Life As A Story

Do you believe your life is a story? What would your life look like on the big screen? Would people be bored by it? Would YOU be bored by it? Are you living in a way that will make for a good story?

And what is your reaction when I ask those questions? Are you defensive—do those questions seem irrelevant, naive? Too idealistic? That'd be nice if our lives were an exciting story, but let's face it, we have bills to pay, retirement to prepare for. Not everyone can have grand adventures and fun all the time.

Or is something in you stirred when you read those questions? Is there a longing, an aching for that to be true? That our lives matter and have the potential to be worth retelling?

Donald Miller, in his book, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, said that a story is, "a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it." That's what makes books and movies stand out to us. Those are the ones we remember. And if you probe that idea deeper, questioning why we resonate so deeply with a good story, you see glimpses of God as the Great Story-teller. Perhaps the reason we resonate so deeply with good stories is because that's what human existence was meant for. Maybe we weren't meant to plod through life, avoiding discomfort, trying to achieve some measure of safety and happiness and make it through until the end. If that was the plot of a movie, we'd barely make it past the first 15 minutes.

I'm beginning to wonder if we really are part of a larger Story and if each of our lives are a dramatic subplot in God's great Tale. We're each the main character of our lives, within the larger plot of God's Story. Will we be courageous, or will we settle for what's safe? Will we be greedy, or will we sacrifice for love and honor?

Can we step back from our day-to-day lives and realize that each moment, each decision we are faced with has the potential to make us more like a hero or more like a villain...? Perhaps there is a whole host of heaven, watching our stories unfold, turning each page in anticipation, to see what we will do next—will we rise from our defeats? Will we shrink back in fear from situations that bested us in the past? Will we risk new adventures and pursue what's in our hearts, that which has the potential to make us truly come alive—or will succumb to the pressures around us, and live a safe, controlled life?

I don't want to just type words. I want this to be true of me. At the end of my life on this earth, will I be able to look back with fondness, with pride and gratitude for a life well-lived, spent on love and relationships, conquering challenges and embracing changes? Will my story be worth retelling?

Will yours? If you can't answer, "Yes", with confidence, what needs to change for that to be true?

Walking By the Spirit

I realize that some of these blog posts are really focused on Christian theological issues, so I hope that isn't boring or confusing to anyone not from a christian background. In any case...

As I've been wrestling with the tension of being a Christian and still sinning, I feel like I've made some internal headway. Things feel a little clearer. One of the biggest answers to my questions is the reality that God gives His Spirit to those who are His children, followers of Christ. The solution to the sin problem is not trying harder. The solution is walking by the Spirit.

That is at once comforting and daunting. The answer, the direction and clarity it brings, is a start, but it only brings the follow-up question. How do we walk by the Spirit of God? Obviously, walking is a synonym for living in this case (since there are times we must sit and lie down). So, what does it mean to live by the Spirit and how do we pursue that for our lives?

We have the verses in the book of Galatians, telling us what the fruit of the Spirit are. Fruit, in this case, is what plants produce when they are functioning properly—through good soil, water, sun, maybe fertilizer (all-natural, of course). Jesus alluded to that a lot—or at least once or twice that I remember. Good trees produce good fruit. Bad trees can only produce bad fruit. So, for us, the fruit of a life properly fed and nourished by and dependent on God's Spirit will produce:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

So that makes sense—there's a litmus test, if you will. If my life isn't really exhibiting these characteristics consistently, I think it's a good sign I'm not living by the Spirit.

So, how do we live by the Spirit of God?

I don't have a solid answer for that yet. I haven't done much research beyond this, but this feels like a start. And also, as cliché as it might sound, spending time alone with God seems to be the obvious answer...

"Living by the Spirit" is such an odd concept, you know? Outside of scripture and the Christian bubble, doesn't it sound weird? The word spirit either makes you think of a ghost or our souls. And the phrase "living by..." something immediately makes me finish that with "a set of rules". I live by my convictions. You live by your principles. When we say that, we're saying, our actions are guided and constrained by some parameters... Our actions and choices are limited by something outside ourselves, even if it's just what we have determined as good and evil actions.

So, maybe living by the Spirit really implies that the Spirit of God is our constant constraining influence? An on-going, personal interaction with the Spirit of God to help guide and direct our lives, allowing the Spirit to be our limits and motivation? The Apostle Paul continually contrasts the Law and the Spirit... and if I think of it that way, it makes much more sense.

This may seem somewhat elementary, so forgive me for hashing this out on this blog. Once I get a particular question in my head, a tension that won't rest, I have to stick with it until it resolves itself. That might not mean I have a direct answer, but simply that the conflict or tension eases enough with a better understanding of why the tension was there and how I should live in light of it.

Miller On Confidence

The Real Way God Gives You Confidence

Just read that. Donald Miller speaks with deep wisdom and practicality that is freeing. I may stop blogging and just quote from his blog.

I'll add one thought, somewhat of a tangent, that is from conversations with friends in the past. If you ask God for patience, how would you know you were patience unless you were in the midst of a situation that has the deep potential to make you impatient?

If we aren't in the midst of a situation that threatens to make us afraid and anxious, how would we know whether or not we were courageous?

So, apart from experiences that typically result in insecurity and cowardice, how would we know we were confident?

Strange how certain virtues are only noticeable when contrasted with the reality of weakness. So that begs the question of whether we should continually plead with God to make our lives easier, safer and more comfortable. Those characteristics don't strengthen us, change us or make us better. Maybe we should spend more energy seeking to be made more whole in the midst of our circumstances, rather than constantly wishing our circumstances were different and better.

I'm sure there are ways to abuse that thought, or push it to an unhealthy end, but I know it is challenging for me to consider. Maybe God allows difficult things in our lives for the express, loving purpose of making us better, making us more mature, making us more confident.

(And please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying God intentionally allows someone to be raped or tortured because He's trying to teach them a lesson. Violence and evil at the hands of men, I think, is just that. It is evil, against God's will and He hates it. God may choose to bring good from it in this life, in His wisdom and mercy, but I think it is dangerous, disrespectful and wrong to incorrectly tell people that God has a reason for the tragedy forced on them. We need to be more careful when throwing our theology around insensitively. When people are hurting, suffering, they don't need doctrinal theories. They need hope and they need to hear the truth that God has not turned a blind eye to their suffering and He will make things right, if not in this life, definitely in the life to come. And only in trusting that He WILL make all things right, will our cry of "That's not fair!" be satisfied.)

So much for not posting!

Still Confused About Romans 7

The small group from my church that I go to has been studying the book of Romans. We're using a study guide by John MacArther. (You can read Romans 7 over on BibleGateway.com) I'm not a huge fan of the study guide, because MacArther is coming from a very traditional/fundamentalist view, or so it seems. Too much emphasis on our sinfulness, in my opinion.

Now, I get it. We sin. We aren't perfect. I'm not arguing that. But, in trying to have a right understanding, a correct interpretation of scripture—or at least a fairly accurate one—I am faced with a tension in Romans 7 that I am really having a hard time wrapping my mind around.

My ultimate question in all of this, instead of doing my normal rambling post, is what happens to our "sin nature" after we decide to surrender ourselves to God, trusting Him for salvation and committing to following Him? We were slaves to sin. But now... are we still? If not, why do we keep sinning? And if we're no longer slaves to sin, like Paul says, then why can't we live perfectly for the rest of our lives, leaving us free to enjoin unbroken fellowship and communion with God?

What do you guys think? I will probably post a follow-up post in the near future, but I've tried posting more here and my thoughts are very divergent and tangential. I'm not really sure those are the right adjectives... but it's fun to attempt to use big words. My thoughts feel scattered. I can't wrap my head around what's causing such angst when I read Romans 7...

Rethinking Slavery

Let me clarify. I'm not suggesting re-instituting slavery as we've known it in our country's history or anything. I'm talking about thinking biblically and taking the time to wrestle God's word out of the context we read into it.

When we think of slavery, we think of oppression. Forced labor. Ownership of human life. And something in us rightfully cries out, "That's not right!" Humans weren't meant to own each other. We were created as equals, fellow image-bearers of our all-wise, kind Creator. But our fall from grace as a human species has caused all sorts of distortions and perversions and horrors. And so, it is completely understandable that we instinctively think of slavery as a bad thing. Add to that our fierce independence as Americans, prizing liberty and personal freedom over most other pursuits, and you have a real recipe for anger and misunderstanding when you come to a passage in Romans, like chapter 6, quoted here in the English Standard Version:

^"15What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²²But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life."

I think I was presented with the following interpretation of this passage, or else, it was my incorrect understanding of this passage. If you haven't viewed things this way, then you're a step ahead of me in understanding this aspect of what it means to follow Jesus Christ and become more holy, more sanctified.

Reading this, I concluded that prior to becoming a Christian, I was a slave to sin. I had no choice but to obey myself and my self-serving impulses. It didn't mean that all my actions were intrinsically sinful (despite how that can be taught at times), but simply that I was bent inward, a self-glorifying, self-relying creature, making myself the god of my life and obeying what my "sin nature" commanded. Then, I believed, through a slight ignoring of what the passage above states, that when I came to know and follow Christ in salvation, I became free from slavery! Liberated. On an unchained level, where I was now uncontrolled by my sin nature, able to decide what to do. I was free to sin or free to do good things.

The bit of revelation I've had, after a great conversation with friends last night, was that that's not what the passage teaches! My friend told me about another friend who works for and takes care of a rich dude's land and house, etc. He does whatever the landowner asks. Everything. Sometimes grocery shopping, yard work, etc. And that friend basically said, he feels like a slave. But he said it's a good thing. The landowner provides them with a house on the property, and just paid for an addition on the house after the friend had a baby. The landowner deeply cares for and greatly respects my friend and loves their family. My friend is a slave to a good master. (I'm aware that the analogy breaks down. The major difference being that the slave and master in this case are fundamentally equal in nature/essence, compared to the relationship between a created being and its Creator, etc.)

And that's when it hit me. What if we were created, as humans, for dependence, not independence? And the stark spiritual reality, deeper than our American pride in our liberty, is that we ARE dependence on a master. We ARE slaves in an objective sense. Prior to salvation and following Jesus, we are slaves to ourselves and our base desires. We have set ourselves up as the arbiter of right and wrong, the judge of worth and value, the protector of safety and comfort, and so we live small lives of petty pleasures and fearful anxiety, always trying to keep our little corner of happiness intact and not be ruled by anyone but ourselves. But we are limited. And, in our fallen state, we aren't capable of being all that we were meant to be as humans. And so we are imprisoned by sinful habits, addictions, fears, stresses, insecurities, etc. That's what it is to be a slave to sin.

So, Paul, in Romans, says, you are either a slave to sin or a slave to God. And if we can step outside of our understanding of modern slavery, and accept the idea that we were created for dependence, of reliance on another for our life and strength and care, etc., then the reality is, we can be a slave to a weak, fearful, cruel and demanding master, or we can be a slave to a loving Master, who is kind-hearted, patient, fair, etc.

And there's something insanely liberating (ironically) about being a slave to righteousness. When temptation beckons, and part of you wants to participate in that sin, you can say with confidence, "I can't do that because I'm a slave to righteousness. I have to do the right thing here, I don't have a choice." All because you are rightly appropriating the truth that Paul lays out... after salvation, we aren't just set free and put on a neutral path, free to choose good or evil. The truth of what redemption means and what salvation begins in us is that we choose to submit to God as our Master and Lord, versus submitting to our self-centered desires that rage within us, defying our Creator God. Like he says in verse 16 of chapter 6, "you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness" (NIV). We obey with our choices. By choosing selfishness, we are submitting to those desires, obeying them, allowing them to be our masters. By choosing righteousness, we are submitting to life, obeying God and allowing Him to be our master—all due to the spiritual reality that we are constantly submitting ourselves to someone or something, due to our human essence, created for dependence on and sustaining by God.

I'm not sure if I communicated that well. Does that make sense? I think if we can grasp that we were created for dependence as humans, and that our salvation involves changing our allegiance and submitting to a new Master, who has our best interest at heart, becoming slaves to righteousness, then we will find new strength and freedom from the effects of sin in our lives. We won't be trying to subconsciously straddle the fence, attempting to keep our "liberty" intact, implying that dependence is somehow something to be freed from, yet continually finding ourselves obeying the old patterns of sin, wondering why we can't be consistent in our walk with God, etc.

May you learn the upside-down freedom that comes with learning to embrace becoming a slave to the righteousness of Jesus Christ...

What Women Really Need From Men

Thanks, Donald Miller.

http://donmilleris.com/2010/04/07/what-women-really-need-from-men/

I know he is speaking in generalizations, but it really hits home. I've been wrestling with the idea of confidence, and why on some level, I lack it. I know that this is something God is currently bringing to the forefront of my mind and heart, and I think if I had to describe this season of my life, I believe that God is freeing me from fear and teaching me how to be confident and have courage. I know it's a process and I have a lot of bad, fear-based habits to break. Well worth the struggle and journey, though.

For those of you who are women, do you feel like Miller is accurate (at least generally—allowing that all of us are different and need different things at different times in our lives)?

Happy Easter

Easter has become more synonymous with a rabbit and colored eggs than with its original meaning. There's nothing inherently wrong with Easter egg hunts or white chocolate bunnies. I'm sure most of it is all part of Hallmark's marketing team's efforts to keep their jobs, as opposed to some sinister plot to have a holiday that used to be about the day a man—who some thought to be the Jewish Messiah, the Redeemer—came back to life after being shamefully executed like a common criminal. Maybe that's naive, but I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt...

This particular Easter is really moving to me, especially after reading "Surprised by Hope". I can't really put it into words very well—believe me, I've attempted doing so in this post several times already... I guess what I'm wrestling with is... It's not hard to believe Jesus died on the cross. History will confirm those details. Every person in Jerusalem at that time was aware of the would-be Messiah who had come to town, surrounded by controversy and whispered hopes. And every person, believer or not, knew the story of how Jesus Christ's life came to a screeching halt on a bloody cross, between two common thieves. No one started singing "Thank you for the cross, my friend" (No offense, Matt Redman, seriously! We're singing that song in church tomorrow. It's a good song!) Defeat hung in the air. Hopes dashed against reality. Or just another crazy guy who had a lot of hype and couldn't follow through. Or another rebel squashed before he became too much of a problem. It didn't matter what you thought of Jesus—you still knew He was dead. It isn't hard to believe that the crucifixion of Jesus happened. People won't look at you funny for believing that.

And I do believe that. I believe that Jesus Christ was killed on a cross, laying down His life as a ransom for my life and for yours. Our sin, our bent towards selfishness, rebellion and fear, defeated in a act of love and sacrifice by a holy God. That's not the hard part. But I also believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I believe that you don't let yourself get martyred as a disciple for a delusion or a lie that you made up. I believe that the historical evidence available to us, and the coherent collaboration of the gospel accounts, as well as the rapid growth of Christianity in those early years all points to the amazing fact that SOMETHING miraculous happened three days after Jesus was crucified and all signs point to resurrection. And I believe that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God began His work of rescue, of re-creation. Behold, He is making all things new!

It's weird to say that I believe some guy two thousand years ago, whom I've never met physically, came back to life. It sounds foolish. But I know I'm not an idiot, and I'm not just believing what I've been taught. Something in my soul, that I can't explain, rings true with the hope and longing for all things to be made right. For justice to prevail, for good to triumph over evil. For death not to be the end, not to have the final word.

And in the Resurrection, God says, "Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?"

I'm grateful for a holy God, stooping to become human, to experience all that we know as humanity, feeling the weight of our sin and shame on the cross, all to show His great love and goodness. But if Jesus Christ stayed in the tomb, that would be sentimental hogwash. A great tragedy. But if God raised Jesus from the dead? Then how great and strong is the passion with which God loves us. Not merely that He endured a painful death on our behalf. If that was the end, then death would still be stronger than God. There would be no fancy way to say it—death won. But we celebrate Easter precisely because in the recesses of our minds or maybe for some of us, just our cultural heritage, we are celebrating the reality that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and defeated death itself.

And the theological basis that allows us to understand ourselves to be crucified with Jesus Christ, releasing us from the bondage of living short-sighted self-protecting lives of sin, is the same theological basis we have of understanding that if we were crucified with Christ, then we are raised with Christ to new life. To a living hope. Death is not the end. God will raise us from the dead, like Jesus Christ was on the first Easter, and we will experience a deeper, fuller Life than we have so far, something far greater than we can ask or imagine.

I think that's why this Easter feels different to me. I'm really wrestling with the implications of believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The grace and mercy of the Cross have always been comforting to me. Reassuring of God's love, especially when I feel I least "deserve" it. But the Resurrection? I'm only just beginning to imagine with hope, for all that it means for me, for us.

Happy Easter, my blog-reading friends.