But Even If He Doesn't...

Recently I read a blog about Kent Brantly. If you haven't been watching the news, this is the man working for Samaritan's Purse who contracted ebola while caring for ebola patients, was sent to America for medical help, and miraculously recovered. The blog presented a new angle on the doctor's character, saying that while he lay in bed, waiting for potential death, he thought of the men who would be thrown into the furnace if they did not w0rship the king.

If you're like me, you might've done a double-take. Seriously? What does a fiery furnace have to do with potentially dying from a disease? I'm pretty certain I wouldn't start meditating on that, especially if I'm burning up from a fever! And yet Kent Brantly told a source that is what he was meditating on, and to him, it made perfect sense. Like those three Hebrew guys, he said with conviction, "G0d can rescue me...but even if He doesn't..."

The thing that got me was that I've never really thought about a modern-day situation of the fiery furnace in any context other than pe.rsecution. Whether it's ISIS slaughtering people, or a boss trying to convince you to be dishonest with tax forms for the sake of work, in my mind, the modern-day antagonist was always a person. And when we think about those situations, it's easy for us to think we'd jump into gallant action when a physical, personal antagonist threatens our fa!th. Bow down?! Of course we won't! or Lie for the good of the company? Of course not! But when that antagonist becomes ebola, or a miscarriage, or a sudden tragedy, or cancer, can we say with confidence, "G0d can rescue me. He can cure my ebola. He can mend my broken heart. He can raise the dead. He can purge the cancer from my body. But even if he doesn't..."

"But even if he doesn't..." what, exactly? What is a modern translation of, "We still won't bow down?" It's easy for us to say we won't bow down to someone, but what about a thing, an ideal, a dream? Can we truly say that even if He doesn't rescue us from horrible diseases or experiences, we won't bow down to self-pity, or anger, or bitterness, or hatred, or envy, or distrusting G0d? I wonder how Brantly would finish that phrase. Even if he was dying, he wouldn't give up hope or renounce G0d? Can we say we still trust the Father, even when He doesn't save us? Some sobering thoughts to think about.

Do We Throw Off or Throw Up?

It's Easter time, and that means we're inundated with Spring fashion commercials, candy "sales" in the grocery store, colleagues comparing notes on what they're giving up for lent, and of course, Christian comments left and right on Facebook about Easter and Jesus dying for our sins. And if you're like me and you've grown up in the church, or you've been going to church for a while, it might just seem like the same old Easter we have every year. Jesus died for our sins, he rose again, we're forgiven. That's all. We've heard it, we know it, we've memorized the songs and verses that talk about it. But what does Easter really mean for us, and how should it impact us--every minute of our lives?

This afternoon, I was reading Isaiah 58 (thanks Beth Moore study!) and came across a startling statement. Isaiah is talking about how people "fast" selfishly, and in ways that harm others, and then the same people ask why they don't hear from God. Isaiah says, "Duh! Stop the sinful behavior!" He points out that the people need to stop gossiping and pointing fingers and start helping those in need. But the thing that stuck out to me was verse 9, where it says that they also need to "take away the yoke from your midst."

Call me crazy, but I've always thought that it was God who was supposed to take away our yokes. Not that he would take our literal wooden boards that link oxen and plow together, but our figurative yoke of burdens and slavery to sin. Isn't God the one who's supposed to take away the yoke from our midst, not us? That is, after all, why Jesus died, right?

As I sat, puzzled about this passage, I was reminded of a comment someone said to me earlier in the week: "You need to live in Christ's freedom."

I like picture analogies, so here we go: a picture of this cute little Vietnamese dog at a hotel I stayed in last weekend.

I kept trying to get the dog to move from behind the door, but it wouldn't, and I was perplexed. Its chain was long enough to allow it to roam around the whole front of the house, or even the whole front "yard," but it chose to stay in this little, itty bitty, tiny space behind the door. Maybe it felt safer there, or it was too lazy to move. Whatever the reason, it chose not to live in freedom.

You may have guessed it already, but we can be like that dog when we think about the Resurrection and the freedom that comes with it. Christ has already died and risen. He's payed for all of our sins and heavy yokes, and yet sometimes we still choose to live in those sins. Maybe the sin comforts us, or ridding ourselves of the sin is more complex than sure willpower. Maybe ridding ourselves of the sin requires some uncomfortable conversations, counseling or accountability. Maybe, we're continually stuck on our failures, believing that God can't forgive me my sin, because it's an awful sin. We believe we're saved, but we don't believe we've found forgiveness, or we don't believe we'll ever be free of the sin. So we stay in our little sinful corner, when if we just stepped out, we'd experience freedom in Christ we didn't think we'd ever experience. It's not complete freedom from all sin, but there is freedom--and we're called to strive for that freedom. Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (emphasis added).

If we're saved, there seems to be a two-part process of freedom. Step 1: Jesus died to free us. It's already happened, done, finished. Step 2: We live as free people. We need to avoid being burdened by the yoke of sin again. We need to "throw off everything that hiders [us] and the sin that so easily entangles [us]" (Hebrews 12:1) Easily said, hard to do, I know. But we need to actively fight the yoke of sin in our lives, knowing that we are already free, rather than throwing up our hands in defeat.

So will we throw off or throw up this Easter? Will we throw off all sin that entangles, and know that even as we sin again, God's grace still covers us, and we can still live in freedom? Or will we throw up our hands in defeat, believing that our sin is so much greater than God? This Easter and every day, I hope we will all live in freedom, believing, as a poet once wrote, that "Death is dead, and I am free, for Christ who died, He died for me!"

A Real Woman: Thoughts about Beauty and A Poem ReWritten

What is a real woman? If you asked most of my preteen students, they would likely tell you that a real woman has boobs that she flaunts and wears a tight mini-skirt (with legs that kill). She wears eyeliner all of the time. But most importantly, she will do anything, including back-stabbing and physically confronting and attacking, to defend herself and her reputation. To tell these girls to "walk away" from a fight was like telling them to come to school in their underwear; it would ruin their reputation and they would be the laughing stock of the school.
A recent conversation I had with students reminded me of the preteen view of womanhood. I was holding several girls during lunch for lunch detention. During this time, Hope*, a very spunky, say-it-like-it-is 6th grade girl, started justifying why she passed a note during class.  __________ [insert name of female student] said _____________ [insert biggest insult imaginable] about Hope. She said she couldn't just let the other girl get away with the gossip, so she had to fight back by spreading rumors of her own. Of course Hope knew that passing notes and starting rumors was wrong, but in her mind, it was justified. That's when I realized I needed to take a step back. This was all about her value, how she is valued, and her reputation, not really about passing notes during English class.
Who knows if she and the other girls involved in the note-passing situation even really heard me, but in a last-ditch effort, I looked at them and said, "You need to remember how beautiful and valued you are--each of you! You need to hold your head up high and walk on by, as if to say," I demonstrated my best  head whip and finger snap, "'I'm better than that. I know my value. I know my worth, and nothing you can say will change that!' Let it roll off you, forget about it, and remember how valuable you are."
So it's with these thoughts in mind that I decided to rewrite "If" by Rudyard Kipling. A classic poem that my students read, Kipling's poem contemplates value and worth of a man and manhood and what it means to be a man of integrity in a difficult world. I'm no Rudyard Kipling, but I thought I'd share a Christian female version of this poem. This is the first draft.

The Kingdom is Yours

Female Version of Rudyard Kipling’s “If”

If you can keep your values when all around you

Are losing theirs for popularity, to fit in

If you can believe your worth and beauty

Yet not be vain, nor degrading, nor sin,

If you can wait for love, and tire not of waiting,

Or being gossiped about, not deal in lies,

Or being rejected, not take joy in rejecting,

Or being heart-broken, not languish in lovers’ sighs

If you can still dream, though dreams be shattered,

Put your faith in God, though hope seems far away,

If you can look for promises in the broken world,

And wake up with faith and joy each day,

If you can find peace in the turbulent storms,

And find joy though it be scarce to find,

And if you can accept the pain and suffering,

Yet not let grief consume your mind,

If you can meet with Death and Disaster,

And laugh in their faces a haughty laugh,

And take joy in the beauty of creation,

Without being lost on the world’s path,

And if you can hold your head high when others doubt you,

And walk past them knowing who you are inside,

And if you can listen to their critiques and criticisms

Yet always let the Lord be your guide,

If you can  stand strong when friends dessert you,

Persevere when others say they are through,

Walk by faith when sight no longer avails you,

And all around you try to stop you, too,

If you can wear the crown proudly,

Yet still be a servant, meek and mild,

Yours is the kingdom, and everything in it

And what is more, you’ll be a woman, my child!

*Hope is not the student's real name.

It's Imperfection

There's nothing we love more than someone showing us our faults. Am I right? You can probably sniff the sarcasm oozing from that first line! We all HATE when someone tells us something that we probably know. We also can be mortified to be told that something we thought we were doing well at is completely wrong.

Case in point: A few months ago, my personal trainer showed me how to do shoulder presses with free weights. Since I only see him once a week, and we often will switch up the routines, it wasn't until maybe a month later that he told me I was doing it all wrong. What? All wrong? But you showed me how to do this! He laughed and commented that it was no wonder I could lift the weights so easily--I wasn't working the right muscles! I was a little discouraged at that point. Ironically, it actually took another month or so until I learned to do shoulder presses the right way! It shows you how coordinated I am!

Why is it, though, that we hate being told we're wrong? Why is it that we have the tendency to make excuses or deny things, when in actuality, the other person is right? Of course it comes down to our pride. I'd venture to say, though, that it's also such pride that is our culture's Achilles heel when it comes to sharing the g0spel and following a "re1igi0n."

When we look at the magazines, the TV ads, the TV shows, the music videos, what do we see? Ask any teen girl, or likely many women for that matter, and many would say or imply "perfection." When girls and women strive to look attractive, they compare themselves to these women on TV. These air-brushed, plastic-surguried, make-up done, extension-wearing women are our models for beauty, and when it comes to our own idea of beauty, we're not content because we're not like THEM. Yet at the same time, we'll comment on the air-brushing, we know they have hair dressers and make-up artists at their beckon, and we know that we shouldn't hold those women up as perfection because, let's face it, it'd be impossible to have J-Lo's body. We strive for perfection, knowing in the back of our minds that it's not actually possible. There's this odd dichotomy of fake perfectionism and reality.

Let's take a more painful look at fakism, now. What does an average person think about "re1igi0us" people? Most people I've spoken with would say that they are fake. They say one thing, but do something different. They claim to be perfect, yet they condemn other people. And when you look at history and the re1igi0us people on TV, you have to admit that they don't all give a good name to re1igi0n or chris ianity. What the world sees is a bunch of bigots who yell at women who are in sensitive times of their lives (pregnant), tell people that they're going to he11, and use re1igi0n as an excuse to make themselves feel better and more h01y.

The question that I have had to ask myself is: "How am I living? Am I fulfilling the culture's expectation of what a re1igi0us person is, or am I living a life filled with grce?" At first, I thought that I shouldn't let my guard down when sharing my Story. Aren't we supposed to show people we're strong so that they will want to also have a Story? Who wants to be weak? Shouldn't I act perfect? The irony is that most people seem to appreciate real people, not fake people. It could be because we don't have to compete with the looks of a "fake" person, but really, I think it's because the world is not as it should be. There are difficulties, and no one should minimize or deny the difficulties, the pain, and the suffering. If you sugar-coat difficulties, you end up with a half-baked, fake g0spe1 that people don't want to hear. They don't want to be condemned by "perfect" chris ians, and they don't want to hear that the real difficulties are nothing. In a fake world, many look for authenticity--in actors/actresses, politicians, and yes, "re1igi0us" people.

So we need to strive to not be "prefect," or rather, to show our imperfections. The exciting thing is that G0d says that it's in our weakness that He is strong and made perfect. I love reading the prophets, because in many of them they are nervous about serving, but G0d says to not be afraid, that He will use them in their weakness. The key is being vulnerable enough to expose our imperfections.

The cool thing is that G0d gave me an opportunity to speak with someone about this. For a long time, he lumped all re1igi0ns together. Finally, the eureka moment came when I commented that he thought I was weak, and that actually, to be a chris ian, you had to admit you were not perfect and weak. I'm not sure what will happen with that, but I do know that that was the first time he had ever heard that We were not supposed to be prideful. I told him that if someone was judging and condemning him, then they did not truly understand what the Story meant. Because it's not the well who need the doctor; it's the Imperfect.

*In view of going censorship and in preparation for going overseas, I will be mispelling/abbreviating any re1igi0us terms. If you comment on the blog, please either do the same or avoid using re1igi0us terms.

Be Careful What You Pray For!

Had I written this blog earlier this week, I would have written a long, long list of complaints about the public school system and the political system that so lovingly created the high-stakes No Child Left Behind Act (and the consequences that my school is experiencing as a result of this). I probably would have also moaned and groaned about how awful I feel my school is and how unfair God is. But then I guess God did a little nudging in the form of a memory of a previous prayer...Actually, many previous prayers...

Lord, I pray you would give me clear direction about this three-year committment. Help me to know whether to stay at this school or not. Give me peace about my decision.

Often when we pray something like this, we tend to focus on the positive. We want peace about leaving. We want something better to appear with bright blinking lights so we know that that is in fact where God wants us. But what if God used the negative aspect of our prayer or the situation to move us instead? What if, instead of giving us peace about leaving, He gives us unrest about staying? I found myself in this full realization, humbled and ashamed at how much I have complained about the difficult situation when in reality, I think that the events of this week gave me the clearest direction yet. Similarly, when we think God is calling us somewhere and the door slams in our face, is it not the answer we were looking for? Sometimes I think we pray with our own agenda in mind and are often surprised when God answers us in a different way. We don't want to be in uncomfortable circumstances, but in reality, they often lead us in the direction God wants us.

On a slightly related thought, I've been thinking about how it seems a lot of my job security, what was my world, has come crashing down around me. This morning, I read Psalm 46, which says, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea..." I've often only read this passage literally, that the Psalmist was maybe writing about war or natural disasters. Or maybe he was exaggerating difficult times, and saying IF the mountains were to fall into the seas, God would be a refuge. But this morning I was struck by how similar the idea of mountains crashing into the sea was to how I felt my life was crashing down around me. It's comforting to know that God is an "ever-present help."

What more can I say? I guess at this point, I'm wiping egg off my face and learning to not complain as much. At times, I feel I'm an impatient two-year old, stomping her feet and throwing fits when God gives me what I asked for. God, give me patience, but don't make me wait; give me direction, but don't give me discontentment; give me perseverance, but don't give me these trials; give me love, but don't give me these difficult students. I guess I need to be more concious of what I pray for, and more alert to God's use of various events in my life.

Peace on Earth...In a Crazy World!

What does peace on earth look like? When beauty pageants speak of this peace, their vision is a world without war, generally speaking. So when the angels declared that there would be peace on earth, people might have logically expected that this Messiah would be a king who would bring about peace for Isreal, so that they would no longer be under Roman rule.

It's interesting, though, that while many Christmas carols address peace on earth, the NIV in Luke 2:14 says, "...and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." The ESV says, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” While having peace on earth for all men is nice, that's not what the angels seem to be talking about, nor do they seem to be saying that all people on Earth will experience peace because Jesus is born. No. The angels seem to be specifically addressing those who please God--that they will experience peace.

Who pleases God? Hebrews 11 seems to directly address this when the writer states, "and without faith, it is impossible to please God. For those who come to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." There are many other passages that we could look at, but suffice it to say that the angels seem to imply that the peace is for God's elect (Christians), not everyone.

Theological terminology aside, what does this peace mean practically? How does it (or should it) impact our daily lives? I've been asking myself this question these past few weeks as life has gotten overwhelmingly busy. The curriculum developers changed our curriculum but did not give us resources, causing us to spend 2-4 hours each day creating resources. Our administrators are passing the buck, forcing us to do all of the parent contacting (even for major refferels). The county is requiring we spend every day in some sort of meeting, so we often only have 48 minutes or less to do anything on our own. Mounds of ungraded papers continue to pile up because all of my time is spent prepping the lesson for the next day! And by February, we have to determine whether we're staying at the school for three years or leaving, and if we leave, we have to start getting our resumes out. A LOT of stress! Many people have stresses other than work--running kids around, cooking, cleaning, taking care of toddlers/babies, laundry--and its cyclical, too. It may seem like you're never done with laundry or cleaning--once it's clean, it becomes dirty again. Many have big decisions about work as well. How can we live in this "peace" that we're supposed to have in this crazy world?

Maybe I'm completely off here, but it seems that peace is related to rest. It's late and I'm losing my train of thoughts, but I'm going to continue to explore this idea of peace and rest throughout this holiday season. One verse I found is Psalm 62:5, which says, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him." I think I need to start and end my day reflecting on this truth, for starters!

When We Don't Know Our Needs

I was driving down 108 from Columbia Mall, car running on fumes, with two thoughts on my mind: Lord, let me find a gas station soon! and Do I really need this money? I had just met with someone I'll be tutoring, someone who insisted he pay me up front: $300 in cash. I really don't need extra money, but I felt a small voice say, It's my provision for you. I really am not in any hard place, and really offered to help more out of helping a friend than getting pay. The comment didn't make sense to me, but I forgot about it as I began to realize that if I did not find a gas station soon, I'd be stranded on the side of the road. Suddennly, I saw it: a small, little off-brand gas station with the cheapest gas I'd seen. As I eagerly turned in to the gas station, I read a sign that said, "Cash only." Then I understood. Had I not gotten paid in cash, I would not have had any cash to get gas.

It's neat how God provides for us before we know we need provision, which makes me think more closely about my life. How many frustrations in my life are there because of God's provision? If the frustrations at work are causing me to think about a new "career," then should I really view these frustrations as trials, or as God's way of nudging me? Just a thought as we enter the season of giving. God provided His Son, but he also provides for us every days. His mercies are new every day.