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.

Contentment or Persistence?

Two posts in one month?? Hold on to your hats!

Much of the Christian life is a paradox. We hear how we are supposed to lay down our life in order to keep it (Luke 17:33), how giving leads to plenty (2 Corinthians 9:6), and how the foolish things of this world are chosen to shame the wise(1 Corinthians 1:27). I have also heard a lot about the benefit of contentment, the two main verses cited being 1 Timothy 6:6: "But godliness with contentment is great gain" (In context, it is an admonishment not to love money or seek riches) and Philippians 4:11-13:

 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

My current question/struggle/wondering is this: What is the balance of being content and in seeking purposefully after what we want? The Bible contains example after example of people who came to the Lord seeking desperately for something they wanted: Hannah wanted a baby (1 Samuel 1), cried out to the Lord while weeping bitterly, and got one (actually, in the end she had six children). Could not someone have told Hannah to be content with her husband and stop longing for children?

Time after time in the New Testament, people come to Jesus to heal them or someone they love. The woman who had bled for twelve years and who fought through a crowd simply to touch Jesus' robe (Luke 8:43-48) wasn't content to stay in her house alone and accept her fate, and she was healed. Two blind beggars wait for Jesus at the side of the road and yell out for Him until He comes, even after the crowd tries to make them stop (Matthew 20:29-34). They do not seem very content with their lot, and they received their sight. The Canaanite woman nags Jesus about her demon-possessed daughter and won't accept "No" even when Jesus initially doesn't promise her help(Matthew 15:21-28). She ends up with a healthy daughter.

Luke 18: 1-8 is the account of the persistent widow. The Bible says about this that: ". . . he[Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart." (Luke 18:1) The parable conveys the idea that we need to keep on praying for what we want. The rest of the account does say that what the Lord will give us is justice (Luke 18:7) and not just anything we want, so I have to keep that in mind when I think about that example. 

Matthew 7:7-11 tells us to ask for what we want, for "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11) In Luke 11:5-13, Jesus expounds on that story, and tells how a man will give a friend bread because of his "impudence" in asking. 

So, which is it? Be content or seek God to change something in your life? Can we do both? Does it depend on what it is?

No surprise to anyone who knows me or who reads this irregular blog regularly, but I am specifically thinking of this question in relationship to singleness (or any desire we have that is not a promise from God). There are many people who give the well-meaning advice of "Just come to a place of contentment. This happened to me (or my friend, or my sister, or my third cousin-once-removed) and THEN God brought me a mate." Yay for you, and there is some truth to that, but Hannah wasn't content in her childlessness and then God just suddenly sent a baby. She was weeping loudly enough that the priest thought she was drunk, and praying HARD for that child.

We are not to have idols, and any unmet desire can easily become an idol, especially when it is a good thing (marriage, a baby, health, security, even someone's salvation). I believe that God's desire is that we would seek Him above what we want. Yet, would the bleeding woman or the blind men or Hannah have come to the Lord without wanting something? They weren't there just to praise God. They were there to fix the problem, to meet the desire, to get what they wanted. 

I wonder how that made Jesus feel? Happy that they did come, sad because it was only to get what they wanted? Or happy because the trial did what it was supposed to and drew them to Him? I was going to say that there are no examples of people coming to Jesus who didn't get healed/rewarded, but there are. The rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-23) walked away. Pilate refused to really find out who Truth was (John 18:33-38) and washed his hands of it all.  

Obviously, many pray persistently for healing and do not receive it on this earth. People pray for children and never conceive. Others pray for spouses and the answer is "No." How do those of us in these situations--any of us who are going to Jesus to seek healing or the fulfillment of godly desires--balance contentment with persistence? Jesus was denied relief from crucifixion. Yet He did go to God seeking it.

If I know myself at all, I know that I am probably wanting a formula when I just need to be seeking Jesus. I do think there is not an easy answer, and I promise never to tell anyone that they just need to be "content" and then God will do whatever it is that they want, because I don't see that in Scripture (and if your heart is anywhere as devious as mine, you also know that you are trying to achieve contentment to gain the goal which. . . not what God has in mind, I'm pretty sure).

My comfort, as we begin the season of advent, is this:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

Immanuel means "God with us" and to have God with me, even though my greedy heart fights for more, is all I really need.

I may never figure out this balance. I come to Jesus all the time with my sinful, mixed-up desires and motives. I will never love like He does. In my own strength I can't seek Him wholeheartedly. Yet the miracle of Christmas and Easter is that God did the seeking and finding for me, and made the way for my sinful self to come before His perfect throne.  This fact is the only paradox that really matters.

The Rest of the Story

Had I but continued reading in Acts 4 yesterday, I would have seen that God used the healed man for even more than the salvation of five thousand people. After Peter shares, he and John are arrested by the Sadducees and and brought before the priests. Peter then testifies of Jesus' power to the rulers of the people. The council was astonished by the eloquence of the uneducated fishermen, and, because of the circumstances of the healing of a man lame since birth, cannot deny that a miracle has happened (Acts 4:13-14):

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

Because of the rock-solid proof of miraculous healing, Peter and John are let go. People in the city are praising God, and when the apostles return to the other believers, they also are strengthened in their faith. We also find out that the man at the gate was over forty years old (Acts 4:22). Forty years of being lame changed in an instant. Forty years of suffering turned into the glory of over five thousand people rescued from hell, Peter and John spared jail, and an entire community of believers emboldened. I want the faith to believe that God is even now orchestrating my life to give Him glory, just as he was this lame beggar's.