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.

Songs I love but can't agree with, part one

[One of my favorite things is responding to songs as though they were one half of a conversation. I'm a little self-conscious because I know dumb pop songs are just dumb pop songs and supposedly they only pick the words because they rhyme. Maybe they are not meant to be taken that seriously. Nevertheless, I love this and am thus doing it anyway.]

Recently on a blog I keep up with there was a post called "I've been using music to amplify my toxic emotions." I got really excited when I saw the title, because I was like, "I think I do that too!" Unfortunately the post didn't live up to my expectations. I thought it was too general. And the author's way of using music isn't exactly the same as mine. But it probably doesn't matter whether we had the exact same emotions, or what songs overlapped with our negative emotions. I'm sure the outcome is quite similar, and unfortunately the solution too. What worked for her was wiping her iPod and starting from scratch with only music that creates positive thoughts. Ouch. I'll have to keep that idea on the back burner for a while until I can handle considering it. In the meantime, I am happy, delighted even, to critique songs I love (for the way they sound, and also in a guilty-pleasure-improv-character sort of way) but just cannot agree with.

Katy Perry has a place in my heart, even though I just deleted "I Kissed a Girl" from my iPod and iTunes because I realized how dumb that song is and how I am never just like, "man I want to listen to that song." The lyrics, even with gender aside, are all about kissing someone you don't even know, and that idea has honestly never appealed to me. (Also in this case they're drunk, which, if possible, makes it an even less inviting idea.) I was really sad when I learned that that awesome old black-and-white picture of a man dipping a woman into a kiss was between strangers. It no longer seemed as charming to me. So "I Kissed a Girl" was relatively easy to part with. I don't love it or agree with it.

But "The One That Got Away" is another story. It's super catchy. Sure the first verse is full of rascally behavior, but I consider high school to be distant enough past that it doesn't really matter. Well, tattoos are for life, but, moving on.. The chorus begins, "In another life/ I would be your girl/ we'd keep all our promises, it'd be us against the world." I can't argue with the factual nature of this, because it's another life so anything could happen, but I do think that this is sort of a dumb thing to think about, especially for this type of thing. We're not in another life, and continuing to repeat this particular speculation is more likely to hurt than to help anything, emotionally speaking.

The next part I have more of a problem with: "In another life/I would make you stay." I hate this line. You can't make someone stay, and if you could you wouldn't want to. This is like the whole epitome of why sin is possible and why the world is so f'ed up. God values free will highly enough that he allows us to make choices that hurt people, and hurt him. He invites us into love and freedom, but doesn't force it. Love is the opposite of making someone do something.

I am about to quote The Shack. Prepare your heart. In The Shack, Jesus says, "To force my will on you is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy." Thank you, Shack Jesus! Can you tell Katy Perry this, please?

Further, Jesus breaks all the locks and all the chains that bind us. This is something we cannot do, so this is always "his part." But we have a part, too. We have to walk out of the now-unlocked cages by ourselves. We have to stand up and dance until the chains fall off. If we can't do it right away, he waits. Super patiently. His arms are always open and they never get tired. But we have a choice to make that he can't and won't make for us. It's a partnership in this sense. [Oh, you want a concrete example of chains? He conquers the sin that other people have committed against us, breaking the hold it has on us, freeing us to forgive by his own victory and forgiveness. But we choose to forgive. He won't make us, and we yet we won't be free until we do forgive.] I say all this to emphasize that even Jesus doesn't make you stay (/make you do anything, technically). So it's stupid for anyone else to aspire to this. (Particularly if the only reason you give for this is "So I don't have to say you were the one that got away," which isn't even grammatically correct).

So Katy, or whoever actually wrote this song, in another life, you would not make him stay. You shouldn't want to. You should want him to be free, and happy. You can want him to pick you, but if he doesn't, he's not your man and you should respect that for both of your sakes.

I keep thinking of Terri or whatever Mr. Schuester's wife's name is in the first season of Glee. SPOILER ALERT.. for the first season, lol... she fakes a pregnancy to get him to stay with her selfish self. And guess what he does the second he learns the truth? That's right, he leaves. And he doesn't come back (at least not as far as I am in Glee, which isn't far, but I don't think he's planning on it, either). The things we could do to make people stay are not worth it. Honest, honest. And it doesn't work, usually. You can make someone stay physically without keeping them emotionally engaged. In fact, this is a likely outcome if you force someone to stay.

Back to "The One That Got Away." There's another verse, sort of clever but fluffy at the same time. Then she sings towards the end, "I should have told you what you meant to me," and this, I can get behind. This, rather than making someone stay, is actually a good thing to do a lot of the time. Then the other person can decide what they'll do about it, as a free being. So, ultimately she hits on a good idea. But she doesn't stick with it. She goes right back to that chorus. Twice.