Celebrate His death and rising.

"Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God."


I hadn't read this passage in a long time. Romans is a rather intimidating book, but I've been working through it for the second time, hoping that my life experiences and openness to the Holy Spirit since the last reading will highlight new truths for me.


The bit above follows laws about marriage: A woman is only allowed to remarry if her husband has died. Any other circumstance is immoral. While that is interpreted a little differently these days (and is a sticky topic I'll sidestep right now), it's clearly a metaphor, too. Before we knew Christ, we were married to the Law. And it's not until the Law has died completely in us that we can "marry" our True Love. I think that happens instantaneously (the moment we accept Christ) and slowly (as we learn what it means to live under grace). We're mistake-prone and creatures of habit - a new life in Christ requires building new habits to override the old.


But that's where this one gets interesting: we cannot die to the Law on our own; we need the body and blood of Christ. And it is Him to whom we are married after we have been removed from the Law. And Christ is our perfect example: He Himself died to the Law, and raised Himself from the dead - abolishing the Law and establishing grace.


It's a mystery, really, and I know that I'll never fully understand until I stand face-to-face with my Father, Saviour, and Husband.

Input from the outside.

I was re-reading the Spiritual Klutz blog by Joshua Rogers this morning. He's a breath of fresh (honest) air these days. And I like his opinions on dating, marriage, and singles in the contemporary church. For instance, here's the end of his recent series on dating: Man Enough to Love a Real Woman. I found him after some reading on Don Miller's blog, and landed on Spiritual Klutz's Time for a Breakup page. It was a really convicting perspective on my single mindset and heart.


I'm weary lately of trying to prompt myself into new ideas. I've been reading Romans, and boy is that dense! So I'm switching it up a little. We're reading Blackaby's "Experiencing God" for small group. A friend gave me "The History of Grace" sermon by Tim Keller, and I'm going to listen to a couple Calvary messages I haven't heard in a while (or ever).


Song to end on: Lay 'Em Down, by Needtobreathe.

Tis the season and all that.

I'm struggling this year to find my holiday spirit. Maybe. Maybe I'm actually in the right spirit for Christmas. Here's the deal:


My littlest brother got married last week, and they won't be back from their cruise until after Christmas. Because of the timing, the grands and Aunt Ruth are not coming to Chattanooga for Christmas - for the first time in 23 years. For the first time in 26 years, I have a real and very wonderful boyfriend, and we won't be together for the holiday either. Middle brother planned his vacation time for last week and now has to work all around Christmas and thus won't be coming with us to the grands' for the weekend. And on top of all that, the grands have asked I not bring my puppy - so he's going with the boyfriend.


But what I'm beginning to think is that the holiday spirit isn't one of "everything's perfect - we're all together and getting exactly what we want." I think it's more of "Father! Everything's falling apart, so we lean on You and on the promise of Christmas - God with us."


That's a pretty radical approach, when you start to think about it. I have to be very aware of my own brokenness and incompetence to rely fully on God. And American consumerism tells us that the holidays are all about getting and giving [good things that make you look good] - we cover our dirty, useless selves in shiny paper and ribbons and huge price tags and pretend to not see what we really are.


But this idea of Emmanuel, of God with us, blows away all the tinsel and wrappings and glitz. It says that the most important part of the holiday is that I know who my Savior is, not that I get what's on my list.




Stick with me this weekend - I'm flinging myself into the Father's arms. I'm a little fuzzy right now (DayQuil will do that to a person), but I want to keep exploring this idea.

We wait impatiently and with anticipation.

The boyfriend and I have been talking a lot lately about trusting God's perfect will in our lives, and stepping back out of the way to let Him do what He's got planned. And as we talk, those lessons I learned last year are bubbling to the surface again. My faith in God is increased by remembering how many giants He's killed in my past. And my joy is returning (I vaguely remember saying months ago that something just wasn't quite right in my heart). It's good to be reminded.


And then Oswald does it again. I've been praying a lot about getting myself out of the way in order to let God in (which is very hard to do on your own, you should know). He says the one thing that keeps us from God is us. But this last paragraph caught my heart in the anticipation of God's handiwork in my life:


"Any problem that comes between God and myself springs out of disobedience; any problem, and there are many, that is alongside me while I obey God, increases my ecstatic delight, because I know that my Father knows, and I am going to watch and see how He unravels this thing."

Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward.

In my reading this morning, Paul grabbed me by the throat:


"Not that I have already obtained [resurrection from the dead] or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."


A bit of background: I've never liked Paul. He's smug, self-righteous, strict, and even a bit grandiose. In college, I purposely took a class on the writings of Paul, and announced to the group that I was there because I didn't like Paul. By the end of the class, I respected him, but I am still not a fan. There's something about him that doesn't make sense in my mind, and I can't really explain it.


That being said, I think that his contribution to Scripture was one of the most practical and nitty-gritty additions and that faith in Christ probably could not grow to a higher stage without Paul's teachings. Thus this morning, when he choked me out.


It was the "laid hold of" part. I'm familiar with the terminology on our end of things: we spend our entire lives reaching for that thing that we're promised, that's just beyond our fingertips. Should we ever encounter it, we would be certain to lay hold and never let go.


But the thought that Jesus Christ laid hold of me... and not at all because I was convenient or amusing or good. He laid hold of me for a purpose - His purpose. Which means I am valuable, I matter; He has me and will not let go because I am that thing He has been pursuing. And I am shaken.

Always on the tip of my tongue.

I think this is one of the hardest phases of spirituality that we ever go through: maintaining. It comes after I've learned a significant lesson about my Father (or in my case, several significant lessons - why do they always come in multiples?). And He is so kind and gracious - He walks me through the learning, holding my hand, encouraging me with each step.

But then this learning process reaches a point where I feel a little more confident in my self, and like a good Daddy, my Father steps back, releases my fingers from His hand. It's not that He's gone - He's near enough to catch me if I stumble - it's just that I need to learn to walk on my own a little.

This whole thing is a weird paradox: we are reminded throughout Scripture to be like little children, to depend fully on our Father, to lean into His arms and let Him carry us, but then we are encouraged, too, to be strong, stand firm, be ready to defend your faith, to work out your salvation... It seems like we can't be both.

But our faith is full of paradox. And I've found that most of the paradoxes unravel themselves when you start into them. For instance, as we set out to be more childlike, to lean on our Father, we become more confident - we are children secure in our Daddy's unconditional love for us. And even though we may appear to be strong and standing on our own, our strength comes in admitting our weakness.

Right now, I'm maintaining. I've come to understand so many new aspects of my Father and my faith in Him during the past year that my heart is overflowing with it all. (For the record, the learning never ends - I'm being taught how lovely I am to my Father, how to reflect His love to those around me.) And now a lot of what I'm being asked to do is be vigilant: remember the lessons, remember the pain, remember the joy of doing the right thing. Keep it always before your eyes. Walk in it every day.

And this part is the hardest, driest, least palatable part, I think. It's difficult to sustain emotions, and difficult to create desire. But right actions lead to right thinking, my dad says. And I believe he's right.

I tell no-one any story but his own.

It's frightening how desperately we crave acknowledgement, isn't it?

This deep-seated, very human need for recognition and validation has become more evident in the last decade (I think) thanks to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace - well, the advent of the Internet in general. There are billions of daily pleas that go out into that interstitial space, begging someone to respond.

Where does this craving come from? I think it stems less from a desire to be recognized and more from an emptiness. It's been called a "God-shaped hole." 

"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles...They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." (Romans 1)

What if that human-shaped idol wasn't someone else, but ourselves? Idolatry meets narcissism.

Then we'd live in a world where everyone was out for Number One, was concerned with how they looked and how they felt and what they wanted, and was determined to satisfy themselves. A world where the other was tossed aside in favor of self, a world littered with "others"... oh, wait. We do live in that world.

Granted, there are kind souls and do-gooders and (dare I say it?) church people that bring a little light to such an oppressive picture. But they are (from what I can tell) spurred on by guilty consciences. And that motivation for helping others only effects limited change.

I always come back to C.S. Lewis: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

On an entirely separate tack: Re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia (after a 15 year absence), this time in chronological order. I'm brought to tears by how meaningful and dense the symbolism is in those books. I think I would never have been able to appreciate it as a child.

 

Strings around our fingers.

I was prompted into re-reading the Spiritual Klutz blog by Joshua Rogers this morning. He's a breath of fresh (honest) air these days. And I like his opinions on dating, marriage, and singles in the contemporary church. For instance, here's the end of his recent series on dating: Man Enough to Love a Real Woman. I found him after some reading on Don Miller's blog, and landed on Spiritual Klutz's Time for a Breakup page. It was a really convicting perspective on my single mindset and heart.


I'm weary lately of trying to prompt myself into new ideas. I've been reading Romans, and boy is that dense! So I'm switching it up a little. We're reading Blackaby's "Experiencing God" for small group. A friend gave me "The History of Grace" sermon by Tim Keller, and I'm going to listen to a couple Calvary messages I haven't heard in a while (or ever).


Song to end on: Lay 'Em Down, by Needtobreathe.