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.

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.

Francis Shaeffer and the Undead (Zombie Theology)

What? Two posts in one week? Pick yourself off of the floor!

As regular readers know, I have been keeping up with season four of "The Walking Dead" (TWD). I've been trying to figure out my fascination with it.  I hate blood and gore, of which there are plenty on the show, so I spend many minutes with my eyes closed. I like happy endings, and happy stories, and happy people. Not so far, not too many, and not too often. Yet I am hooked.

I am also reading Francis Schaeffer's book, True Spirituality.Schaeffer was a Christian theologian who lived from 1912-1984. True Spirituality tells of Schaeffer's examination of his faith and exposition of what it means to live life, real life, as a believer in Christ. I will confess: I've only read the first two chapters. However unlikely, the first chapter of Schaeffer's book gives me a clue why I am so fascinated with "The Walking Dead."

Schaeffer posits in the first chapter (as I understand it), that the breaking of the ten commandments (and, by extension, all sin) is rooted in the inward sin of covetousness. He states, on page seven:

We must see that to love God with all the heart, mind, and soul is not to covet against God; and to love man, to love our neighbor as ourselves, is not to covet against man. When I do not love the Lord as I should, I am coveting against the Lord. And when I do not love my neighbor as I should, I am coveting against him.

Schaeffer sees coveting as wanting something other than what God has given and believing that God is wrong in what He gives, and as wanting what someone else has. For most of us, once we are past the age of about ten, coveting is inward. We don't just tell our friend that we want their cute clothes or their great car or their wonderful boyfriend. But we think it. As adults, many of us struggle with wanting someone else's talents or looks or relationships. We don't much talk about it, but it's always there, under the surface.

Zombies on TWD (disclaimer: I am not an expert on the genre or mythology of zombies) have one goal: To eat. They have one preferred food: Human flesh. They want what they want, they want it now, and they don't care who gets hurt in the process. Their one and only purpose is keeping themselves alive (well, kind of, in an undead sort of way).

Zombies, to me, are the graphic image of the sin nature that is at the core of each of us. We hide it, we dress it up, we fight it, but each of us have needs or desires that we pursue with single-mindedness and without much caring whether someone else gets hurt as long as we get what we want. In our lives, the sin is usually disguised, but, in our worst moments, most of us recognize that we really do want what we want and intend to get it.

The people on TWD are not yet zombies (spoiler alert if you've never watched), but as soon as they die, that's what they become. They are "zombies walking" who have only two fates: To become a zombie or to have their brain destroyed as soon as they die to prevent this. There is no cure. I have not read the comic book series upon which the show is based, so I don't know if a cure is ever found.

All of us are "zombies walking" in the sense that we are sick with sin. There is no human cure. I can try really, really hard, but I will still internally covet something someone else has. Schaeffer puts it like this: "'Thou shalt not covet' is the internal commandment that shows the man who thinks himself to be moral that he really needs a Savior." (p. 7)

The characters on TWD need to be rescued. They need someone to save them from death. I need to be rescued. I need someone to save me from death. If I were writing TWD, there would be a rescuer. There would be a savior. In my life, God sends a rescuer. He sends a savior. The raging zombie of sin has been forgiven and redeemed by the love of Jesus. I am no longer enslaved to covetousness. I no longer have to fear death:

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed[emphasis mine]. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory?    O death, where is your sting?”The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57)

Dead Men Walkers

One thing I love about God is how He uses all of life to show us more about Him, including both popular shows about zombies and Christian concerts (one perhaps more surprising than the other). I was fortunate enough to get to go to the Chris Tomlin concert at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis Saturday night. The experience was great--8000 people all worshiping the Lord together. Near the end of the concert, Chris Tomlin remarked that sin doesn't make us more bad, it makes us dead.

I have probably heard that before. I know very well Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Yet the way Tomlin worded it struck home. I am not a good person who sins and therefore is now a bad person. I am a person whose sin is killing me, and I can't do anything about it.

As those of you who know me in real life have noticed, and those of you who read the last blog post may remember, I am slightly obsessed with "The Walking Dead" right now. I have watched 15 episodes in the last two weeks. Basic plot, for the uninitiated: For an unknown reason (and if you find out later, don't tell me yet), people have become infected with something that turns them into zombies. If they are bitten or scratched or killed, they come back as "walkers"(also known in the zombie genre as the undead) whose only goal in life is to eat (and they eat people, if you were unclear). 

Across the zombie world, the theme is consistent that once you are a zombie, there is no hope. The goal of the surviving humans is to avoid contamination (and death) from the walkers. As I thought about the truth that sin makes me dead, it brought to mind the walkers. Part of what is terrifying about zombies is that they can contaminate us, and that once they do, our life is over. There is no cure. You are doomed to a shadow life of knowing only one thought: Hunger. The goal of survivors is to avoid contamination, because there is no way to escape once you have been bitten. To avoid contamination requires never-ending vigilance, because the zombies are relentless, and there are scores of them. You can kill them, but there are always more coming.

Think of how the shows/movies/graphic novels about zombies turn out if a cure is found. Think how desperately you would search for one if zombies were real and if you were infected. Imagine the gratitude you would have toward whomever found the cure. It would be miraculous. The whole plot would change. A happy ending would be possible.

I want to see and understand that Jesus loving me and offering me a cure for my sin changes the plot of my life. It gives me a happy ending. It relocates me from the camp of the walkers, destined only for death, to the camp of the survivors who will live forever. I no longer need to fear the infection of evil, and I can focus on something other than hunger. 

Walkers don't injure you. They doom you.  Sin doesn't make us bad. It kills us. Jesus doesn't make us good. He saves us.

God's Got It

Happy first week of 2012!  Once again, I am unduly excited to be finished with the minor prophets and Revelation and back reading in Genesis and the gospels.   I wonder if I will be 90 years old and still saying, "I can't believe how God can show me something new in a verse I have read a million times!"?  Last year I participated in a memory verse activity through Beth Moore's blog community (Living Proof Ministries Blog).  One of the verses I chose to memorize was Proverbs 28:13:  "Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,  but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy."

Probably I am the only person who has ever done this, but when I picked that verse, I had a specific situation in mind.  I hoped that by sharing this verse in "public" as it were, maybe someone would be convicted (by my holy promptings) to do what I thought they should do.  Yeah, that didn't work.  As I re-visit this verse, I notice something new.  My focus had been on how this person should confess so that they can obtain mercy (and do the right thing).  I missed the beginning, which was that if they didn't, they wouldn't prosper.  God has given us built-in consequences.  None of us can conceal sin indefinitely, and, even if we appear to be successfully deceiving people, we will not prosper.  There will be some area of lack, some deficiency as a result of deception. 

I was encouraged to see this not because I want someone else to suffer consequences, but because it reminds me that God has it under control.  He knows what His children are doing.  He sees when we are hurt by someone's sin, and He sees when my sin hurts someone else.  He is not oblivious to how we are living, and, like I remind my students when they tattle by asking them if they are "the cop of sitting on the carpet" or "person in charge of being quiet", I am not the "Police Officer of the Universe."   Thank God for that.

The Original "No-Spin Zone"

Happy New Year! I am so happy to be starting over in the Bible with Genesis and Matthew. I know that all Scripture is God-breathed, but I have a hard time with the minor prophets and Revelation, which is where I've been reading for the past few weeks. The first chapter in Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ. Now, sometimes (just SOMEtimes) I skip, or at least skim, the genealogies. In light of it being the first day of 2011, fresh with the possibility of being deliberate and thoughtful and purposeful in my reading (and because I'm on break still), I read it carefully. The second part of verse six is what I noticed:

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah

Really? The first chapter of the first book of the New Testament and we're airing that dirty laundry? Solomon is David's by Bathsheba, who is Uriah's wife? Did we need to tell that? Uriah was already dead by the time Solomon was conceived. Why share that information?

Maybe to show that God's plans will prevail no matter our sin? Maybe to remind us that God's grace is bigger than our mistakes (even BIG mistakes like adultery and murder)? Maybe to spotlight the Lord rather than His fallible leaders? Maybe to illustrate that the truth will set us free (John 8:32)?

I'm not sure why Matthew chose that phrase over something more positive or more neutral or more gracious. Sometimes I am frustrated by the pervasive attitude in many churches that negative or unsavory facts should be couched in a positive, skirting-the-real-issue sort of way. "David is the father of Solomon by his wife, Bathsheba" is what most of our church missives would have read. Yes, we need to be gracious about other people, not gossip, and choose to believe the best about others. But there are times when the truth and the facts need to be baldly stated so that all of us can see the glory of God as it contrasts with our sin and the sovereignty of the Lord as He accomplishes His purpose in spite of us.

Call a Spade a Spade

The Bible contains lots and lots of verses about loving our enemies, overlooking an offense, and forgiving. However, I think sometimes that Christians can take this to the extreme. By this statement I don't mean that we take the actions of loving, overlooking, or forgiving to an extreme, but that, in the process, we stop calling what is sin "sin," or evil "evil."

Proverbs 17:15:
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.

People do wicked things. I do wicked things. We lie, we gossip, we cheat, we seek our own interests. All of those actions are sin. It doesn't help me for you to justify me in my sin. I think the loving, overlooking, and forgiving are so difficult because, to truly do them, we have to acknowledge that we are loving sinful people. We are overlooking wrong. We are forgiving wickedness.

The truth and miracle of the gospel is that Jesus died for wicked sinners--and that is me and that is you. The grace we are given is unmerited, unearned, unfathomable. I think we dull this reality for ourselves and others when we minimize the sin and evil in the world.

Romans 5:7-8:
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.