i pick the ugly one

When a person is crushed under the weight of their own sin, the version of Christianity today doesn’t work. Demonic gouges left by evil accusations whispered in spirit deafening shrieks are not drowned out by love songs to a Jesus who won’t get dirty. They don’t penetrate the depths of hopelessness from the hell they’ve fostered.

A person who counts the seconds before hell finds them and drags them out by their hair is terrified of a God so full of justice with vengeance that they would be better off running for their lives until they died escaping. Running from hell. Running from God.

Would He stop to hear their plea or would He destroy them on site? Would He believe them if they said they were sorry? He knows the heart.

No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like. -John 2:25

Maybe that’s why they’re so scared. Better to run.

What have we become? Little princesses tap dancing in a puddle of spoiled milk.

What does your favorite religious song sound like to the woman getting beat by her husband? What kind of song would she sing? What does your Sunday school class teach that would connect with the fifteen year old cutter? Does your religion acknowledge her? What kind of promises would you sing to the woman who can’t feed her children? Can you promise peace, health and prosperity?

With our words we have flavored Him and dressed Him with our own special sauce. Which Jesus do you pray to? ‘8lb 6oz newborn infant Jesus‘? Does your Jesus wear a ‘tuxedo shirt’? Is he a ‘ninja’? (Talladega Nights)

I am disheartened, derailed and near wordless by a culture who only speak to their culture. A perpetual ball of homespun lace and sugar cookies. There are people dying a death that only a knee deep in muck Jesus can reach.

…and all the people followed, crowding around him. -Mark 5:24

We parade Him through our streets holding Him above our heads. Making Him untouchable.

What about the unclean, crawling on their hands and knees through crowds that won’t let them touch Him? There are those who know that if they can get to Him, they can be healed. Why do we make it our duty to keep the unclean away from our places of worship?

Is He a trophy? A porcelain doll that makes us feel proud to have Him on display? Jesus is not a money clip, scripture is not a deck of cards, God is unfathomable, grace is relentless and Love is everlasting.

If you are the one writhing in your own skin, fresh out of hope and in need of a savior-this is for you.

If you think you’re not good enough, let me clear up the mystery. You’re not. That’s the point of the Gospel. All of those others who think they are, they’re not either. We’re all in the same sinking boat. Some of us just talk more than others. Some have just moved out of the light of truth and are disillusioned by their own moral achievement.

Jesus will find you and you will be healed, but you have to stop looking for Him in a world that either rejects Him or won’t let you near Him. Cross haters call themselves Christians, too. Faith is what heals you. Believe that you are not good and then believe Him. He gets the last word.

I am not perfect, but I know perfect Love. I am not above sin, but I know insurmountable grace.

Sin never wins, fear never fights and the one crawling along the floor will find her Jesus in spite of the crowd.

Have hope. He’s here.

She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” …

“Who touched my robe?”

His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” -Mark 5:27:34

the hunt

a letter to unfetter

I get stalled by needing to be approved. I get shushed by those who know how to talk, but don’t know how to Love. I preach grace and am attacked by an entity who hates the message. These attacks come from well meaning (?) ‘believers’ who claim The Way without Truth or Life. I recently read Matthew 10, 11, 12… and I had to write the fight and hope to share some Light so I could get on with my night. I don’t know if it will help, but I write because it might…

Dear Workers, harvest hands, slaves to Love,

There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don’t quit. Don’t cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you’ve run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived. -Matthew 10:22-23

Where did you go?

Did someone call you a bad name? Did they say you were delusional and ill-fit?

Don’t be naive. Some people will impugn your motives, others will smear your reputation—just because you believe in me. -Matthew 10:17

What did you expect? You’re teaching a message that they don’t want to hear. These big headed, pig headed, pious atrophies producing counter productive fluff to fill the holes their brand of half-baked religion leaves vacant.

When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you. -Matthew 10:21

You’re called to preach this message of grace and the truth of how far God will go. Yet, the first sign of ego intimidates you to brandish an ambiguous rubber spatula. Your sheath is for a sword, not a slotted spoon.

Don’t be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now. -Matthew 26:27

The message of Jesus draws in the world’s misfits, but pushes the religious into a corner. It’s not ‘the world’ that hates your message, its the sedulous sophisticates and pew babies alike.

Don’t be a pansy, apologizing for the message that burns the soul and calls the flesh to reject or submit. You’re a follower, a disciple, a worker. You don’t get better treatment than the Boss.

A student doesn’t get a better desk than her teacher. A laborer doesn’t make more money than his boss. Be content—pleased, even—when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, ‘Dungface,’ what can the workers expect? -Matthew 10:24-25

One day the truth will be out and you’ll wish you had spoken up more often. You’ll want to be the one shouting, ‘Yeah!’ to the naysaying, prayer shawl wearing nit-pickers. You’re not a wimp, a pansy looking for your identity in the approval. Are you back to collecting badges for your vest? Who are you trying to charm anyway?

Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands. -Matthew 10:28

If you write, write for Him. If you sing, sing for Him. If you paint, dance, skip or tell jokes, do it for Him. Not in that stock phrase Sunday school sentiment kind of way. Do it in that, ‘I don’t care if I look like a heathen to the brethren, I’m going to preach freedom until I pass out’ kind of way.

You can compete for your Badge of Good Behavior and proudly parade your Medallion of Modesty, but it’s all busy work designed to keep you from drunken orgies and bank robberies. If you’re prone to STD’s and prison, then, by all means (and please), jump on that ship immediately. However, if you’re sitting pretty on a mushroom of Truth, then share that goodness with the rest of the hungry world and let’s all take a trippy ride on the ‘Jesus is way cooler than lame-a “Leave it to Beaver” train of shackle shucking Truth.

Stop worrying about what the big guys think of you. They may sign your checks, approve your ‘missions’, I get it, but who’s in charge here? If you lose something you can see because you’re speaking the truth, then lose it with a little swagger. Who’s taking care of you anyway?

This is just a little note for you. You know who you are.

Yours truly,

s

A little P.S. from the First Born: If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me. -Matthew 10:38-39

inspired by a pep-talk from Jesus in Matthew 10.

fiber optic god

Who is God to you?

We limit our awareness of God’s control by dividing that control among people and circumstances. We credit others with control and pray that God takes it back. God’s sovereignty has become a sentiment. Emotionalism that makes us feel better but still something that we hold out at arms length.

We cannot understand anything written in the scriptures if we don’t understand who God is.

What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. -Romans 1:21-22

Are you faithful to God or to your idea of God?

When was the last time your idea of God was transformed? If we cannot comprehend the reality of eternity, then how can you comprehend the reality of God? How can you be in a position to lock in on an idea if you, at the same time, are aware that He is beyond understanding? We are creatures of habit, seekers of comfort and security. We all reach a point where we are unwilling to change, simply because we’ve gotten good at navigating ‘the way it’s always been.’

He is in control of our circumstances and we reject Him and what He is doing when we are in circumstances that don’t feel good. Our idea is that if God is good, then a perfect union with Him feels good. Jesus was in perfect union with God and He suffered immeasurably. Sparkly masks of peace and happiness are donned while the spirit underneath remains in the dark.

God makes no sense to our natural understanding, yet we still look for Him there. We dismiss ideas that contradict the trinket we’ve put our faith in. If your idea of God is not continually being transformed in to something less and less understandable, then you have latched on to a pacifier.

They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. -Romans 1:23

Can you stomach God?

God is eternal. Eternity does not only stretch backward, but also forward. Time is something that humans use to make measurements, but we serve a God who is not bound by the rising and setting if the sun. God knows everything, uses everything, is in everything and has everything in His hand. God goes before you and follows behind you.

You are never off His radar and nothing takes you out of your path. Where you are is where you’re supposed to be. Where you are is crucial to who you are becoming. It’s not an accident. There was no big boom from which consequences and evolution ensued. In all of our theories and the beauty of science, we still cannot find any scientific explanation for how initial life began. It was a very specific purpose and set of events set into motion by the only hand that can create and sustain life.

He pays attention to every minute detail. Consider the the power of a single atom and all of the ways in which they come together to form the matter you take for granted. Are you, a unique code written on a strand of DNA, so faithless that you refuse to know your author simply because it makes you smaller than He? Would you prefer a Jesus who bounced on your dashboard?

Has the floor in your life fallen out? Where do you look to find meaning? We trace our steps and look for someone to carry the responsibility. You chose this, she chose that. Stupidity, selfishness, sin and evil. Where is God?

“God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He ordained the situation.” -Oswald Chambers

Is your faith in a god of easy times and fiber optic blessing? Can you stomach a God who would allow your world to cave in because He had a reason for it? Can you submit to a God who doesn’t explain Himself? Holding God responsible for the happenings around you is your act of worship. You release yourself and others from the position of control and focus your helpless dependance on an eternal force who has set something in motion and will stick around to see it through.

Do you see God through yourself or do you see yourself through God?

He says, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ But, how can you not be afraid? He says, ‘Don’t worry.’ But, everything around you tells you to worry. If your own actions or the actions of another have the power to knock God’s purpose off its hinges, then you are worshipping self and/or others. You have rendered the Creator of the Universe incompetent, slow to act and trumped. How often do we do this? We become this frazzled mess while the rest of the world watches us completely contradict the things we say about God when all is well.

‘Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us…’ -Oswald Chambers

It takes faith.

We are saved by faith. That’s why our faith is under attack. We are bombarded with a drugstore Jesus. We wobble on the stilts of an answer holder while secretly lost in a fog of confusion. We’re afraid and uncertain which results in us doubting our Christianity.

It takes faith, but faith is dead without action. The action is in the assurance. Assurance makes us behave a certain way. The behavior is not what is typically sought. There are a lot of behaviors in the religious community that can be faked, but this is something you can’t counterfeit. The behavior is the ability to sleep on the stern of a boat when a storm is taking it down (Mark4:35).

‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.’ -Job; Job 13:15 KJV

broken empty vessel girl

what do rocks know?

They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son. -Genesis 22:9-10

If I could have a conversation with Abraham, I would want to hear him talk about what he knew about God that gave his legs move.

For now, I can only guess. Abraham had seen a lot by this time. His wife had a baby, he saw fire destroy a pair of cities, a woman turn into salt, God appear as three men, the debacle with calling his wife his sister. Maybe that was it? Maybe because of what he learned when he lied about his wife, God showed him who was in control?

Abraham comes from new blood. He’s not far down the line from Adam. What kind of stories about God were passed down from Adam? Or Noah. Noah had to have some crazy stories. What did he talk about when he had too much wine from his vineyard?

Abraham’s great-grandfather never died, he was just taken up with God …long before Elijah. Whatever Abraham knew, it gave him the release to not worry about what that day looked like and just keep walking.

“Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.” -Abraham, Genesis 22:5

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A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! -Mark 4:37-38

What did Jesus know that eased him enough to sleep when everyone else was sure they were going to die?

He moved about with ease. I don’t remember reading anywhere that said He was worried. He had emotions, but he had no fear. He cried with Mary and Martha when Lazarus died. He got angry at the corruption happening within the church and he was blunt and unapologetic to those who thought they were religious superiors. He even broke down in the the garden of Gethsemane because He knew they were about to murder Him, but He never panicked and never forgot…what? What did He know that made it seem, to others, that He didn’t even care?

They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?” -Mark 4:38

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“I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” -Luke 19:40 NAS

What do the rocks know? What is creation aching to scream?

“BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!” -Luke 19:38

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I don’t know what Abraham thought was going to happen when he brought the knife down on his son. But, he knew that God was bigger than whatever came from that day and he trusted God more than he trusted what made sense.

There is something bigger going on right now. It has deep roots and a purpose that goes way beyond your physical existence. You are a part of something. Nothing more.

The place where Abraham was to sacrifice his son is said to be the same place where God dug his fingers in the dirt to create Adam. That it was used as Araunah’s threshing floor…where chaff was separated from wheat. It’s said that David built an alter there. It’s the same place where Solomon built his temple. The same place where the temple Jesus turned tables over in was located. The same place where the temple split when Jesus died.

Abraham was asked to honor God in a place that was much bigger than he was. If that were us, we wouldn’t do it. We have learned how to make God fit into our lives and make our little worlds run the way we want. You’re a bead on a string. You’re a mist before dawn. You have a purpose, but that purpose is not you.

Abraham knew something we need to learn. He didn’t say, ‘What about me?’ because the testimony of creation would answer back, ‘What about you?’ God can do whatever He wants to do and if He asks you to be a part of it, then jump at that opportunity. Who cares what role you play…you get to play a role!

Do you know the thing you need to know that lets you sleep in peace when everything around you tells you it’s time to panic? God can do whatever He wants to do and no amount of panic will stop the storm unless He calls for it to stop. If you knew that you had a specific date assigned for your death and you could not die until then, what risks would you take and goals would you accomplish in the interim? Forget ‘live like you were dying.’ Live like you weren’t. Abraham won a battle where he was ridiculously outnumbered just because he fought it. Is it possible that he knew he wouldn’t die until his wife bore a son and so, until then, he wouldn’t live in fear?

They say that a person with no common sense and no capacity for intelligence is ‘dumb as a rock.’ But the rocks have been a witness to the timelessness of God stringing beads of stories and lives of purpose together for centuries. Rocks have seen the miracle of our Creator at work and has seen this masterpiece come together. The rocks bear witness (Josh24:27) and if you don’t get it and if it doesn’t rip through your body in an outburst of praise, the rocks will cry out in your place.

“Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework.” -Habakkuk 2:11 NAS

be holy

‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’ -1 Peter 1:16

As far as I could count, the command for a person to be holy is found six times in the Old Testament (KJV) and twice in the New Testament (KJV).

Purity and sanctification are goals because we believe it’s God’s will for His followers. As a group of people who want to offer our best and keep ourselves from immorality, we use precaution. We’re told to safeguard our lives in order to keep us in ‘right relationship’ with God.

The foundation of the Christian is belief in Jesus and the label ‘Christian’ carries the weight of responsibility. A responsibility to be pure. To live a sanctified and holy life. Anything that falls short is a piercing alarm. It’s either a cause for concern or a ground for excommunication. Either way, your connection to the body of Christ is questioned.

The problem is in how to fight the fear of failure that permeates the culture. If you think ‘the fear of God’ pertains to divine expectation and the wrath of discipline, then a fear of failure is a dominant and inevitable force.

Fear is the knuckle cracking step-dad wearing a beer stained wife-beater.

There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed lovebanishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. -1 John 4:18

Fear is the opposite of love. Fear marks the sign on the street corner: ‘The party ends in Hell.’ Fear sits on the shoulders of the kid who watches his ‘non-church’ friends play from his window. Fear is the pivot of the heel as the friend distances himself from the fall.

The fear is warranted. When you are living with the kind of religious responsibility required to be holy, the opportunity for stumbles and spills is overwhelming. You’re on a minefield of morality bombs and you’ve seen far too many comrades get blown to pieces right in front of you.

Fear is the knowing that in safeguarding yourself, there must be something that you’re missing. And they’re right. “Now if a person sins and does any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he was unaware, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment.” (Lev5:17NAS)

You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. -James 2:8

No wonder people are afraid. Murdering is found in the same law as picking up a dead fly (Lev5:2NAS).

So, where does Jesus come in? He’s claimed when the man notices that he can’t reach the mark. The assumption is that he’s sufficient until he’s not, but at least there is a length of self-sufficiency and that length is the measuring tape for which he judges everyone else.

You’re either sufficient or you’re not. Jesus is not an extension cord. He’s not your safety net. He’s not your back up plan.

Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. -Romans 3:21-22

You cannot make yourself holy. You cannot expect others to be holy. Sin is not evidence of a missing relationship with Jesus. Sin is evidence of a continual need for Jesus.

An inside track to God is not found in your good reputation. Jesus is the only way and you find your way to Jesus through awareness of sin. Your sin calls for grace and grace makes you sufficient. Your insufficiency is His specialty.

Grace is a supernatural gift that changes the recipient from unclean to spotless. The fear of the disillusioned self-sufficient is that forgiveness of sins opens the door to more sin. If a punishment doesn’t ensue, then the criminal has no reason not to offend again.

Grace is not a new suit, grace is a new identity. By the supernatural character of the gift of grace, the recipient is transformed and made innocent, not just by decree, but by nature. There is an innocence that was missing from them before. There is a desire to maintain the innocence and the lesson that only the guilty could have learned.

Grace makes you a better person because you have the wisdom of guilt and the heart of innocence.

You can’t do this for yourself. Soap can’t get all the sin off. ‘Being’ something you’re deeply not is no different than putting on another man’s suit.

‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’ -1 Peter 1:16

‘You shall’ is not just a command, it’s a proclamation. If God can speak four words and the sun appears in the sky, then He can speak four words and create His light in you. He commands it and it happens.

I’ve said it, and I’ll most certainly do it. I’ve planned it, so it’s as good as done. -Isaiah 46:11

Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ So, it is finished.

the hard road

‘…come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God…’ -Hebrews 6:1-2

We have this innate belief that we have to earn our way. That we are responsible for our purity, our salvation. This is evident in those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but cannot forgive themselves for their sins.

We have this unfounded belief that we have the ability to not sin. We try to be good, cutting out things that may cause us to sin. Yet, we still sin.

Why is it that you think you can carry out what you could not begin? When you first became a Christian, you knew the truth. You knew that you could not make yourself pure, so you accepted the gift of salvation because you believed the truth about Jesus. What gave you the notion that your salvation made you your own savior?

I believe that, because of the changes within yourself, you got cocky. You were proud of the things you were able to get under control and you got comfortable in your new identity. It started out as your identity in Christ, but somewhere along the way, it became your identity by achievement. Jesus was enough to get you started, but then you drifted away from the Source when you found your own footing.

How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! -Galatians 3:2-3

Human effort always runs out.

Scripture tells us who we are. We are ’saints’, ‘children of God’, ‘one with Jesus.’ Churches build this up and up and we own it to the point of excess. Your true identity is the internal Eternal. It’s true what the scripture says. It’s great what our churches teach. It’s faith and assurance to own it. But, it’s talking about the eternal you. The inner you. Have you forgotten that the outer you, the mortal you….the flesh and blood you is still in the picture? I believe you have.

You are not made one with your flesh and bones. You are to ‘die’ to that. You do not take the body with you. You are not that body. You are not that ‘human nature.’ You are not that! If you forget that, then you will be confined to the limits of it and its finger-painting faith.

It’s a hard road to for the believer because we forget who we really are.

You will sin until you physically die. You will choose yourself over God, often. You will always need Jesus. You can never do this on your own. If you are unable to forgive yourself, it’s because you have stepped away from that truth. Somewhere along the way, you started relying on yourself.

You have two choices, either you maintain your salvation or you trust that Jesus does it for you. You can’t have it both ways. If you believe you are responsible to keep yourself presentable to God, then it’s impossible for you to trust Jesus.

Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they’ve personally experienced the sheer goodness of God’s Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can’t start over as if nothing happened. That’s impossible. Why, they’ve re-crucified Jesus! They’ve repudiated him in public! -Hebrews 6:4-6

Washing your hands of the way of salvation is when you turn to an alternate way of salvation. It’s thinking that you could do what only He could. It’s not forgiving yourself for your failures because something deep within you believes you had the ability to not do whatever it is you did.

If you had the ability to not sin, then He did not need to die. Jesus came to do what you could not do. If you believe you can avoid sinning, you are rejecting Him.

You can always look back with a new pair of eyes and see where you should have turned. It’s not hard to see why you can, now, think you have the ability to make different choices. It may be because ‘now’ you do. For that particular space in natural history, you have learned a lesson you feel you should have already known, and you ‘now’ have the vision needed to equip yourself to not repeat that exact mistake. Don’t use that amazing knowledge to condemn yourself for your past behavior, use it to avoid the same pitfall in the future.

What’s done is done. Mourn it until the mourning process is over. Make it right if it’s in your power to do so. Then, let it go.

You are not your mistakes.

Self-condemnation is evidence of pride. I’m not trying to add to your load, but think about it. You thought you were better than that, right? You were above that level of failure. Are you walking around with your wounded heart, trying to earn the forgiveness of others?

There is no set time limit for the aftermath of sin. Sorrow is good because it’s the mother of repentance. It’s not the same as feeling remorse for the one’s you’ve hurt. I’m talking about a sorrow that goes deeper than that. You can’t rush the introduction of that kind of sorrow. But, when it comes, then it’s almost over… repentance isn’t even swallowed before deliverance sweeps sin off the table.

With no sin, there is no longer a place for sorrow. Sorrow stayed for the night. Rejoicing comes in the morning. Don’t fake this, the judgement of others doesn’t affect you, but if you’re still dragging the old behind you, then you have not experienced Godly sorrow.

If you have come to the realization that there is nothing that you can do to make this right and you trust in the finished work of Jesus, then let it go. Do you believe or not? Are you in or are you out?

‘There is, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’ -Romans 8:1 NIV

compassion

Have you ever known someone to misuse spiritual scriptures to fight physical battles? A condescending remark can be relabeled ’speaking truth in love’ (Eph4:15). ‘If it hurts your feelings, it’s because it’s the truth’ (Mat5:11; Luk6:22). If you want to be really cutting, you can end a conversation with, “I’ll pray for you.’

Have you ever sat through a conversation and knew that something about it was wrong, but couldn’t put your finger on it until it was too late to do anything about it? Some conversations are like train wrecks. You sit and watch in disbelief as it all goes down and think of all the things you should have said later.

This is where hateful letters are born. You write them two days later and show evidence that you’ve been stewing.

You can’t let difficult people take up any of your headspace. You can’t make sense of what sounds like nonsense. You’ll get yourself worked up as you go over conversations and body language. Rude behavior, condescending laughs, snide remarks. It will eat you alive.

So, you shift your focus and put your energy into something else. You pray for them. Have you ever payed attention to the way you’re praying for them? ’God, help them, they’re so deceived.’ ‘God, help me know how to speak ‘truth in love.’  You’re assuming that you’re right. You sound just like them.

You are very seldom (if ever?) right when you’re sizing up the character of another’s heart.

Think about what is true for you. Do you always come across the way you really are inside? Have your intentions ever been judged based on a superficial evidence? It happens to all of us, yet we don’t notice how often we do it to others.

If you’re trying to drown out the anger that simmers inside of you by praying for the object of your anger, your prayers have a tendency to be selfish and full of pride. The core of you can be peace-loving and tender, but you are misunderstood. False assumptions evoke anger. You attempt to drown out your anger with a prayer that your ‘enemy’ can see that you are a good person and that you are not the way they’ve painted you.

Do you see that your prayer is about you? You no longer want your integrity questioned, so you spend your time praying that they see you as ‘good’. Jesus was misunderstood. His integrity was questioned. Why shouldn’t yours?

Are the opinions of others so important that your prayer life centers around you?

“There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others…” -Luke 6:26

Instead of praying for others according to the way you see them, ask God to let you see them the way He sees them. He gets it right. When He shows you, then you’ll know how to pray. God knows why we are the way we are and it causes an overwhelming sense of compassion. If you knew others the way God knew them, you would be overrun with compassion, too.

Compassion is empathy, fellow feeling, sensitivity, warmth, love, tenderness, mercy, leniency, tolerance, kindness…

Compassion is the opposite of indifference. An indifferent heart is not ‘actively’ angry or troubled. The danger is when a person thinks that indifference is evidence of ‘deliverance’ or ‘peace.’ Indifference is poison. A silent killer.

You cannot forgive without compassion. You cannot love without compassion. If you cannot forgive, you cannot be forgiven. If you cannot love, then you are as good as dead.

Relationships aren’t trivial matters. God honors your rules of engagement (Mat18:33). Why else do you think loving others the way you want to be loved is one of the top two instructions Jesus gives us (Mar12:29)? It goes hand in hand with loving God. You can’t love God if you don’t love others. You can’t love others if you don’t love God.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both. -1 John 4:20-21

Relationships are the barometer for your faith. A broken relationship in the Body of Christ is evidence of a broken relationship with Christ. You don’t have one ‘right’ brother and one ‘wrong’ brother. If one is ‘wrong’ we’re all wrong. If we are ‘one in Christ’, when one has fallen, we’ve all fallen. That is why we cannot leave a brother who fell along the path.

We’re leaving ourselves and are, therefore, left.

A person’s abrasiveness toward you may not even be about you. If you take it personally, then you won’t know how to pray for them. Pray for the ability to see them the way God sees them. That’s the only way you can have compassion.

a new dance

Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. -Philippians 3:2

Something that I’ve learned over the past several years is that you cannot have enough self-control to perfect your Christianity. The realization is heart breaking, at first.

Every once in a while, I get asked to prove my worth. To list the steps I’ve taken and provide evidence of God’s grace and restoration. There is a pressure to refine my appearance so that others can say, ‘She’s doing this or that.’ ‘God has obviously blessed her here. Look at these credentials…’

One thing that I am most thankful for is the realization that destroyed my sense of self-accomplishment. I learned that I cannot do this on my own and, in trying, I was trying to gain independence from a God I was not made to be emancipated from. He gifts me with what I was reaching for all along and He did it when I realized I couldn’t. You don’t realize you can’t until you are at your worst and are incapable of making it right.

Until I came to that point, I had no idea that I had deep roots of selfishness and conceit. I had been able to keep that part of me under control and dress in the cheap fabric of self-righteousness. When those roots surfaced in my life, I had no choice but to accept the damaged appearance and spend time watching Jesus clean out the depths of my heart.

My life, whether seen or not, is the healing dance of a crippled child. He holds my twisted legs straight and lets me dance on His toes. His feet moving me about. His spin catching my hair. He sings to me and I sing along. I worship Him from my depths. The depths I hid with my self-control. I give Him my worst and He shows me how to worship Him there.

The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ’s praise as we do it. -Philippians 3:3

Every once in a while, I get praised for my heart. They see me dancing and hear my song and they remark at the beauty. I’m telling you, it’s not me you are seeing. It’s my Father. I’m dancing on His toes, remember. I’m singing a song He taught me. It’s not me. The sin you saw was me, the dance you see is Him.

Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness. -Philippians 3:8-9

There will always be those who want something more than the dance of praise. They won’t accept you unless you’ve earned a diploma from their school. But, I’m saying, forget about the way you look to others. Feel His feet under yours, His grip on your hands. Lean back, shut your eyes and let Him spin you around in a song of praise. Think about what that must look like to Him…