This weekend has been a meaningful one for me. Matt and I both had Friday off (which was so nice, you don't even understand), and it gave me time to meditate on the Easter season, which I'd neglected to some extent until then. Life has been chaotic, inwardly and outwardly, for me the past month. Maybe longer. And I let my circumstances dictate my worship, which is something I strive to avoid. But it happened.
This weekend, though, I could feel God's gentle pull on my heart. My daily commute brings me through the mountains. It is gorgeous in the summer-- lush, green, and vibrant-- and treacherous during the winter. Even though winter's wrath has slowly begun to recede, its grip has lingered on the slow changing trees and hills I pass on my way to work. As I settled into my morning drive, I subconsciously took in the dead things around me. The dead trees. The dead grass. The dead leaves in the road. And then I noticed it, just a flash at first, and then another, and then another: Purple. I'm not a botanist and couldn't tell you what it was, but protruding from the craggy mountain walls were purple flowers. Just patches of them, here and there, the only life on a mountain of death.
I've noticed this all weekend, not just on my drive to work, but everywhere. My neighbor's flowers, the only ones in bloom, purple. On the side of the highway. On our way to the zoo. Purple.
For those of you who don't know, purple is traditionally a color of royalty. To me it was a reminder of Christ's royalty, as I acknowledge Him as King and Lord of my life. And as I began to ponder His royalty, I started thinking about His coronation process. It was not a glorious one. It involved being whipped and ridiculed, and, eventually, being crucified.
How humble God made Himself.
Humble. That's a word we don't understand as a culture. It's a word movie stars and professional athletes throw around upon acknowledging success. I watched the Oscars this year (as I do most years), and I can't tell you how many award winners stand on stage and say "I feel so humbled to be standing here."
You're standing on national television wearing a multi-million dollar dress and holding an Oscar. The word you're looking for is honored. You feel honored to be standing there.
You know what's humbling? To be God one day and man the next. To let yourself be tortured by a bunch of ungrateful, arrogant peons because irrationally, unquantifiably, you love them.
You know what's humbling? To be turned over to a death sentence by one of your best friends. To know your mother is watching you cry out as you're whipped by men you knit together as infants in the womb.
You know what's humbling? To beg your torturers for a drink of sour wine. To have your body pierced with a spear after you've yielded to death, just to prove you're gone.
You know what's humbling? To rise from the dead and then be turned into a borderline superficial symbol by those who want to use you to justify religion in their lives. Who want to use you to make themselves feel righteous by intermittently giving you a shout out, but never engaging in a relationship with you, not really.
You know what's humbling? To have your instrument of torture turned into jewelry or tattoos by people who neither know nor care what it really means.
That is humility-- willing, intentional humility, motivated by love and extended to the proud. Extended to me, the person who feels so entitled to her own happiness that she can't yield that to accept joy. (There is a profound difference between happiness and joy.)
Thank You, Jesus, for Your willingness to be humble. Thank You, thank You, thank You.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
3 Things God Didn't Promise You
Christians love to claim God's promises. Too much month and not enough money? Matthew 6. Claim it. Still single? The entire book of Ruth. Your Boaz is somewhere. Going through any trial of any kind at anytime? Romans 8:28. Because it somehow applies to everything.
I'm not downing on this concept (okay, I am a little bit, but for a good reason). One of the most powerful things we can do as Christians is to cling to the promises God has made us. His word is true and His character faithful; what better salve to an anxious heart than to acknowledge the promises of an omniscient, infallible being? I can think of none. Inevitably, however, someone will walk one of this world's several bitter roads, cling to a "promise," and then experience something downright hellish anyway. All too often this is because we don't understand what God's promises to us are, or because a cultural Christianity perpetuates false ideas of God's promises.
So, without further ado, here are three things God didn't promise you:
1. God will never give you more than you can handle.
Um. No. I know it's a cute thing to put in a song and, let me tell you, people who are going through really awful things love to have it quoted at them, but I see no Biblical basis for this. Feel free to weigh in on this, I'd love to be wrong, but I've yet to hear a good argument for the principle behind this. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. That's true. It's also very different than enduring suffering beyond what you can bear. Succumbing to a temptation is a choice. Enduring a hardship is often not. Christ tells us that His power is made perfect in our weakness. He tells us that, apart from Him, we can do nothing. So, in that regard, I think this quote is crap. It suggests that we're assigned struggles based on our strength. And, furthermore, it suggests that we're assigned struggle. Period. I know that there are times when God will call us to be tried, but to assume that every bad thing you experience in life is a direct result of God is wrong.
2. You can do anything. (Circa Philippians 4:13)
Indirectly translated, the verse actually says this: "I can do all this (sometimes it says "things") through Him (Christ) who gives me strength." It does not say "I can do anything I want," nor does it say "If you can dream it you can do it." The passage leading up to this verse talks about learning to be content in all circumstances, which leads me to believe the more accurate spirit of this verse is that, in any circumstance you may encounter, Christ's strength is available to you through His spirit.
3. God works all things together for your good.
As best as I can figure, this is a misguided interpretation of Romans 8:28, which says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I've written about this before, so I'll spare you a complete re-hashing of that, but here are the highlights: Because we want to believe that nothing bad can happen in our lives, we take the hard things that inevitably occur and we assign some kind of positive meaning to them. We affirm ideas like "this awful thing is just the bridge to something great," or "God is just using this to test me," and we wind up either A) wildly disillusioned with God, or B) waiting for a happy ending that may not be coming in the way we anticipate it. I'm not saying that God doesn't try people--there's Biblical evidence to the contrary-- or that something hard may not eventually pay off, but to assume that's always true is dangerous. It disregards one of the most basic truths presented in the Bible: We live in a fallen world. Sometimes bad things happen just because of that. And, further, it's a popular idea to individualize that verse-- to make it God talking specifically to and about YOU, when really, he's talking to and about all believers. Well, that changes things.
I'm all about claiming promises. I like when someone as powerful as God promises me something. But I'm also a big believer in understanding exactly what it is He promises.
I'm not downing on this concept (okay, I am a little bit, but for a good reason). One of the most powerful things we can do as Christians is to cling to the promises God has made us. His word is true and His character faithful; what better salve to an anxious heart than to acknowledge the promises of an omniscient, infallible being? I can think of none. Inevitably, however, someone will walk one of this world's several bitter roads, cling to a "promise," and then experience something downright hellish anyway. All too often this is because we don't understand what God's promises to us are, or because a cultural Christianity perpetuates false ideas of God's promises.
So, without further ado, here are three things God didn't promise you:
1. God will never give you more than you can handle.
Um. No. I know it's a cute thing to put in a song and, let me tell you, people who are going through really awful things love to have it quoted at them, but I see no Biblical basis for this. Feel free to weigh in on this, I'd love to be wrong, but I've yet to hear a good argument for the principle behind this. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. That's true. It's also very different than enduring suffering beyond what you can bear. Succumbing to a temptation is a choice. Enduring a hardship is often not. Christ tells us that His power is made perfect in our weakness. He tells us that, apart from Him, we can do nothing. So, in that regard, I think this quote is crap. It suggests that we're assigned struggles based on our strength. And, furthermore, it suggests that we're assigned struggle. Period. I know that there are times when God will call us to be tried, but to assume that every bad thing you experience in life is a direct result of God is wrong.
2. You can do anything. (Circa Philippians 4:13)
Indirectly translated, the verse actually says this: "I can do all this (sometimes it says "things") through Him (Christ) who gives me strength." It does not say "I can do anything I want," nor does it say "If you can dream it you can do it." The passage leading up to this verse talks about learning to be content in all circumstances, which leads me to believe the more accurate spirit of this verse is that, in any circumstance you may encounter, Christ's strength is available to you through His spirit.
3. God works all things together for your good.
As best as I can figure, this is a misguided interpretation of Romans 8:28, which says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I've written about this before, so I'll spare you a complete re-hashing of that, but here are the highlights: Because we want to believe that nothing bad can happen in our lives, we take the hard things that inevitably occur and we assign some kind of positive meaning to them. We affirm ideas like "this awful thing is just the bridge to something great," or "God is just using this to test me," and we wind up either A) wildly disillusioned with God, or B) waiting for a happy ending that may not be coming in the way we anticipate it. I'm not saying that God doesn't try people--there's Biblical evidence to the contrary-- or that something hard may not eventually pay off, but to assume that's always true is dangerous. It disregards one of the most basic truths presented in the Bible: We live in a fallen world. Sometimes bad things happen just because of that. And, further, it's a popular idea to individualize that verse-- to make it God talking specifically to and about YOU, when really, he's talking to and about all believers. Well, that changes things.
I'm all about claiming promises. I like when someone as powerful as God promises me something. But I'm also a big believer in understanding exactly what it is He promises.
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