Too Good to be True: You're Not Breaking the Law

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I know some people think The Shack (the book by William P. Young, not the shack pictured above) has dangerously false ideas in it. Maybe it does. But I think most or maybe all books can contain truths that set people free if handled/interpreted properly, or harm people if misused. I have no doubt that a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led person reading The Shack would be more blessed than harmed by its contents. I recommend this book highly to everyone with the caution that some of it is cheesily and badly written, but the best parts more than make up for the worst.

In The Shack one of the members of the Trinity (I forget which, beautifully, in this case I don't think it matters) says, “The Law that once contained impossible demands—‘Thou shall not…’—actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.” This was a transformative thing for me to read. In this case, that means I haven't forgotten or gotten sick of the idea, even many months later, and I continue to find new applications for it. A few Scriptures jump out to me as lining up with this idea. Romans 12:1-2 exhorts us “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” It doesn’t say, “transform yourself,” but “be transformed,” and we as are also incapable of renewing our own minds, that clause, too, puts us in the being-acted-upon category rather than that of the agent: promises are fulfilled in us.

I’ll make a plug here for an idea I heard long ago at Hillsong London and then again briefly at my prayer meeting in St. Claude Thursday night. This is important. What is God's will? How can one discern it? How can you make choices that line up with his will? Good news, pastors say, it's simple: God’s will is always for you to live in such close relationship with him that you can’t help but do good, whether you realize it or not. It might not matter where you live, for example, as long as while you are there you are walking hand in hand with God, seeking him, trusting him, listening for his voice and heeding it when it comes. Same for what job you pick, and maybe other things too. So discerning God’s will might not be hearing your five-year-plan from him one particularly intense prayer night and jotting it down so you can hit all the highlights as they come up. His good, pleasing, and perfect will is for you to love him with all you have, and to love your neighbor, and put their needs on at least equal footing with your own, if not putting them first, depending on the verse you’re currently meditating on. :o) You can start doing this with whoever you interact with next. God’s will. What a blessing to be inside it. How great that you can be there the second you turn to him in faith and pursue him.

All of Romans chapter 8 is a delight to read. I’ll put just a few verses here (though there are more along these same lines) for brevity’s sake. “…And so [God] condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what the nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. […] You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” (Romans 8:3b-9a)

I mean, this is neat. If you say Jesus is Lord and mean it--as opposed to saying it just to say it or because you’ve heard other people say it--the Spirit of God is in you (because "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit" 1 Corinthians 12:3b). So if you believe Jesus is Lord, then you are controlled by the Spirit and not the sinful nature. And if that is the case, then simply by living you are fulfilling the demands of the law rather than breaking it. And the demands of the law are totally impossible for humans to keep, so this is the sort of thing that is too good to be true, but is found within God’s promises and is thus still somehow true.

Guilt and Giving

Sometimes I think about how I could be doing more for poor people (what? I don't know. All I can think of is walking up to random hobos with a hot meal, or giving money whenever you're asked for it, or taking on several Compassion children). And sometimes, this makes me panic.

I had a fantastic Christmas this year. In every way. I was richly blessed relationally and materially. German relatives who I had previously met about once opened up their homes and schedules to me. I have had really fun and interesting experiences with nice, smart, funny people who really seem to care about me, and on top of that I've gotten some great gifts. And some money. Like, more than I've ever gotten at one holiday in my entire life. And this money really starts to make me panic. Do I have to tithe it? How much do I have to give away? It would be copping out not to give away all of it, what about that verse about selling everything you own to give to the poor? Isn't it ridiculous to give it all away? And to whom? And wouldn't I feel so weird about it that I wouldn't even be glad I had done so?

These are dumb questions, I decided. They smack of fear and legalism, and panic is of the devil. This is what I think:

We don't have to walk around feeling guilty about our lack of deeds/giving. As long as we feel guilty, we are incapable of doing said deeds out of anything but obligation, and they are meaningless unless we do them in love. It's hard for me to accept grace, God's timing, waiting, but if we insist on forcing the deeds, it's declaring God's outrageous, extravagant love isn't enough. His grace that would love us no less even if we never helped another person again, is offensive, but I need to accept that as truth and not fret about my apparent lack of giving back. Everything in its time.

Obviously I think giving back is incredibly important, because it reflects the state of the heart. But I think if we are spending time with God and allowing him to give us a heart just like his, the desire to give will bubble up inside of us, and we can give joyfully out of that.

And fyi, I don't think each good deed and act of giving has to be specifically called out by God in advance. I am just processing through this idea of living guilt-free. I am deciding more and more that everything in the world is so interconnected that we have chances every day to either fight oppression or look the other way: oppression of animals (eating meat at a fast food restaurant), of people (some friends have been telling me chocolate is made by slavery, and I've heard a lot of cheaper clothing is manufactured in sweatshops), or of the earth (being wasteful). We can shop at fair trade stores and buy products that didn't take advantage of anyone before making it to us.

I realize those decisions are all deeds or works, but they have far less guilt and panic attached to them than straight up cash. I am sure we were not meant to live in guilt and panic.

I found some Scriptures that helped me:

"...Rebekah's children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins had done anything good or bad -- in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls-- she was told, "The older one will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy." -Romans 9:10-16

We can't work or give our way out of guilt. We can't work or give our way out of anything. God is doing the heavy lifting, doing all the work there is to do, we're on his team, contributing the strengths that he gifted us with to help, and enjoying him in the process.

This one is better:

"I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the LORD Almighty." -Isaiah 45:13

It startled me, and even seemed random. But this is what I got: The Lord is raising up Cyrus. Cyrus is doing his own thing in the sense that he has free will, but is doing God's thing in the sense that he's being animated and guided by God into his good works. Just like all of us. The mistake is in thinking there's separation there, like God does something, and then separately we work out our own other thing. We ought to accept that God promises as long as we seek him, he is doing stuff through us whether or not we are aware of it all the time. Cyrus is not doing those wonderful deeds to impress God or assuage his own guilt in any way, but by divine initiative.

There's always more we can be doing and more we can be giving. But God's Christmas gift to us 365 days a year is not to be panicky or guilty about this fact, because he knows us, and he will use us.

If you are reading this, I'd love to hear what you think. I of course don't want to unintentionally become callous to other peoples' problems while I wait for God to move in a way that may not be what I am expecting.

Dirty Jokes and God in Nature

I've always loved the metaphor of God illuminating the universe the way the sun illuminates earth. We'd be hopeless and lightless without Him, and He gives us life so naturally that we take Him for granted at times. Also there is not one thing we could do to stop Him from giving to us, though we could build somewhere we could hide in the shade, though we'd do that by the light of the sun, aka by the life and creativity He shares with us. Then there are places like caves that are not man-made but are naturally ways to escape the light, or, like, places we could go that are not conducive to receiving light and life. But that's a digression. The thing I hadn't thought of before is that nighttimes are not an accident. It's not as though something has gone horribly awry each night and we need to panic. Because the sun always comes up again, we simply trust that it will the next morning and sleep in peace.

If God seems distant for a time, that doesn't mean that we need to freak out and start trying to "relight the sun" by our own power. There are just different seasons for different things. We need to live and trust as though He's going to come back, because He will. Even on cloudy days when the sun is hidden, it's still the way we can see everything, even if we can't see it. And lastly, the moon gives light on most nights, but the moon is only reflecting the sun.

I see this-all (God sort of resembles self-evident things we can understand) as related but not the same as Romans 1:20 (NLT:) For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

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Now for dirty jokes. First of all, I think those are the funniest jokes. But I had a great conversation today that made me rethink some stuff. I went to a public high school, and because of that, I am aware of some humor that many home-schoolers (or people raised in a really restrictive home environment) will never understand (this is not me being sassy, it's a fact). This humor almost certainly falls under the category of coarse talk and foolish joking (Ephesians 5:4). I used to be proud of how I could get almost any joke, no matter how gross, proud of how I knew the normal definitions on urban dictionary (there's plenty of stuff on there that no one ever actually uses, so you can't blindly trust it) and was conversant in how to use them. The reason is because it seems more sophisticated, and, well, intelligent, to be able to understand, and furthermore, appreciate, a higher percentage of what's being said. In a way, I would pity those who didn't get it. A whole world out there they didn't understand, and didn't know they didn't understand.

The friend I spoke to today said something like, one's purity of heart may mean that they understand a smaller percentage of the jokes being made around them. This started me thinking, but better yet, they told an improv story. (Names omitted) She said a visiting university's improv troupe, for whom usually no subject was off limits, did a show at a Christian college. The Christian improvisers warned the visitors, "okay, you have to be squeaky clean here, you can't just say anything" and the visitors agreed. During the joint show, the normally-dirty improvisers had no idea what subjects were okay, so they challenged themselves to stay way away from anything slightly controversial. My friend thinks they were even funnier than the Christians who were fluent in the boundaries and stepped quite close to them, knowing what was fine and what wasn't.

Normally I am not huge on risks and challenges but something about the use of the term "challenge," really... reshuffled my mental cards on this matter (Ha. I've never used that metaphor before, or even heard it, ever, but it's exactly what I mean). Maybe being dirtier is not a sign of being smarter, but a sign of being lazier. Maybe you are not more sophisticated if you get more jokes, but instead you're less discerning. Maybe you're avoiding the real challenge, not rising to one.

After all, we call them dirty jokes, and dirtiness is another of those natural things that are self-evident and easily understood. What's harder, to stay dirty or to stay clean? You get dirty without even trying. Cleanliness requires a repeated effort. It doesn't just happen. It's more of a challenge than the alternative. Someone who manages to stay clean or pure should be honored, not pitied. It isn't easy to resist suggestive humor to the extent that you don't even get it. As they say, if you go with the flow you'll end up in a mud puddle at the bottom of the hill. Until now, I've been picking the lazy way out and, stupidly, being proud of that choice.

Lastly, I feel like God's reminding me how cynical I've become and how far I've gotten from a simple, childlike trust in Him. I like to think of how children watch movies (even kids movies) and their parents laugh at what seems like random times to them because they don't get all the nuances yet. I used to glory in being "the adult" no matter what movie it was, but God tells us His kingdom belongs to little children (Luke 18:16) and you must be like them to get into it (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15).

All or Nothing

A few weeks ago, one of my roommates read in a book that a psychologist could predict how well a marriage will fare after just 15 minutes of watching the couple. They predicted with great accuracy whether the couple would divorce just from seeing them interact for that short amount of time.

When she relayed this to me, I was totally not surprised. I have (had? past tense?) this tenuous idea that we live each moment the way we want to, over and over again, almost regardless of our outward circumstances. It's similar logic to that study that showed people are about the same level of happiness for their whole lives. It's like that saying, life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it.

Unfortunately, that idea has some flaws. Notably, I've been having a sort of weird couple of weeks. During the past school year I felt great about where all my time was going. I spent tons of time with people I loved, and I felt like most of my time (apart from the odd Saturday..) was purposeful and productive and helpful for the long term. So I was happy to drift deeper and deeper into the idea that I had just reached a new height of understanding in life, and I would never go back, and I had an enormous amount of control over my life, because I alone could decide my reaction to it.

Basically I decided that I must act in a consistent way at all times, not only a consistent way but a way that I will be glad I lived in the future. I reasoned that if I string together awesome seconds, the result will be an awesome life. That's great logic! I'm a great logician. Enter real life.

Now that I feel sort of unsettled some of the time, sort of vaguely disconnected from God (probably because my job has kept me from going to church for 3 of the past 4 Sundays), and less like He is speaking to me (because I've been sort of doubting I can hear Him the way I once thought I could), and most of all, just.. like... ready for the next big thing; now that all that is true, I can't just be like "I'm fine if every day for the rest of my life is like this day." Or insert "moment" for "day."

Thus, this new idea I just scribbled in my planner as a note-to-self: "It's okay that some days and moments are darker than others, and it's more than okay--it's accurate--to know you're walking into eternal brightness and each day can get brighter and brighter into eternity."

Things will ebb and flow, but I know that the more I know Jesus, the more light He will bring into my life. It will be a good thing if not every day is like this day, because they will be sweeter as I come to know more of God's character, even if my surface level emotions don't always reflect the deeper joy.

If that sounds cheesy, just know that I really believe it. If it helps, I don't think life naturally tends to get better for everyone. In fact, I think it gets worse if we don't fight the encroaching darkness. I specifically think things will improve in the context of coming to personally know Jesus Christ. Like Romans 8:28, I think things work together for the good of those who love God & have been called according to His purposes. But sadly, the verse doesn't sound like it's saying all things work together for the good of every single person.

Psalm 36:9 promises light to those who look: "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light." (NIV) Other versions say things like "by your light we see light" and The Message says, " You're a fountain of cascading light, and you open our eyes to light."

I am happy it doesn't have to be all or nothing, that my eyes can and will get a little more open every day as they get stronger and can handle more light.