says to break one part of the law is to break the whole law and thinking impurely is just as bad as the action. In short, I was doomed and I was gross in spite of the fact that the whole world would have said that I was an exceptionally good person.

However, in Christ I am a totally new creation. My former history literally is no longer attached to me because that person died and a totally new one without sin was born. It’s not just that I have a new identity for the future; I also have a new past. Eternity does not stretch only into the future it stretches to the past as well and I now have eternal life in Christ. In Christ, I am pure, holy, beloved, and righteous, my heart is pure, my spirit and the Holy Spirit are one, I have the mind of Christ, I have the wisdom of God, I lack nothing that Christ currently has sitting at the right hand of the Father.

I am no longer a slave to sin, I am a slave to righteousness. I know longer have the desire or the bent towards sin that I previously had. On the contrary I desire to act in accordance with my new holy nature. It is still possible for me to commit an act of sin but it is no longer probable or normal for me.

The confusion comes when my present life/actions don’t seem to add up to what God says that I have in Christ. It doesn’t feel like I’m any holier, and God knows it may or may not look like it at any given moment. This is where the process of becoming what I already am comes into play. My spirit is totally free, totally new, totally one with Christ as I already mentioned, but my body and my brain (this includes mind, will, and emotions) are used to my old habits. My spirit has been born new but I am stuck with the same brain I had before. It is a lot like being born into a new culture, the culture suits me, I was made for it, it is my culture, but I haven’t grown up in it, I don’t understand and haven’t even experienced those things that I like best. Thus, the renewal of my mind to think in accordance with my new nature takes time and will never be completed until my body dies and I get a new one.

This is how sanctification can be both completed and in process at the same time. I am very truly in a very concrete sense, totally perfect. But I will also be more perfect tomorrow. I like to think of the way a baby grows. Everyone loves to say that a new born baby is perfect, and so it is, but at the same time, if it stopped changing and growing, if the baby never became a child, and in turn an adult, something would be terribly wrong.

This also takes away all opportunity for either pride or shame because God is not judging my actions. He judges only the fact that I was born into the family of Christ and I can take no credit for that. This is what it means to be free. I am free to act sinfully or to act righteously but most of all I am free from the fear that any of my actions will either save me or ruin me.

So then my actions, whether sin or not are reduced to their true importance. What suits me? The law again comes into play here. Because I have the life of Christ, obeying the law suits me. Literally it is pleasurable for me to obey the law. The law is now written in my spirit and I rejoice to act in accordance with it. It is also profitable, for me and for those around me.

The only power Satan (or sin) still has over me are his words and they only have power if I believe them. If I sin with this new nature it is because my mind, will, or emotions (usually a combo of the three) still believes his lie that this sin will please me better than the law of God. God has freed me from a number of habitual sins simply by feeding them to me until I woke up one day and realized they weren't giving me pleasure.

I believe it is a common ploy of Satan to keep us trying to act better. If I focus on my actions I will never be freed of them. If you tell someone not to think of purple elephants you have just insured that they will be thinking of purple elephants and Satan loves using this trick on us. In fact it is often preached from pulpits. “Do not sin! You know what sin you fall for, plan carefully not to fall for it again!” Translated, focus on your sin, think about your sin, consume yourself with your sin but do not act out the very thing you have been meditating on. This method will insure the continuance of habitual sin.

The cure for sin is Jesus. First we need His life in us and second our minds must be trained to think on His righteousness. This is the only way the Church collectively or a person individually will ever be free from the actions of sin they are fighting and planning so hard to change.

Adventure: It's a dangerous business, trusting God.

As I have grown, my desires have become more basic and my dreams more fantastic. All I’ve dreamt of is adventure and all I desire is Jesus. “I desire to know Jesus, the power of His resurrection, to share in the fellowship of His sufferings and to be like Him in His death . . .” (Philippians 3:10) That is all I want from either this life or the next.

But how can I know Him? Knowing is a slippery thing; hard to understand and hard to define. Even those we think we know regularly surprise us. Think about someone you know, when did the relationship change from knowing of them to just knowing them? How does an acquaintance become a friend? It is a mystery to me.

I think the verse itself gives some significant clues about knowing. First, that suffering together is one of the truest forms of fellowship. Second, you must share experiences, either by physically being there with the other person or through them by communication. Third, you become like those you know, in the oddest ways. It is impossible to know Jesus apart from the power that raised Him from the dead, or without sharing in His suffering, or without becoming like Him in His death. None of these things can be separated.

I want to live a life of Adventure and I am convinced that He is The Adventure. The dictionary defines it this way, “Adventure: a bold, usually risky undertaking; a hazardous action of uncertain outcome.” What I’ve dreamt of was a risk worth taking. What I’ve waken to is that Jesus is worth risking everything for.

I want to experience every moment of my life with Him. I want to see everything through His eyes. I want to see how He acts as He walks through my life. I want to rely on Him alone. When I suffer, I’ll do it with Him. I want to be the pitcher that His life giving power is poured from. I am convinced that He is already making me like Him in His death.

I’ve realized that my goal cannot be defeated by circumstances or time. Most circumstances are outside of my control and many are not what I would have chosen. Thankfully, all those things I cannot control Jesus is controlling.

This takes a lot of pressure off of what most people would call my ‘life choices’. Whether or not I have a job, a car, a lover, friends, health, or a college degree does not affect my goal. Whether or not I trust Jesus is all that will.

Sadly, I do still have to make basic choices for my life and I only wish that I could state that I don’t constantly agonize over them. If my only goal is to know Him then how do I choose what to do with today?

I will choose boldly, courageously, by faith, and by a different standard than the world uses. I will not choose practically, because God is rarely practical according to human judgment. Many things I thought were frivolous He has revealed to be necessary and many things I thought were practical, He has proven to be useless.

I am afraid when I think about the standard He is telling me to choose by. The Life inside me compels me to continue bravely. I will choose soberly, but I will not choose fearfully.

I will not be concerned by my inadequacy because I no longer live but Christ lives in me. I will not be alarmed by what is bigger than me because I want to experience that nothing is bigger than Him. I will not be anxious about the unknown because I want to experience the wonder and joy of trusting the Knower.

I will not dread physical limitations because I want to experience Jesus' healing. I will not fear pain because I want to suffer everything that He suffered and to know the Comforter. I will not be concerned by death because I want to see His face.

I will not be uncertain about my influence on those around me because I want to experience that His influence is greater. I will not be alarmed by the judgment of others because I want to experience that God’s good opinion is enough. I will not hesitate to love because I want to experience His love for me and through me.

I will not be uneasy about a lack of resources because I want to experience that Jesus owns everything and watch Him treat gold like concrete. I will not fret over mediocrity because I want to experience what Jesus experienced of the Father in the 30 nondescript years. I will not despise the mundane because I want to see Him turn it into a miracle.

I will not be alarmed by my weakness because I want to experience His power. I will not worry over my flaws because He tells me they're redeemed. I will not scorn failure because I want to experience that He never fails. I will not be startled by temptation because I want to experience His freedom.

I will hope because the Hero promised. I will search for beauty because I've seen the Beautiful One. I will give myself to those around me because I watched Him give everything, freely, for me. I will fight for goodness because I'm betrothed to a Warrior. I will cry when it hurts because I know the Man of Sorrows. I will boast of my trust, not because it is reliable but because the object of my trust is.

I cannot explain or justify my choices up to this date by any other standard than this. To my physical eye they appear haphazard, irresponsible, unreliable, moody, flighty, foolish, and a host of other negative and undesirable adjectives. If you judge them this way as well, I don’t blame you.

However, as far as God has revealed to me, I have followed Him obediently every unpredictable and ludicrous step of the way. My only hope is that the foolishness of God is wiser than men. If you disagree with the standard I make my choices by or don’t see my actions lining up with my words, I would appreciate your honesty on the subject. I would like the opportunity to change my mind according to new information or to agree to respectfully disagree.

If, on the other hand, what I have written here resounds with what God is growing in your mind, then be encouraged. You aren’t the only one.

Operation March: Completed

Miraculously, I did finish my goal of reading through the entire Bible in the month of March. It was pretty close at the end, I ended up having to read almost the entire New Testament in two days. I cannot recommend this.

Then, when I got to the end and tallied up all the chapters I'd read, I came up 24 short. After a bit of searching my record I found 22 of them in Psalms; I had messed up my "read through Psalms in a month" plan. I still haven't found the other two missing chapters but I'm pretty sure that the mistake is in my tallying, not my reading. On the other hand, I may have read the Entire Bible Except Two Chapters in one month, but I can't convince myself that I should be concerned about it.

So, at the end of this silly idea, what did I come away with? That's what I'm asking myself.

For one thing, the Bible seems to have shrunk some. I have conquered my childhood feeling of it being an impossibly long book that I might hardly read through in a lifetime. I also have come away really liking The Message version but with the conviction that what version is read matters very little in the scheme of things. It's not about which version, it's about God's words, Jesus' story, and the Holy Spirit teaching us from the inside out.

At the same time that the length of the Bible shrunk the amount and depth of information, as well as the general delightfulness of the stories grew. I loved reading through Paul's writing in common American English. For once I could identify in many ways.

It was no longer some old frowning scholar from another world laboriously lecturing over the niceties of the Gospel. Instead it was just a man, like men I have met and heard, speaking boldly because God had told him to use the authority God gave him. He felt many of the things I felt as I taught what God had taught me: love, urgency, hopelessness, exhilaration, inadequacy, boldness, and above everything trust that God would complete what He started. I noticed and could understand how in almost every letter he mentions that he longs to be with them and that letter writing isn't sufficient.

With the New Testament in general I was reminded that Jesus is amazing, and of course loving, but definitely not nice. I was reminded that I live a mystery, a wonderful, scary, ludicrous mystery; Christ in me.

I noticed that in the Old Testament it seems as though God promised good things for whole-hearted obedience but in the New Testament Jesus teaches that trials will come just because you follow Him, promising only internal and eternal rewards. I didn't reach any sort of conclusion about this, just noticed it.

I realized that God is not only sarcastic to me personally but that He always has been. This delighted me and made me feel a bit smug. Not all sarcasm is bred from insecurity, sometimes it's just the best way to get the point across. (And coming from God, it is most definitely a Love language.)

Overall, I think that God has answered a few of my questions from this post about reading the Bible.

What am I to look for as I read it?
I don't need to look for anything as I read it. If I already have something on my mind then I'll know what to look for, if I don't, just enjoy the read.

What am I to do with all the questions that surface as I read?
Ask them of course! But don't get worried if they aren't all answered. It's not about understanding everything, it's about knowing God one day at a time.

Why is it so important to keep reading this book?
I really love the answer to this one. You've probably heard people say that the Bible is a letter from God to us, they usually go off about how awesome this is and how deplorable it is that we don't believe how precious it is.

I can tell you why I never could feel the preciousness of this idea. One really old, really long 'letter' from God and not even to me personally, was all I got till heaven? That is about as good a deal as getting to eat old bread crusts for the rest of your life without even getting any water.

The problem with a letter is that it usually means the person isn't there. It's just something to let you know they're still alive while they're off vacationing. The problem with that idea is that God isn't off vacationing, He's with you, in you, communicating and presently available for two-way conversation. So, why would I read a letter from Him if He's already here?

But, a book, a story written by a person I know and love, even a memoir, I would read that even as they were sitting in the room with me. I would eat it up and read it aloud to them and laugh at their jokes and ask them questions, and learn more than I might have ever known about them from a conversation.

Once, I saw a poem that Cassie, (my very dear friend who has been writing copiously ever since she could hold a pencil) wrote hanging on the bulletin board on her wall. I would guess that we were about 12 at the time and I had never really noticed any of her writing until I saw this poem. I don't remember what it was about or anything it said. What I remember is thinking, "She is thinking some of the exact same stuff I've been thinking about but we've never talked about it."

I mentioned something about it to her and told her I'd like to see more of her writing, to learn more about the Real Cassie. That year for my birthday she gave me a book of hand copied poems of hers with this inscription in the front:

To My Very Dear Friend
Lauren
{Who expressed the desire
to know the real 'me'}

You can bet that I treasure that book and that I did learn more about her from reading them. I learned that when you read a person's writing you get to see and know a part of them you might have totally missed otherwise. Is it just me or does it sound better to you to read a book because it's written by a dear friend of yours, then to read a letter by someone you will meet someday?

Another thing I've learned about reading the Bible is that if you go to it without an agenda, without the need to search for something in particular, without being driven to deduce or apply whatever principles might be lurking, it can be soothing. Not in a silly, vague, sense but very realistic comfort, like a mother soothing a scared child with a touch of her hand, or a wound being soothed with the right ointment, or being reminded, when it looks like all is lost, that Goodness does prevail. It restores hope and gives courage freely.

The Bible can be returned to again and again not because it's become comfortable or familiar but because it fits, it's right, it's real. In an upside-down world where most things are terribly wrong and even the right things aren't quite as they should be it reminds me that life is bigger than what I see in front of me and God is more active than my feelings tell me.

The Truth Who Set Me Free

I have previously been taught that the struggle against our flesh was something like having a white dog (God's spirit) and a black dog (our flesh) both living in the same kennel (ourselves). They are mortal enemies and are fighting all the time, but only the one that you feed will win. So, although you have these two fighting, it is your decision who wins. At first this sounds very reasonable, but as I tried to just feed the white dog by doing what was right, my black dog overpowered the white dog and effectively stole its food.

In more spiritual terms: no matter how hard I tried to do what was right according to the new spirit God had given me, my flesh still won at least ninety percent of the time. Even a non-Christian can do what is right ten percent of the time. How then, was my belief in Jesus helping me or making me any different than the rest of the world? The only difference that I could see was that I knew what was right so I had more guilt when I failed. I had no peace and no joy, and when I was really honest with myself, I wasn't sure if I loved God like I professed.

I obviously had some skewed ideas of God. First, I used to believe that God loved me unconditionally but He also wanted me to know that I was just a worm in the dirt and I had better be grateful that He took notice of me. I now believe that this mindset was a tactic of Satan's, ninety percent of the truth and ten percent deadly lie. Have I done anything to deserve God's love? No. But neither has a new born baby done anything to deserve its parent's love. God really does love me unconditionally as parents love their children. There is nothing that I can do that will change His abundant love for me in any way.

Second, I thought that God expected me to live up to the law. I understood that I was not under all the rituals and sacrifices of the Mosaic law. But there is a law in the New Testament. Jesus says things like, "You have heard . . . 'You shall not commit murder.' . . . "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty . . . whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. (Matthew 5:21-22) and other verses such as "But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy . . . " (1 Peter 1:15)

Needless to say I failed again and again. Satan used John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." to accuse me that I did not love God because I failed. He also used a skewed version of Philippians 4:13, something like, "I can do all things." to remind me that God said I could do it, but that I just wasn't trying hard enough. I always felt guilty, and yet I came to a place where I knew I could try no harder. I was defeated.

I now believe that although God wants His law obeyed, He is well aware that I am incapable. In fact, that is why He created the law, to drive me to total dependence on Him. I now read Philippians 4:13 something like this, "Without Christ I can do nothing, not even tie my own shoes, but if I trust that Christ is living in me then my body is consequently capable of doing everything that Christ is capable of doing." It is no longer a matter of obedience for me, Christ in me is the one who will handle the obedience, for me it is a matter of belief. It is not just a belief in God, which is something demons have as well, "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder." (James 2:19) I believe God. I believe everything that He tells me. Demons do not share this belief, they believe God is a liar.

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!" (Romans 6:1-2) Let's imagine for a minute that your dad is perfect, he has always loved you perfectly and you have never had even the slightest reason to distrust him. You have such a good relationship with him that even when he tells you things that you don't understand you believe him explicitly. You are young enough that you do not understand fire but you have figured out how to strike a match. So you strike a match and are fascinatedly watching it burn towards your fingers. You are inexperienced and have not figured out that it is heading towards you fingers, nor are you aware that it will hurt when it gets there. It is just a pretty, harmless toy to you, no different in your mind than many others that your father has given you.

Your father walks into the room, quickly takes in the situation and your inexperience, and tells you to drop the match. First, you are so excited that he is in the room that the match is no longer interesting. Second, you love to have an opportunity to obey him. Now, are you going to fight with him about why you should drop the match? Is it going to be a big internal struggle for you to obey? I don't think so. Does he mean for you to do exactly what he said? Of course. Are you still perfectly free to disobey him? Yes.

Jesus living in me and acting through me has not abolished temptation in my life. Neither has He made it impossible for me to sin, nor made me into a person with no weakness. But, as I learn to trust Him, and relax in the knowledge of His goodness, sin has lost its desirability to me. Guilt, when I fail in the moment to act according to what He tells me, is no longer an issue either. I believe that His blood has covered all my sin, past present and future. He does not sanction or gloss over any of my sin, but it does not come between us. He has already forgiven and atoned for all of it.

When He reveals sin, that I had not recognized before, I confess it, agreeing with Him that this action was indeed sin against Him. Then I drop it, and tell Him, reminding myself at the same time, that my fighting cannot conquer this sin, and I will be a slave to it unless He keeps me.

This does not nullify Romans 8:13. "For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live." (Romans 8:13) We must have total reliance on God in us. The Spirit does not help us to put off the deeds of the body, that implies that it is a team effort - that the Spirit, as part of the team, needs our help, as the other part of the team. The Spirit does it for us, because we are totally helpless.

Galatians 5:16, is not nullified either. "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." It does not say fight against the lust of the flesh, or fight to walk in the Spirit, nor is there any mention of prolonged struggle. It says, walk in the Spirit. If Jesus abides in you, then I'm not sure how you could walk in anything but the Spirit.

This is an imperfect description of something I imperfectly understand. But, mine and Gracie's point is that our struggling to Do Hard Things, our struggling against our flesh, will never accomplish the righteousness of God. If it could, then there was no need for Jesus to die.

I am going to include some of the people that Gracie and I have heard this teaching from. These people have been studying and living what they teach a lot longer than I have, however, I do not necessarily agree with everything they might say.

Paul Anderson-Walsh at http://www.thegraceproject.com/grace_audio_messages.html I particularly recommend The Pathway-an introduction into Freedom in Christ series.

Bill Gillham, particularly his book: Lifetime Guarantee

Longings

I decided I should share a journal entry from a few days ago. This is not like me. I don't share my journal entries. Not because they are too private by any stretch, but because they are too boring. :) I'm not sure why this one is any different, but here goes!

July 27, 2007

I have been discontent. There is always a little bit of discontentedness in the back of my mind but some days it is much stronger. Today it was stronger. Discontentedness is generally a bad thing, but I'm not sure that this is. I'm trying to put my finger on what exactly I am discontent with.

I long for something bigger, something that will require my all. A greater every day purpose perhaps? But that is not quite it.

Sometimes it comes to my mind as the lover I hope to have someday, sometimes as children, sometimes as other countries, sometimes as a danger worth facing, sometimes as anything outside of this house and family, sometimes for peace within this house and family, sometimes I think it might be music that I seem to remember having felt, but can't remember actually having heard.

But any one of these things is not quite it, either. In my most honest moments I think my longing is too great even to be satisfied by the culmination of all these things. Am I just hard to please? Am I going to be a hopelessly discontent person for the rest of my life?

I know that all of these things at once can only happen in One Place and with One Person. So, although I hope that You will be granting some of these longings, or rather some of my longing, I realize that my real desire is for You, and the eternal perfection of a life with You.

This knowledge does not help me become content as I mostly feel heaven is a long time off. But I don't know that, do I? I can live as though heaven happens tomorrow. I only need enough contentment for today.

The oddest thing about the discontentedness that I mention in this journal entry is not that I am discontent, (which as I said has been going on more or less since I was born,) but rather that I am quite content at the same time. I used to be discontent in a very different sort of way.

In times past my discontentedness would fester for about a month or two and then I would come to Mom to spill it all out in anger and tears. At that time I was very sure what I was discontent with: myself, my Christianity, and God. I knew that He was my only answer . . . but He didn't seem to be answering anything.

Over the past months, maybe eighteen now, He has been expanding my little mind. He has been telling me that I wasn't content with my Christianity because I had created my own god.

The god I created was not a blood sucking idol. He was a very decent, encouraging, wise sort of chap who chanted "keep it up, try harder, you're almost there!" and

"You really should have read your Bible today. It is going to be awful since you didn't. But don't worry, I know you'll do better tomorrow. Tomorrow you will try harder." and

"Of course I accept you just as you are. I'm just asking you to be a little kinder to your family; that is not too much is it?" and

"I love you unconditionally. Why else would I come and die an agonizing death for an insignificant person like you?" and

"Dear, dear, IF you love me you will keep my commandments. You keep saying you love me, but look at all those commandments you keep breaking. This is all you can give me? Of course not, you just don't love me enough."

Did I say decent, encouraging? No, my god was demanding and manipulative, always keeping me on the downhill slope. Telling me to try harder, telling me I wasn't good enough, telling me he deserved more.

I did try. I tried to love him. I tried to obey him. I tried to be good enough. I tried to believe hard enough. I tried to be more humble. I tried to confess my sins. I tried fasting. I tried praying.

The outbursts came every now and then when I was honest with myself that it wasn't working. But I knew it should work because God is not a liar, so I tried harder. The last outburst I was more honest than ever before. My 'god' WAS lying to me. He knew that I didn't have any more to give, he promised peace and joy. I didn't have either.

After that, things gradually changed. Very slowly, very gently, one step at a time, I began to take God at His actual word and stopped trying to figure everything out and make sense of Him. I told Him I wasn't trying any more, I didn't understand anymore. I told Jesus that I would believe, in spite of my experience, that He was indeed good. But to believe anything else . . . I just didn't know. If He wanted me to have any greater understanding of Himself then He would have to build it Himself.

So He built. He continues to build (or is it heal?) me. For the first time in my life the 'good news' is actually good enough to try to explain even when there is so much that I don't understand yet and so much that sounds foolish.

All those things that I think might be the answer to my longing? they are just ways that I haven't had the opportunity to experience God yet. So am I content or not? Well . . . I am deeply happy (my circumstances are not always happy, but I am.) And yet, I want more.

My aim is to know Jesus,
to experience the power of His resurrection,
to share in His sufferings,
and to be like Him in His death . . .
(Philippians 3:10)