Taking Stock

Five years ago today, I walked down the aisle at my wedding. It was a long time coming, and a union accomplished only by God's design (A Wedding Story ). I know my husband, Paul, and I had discussed "Where do you think we'll be in five years?" I'm not sure we would have imagined that there would be a toddler asleep upstairs for a nap and a newborn snoozing on my chest as I type.

I always envisioned that I would be married sometime in my twenties, enjoy a few years just with my husband, and then start having children, maybe four. Yet, years (and years and years) went by as I watched almost all my friends do just those things. Wedding after wedding, and baby shower after baby shower. It was hard to see so many people get the life that I had wanted. I prayed, and cried, and demanded, and cried, and prayed. . .

A deep longing of my heart was to just be "normal". To get married when my friends did, to have kids when my closest friends did. Nope. I remember talking to the Lord about this--"Is it so much to ask? To be normal? To be like everyone else?"

Now, beginning my fifth year as a wife and in the middle of my second year as a mom, well. . . Still not normal. Those close friends of mine? Their kids are going to college and getting married and having babies now. Most of the moms with kids our children's ages could also BE our kids. It makes forming new friendships interesting. Paul often gets mistaken for Grandpa, and while I haven't (yet) been called Grandma, I did have someone ask me last weekend if I were Mom or Grandma.

I don't know why the Lord waited so long to bless me with marriage. In the past I have said that I wished I knew Paul earlier, but now I have rethought that, since earlier means different children. I do know that being out of sync with most other people keeps me looking to the Lord for acceptance and peace and grace. I definitely know that being an older parent also requires extra strength and energy and faith to believe that we are the best choice for these children, at this time.

Life in the mainstream or out of it . . all of it requires faith and trust that the Lord is enough, no matter our (perceived) level of "normal".

My life is not how I thought it would be (I'm learning that very few people's are), but it is so, so good.

Psalm 16: 5-6 (ESV):


5 Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Six Month Baby Update

Our Little Guy is six months old today! He's doing great--rolling around, almost sitting up, looking scarily close to crawling, laughing and smiling and getting to be very social. Paul, who's staying home with him during the school year, hears "da-da", he is sure. I, in futility, encourage "ma-ma".  He doesn't sleep through the night yet, though people keep promising us he will once we start giving him solid food (any day now). We are skeptical! He's teething and drooling and we love him a ton!

As many of you know, we had intended to adopt our son, then things got complicated ("Supposed to Be"), then God intervened ("Unless God" ) and we were asked to foster Little Man as we waited to see what would happen with the biological parents. We still do not know the outcome for sure, but it is looking like we will get to adopt him. While we are thrilled, our joy is tinged with sadness.

We have always wanted a child and we love our son. We want him to stay with us and be a part of our family forever. However, we know that our desire has a cost to our baby. He has a complicated story. He may not be able to understand it for many, many years, and while he will know (we pray every day) how much we love him, he will also have to come to terms with the loss of his first family. The reality is that his biological parents, due to both circumstances and choice, cannot currently parent him.

Adoption is beautiful, but in a perfect world, it would not exist. As a Christian, I believe that I have been adopted, through Jesus, into God's family, and I am grateful and amazed at this privilege. As I was thinking, I realized that, even for God, there is a sense that adoption was not the first choice. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, they would have been still in God's family as it was originally designed. However, due to the fall, Jesus came so that we could be adopted into God's family. Adoption always has a cost.

We believe that our guy was placed with us by design, and we are grateful. We pray daily for wisdom to parent him well and with love, and we pray for his biological parents as well, and hope that he will have a future relationship with them. We pray most of all that he will also experience the joy of adoption into God's family, and that the Lord will heal his heart and turn his pain into beauty and purpose.

In further news: We are approved by our adoption agency for two children, and are praying that God would bring us a sibling for our little man. Private adoption is costly, and we recently received a grant from Pure Gift from God, who will match our funds dollar for dollar up to $4000--so if we raise $2000, they will give us $2000 more. If you are interested in helping out, here is the link:  Paul and Edna's Adoption Odyssey

I Want It I Want It I Want It

Seems like teaching + infant = no blog posts for a while! However, things are relatively calm on the home front now (planning a six month update in a few weeks) and, as I had been told, watching babies leads to thoughts about God and how He takes care of us.

Our little guy is about five and a half months old. He can roll over and grab toys and stick everything in his mouth. He has an activity gym that he loves! He can reach all of the dangling toys now, but he can't get them into his mouth. Cue: massive frustration:

Yesterday morning he was just livid that he could not, no matter how hard he pulled, get those rings all the way into his mouth. After a few minutes of yelling and screeching, I had to just scoop him up, give him snuggles, and move him away from his obsession. We went and looked outside, and talked, and walked, and left the scene of the emotion.

As I was holding him and watching him calm down, it struck me that I have done the same thing in my life, albeit in a slightly more subtle (or maybe not) manner. There were times when I was single when I fixated on dating sites and trying to WILL the right guy to contact me. I can fixate on the one chore my husband forgot rather than the seven he completed. More recently, during our adoption wait, I would stalk the "waiting families" page. I would scour other people's profiles to figure out what they were doing that we weren't. I remember crying to our social worker in frustration that our profile page wasn't yet on the portal because the expectant mom for us could be looking RIGHT NOW (a year and a half before we were matched with little guy's mom). In those moments, like our baby who could only see the rings he could not reach, all I could see was the husband or baby or ____________ that I couldn't conjure despite my best efforts.

The Lord, who is a much better parent than I, wants to draw me away from my frustrated fixation to spending time with Him and widening my vision to see the bigger world and what He is doing in it. Sadly, my grown-up self is not as easily moved as an infant, so sometimes I spend far longer than five minutes screeching in frustration at things I can't change.

Little Man will gain access to those rings when he's a big bigger or able to sit up. When the time is right, he'll be able to get them into his mouth or throw them or whatever he wants to do with them. Later in the afternoon, I detached that turtle toy with the rings and handed it to him, thinking that would make him happy. It didn't. He was just as frustrated having them in his hands as when they were attached. Whatever he was wanting to do with them, he wasn't able to do it yet. 

Had I gotten some of the things I wanted when I wanted them, my life would be different. I wouldn't have necessarily been any happier. God, in His wisdom knows when to give me the toy and when to withhold it. 

As I witnessed my son's frustration, the verse that came to mind was from Matthew 11:28-30, when Jesus shared these words:

 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I am reminded that, when I am caught in the frustration of wanting it RIGHT NOW, I need to turn my eyes to Jesus and let Him calm me, comfort me, and re-orient my vision to the tasks and gifts He has for me.

What Martha Got Right

Mary versus Martha. If you have spent any time at all in church, you have probably heard a message about Mary and Martha. If you are a woman who goes to church, you have probably listened to at least one teaching contrasting Mary with Martha, with Mary being the role model. The account of these sisters and one of their encounters with Jesus is found in Luke 10:38-42:

 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.  And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Usually the lesson revolves around how to be more like Mary and sit at the feet of Jesus--which is a useful, excellent, and necessary teaching. Usually, Martha is portrayed as the bad guy of the piece. Usually, I feel sad because in my soul, I am a Martha. I am often "anxious and troubled about many things." If I have visitors, I want to serve enough food, I want to display a clean home, I want to care for friends' needs. I can justify all my bustling under the umbrella of service.

A few months ago, however, God showed me something new about this passage. Yes, Martha is worrying and fretting and ignoring the better choice, which is to sit at the feet of Jesus. She is annoyed with her sister for not helping her to serve Jesus (and probably at least some of the other disciples). She feels put-upon and justified in her grievance. I have felt much the same way before--why are people standing around talking when there is work to be done? And I have fretted. And stewed. And gotten mad at the people who aren't doing their part.

Martha, however, goes directly to Jesus. She doesn't hint around to Mary or walk around sighing loudly as she cleans. She doesn't talk to all of the other guests about how Mary isn't helping, "Bless her heart." She doesn't holler at Mary later. She goes to Jesus, tells Him what she is feeling, and asks Him to do something. Her actions are exactly what we should do when we are upset. Go to the Lord, tell Him how we are feeling, and then request what we want (whether we're right or not).

Notice that Martha received an answer from Jesus. He directly addresses her desire--probably not as she wishes Him to, but He answers her nonetheless, and immediately. Jesus gives Martha the wisdom and the directive that she truly needs to "choose the good portion."

I wish that I would instantly choose the right action like Mary did in this instance (because, if you keep reading, there's another encounter  described in John 11 in which Mary is not necessarily "the good one".) Unfortunately, I am much more likely to be distracted by my agenda and miss God's. When I do and when I start to get frustrated with someone else who is not doing what I think they should be, I hope that I will be wise as Martha and take my grievance directly to Jesus and hear what He tells me to do. Martha may not have sat at the feet of Jesus that night, but she did walk in relationship with Him, and I can imagine where she would have been found the next time Jesus came for dinner.

Change at Last

So, so long since I have felt like I had any thoughts or insights worth sharing.  Months upon months I have spent feeling distant from the Lord and trudging through the disciplines of reading, praying, and worshiping. I had almost become resigned to the idea that I would never feel connected to God again. Emotions aside, the truth is that I am in reality always connected to the Lord and loved by Him. However, I missed the feeling of communion and the amazement of hearing from Him.

A consistent frustration of my Christian life has been navigating the tension between what I do and what God does. In this dry spell, I have battled anger at the Lord at why He didn’t just do His miraculous work and fix whatever was between me and Him. I have been annoyed at people telling me all the things I should do to bridge this gap. I have been frustrated at my own inability to figure out what the problem was and make it go away.

A few weeks ago, through no act of my own and no fireworks, the Lord changed something in my heart. My husband and I had had an emotional talk about some hard things, and I was also battling a fog of perimenopausal PMS hormones. As a result, I didn’t sleep well. But, when I awakened, I prayed, and God opened my eyes to see how selfish I had been lately and how I had forgotten the whole focus of following Jesus. He used my husband’s words to remind me of what I’m supposed to be doing:  Believing that God is at work where we are. Having faith that He will lead and guide us. Loving others without expecting love in return. Believing the best about people. Forgiving. Walking in love and faith.

The Lord also brought to mind something He had showed me when I was a part of Beth Moore’s “Believing God” Bible study. I have always struggled with understanding what it means to have faith. During that study, I had the epiphany that faith is “simply” believing that the Lord is at work right now, in everything that is happening in my life, and that He is working it out for good, and I can trust that He is here and active.

God did this change. In the middle of the night.  As I was awakened. When I wasn’t even trying. I did nothing other than wake up and listen.

I am reading through the Bible this year, and recently began the book of Exodus. The Israelites are enslaved to the Egyptians, they cry out to the Lord, and God hears them:

  “. . . and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2: 23-25)

Yay-God hears them, God sends Moses, the people will escape and be free. Not so fast. God heard them. Then He has to convince Moses to go. Moses comes and tells the people that God had heard them and will deliver them.  Then the pharaoh makes their jobs even harder and their lives more miserable. The people have been told that God is going to deliver them, but it is not immediate. They endure ten plagues. They flee through the desert and are almost overtaken by Egyptians. Finally, they are free from Egypt, but it is still years before Israel as a nation inhabits the Promised Land.

I am already free from sin because of salvation. However, on this earth, the day-to-day deliverance is often not instantaneous. Sanctification is a process. I can grit my teeth and pursue God even when I don’t feel Him and don’t hear Him, and I think there is some value to that. Ultimately, however, it is God who changes hearts and who, at just the right time (usually way later than I think it should be) breaks through to us and shows us what we need to know and more of who He is.

I am thankful to feel connected again. I am thrilled to read the Bible and have verses leap off of the page as relevant to me and my life. The grace of God is the only catalyst and cause of this revival.  Do I yet know why there was such a season of drought? Not yet. I am purposing to believe that there was a reason—maybe simply my own sin and inability to see it. I am grateful that, as 1 John 3:19-20 says: 

“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

I am thankful that the God whom it all depends on is much, much bigger than my human heart. 

Not the Goal, but the Getting There

"Joy in the journey." Hearing that phrase makes me cringe. On every set of personality profiles I have taken, I am in the group who are fairly logical, highly bossy, and extremely goal-directed. I don't want to enjoy the journey. I want to get to the end of the journey and get the prize.

As a Christian, I have often been exhorted to enjoy the process rather than be so focused on the end result. Yeah, yeah, whatever, just tell me what to do to succeed and leave me alone so I can figure out how to get to the end. I've had glimpses along the way where I have seen the wisdom in these exhortations, but I am quickly lured back into the pursuit of the end goal, reasoning that the faster I get to the end, the more time I can bask in the joy of arriving.

One of the newest adventures I am living is that of marriage. I was single a long time, and God taught me a lot through that experience. I've only been married about two years, and the Lord continues to teach me, reinforcing old lessons and introducing new ones. Recently I was feeling frustrated because (unsurprisingly), there are some areas in which both my husband and I continue to mess up, to need repentance, to ask forgiveness, and to try again.

For me, the area is that of speech. Anyone knowing me is aware that I tend toward criticizing and complaining, and have for my entire life. I can remember my parents telling me to stop being so critical when I was about eight years old. I have looked up Bible verses about speech. I have memorized them. I have prayed for God to help me. I have tried to uncover WHY this is my default. If I had a dollar for every time I have apologized to someone about my words, I would be rich. Yet I still do it. The Holy Spirit lives in me, and I have the power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead in me (see the whole book of Ephesians), but I still do battle with myself over the words that come out of my mouth and the need to share them with others, regardless of the effect. My husband has his areas which are similar. Places where he falls over and over and over and has to come to me and confess and ask forgiveness.

Our situation is not unique. All of us battle sins and faults. However, in my mind and heart I believed that somehow, if I just kept working hard, or praying hard, or spent enough time with God, I would be free of ever hurting someone with my words again, and then I would have arrived. I would be completely happy. Someday, my husband would overcome his difficulties, and, between both of our victories, our marriage would be the Shining Christian Example of Jesus at work.

That's a lot of pressure, to be perfect before I can be joyful. The result is that every time either of us fails (which is a lot), my happiness and view of my marriage and my relationship with the Lord takes a hit. The thoughts in my head include: "Why can't we GET this? We both love the Lord. We're both trying so hard." "I don't want to do this my whole life. I want to be done and able to just relax." "I want to have a good marriage, and be a glory to God. Instead, we're just a mess."

Yeah. . . lots wrong with all of those statements, actually. Last weekend I heard a message about King David. He was nearing the end of his life, and he was, once again, battling the Philistines. The theme of the message was David renewing his hope in the Lord. What I noticed and have been thinking about is that David never "arrived". He never had more than a few years of calm and peace. He starts out being anointed king of Israel, but has to wait over ten years to assume the crown, fighting and running and hiding throughout those years. Then, he still has to fight the enemies of Israel. He sins with Bathsheba and reaps the consequence of that choice for the rest of his life, his family dealing with the fallout for generations. Yet, in recounting the history of the later kings of Israel and Judah, they are always compared to David. The Lord promises David that his throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:16).

David never got it all together, yet he is still put forth as an example of a man of faith. Thinking about this, I realized that my premise was faulty. I will never be perfect until I die. The whole reason I need Jesus is because I will never, ever be able to get it right. Yes, I need to keep learning and growing and drawing closer to the Lord, but I will never be able to say, "Hey, look at me! Look at my marriage! We have it all figured out and now we can relax because we made it and God is happy with us."

Because of Jesus, God is happy with me now. Even if I am still apologizing on my deathbed for something that I said, I can still be joyful because of my relationship with God. There IS NO arrival until I am with Jesus. There is ONLY the journey of drawing closer to the Lord and learning to love and know Him and others better. Just this morning, I read Psalm 16, which was written by David:

I have set the Lord always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

  Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

my flesh also dwells secure.

  For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

or let your holy one see corruption.

  You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:8-11) 

My joy comes from the presence of the Lord, not my performance. Period. His presence is experienced during the journey, not only when I have completed it. May I have the eyes and heart to see and believe that truth.

No More Fear?

Five months since I have blogged.  Five months since I posted about feeling stuck. Five months in which I remained stuck. Just in the past week or so have I dared to hope that, maybe, I'm starting to come unstuck. Not by any act of mine, but simply by the grace of God.

I struggle with fear and worry. Every day I wonder and worry about someone I love dying. About the new over-forty-year-old body ache that surely signifies cancer or some other dread disease. About a blizzard or tornado, depending on the season. Every time I fly I imagine that I could crash. Every time my husband drives I imagine he could crash. And, all these things could happen.

Tuesday I was reading in the Bible  about the time when the disciples were in a boat with Jesus:  

 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”  And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:24-27)

Jesus asks the disciples why they are afraid. I would think it would be obvious: They're in a boat, it's storming, and the boat is being swamped. Which means, to me, that if I were there I would be afraid that the boat is going to sink. Plus, Jesus, the one Whom they look to for help was asleep. Then Jesus tells them they don't have much faith. In the same account as told in Luke 8, verse 25 reports that Jesus asks them, "Where is your faith?" I've been thinking about that question for the past few days.

It seems as if Jesus is saying that if they had faith, they wouldn't fear. Even with the waves crashing, even with the water threatening to sink the boat, they should not be afraid. Why? I went on a search through the New Testament to find the people who were commended for their faith. On the list were the Roman Centurion whose daughter is healed, the friends of the paralyzed man who lowered him through the roof to see Jesus, the bleeding woman who touched Jesus' hem, the Canaanite woman who sought healing for her daughter, the blind beggar who cries out to Jesus, and the tenth leper who returns to give thanks. Each of these were people I found who had direct dealings with Jesus.

What did they have in common? They sought out Jesus and believed that He could help them. Yet, so did the disciples. The disciples also went to Jesus and  asked Him for help. I wonder if (as it always is) it was a difference in what was in each person's heart. Did the disciples really believe that Jesus could help them? Were they annoyed with him for being asleep? Did they truly believe (as they soon learned) that Jesus could still the very winds and waves that were threatening to capsize them? Where had they placed their faith?

How much better would my life be if I weren't fearful and worried, especially over things that haven't even happened? Why can I choose not to fear? Over and over I return to the basic elements of Christianity. I can choose not to fear because Jesus is with me. Nothing that I will face, should my worst imaginings come to pass, will be bigger than God's power and grace. I need to put my faith, my confidence, and my assurance in the person of Jesus--the Jesus who stilled those waves, healed those people, and rose victorious from that grave.

Hebrews 2: 14-15 says this:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,  and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Look at that last phrase again: "...those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." I have been a slave to the fear of death. I do not have to be. Through Jesus' resurrection, I have been set free from this fear. I will be with Jesus when I die. The people I love who follow and believe Jesus, I will see again in eternity. I don't need to be enslaved. I am not enslaved.

The Message paraphrase of Hebrews 2:14-15 puts it like this:

Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.

I no longer need to be scared to death of death. I no longer need to fear. Come what may, Jesus is in the boat with me. I pray that God will show me how to find my faith and abandon fear.

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

We are all really good at hiding. Mostly, we hide behind images and phrases hand-selected to make us look good. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. We hide behind banal conversation: 'Hi, how are you?" "Good, thanks, you?" "Fine." Sometimes we pretend we aren't hiding, offering a prayer request that seems like we're being open but it's not the real thing we are worried about or scared of or need. I'm particularly good at this one, because it can include blogging about thoughts I have, but not really going deep enough to address the real issue.

Why do we hide? There are probably lots of reasons, but for me, it comes down to one pervasive reason: Fear of rejection. If I show my true self and you don't like it, then that will hurt and maybe I will find out that I'm not worthy of attention or friendship or love. So, I present to you my good self, mostly, and hope that it's enough.

There is an account in the Bible, in Luke 8 (and Matthew 9 and Mark 5) about a woman who really wanted to hide. She had been bleeding for 12 years and no one could help her. Bleeding for twelve years straight would be miserable enough. In those days, however, it wasn't just inconvenient and exhausting, but isolating. She would have been, according to Jewish law, considered unclean and been excluded from many societal and relational activities. Somehow, this woman hears about Jesus and how He has healed people. According to Matthew, she saids to herself, "If I only touch his garment, I will be made well." (Matthew 9:21). She touches Jesus' robe and immediately the bleeding stops and she is healed. Her plan, apparently, was just to blend back into the crowd and go home. However, Jesus has a different plan:

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” (Luke 8:46-47)

Why did the woman come back to Jesus and show herself? Because she realized that she was not hidden.  Jesus saw her, knew her, and was calling her to come to Him. The first part of the process of following Christ is to come to Him, and one of the ways that Jesus draws us to Him is that He knows us completely and still wants us to come.

A definitive moment for me with God was when I (rule-following, straight-A, never-been-drunk, never-did-drugs, never-smoked-a-cigarette good girl that I was) realized that God knew all the hidden sin in my heart. He knew every critical thought, every mean impulse, every self-righteous judgement, and He still loved and called me.  When I stopped hiding my true self from God (as if I could)  I recognized and received the grace He was offering me.

The text above says that the woman told all the people what she had touched Jesus and how she was healed. It would be embarrassing enough in this day to stand up in a crowd of both men and women and share how you had been bleeding for twelve years. Imagine it in Bible times, when women weren't even allowed to mix with men during their period. Yet, once realizing that she was no longer hidden and was seen and wanted by Jesus, the woman does just that. Though still trembling, she comes out of hiding.

I believe that one purpose for marriage is to show us a picture of God and how He relates to people. When I read this story, it was on the heels of me being very crabby and not-very-nice to my husband. He gets to see the worst of me. If I am pursuing intimacy at all levels in my marriage, there is not a lot of hiding. Simply living with someone else eliminates subterfuge as well. We see the worst of one another, and yet we forgive and accept one another anyway.

I have also had moments of community in which the people involved have been able to stop hiding and be their true selves, sin and all. I think it is what God calls us to. He wants us to stop hiding from ourselves, from each other, and most of all, from Him.

How do we stop? ("How" is always my biggest question). What I see in this story is that I stop hiding when I trust and believe that Jesus sees me, knows me, and accepts me. If I know this truth and stay connected to Christ, I don't need to hide any longer.  When I stop hiding, like this woman did, my faith increases, there is healing, and I can live my life in peace rather than in the stress of pretending.

That Whole Judging Thing

"What right do you have to judge me?" This phrase is often spoken (many times shouted) in the hopes of ending an argument. Pages and pages of text could be written discussing the different types of judgement Jesus speaks about in the Bible. A few days ago, I read an account in Luke 7:36-50 in which my own sometimes judgmental heart was exposed.

In summary, Jesus accepts an invitation to the home of a Pharisee, Simon. While Jesus was there, a woman of the village who was a known sinner (maybe a prostitute) anoints Jesus' feet with oil and wipes His feet with her hair. Simon is scandalized and thinks to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." (Luke 7:39b) Jesus points out to Simon that this woman loves Jesus because she is, indeed, a sinner and has been forgiven much by Jesus. She has honored Jesus much more than Simon, who has not even fulfilled the rules of good etiquette for the time (given water to wash with, anointed Jesus' head with oil). Jesus commends the woman's faith and tells her to go in peace.

I have always before seen the Pharisee, Simon, as judging the woman and trying to provoke Jesus, and I think he is, indeed, doing that. However, what I noticed this time was that Simon was judging Jesus. He was looking at Jesus with the sole purpose of noticing what He was doing wrong and calling Him out on it. Simon, in essence, was seeing only Jesus' "sins". In contrast, when Jesus looked at the woman, He focused on her heart. He saw her heart of love and worship and welcomed her. Jesus knew she was a sinner. He was aware of her sin. But that was not what He chose to notice.

Often I am like the Pharisee. I notice all the things that someone is doing wrong. Sometimes what I notice is truly sin. Sometimes it's just not the way I would do things. Regardless, when I focus only on a person's sinful actions, I don't see their heart. I don't see the love or friendship they may be offering, or the brokenness that has brought them to that place.

The second point I noticed was far more chilling to me. Simon, in focusing only on the sins of Jesus and the woman completely missed not just the heart of the woman, but Jesus Himself. Simon wasn't seeing Jesus as He was. Simon was only finding fault to support his own opinion. I never want to be so focused on fault-finding that I miss Jesus. I want to see Him as clearly as possible, and, instead of judging much, to love much.

Figuring out my Foundation

Sometimes I think most of my Christian life consists of suddenly realizing the import of facts or stories that I have read numerous times. Today I was reading Jesus' words in Luke 6:46-49:

Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.

The phrase that I stopped on today was "dug deep." All spring, a house has been under construction near our backyard. I watched from my bedroom window as the foundation was dug out using bulldozers and other heavy equipment. A well-built foundation holds the weight of the house and ensures that the walls are straight and everything holds together.

I have heard the story of the two houses since I was a child in Sunday school (read all the way through and you can share in the video remembrance). I've known that foundation = rock = Jesus is the formula for withstanding the trials and storms of life. I had never thought about the difficulty of digging deep to build a foundation. It's hard to dig into soil and make a big hole and empty it out and make it suitable for a concrete or rock foundation.

My favorite and most frustrating question in life is not "why", but "how". How do I build a solid foundation in my life and faith? Truth is to be the foundation of all I do, and John 14:1 says that Jesus IS the truth. So, part of foundation-building involves knowing and understanding the truth of the Bible for myself, and cultivating a relationship with Jesus in which I come to know Him better and better. Some truths are indisputable if I am to build a foundation based on Jesus: Jesus' divinity. His atoning death on the cross. The Trinity. The omnipotence of God. Some truths are less clear and open to interpretation: worship styles, the position of women in the church, the definition of modesty. My job as a believer is to go to the Lord and to the Bible and let God use Himself, His words, and the stories of wise people to build my firm foundation. I also need help to get rid of things in my foundation that will make it weak. As I realize that something I thought was true isn't, I need to dig it out and get rid of it.

Looking back at the passage, the "how" is clearly answered in the second sentence. If I am to build my foundation on a rock, I need to hear the words of Jesus and DO them. The hearing is easy. The doing is much harder. It's not enough to know that I should love my neighbor. I must, by my actions, show love to actual people. Meaning that my wishes, my plans, and my schedule are not sacrosanct. If the Bible says that my speech is to be gracious and without complaining, then I no longer have license for snark and criticism.

I am thankful that, unlike a building's foundation, which is build once and hopefully never needs repair again, my foundation is becoming (I hope) ever more solid as I learn more and more of the truth of Christ and obey more and more of His teachings.

As promised, the song (with the caveat that the second half of it is not exactly good theology, so consider yourself warned):