December 16, 2016
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Tag Archives: hope
Wonder Woman
from: 12/05/2016
Two years ago, (12/05/2014), I took a Facebook quiz that gave me probably the most accurate results I’ve ever gotten from any of the tons of hokey Facebook quizzes I’ve ever taken. The quiz was entitled “Which Justice League Superhero Are You?” Much to my husband’s great delight, I got “Wonder Woman” (he’s a huge fam). Normally, I am a fan of being associated with anything that my husband is a fan of because – ya know – it’s been 23 years and I like him and he likes me and, well, why not?! And besides, what girl in her right mind wouldn’t want to be Wonder Woman. But before I get too off-topic, or start “fan-girling” (as my kids would say), let me tell you: what got me most “excited” (thought I’m not quite sure that’s the right world) was the description behind the results. Here is VERBATIM what I was told:
You are an idealist and a mediator, able to see and respect different viewpoints and to encourage others to embrace acceptance and compromise. You have a deep love for people in all of their diversity and empower those who are underrepresented and less powerful. You are honest and expect others to be honest in turn, even if the truth is painful. Some people are intimidated by your ideals and consider you to be a radical, but you will never let ignorance and cruelty stop you from believing in what’s right. Others might consider you a naïve dreamer, but you are wise beyond your years and your selfless defense of other people is invaluable.
Now…who wouldn’t want that kind of description?! Right?!
Before I go any further, let me just say, for the most part (and I mean, like 99% of the time, the results I get from these quizzes are bogus. And I only take them for fun. However, I always answer the questions honestly simply to see how accurate an assessment is being offered.
This one is extremely accurate, of me at least. And in case you’re wondering, NO, I don’t think it’s accurate because I want it to be. But I have had many people come into my life over my 42 years and the ones I’ve had the time to get to know the best, and who’ve gotten to know me truly, have all said the same thing.
However, lest you think I’m about to break my arm patting my own back, I would like to tell you why I am sharing these quiz results with you.
For most of my life, I have wanted to be a part of the in-crowd but was relegated to the shadows. For just as long, I have known this was treatment NOBODY deserves. But because most people believe they are bound by stupid, societal, “supposed to” rules which perpetually feed an unfair and imbalanced caste system, we are all subjected to various forms of “ASSIMILATE OR DIE.”
However, I have not lived my entire life on the outskirts. In fact, I have been right in the thick of the in-crowd a couple of times in my life, and MOSTLY I was happy to be there. I felt like I had finally made it, like I had received all I had ever wanted. You know what I found? “ASSIMILATE OR DIE” is in full effect within the group too. While there are profoundly unbreakable rules in place designed to keep outsiders OUTSIDE the group, there are also just as many rules in place to keep insiders to the group in their place.
I never enjoyed being an outsider. I always thought people surely must not know what they were missing. Cliques were so stupid. However, as much as I couldn’t stand being an outsider, the constraints of being part of the in-crowd are worse FOR ME.
The safety of the in-crowd hinges on a willingness to jealously and zealously guard the borders of the group. But I could not do it. I would not.
People are people. Status doesn’t matter. In-crowd, outsider, doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is your story.
What’s more?! I’ve felt more accepted by outsiders more often than I’ve ever felt accepted by the in-crowd. And the kicker: I didn’t have to sell my soul to get it. Furthermore, I’ve learned some of my most profound theological and spiritual lessons from the outsiders.
You see, one of my closest friends was THE major outcast in the town where she grew up. Another dabbled in witchcraft in her youth. Yet another has tattoos the likes of which would have been looked down upon by many of my more “supposed-to” prone friends. And the man I’m married to is someone I’d have never been allowed to date. One thing they all have in common (besides me) is they all have a story I’ve seen many folks balk at getting to know because they are good, “supposed to” stories.
Being part of the in-crowd, too often, has required that I set aside such foolishness as thinking everyone’s story deserves to be heard. Maybe it is naïve of me, but I’ve always thought the passages in Scripture where Jesus healed lepers and touched the most untouchable ought to be our leading examples of how to treat people. If Jesus could minister to lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors, surely those who call themselves Christians ought to be ministering to the addicts, prostitutes, homeless, etc.; to ask them to obey Scripture by not preferring the rich and giving them a seat of great honor in our temples.
If that makes me naïve or a radical so be it. If it makes me an idealist, FINE. If it’s intimidating, so be it. My only response is: if my way of thinking somehow threatens your way of life, perhaps that says more about you than me. Personally, I’ve spent enough of my life apologizing for believing what the Bible says and choosing to be obedient while good people go unknown and outcast for failing to live up to the fickle and arbitrary standards of a small group of “supposed to,” clique-ish folks who think they’ve arrived when really, we’re all still just trying to make it.
Seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God and see how many interesting but saved-by-grace outcasts He leads you to.
You’ll be amazed!
December 15, 2016
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December 14, 2016
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December 12, 2016
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Day Sixty-Five: The Mystery of a Mighty God
READ: Read the passage. In Job’s response to his recent tragedy, notice the powerful feelings that underlie his words: fear, anger, grief, and hope.
JOB 9:2-4, 14-23
(2-4) “The question is, ‘How can mere mortals get right with God?’ If we wanted to bring our cases before him, what would chance would we have? Not one in a thousand! God’s wisdom is deep, God’s power so immense, who could take him on and come out in one piece?
(14-20) “So now could I ever argue with him, construct a defense that would influence God? Even though I’m innocent, I could never prove it; I can only throw myself on the Judge’s mercy. If I called on God and he himself answered me, then, and only then, would I believe that he’d heard me. As it is, he knocks me about from pillar to post, beating me up, black-and-blue, for no good reason. He won’t even let me catch my breath, piles bitterness upon bitterness. If it’s a question of who’s stronger, he wins, hands down! If it’s a question of justice, who’ll serve him the subpoena? Even though innocent, anything I say incriminates me; blameless as I am, my defense just makes me sound worse.
(21-23) “Believe me, I’m blameless. I don’t understand whats going on. I hate my life! Since either way it ends up the same, I can only conclude that God destroys the good right along with the bad. When calamity hits and brings sudden death, he folds his arms, aloof from the despair of the innocent.”
THINK: What phrase in Job’s lament stands out to you? Spend time meditating on it. Mentally chew it the way you would chew a piece of gum–repeat it to yourself, pausing each time to see where it leads your mind and emotions.
PRAY: Keeping your phrase in mind, picture God in the room with you. How do you relate to his presence? Maybe you sit in reverence at his power, wisdom, and justice, realizing you’ve forgotten or minimized those qualities lately. Maybe you feel anguish like Job. Maybe you open up to your desire for a rescuer, for Christ’s mercy.
At the end of this time, recall what this experience held for you. Write down for future reference anything that seemed significant.
LIVE: During the next week, before your begin your times of prayerful reading, recall your picture of God in the room. Recollect who he was to you and retain this image of him in your mind during each prayer time. Let that aspect of God mingle with the God you relate to during the week.
Such powerful words Job uses here. There was a time when I would have thought that talking this way to the Creator would have been tantamount to heresy, to begging God to strike me down. There have been times when I have felt this way that I’m not sure, had I said what I really wanted to say, that He wouldn’t have struck me down. But, the longer I walk through this life, and the more hardships I see and live through, the more convinced I become that being just this honest with God, yet not disrespectful of His Power and Glory and Majesty, are precisely what He wants from me. After all, would I not be this honest with my earthly father? If I had been as hurt and betrayed as Job felt, wouldn’t I spill my guts to my earthly father, in hopes that he’d be able to help me, or comfort me. Of course, I would. And if I would be this honest with my earthly father, when he can’t possibly know what I’m thinking, why wouldn’t I be this honest with my Heavenly Father when He already knows it all anyway.
Likewise, if I was going to a physician or a counselor, wouldn’t I also share all that I could, in hopes of finding a cure, or receiving some sort of help or therapy or advice that would lead me out of the darkness I was in? And yet, how often do I refuse to go to God?
But…that’s not what strikes me about this passage. What sticks with me here is how Job accuses God of being aloof from the despair of the innocent. I don’t know that I can even count the number of times I’ve felt that way since our mess started. Like God was just sitting up there on his throne on high, completely untouched by all the heartache and pain down here, particularly mine.
I’m not sure that aloof is the right word. At least, not now. But, it’s precisely the word I’d have used as recently as about 6 months ago. I don’t believe that God is aloof. I think that he is saddened by the fact that His Creation lives with the effects of sin, every day. I think it pains him when those who were created in his image have to suffer. But, because He is God, He can take those hard times and touch circumstances and use them to transform us more into the image of Christ and to do so in such a way that it is utterly unmistakable that HE is the one doing the work!
I heard something in class today, that helps me keep this in perspective. I’ve known it all along I guess, but had forgotten somewhere along the way.
Christ suffered here on earth, what makes us think we won’t.
Something else I believe: if there’s no God, then there is no hope that any of the suffering we experience will ever make any sense or ever come to any good use.
Where I am now is at the point that I am choosing every day to have faith that God is telling me the truth. I am choosing every day to picture God, sitting in the room with me, telling me He understands that what I’m going through is hard, but also that I can do it. I will make it through this. I picture Him telling me that He wants me to trust Him with all my ugliness since He’s already seen it, and loves me anyway. I picture Him asking me to share with Him those thoughts very thoughts that would make me sound just like Job does in this passage, and trust that He is not going to kick me out of the kingdom or tell me that I can’t come Home when He calls me. I picture Him asking me to believe Him, to believe in Him and to have Faith that I can believe the Bible is true when it says He loves me and does not show partiality. I picture Him saying to Satan, “Have you seen my servant, Patty? Look at her.” Then, I picture Satan looking at him, saying, “well, of course, you’ve protected her for her whole life. Why wouldn’t she love you. Take her life away from her. Take her husband away from her. Then see if she doesn’t turn her back on you.” I picture the same scenario with my husband in Job’s place, with my children in Job’s place. Then, I pray for strength to carry on, trusting that God will not leave us or forsake us, and that He will trade our ashes for beauty, one day. It has been promised, and I will choose to trust it daily, until I can learn to rest in it.
Day Twenty: Will your anchor hold?
READ: Joshua 9:3-9, 11, 14-16
(3-6) The people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai and cooked up a ruse. They posed as travelers: their donkeys loaded with patched sacks and mended wineskins, threadbare sandals on their feet, tattered clothes on their bodies, nothing but dry crusts and crumbs for food. They came to Joshua at Gilgal and spoke to the men of Israel, “We’ve come from a far-off country; make a covenant with us.”
(7) The men of Israel said to these Hivites, “How do we know you aren’t local people? How could we make a covenant with you?”
(8) They said to Joshua, “We’ll be your servants.”
Joshua said, “Who are you now? Where did you come from?”
(9, 11) They said, “From a far-off country, very far away. You servants came because we’d heard such great things about God, your God–all the things He did in Egypt!….Our leaders and everybody else in our country told us, ‘Pack up some food for the road and go meet them. Tell them, We’re your servants; make a covenant with us.’…
(14) The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn’t ask God about it.
(15) So Joshua made peace with them and formalized it with a covenant to guarantee their lives. The leaders of the congregation swore to it.
(16) And then, three days after making this covenant, they learned that they were next-door neighbors, who had been living there all along.
THINK: “Is there a place in your life where you are susceptible to offers and flattery, so you can form attachments without asking God for input? (Attachments refers to relationships and commitments to people, tasks, and organizations.)
PRAY: “Ask God to help you go over your attachments by moving through the following questions as if God were sitting next to you with his arm around you.
What attachments, if any, have you rushed into without investigating further, especially by asking God what you need to know about the situation?
Ask God to show you where, if at all, you need to back off from an attachment.”
LIVE: “Wait with an open heart for anything God might say to you. If nothing comes to you, ask God to make it apparent in the next few weeks if there’s anything you need to know about your attachments.”
When I first started this blog (back way before this series), I just wanted someone to see me, to be noticed. To use this as a way of doing something for God that might be important. The thing is: I didn’t care so much about it being important to God. I wanted it to be important to my fellow man. Surely, if I did something that made an impact in the lives of people around me, that would be good in God’s eyes. And if that was good in God’s eyes, then maybe I would be good in God’s eyes. Doing good to gain approval has been my attachment for as long as I can remember. Being good enough to be considered worthy of love. In an effort to gain approval, I have over-committed myself far too often. I have agreed to things before I’ve thought them out. I’ve volunteered for things that I didn’t really want to do because I wanted approval. Fear of rejection has been a pretty big deal in my life because I have believed the lie that I have to perform well to be accepted because who I am surely will not be enough.
Realistically, there are plenty of areas in my life where this has been demonstrated as untrue. Amazing, isn’t it, how good Satan is at magnifying the areas where the lies we’ve believed seem to have proven true so as to overshadow the times the truth has shone out?!
The truth of the matter is: none of us can ever do anything “good enough” for God because all have sinned and fall short (Romans 3:23). The Devil is so crafty, however, that he knows just how to twist that verse around in our minds so that he can use it against those who desire acceptance and approval just so they can feel loved, or believe they are loved. It’s like he says:
“See, even the Bible says you are not worthy, that you have fallen short.”
And if you just stop there, it would be easy to believe that there will never be any hope for people such as this, such as me. However, because God is good, He made a way for us to escape that “fallen-short” state. Satan knows this, which is why He never volunteers the rest of the sentence (continued in Romans 3:24) or the context for the verse (all of Romans, but specifically chapter 3). The rest of the sentence (Romans 3:24 says):
“and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.”
If my attachments are based in on Earth, I will always fall short. Those attachments will always disappoint. Nothing here can satisfy the longing of a soul that was designed to love God and be filled by Him. However, if I continually place my faith and hope in the Lord, I will always be satisfied. I will always be loved and accepted. Even when I am disappointed by things that happen on Earth. Even when God allows me to walk through things that hurt or leave me wondering where God is, I can know that it is BECAUSE He loves me and wants me wholly reliant upon Him for my fulfillment and satisfaction.
But, of course, since we are humans, we will forget this. We will tether ourselves to something here on Earth that will
disappoint us. We will attach ourselves to things or people that were never meant to be our anchor. And God, because He is a jealous God, will graciously allow those moors to fail us. He will allow us to go through something that will force us to place our faith in Him ALONE. And then, He will not disappoint us. He may not remove the storm from our lives, but He will calm our spirits so that we can weather that storm. And we will be able to walk calmly because we are securely tethered (attached) to the only One who has never failed or faltered, and who will never leave us nor forsake us.
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