My Obsession With Me

I have a confession to make.

I am addicted to myself.
Maybe I'm not alone in this. Perhaps you're addicted to yourself too. In some ways, I think we all are.

For me, it usually doesn't manifest itself in a prideful, I'm-so-awesome type of way, although now and then it does take that form.

Usually, it's worse than that.

It's self-loathing.

Self-loathing is an addiction, a harmful and destructive drug in every sense. When I make a mistake in class, it's lurking there, waiting for me to slip into its arms and embrace what it says about me, who it says I am.

It is ready to capitalize on every moment of weakness.

When I realize I am not the favorite person in the room, there it hovers, ready for me to swallow that pill and descend into dark and untrue places in which I am small and everyone else is big and tramples over me. When I'm acutely aware of everyone staring at me, when strangers shout at me ("Hey! Foreigner!"), there it is again at my shoulder, saying, "You should hide. If only you didn't look different from everyone else, if only you could blend in." And it spirals from there into deeper self-consciousness, into a fear that spreads and smothers my soul and makes me walk around with a cast-down face and a scowl, in hopes that I might disappear.

Self-loathing is by no means confined to a single phase of my life or a single country. In college, in the United States, I remember days walking around in a pretty summer dress, because, well, I like dresses, and when I caught stares in the corner of my eye, my mind would immediately flutter to "She's thinking, who does that girl think she is, wearing a dress to class? Who does she think she's trying to impress? Why isn't she in Nike shorts and a t-shirt like the rest of us?" It was difficult to believe that perhaps someone might actually be staring because they like my dress; it was even more difficult for me to not care one bit about what I was wearing and feel beautiful and loved all the same. Then the next day I would wear Nike shorts and a t-shirt, and that same horrible voice would whisper, "You're so much uglier than the other girls. Look how fashionable she is. Why aren't you wearing that hipster outfit from Urban Outfitters?" Then the next day I could wear the hipster outfit from Urban Outfitters, and...well, you get the idea.

Here's the thing, though: In the middle of my spiral of self-loathing thoughts, I always hear my Savior and King call out to me, but sometimes His voice sounds far away. I hear Him call out, "All your days were written in my book before one of them came to be!" I hear him say, "I have numbered the hairs on your head, and every one of them is precious, my daughter!" But I shake my head in denial. His voice seems so distant and powerless, whereas the voice of self-loathing is so close and seemingly so invincible, its breath hot in my ear. It's like that quote from Pretty Woman: "The bad stuff is easier to believe." I'm like her. I don't believe Him. I deny His authority. I choose to take the pill without protest.

I give power to that which should have no power and deny the true power of the Lord. I submit to that horrible voice/spirit outside of me and refuse to submit to the one Voice and Spirit I should obey, the one that is living and active in the very depths of my being.

One day when I was admitting all my self-destructive thoughts to my mom, she said, "Have you noticed a common thread here? Me, me, me. I'M worthless, I'M unloved, I'M unlovable. Turn that focus upward and outward instead of downward and inward." This truth has been circulating in my mind ever since. But turning thoughts upward and outward is some heavy, gravity-defying lifting. The problem is that my thoughts literally implode on my soul, and I let them sit there so long without protesting that they get too heavy for me, by myself, to lift. Thus, the truth is crushed, and the lie wins.

The Lord has been patiently and persistently releasing me of this terrible, tenacious stronghold for years, but I keep failing and running back to it. It's always the little things. The self-loathing starts with someone ignoring me, or complimenting someone else instead of me, or me feeling stupid, or someone disagreeing with me in a rude way, and spirals downward, ending with me dissolving into tears, thinking everyone hates me, wondering why I even exist and what use my life is. I can tell the difference between deception and truth, and I know mentally what the truth is, but my heart still finds God hard to believe, and my mouth still finds self-loathing easier to swallow than his promises. As the title suggests, self-loathing is, too, a form of pride, a form of obsession with the self, preferring masochism to grace as long as it means I can refuse His hand. Self-loathing is painful, but it's at least a realm with which I'm all too familiar. A poisonous security blanket. Freedom from comparison with others, unshakable joy, full confidence that I am forever loved? These are relatively new concepts. And, though already accepted mentally, they are sometimes hard to swallow when faced with an indifferent world that seems to so easily smother the Word of God in my head.

I'm reading good ol' Beth Moore, and she's talking about release from strongholds. She writes, "Maybe you can't yet picture being free from that stronghold for the rest of your life. But can you picture it for a day? How about until lunch? How about for an hour?" She said that when the Lord was freeing her of her destructive thought cycles, she would count the days she went without giving in to those thoughts, and the day she gave in, she would start right back at 1 the next day. But rather than getting discouraged, she encouraged us to rejoice that we even have the opportunity to start back at 1. To try again. To be allowed to take our first tentative steps, fail, and yet know we will be picked right back up again and set on the right path. Every. Time.

Right now I would say I'm in the "withdrawal season" from this drug of self-loathing. It might last for a long time. It will be incredibly easy to have relapses. Thankfully, I'm in a rehab program called "Conforming to His Image," and this program will never give up on me or kick me out. Though I may burn out and give up and return to the poisonous security blanket time and time again, His loving hand will not rest until His goal is obtained. He who began a good work in me will carry it through to completion. He will not rest until I am living in victory.

The point is not my failure, but His faithfulness. I am not strong enough on my own; I am crushed under the weight of lies before I can even consciously redirect my thoughts toward the truth, before I can even recall those Scriptures to mind that I have been trying to memorize. It is so much easier for me to think of myself rather than others, to follow a bad train of thought to its conclusion rather than immediately fighting it with the sword of the Spirit. Thankfully, He is faithful to do the heavy lifting for me. If He hasn't given up on me, I know He hasn't given up on you either, whatever your stronghold may be.

Oh, can we all take a moment and praise His glorious name for that?

Slave to Sin

Yesterday, for the billionth time, someone annoyed me. Someone stepped out of their place and said things they shouldn't say. Someone dared to insult me, to make me feel uncomfortable, to treat me as lower than them. And I deserve special treatment, right? Because I'm a foreigner, because this isn't my first language, because I'm older than them, because I'm a girl...whatever, I can always come up with some reason.

And I let him know he annoyed me too. I didn't care one bit that my putting him in his place was completely counter-cultural (in fact, the horrible, rebellious, prideful side of me rather enjoyed that fact). In the moment that I was seeing red, it didn't matter. I had no desire to even try to follow Jesus, no desire to even try to act like him. In that moment my desire was completely to act on the rage/wounds that had built up inside me. I didn't care how I looked to others, didn't care if this guy knew any of my friends...I just had to stand up for myself.

Later, I told God, Okay God, I know that wasn't right, but did you see what he said? How dare he, right? I know it was sin on my part, but it was understandable sin. It was in response to another sin.

But whatever I might have said to justify myself, my heart still knew it was wrong. I am the world's worst at turning the other cheek. If someone insults me or wounds my pride or says I'm wrong when I'm right, of course I have to let them know it. It's completely understandable. It's what the world says I should do.

It's in those moments that I realize how not conformed to Christ I am. How, even though I generally desire to follow Him, in those brief moments of anger I only have a desire to follow myself.

Later, as I sat at the table thoughtfully peeling an orange, the dog I'm watching trotted in. As soon as I started peeling it, I knew the fragrance would waft through the house, and she would have no choice. It was only a matter of time; she would have to run in. She began begging in the most pitiful voice, even tapping me with her paw to let me know she was there, as if I didn't already know. No dignity. She would do anything to get a piece of that orange.

I realized that I am as much a slave to these "understandable sins" as the dog is to that orange.

I obey my fleshly desires just as reflexively and helplessly as she obeys her nose. What can be done? It's the way we're wired, right? She as a dog is wired to act on that nose, to do anything for food, and I as a human am wired to do anything to satisfy my own desires.

Then as I threw a couple slices to the dog (she gobbled them up and was back to begging as pathetically as if I had never given her any orange slices...there are definitely more parallels there), my thoughts turned from her to a medical problem I've had. Six months, many doctors, many medicines. The severity comes and goes, but it's always there. I saw another parallel between that problem and these respectable sins, like what we like to call "justifiable anger."

Wouldn't it be ridiculous if I just let this ailment go on without at least trying to treat it? The treatments aren't working perfectly, granted...but what if I just completely let it go?

I even tried that for a bit, in fact, and trust me...it was complete misery.

You can't let a huge, persistent problem like that go untreated. Especially when it so deeply affects your all-around quality of life and infiltrates every moment, reminding you that you're unwell. You wouldn't let a non-life-threatening ailment go completely untreated and justify it by saying that at least it isn't cancer.

And yet that's what I do with my "understandable, respectable, justifiable" sins.

I just patch over them after the fact, reasoning that everyone around me when I made that nasty comment or lost my temper at that car that honked too much or yelled at that guy who was rude to me must have surely been on my side, right? Everyone must have seen that what I did was okay. God must have even given me an understanding pat on the shoulder and a knowing wink, right? And so I just let the problems go on untreated. Oh, sure, at first they may be no big deal, and everyone may understand why I made that snarky comment, but what happens when it gets worse and worse, and before I know it I have absolutely no control over my tongue?

I'm no better than the dog. My tongue owns me the same as her nose owns her.

"What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:15-23

Not gonna lie, the phrase "slaves to righteousness" didn't used to be one of my favorites. I pictured a monk or a nun living a life of self-denial, no laughter, going to bed at 8pm, a boring life, if I can be quite honest. I ran away from that picture. But now...I want so badly to be a slave of righteousness! I realize so fully the implications of my slavery to sin. I have been released from so much, but Jesus wants to release me from so much more. When sin is my master, I am helpless against the awful things that want to spring out of my mouth. I am helpless against things like self-condemnation and jealousy. My own thoughts devour me. Continuing in slavery to sin, when you have already been purchased for Christ and marked for sanctification, is so painful. It's like trying to serve two masters. Now I think my increased understanding of slavery to sin helps me understand the true beauty of what slavery to righteousness would be. Currently, awful thoughts take root in my head, horrible words come out of my mouth before I can stop them, and anger clenches my heart so forcefully that I lose the will to pry its fingers away. If I were a slave to righteousness, my allegiance and vivid vision of Christ before me would not allow me to say horrible words even if they were on the tip of my tongue. Evil thoughts would be forced to die no matter how much my flesh wanted them to take root. Mercy would come out of my mouth before anger would even have a chance. Oh how wonderful that would be!

I must present myself to him as a slave - nothing else. Anything other than a slave means that I still retain the right to tell him, "Oh, but that sin was justified, right? You understand. I mean, we can't turn the other cheek all the time, right? That's just impractical. We have to stand up for ourselves or people will run all over us." These kinds of things. But if I am a slave, I have no right to stand up for my sin, to justify it - and hopefully, as I get in the habit, not even a desire to do so. I would so much rather be his slave than my sin's slave! My sin does not have my best interests at heart. My sin will not make me into the person that I need to become. As the book of James says, "The anger of man does not bring about the righteousness of God." There is no way that I will attain to his full righteousness if I still allow angry thoughts to take root.

Pure obedience from the heart - this is what I desire. A heart that, instead of forgetting Jesus in that moment of seeing red, will see him all the more clearly on the cross. I pray that, instead of losing my temper or patience and then immediately repenting, my repentance will take place before the anger even has a chance to come out. I will see him there on the cross and feel remorse at the idea that I was even thinking of nailing him once again. That rather than seeing the person who is annoying/insulting/whatevering me standing before me, I will only see my Savior, the one who was pierced for all my willful sins, pierced for all the moments I conveniently forget I belong to Him.

We are slaves of what we obey. I don't want to bend my will to that which destroys my soul. I want to gladly offer myself as a slave of the only One who can offer true freedom.

Audience

from Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

"And then it all came together. It all became so obvious, it was actually frightening. Moses was explaining all of humanity, right there in Genesis chapter 3, and because people were always reading it looking for the formula, they never saw it.

"Here is what I think Moses was saying: Man is wired so he gets his glory (his security, his understanding of value, his feeling of purpose, his feeling of rightness with his Maker, his security for eternity) from God, and this relationship is so strong, and God's love is so pure, that Adam and Eve felt no insecurity at all, so much so that they walked around naked and didn't even realize they were naked. But when that relationship was broken, they knew it instantly. All of their glory, the glory that came from God, was gone. It wouldn't be unlike being in love and having somebody love you and then all of a sudden that person is gone, like a kid lost in the store. All of the insecurity rises the instant you realize you are alone. No insecurity was felt when the person who loved you was around, but in his absence, it instantly comes tot he surface. in this way, Adam and Eve were naked and weren't ashamed when God was around, but the second the relationship was broken, they realized it and were ashamed. And that is just the beginning.

"If man was wired so that something outside himself told him who he was, and if God's presence was giving him a feeling of fulfillment, then when that relationship was broken, man would be pining for other people to tell him that he was good, right, okay with the world, and eternally secure. As I wrote earlier, we all compare ourselves to others, and none of our emotions - like jealousy and envy and lust - could exist unless man was wired so that somebody else told him who he was, and that somebody else was gone."

...

"A child learns early there is a fashionable and an unfashionable in the world, an ugly and a pretty, a valued and an unvalued. Where this system comes from, God only knows, but it is rarely questioned, and though completely illogical and agreed upon by everyone as evil, it remains in play, commanding our emotions as something that comes naturally, as though a radioactive kind of tragedy happened, screwing up our souls. Adulterated or policed, the system can grow to something more civilized, but no less dominant as a drive of nature. In youth the system is obvious. If you want to learn the operating system to which humans are subjected, step into a classroom of preteen students and listen to the dialogue. You will hear the constant measurements, the talk about family wealth, whose father drives what car, who lives in what neighborhood, or who is dating whom.

"Here is how it feels: From the first day of school the conversation is the same as it would be if hundreds of students were told to stand in line ranging from best to worst, coolest to most uncool, each presenting their case for value, each presenting an offense to the cases of others, alliances being formed as caricatures of reality television (or vice versa).

"And here is what is terrible: There will be a sort of punishment being dealt to those at the end of the line, each person dealing out castigation as a way of dissociation from the geeks, driven by the fear that associating with somebody at the end of the line might cost them position, as if the two might be averaged, landing each of them in the space between. And so, in this way, students are constantly looking to associate themselves with those higher in line, and dissociate from those of low position. Great lengths will be taken to associate with those at the front of the line. Students will kiss up, drop names, lie about friendships  and so on. Many will hate the most popular and yet subject themselves to their approval s though they were small gods. But the great crime, the great tragedy, is not in the attempts to associate but rather the efforts to dissociate. If a person feels his space in the hierarchy is threatened, that he might lose position, the vehemence he feels toward the lesser person is nearly malevolent."

...

"It must have been wonderful to spend time with Christ, with Somebody who liked you, loved you, believed in you, and sought a closeness foreign to skin-bound man. A person would feel significant in His presence. After all, those who knew Christ personally went on to accomplish amazing feats, proving unwavering devotion. It must have been thrilling to look into the eyes of God and have Him look back and communicate that human beings, down to the individual, are of immense worth and beauty and worthy of intimacy with each other and the Godhead. Such an understanding fueled a lifetime of joy and emotional health among the disciples that neither crowds of people jeering insults  nor prison, nor torture, nor exclusion could undo. They were faithful to the end, even to their own deaths.

"I recently read an interview in which the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison was asked why she had become a great writer, what books she had read, what method she had used to structure her practice. She laughed and said, 'Oh, no, that is not why I am a great writer. I am a great writer because when I was a little girl and walked into a room where my father was sitting, his eyes would light up. That is why I am a great writer. That is why. There isn't any other reason.'"

...

"I would imagine, then, that the repentance we are called to is about choosing one audience over another."

He will still love you.

"we love because He first loved us."
1 John 4:19

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving - it doesn't matter,
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,
Come, come again, come.

O to grace, how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be.
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Oh what a scandalous love God has shown us. "God is not proud. He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him." - C.S. Lewis

That the sinner, deep in his heart, should never love God of his own volition is a fact. We can never love God or love purity and goodness simply by willing ourselves to do so. We love to fool ourselves, thinking we can love well, thinking we can be good enough for Him on our own...but we will always fail.

Even when I began to follow Him, it was because I wanted Him to stop my pain, not because I wanted to be holy. I wanted to be liberated from depression and anger and loneliness, not from slavery to self.

And this is where His love comes in.

This is where He whispers, this is where He woos.

This is where He comes to us in our deepest fears, in our deepest heartache, when we are confronted with all the crooked places in our hearts, and asks, "Will you let me love you? Will you let me restore you? Will you let me call you my daughter?"

And though we say no, He will still ask a thousand times.
He is a constant lover, who never gives up.

Because He knows that death to self, true repentance and new life, is the only way we can get all the other things our hearts seek. It is the only way we can be truly free, truly alive. It is DIFFICULT, yes. But it is WORTH IT. So difficult, and so worth it, in fact, that He is the only one who can do it.

Gently, gently, we are led to repentance. We can never change by ourselves; if that were the demand, if we who love darkness were to FIRST genuinely love the light to receive it, who then could be saved?

No one.

And that's what makes His love so scandalous.

Ridiculous, even.

He was ridiculed on the cross, and He continues to be ridiculed today.

He doesn't care.

He doesn't love us AFTER we change...He loves us BEFORE.

He loves us while we still hate Him, while we're slandering Him, mocking Him, joking about Him in a bar and then crying to Him from our beds that same night.

He loves us in the middle of our hypocrisy, when we're confronted with the emptiness of our lives while knowing full well how we should be spending them.

He loves even the loveless places in our heart that would make everyone else hate us and turn away, were they to view them.

Even if you never surrender to His love your entire life and curse Him on your death bed, He will still love you.

Even if you turn away and follow your own will, your own way, and walk the wide path of destruction, He will still love you.

Even if you scream at him, angry about your life, about a friend's betrayal, about a tragedy in the family, about the atrocities committed to the helpless around the world,
He will still love you (and He will still love them).

And this love, it is not just a feeling
(though He does dance and sing over you, and angels rejoice because of you; like I said, He is not proud. He is not afraid to show His love).
True Love is not a feeling anyway.
He does not stand on high smiling warmly and thinking good thoughts about you, wishing you well. Prosperity! Happiness! Go in peace!

No.

He will not only lift a finger, He will lift mountains and turn the world upside down to rescue you.

He has hands and feet.

He has a Body.

And His power is beyond all imagining.
It can create planets, it can form humans, it can raise the dead, it can mend the heart, it can cause kings to fall, it can cast out demons, it can heal diseases, it can (will) restore this planet,
And it can change you.

Forever.

Oh, a forever love...isn't that what we all desire? If I could be loved forever, by the Only One who has power to even make my life worth living...what more could I need? What more could I ever want?

When your hair begins to turn gray, and you cry as you look at your deepening wrinkles in the mirror and feel how un-beautiful you are next to younger women,
He will still love you. Cherish you even. Call you beloved, the apple of his eye.

When you have been in a foreign country and haven't worn make-up in ages and feel too fat and too tall and too weird, or like you always have to hide from the stares and whistles that follow you everywhere,
He will still adore you.

When you return home and cry because you want to go back to that other country, because you left a piece of your heart there,
He will still love you.

When no one else understands your feelings or experiences,
He will still understand you.

When you are addicted to something and have tried everything in your own power to fight it, when you have deluded yourself about the magnitude of your own power and self-control,
He will still love you...and yes, even heal you.

When you run, He will pursue.

When you cry, He will hold.

When you scream, He will whisper.

When you are hurt, He will rise in power.

When you are lost, He will find.

Still. Still. Though you break your promise a thousand times, though you wander, though to all others you are a lost cause,
Still.

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power 
through His spirit 
in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you,
being rooted and established in love,
will have power, together with all God's holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the
fullness
of God.

The Gospel according to Esther

I've wanted to write so many "The Gospel according to..." posts and haven't gotten around to it. For instance, "The Gospel according to Exodus" is still in my drafts, and I never actually posted it. As I've been reading through the Bible chronologically, I've been seeing the gospel so much more clearly in each book. This past week, I read Esther.

Esther has been one of my favorite books for a long time. In my elementary school days, I loved that it was about an ordinary girl who becomes a queen. In high school, the phrase "Who knows but that you have been put where you are for just such a time as this?" kept ringing in my ears (adapted from Esther 4:14). As an English major in college, it appealed to my sense of a good story, and I still think it's one of the most well-written stories in the Bible.

But it wasn't until this most recent read-through that I caught a glimpse of Jesus in it.

Though it's been one of my favorite stories for so long, I had always read it as a standalone book and never placed it within the greater narrative of Israel's captivity and return. I definitely hadn't thought about it in the context of the gospel or any of the New Testament. I guess that's one of the great things about reading the Bible chronologically - it begins to all mesh together as one great big story, rather than a bunch of little ones stitched together.

I was struck by Mordecai's incredible integrity. He clearly is a man of God if there ever was one. He takes in the orphan Hadassah (Esther), not treating her as the cousin she is but treating her "as his own daughter" according to chapter 2. He saves the life of the (Persian by the way, not Jewish) king by getting a message to him about an assassination plot. Finally, and most importantly, he refuses to bow to any mere man, especially a corrupt royal official. And this is what gets him in trouble.

That royal official, Haman, does everything in his earthly power to ensure the annihilation of Mordecai and everyone he loves by getting the king to issue a decree that the Jews be killed on a certain day. But little does he know the kingdom's new queen is one of the very people he's trying to kill. Yahweh had ordained what was going to happen and had all the pieces in place ahead of time, ready to display His glory.

So after prayer and fasting, Queen Esther risks her life by going in to the king without being called. Thankfully, he is delighted with her and grants her request of holding a couple of banquets for him and Haman. Esther lulls Haman into a false sense of security with these banquets, as he thinks he is being oh-so-honored, but then Esther outs his whole plot in front of the king. The king then has Haman hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai...but not before forcing Haman to parade Mordecai, purple-robed and on a horse, through the streets saying, "This is the one the king delights to honor!"

Mordecai is elevated to a high position, the queen is trusted more than ever, and the Jews not only are saved but also enjoy a period of privilege under this foreign king.

As I thought about how Mordecai was plotted against for refusing to bow to any but God, how one of the most righteous men in the kingdom was targeted by a jealous and prideful official, I thought of Another who did nothing wrong and yet was condemned to death by those in power. I thought about how Mordecai never forsook God even when he probably felt forsaken, that his people had been forsaken. I thought about his commitment, his faith, even while his enemy Haman was being elevated, was succeeding in his evil plan, was indestructible...or so it seemed.

You see, just when Haman thought he'd won, he was destroyed. Just when the enemy seemed to have triumphed, the righteous one was about to gain the true victory.

Mordecai was saved from death, while Jesus actually suffered physical death...but the results were the same. Mordecai was honored above all in the kingdom, given authority second only to the king himself. In that dark moment as Jesus gasped his last words, satan thought he'd won, the teachers of the law thought they'd won. Little did they know that the seemingly defeated one on the cross was conquering not just their very own sin, but also Death itself. Little did they know that after he ascended, he would be placed at the right hand of the Father, given the seat of honor, crowned for all eternity. Little did they know that this one who quietly submitted to the judgment of the religious leaders and Pontius Pilate would judge everyone who has ever lived.

Hadassah, the orphan, one of the lowliest of people, was adopted by an uncle who loved her dearly and raised her as his own daughter. Not only an orphan, but a Jew in the Persian Empire, the odds for success were certainly not stacked in her favor. But because God bestowed grace on her, she found favor with everyone she met and was elevated higher than she could have ever imagined. She was obedient and brave when it counted most, demonstrating her dependence on God and not herself by fasting and praying before she went in to the king. When admonished by Mordecai, she listened, and she became willing to die if it meant God's will would be accomplished. She realized that the favor she had obtained was not due to her charm or beauty, though she possessed these things, but because the Lord Almighty had blessed her. And through his blessing, she was able to release an entire people from captivity and bring them from death to life.

To this day, like Esther, we are always the recipients of grace, and anything heroic or wonderful we do is by His power alone. We can never claim anything as our own, but we hold empty hands up to the Father in worship and praise, and He holds them in turn when we're in distress, pressing his scars closely into our unscarred palms, always filling them with good things. And these good things we can joyfully give to others, speaking life instead of death and truth instead of lies, bringing hope to the hopeless and proclaiming freedom for the prisoners...because we know His goodness never runs dry, and He will be faithful to give even as we feel like we can't give anymore.

The One with the scarred hands...He is not only the one the King delights to honor, as Mordecai was; He is the King. And we are Esther, adopted as sons and daughters, cherished, loved, admonished and corrected that we may grow into heavenly creatures, orphans-turned-heirs, made fit to possess the kingdom prepared for us since before the creation of the world.

Nothing New Under the Sun and Micah 6

If the wages of sin is death, what exactly is death?

Futility.

It's the abrupt ending of a linear path that otherwise shows such promise of progress, of a better world, of a better life -

and then silence.

Because of sin, the whole creation was subjected to futility. Through painful toil we eat all the days of our lives, and though we labor, the ground still produces thorns and thistles. In painful toil we now strive for successful careers in an economy that constantly pushes back. The majority of people, who have no faces on television and no voices, toil to just eat each day. The last line of the curse upon mankind is futility:

"dust you are and to dust you will return."

King Solomon meditates on this futility: "Meaningless! Meaningless! What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? ...Like the fool, the wise too must die!"

When Israel continues to rebel against God and oppress the poor, Yahweh says through the prophet Micah that he will relinquish his blessing, reminding them of the futility of their sin (that is, following themselves rather than God):

"You will eat but not be satisfied; your stomach will still be empty.... You will plant but not harvest; you will press grapes but not use the oil, you will crush grapes but not drink the wine."

Your first reaction might be that all this sounds overly morbid and depressing...but let's be honest: How many times have you had thoughts like this? Feeling anxious because we only have a few short years on this earth, and wondering how not to waste them? Feeling dissatisfied with your current life because you don't want to waste time doing what you're doing? Even in the happy moments, burying uneasy thoughts, wondering why you're still not satisfied?

I write this because I have had these thoughts many times. I think often we try to just dismiss them and crush them because they're not normal and not okay. We have everything; we are supposed to just be happy and not ask those questions. We have no right to be unhappy because we are not starving, we have not had too much trauma in our lives, we do not live in a war-torn country.

The Book of Micah says that Israel would "eat but not be satisfied." Israel had times of great abundance and was the envy of surrounding nations for its wealth. But God said they were still spiritually empty because they kept sinning and would not turn from it, and so he was sending times of scarcity on them. Rather than acting justly and loving mercy, they were hoarding ill-gotten treasures, cheating the poor with dishonest scales, full of violence and deceit.

What was the ultimate punishment? Not necessarily war, although this did come on the people. Not poverty, although times of suffering would follow. Futility. No satisfaction, no enjoying the fruit of their labor, but enduring a meaningless existence. The same punishment that was exacted at the Fall.

I think we continue to feel this punishment today; the Fall's depth has not lessened. Though we may be less primitive, we may have more material things (well, some of us...until you remember that 2 billion don't even have a toilet and 1 billion will not eat enough today), and we may be saturated with all sorts of information and philosophies to tell us whatever we want to hear, we still feel the effects of futility. Though with modern medicine we may prolong our lives, we can never escape physical death...or even worse, the death of the soul, which can happen much sooner.

But Jesus says we can be born again. He says we have a way out of this meaninglessness and futility. Not by transcending the world and detaching ourselves from it, as some would say; not by doing a bunch of things so we can be "good enough" for a deity; rather, by believing He has power over futility - over death and our deathly ways of living. In Him, there is something new under the sun. We have new life, we have new hope, we have direction even when we can't see two feet in front of us. Even while staying in the world, slogging through the mud and grit of life, we hold tightly to the pierced hand of the one who whispers in the crowded street and the back alley,

Behold, I am making all things new!

Suddenly, we can work a dead-end job and still have joy and satisfaction. Suddenly, we can look at unlovable people and see who they were born to be. We can be uncertain of our direction in life and still be able to laugh at the days to come. Our plans can even fail, the soil of our lives still unyielding, and yet we have hope. All because He went through the worst of our pain, endured our darkest thoughts and all the insults we have to hurl, joined us in physical agony and emotional torment, and came out victorious on the other side, not only alive but with a life that will never die, in a Kingdom where the hungry can feast and the thirsty can drink, and this gives us hope that such a Kingdom can penetrate this cursed world. 

Sometimes, when I catch myself chasing after the things of this world, I find myself dissatisfied and struck anew with the meaninglessness of life. But when I look at the only One who is something new under the sun, the only One who can make all things new, and I give my disobedience over to him and ask to be made new...

I eat and am satisfied.

This week, a high school girl killed herself.

I'm sure many high school girls and other precious people around the world found it too difficult to live this week, but this girl killed herself in my city, at a high school just a few bus stops away. It's always that much more difficult when something like that happens close to us, even if we didn't know the person.

I've been to that high school before, walked around it with my friend Jane. It's supposed to be the best high school in the city. To me it looks more like a university than a high school, with its huge campus boasting multi-story buildings and dorms. Here, it is not uncommon for high school students to live away from home.

I asked my friend why the girl did it. Was it being away from her parents? Was it the heavy work load? I always comment on how hard my high school friends have to work, how they never seem to have a moment to themselves. And right now is crunch time, the worst of exam season. It would make sense. It's happened before.

But that wasn't the reason, apparently. School officials read her journal.

She liked girls.

I may be on the other side of the world, but I'm still keeping up with what's happening in the States. And if it's difficult to be gay or lesbian in the States, I know it must be difficult over here, where it's relatively under the radar and few people are discussing or acknowledging it.

Regardless of what we think about the propriety of men liking men or women liking women, this should never have to occur. No one should ever feel that trapped. It's not about the fact that she liked girls so much as the fact that she did not feel free to bare her soul, with its changes and struggles.

In order to be trapped, a person must first box herself in. She must burrow deep into a hole where she thinks no one can hurt her. She must hide. But what happens when her hiding place becomes her prison? When the choice to hide herself is no longer her own, but the choice of someone fixing a stone door over her cave? Telling her she can never come out, that no one wants to see her as she truly is? The damp earth becomes suffocating, even to the point of death.

We refuse to show ourselves to those around us. We refuse to admit the darkness, the doubt, that constantly lurks underneath our smiling faces. And because we hide our own darkness, our differences, we encourage others to hide theirs. Because we are afraid, we project fear onto others. And so, one by one, we all burrow into our caves. Until everyday conversation is a strain, because no one is truly revealing themselves anymore.

I wish someone had told that girl that she could reveal herself, in all her mess and magnificence. That she had known, deep down, that she would be unconditionally loved. That as she worked through the turbulence of adolescence, she would have had that blessed assurance of a hand that will never let her go.

But a person who must hide herself every waking second is lost in every sense of the word.

C.S. Lewis writes that being truly "saved" does not entail the cancellation of sin and shame but rather the willingness to bear it to the world, pointing to God's grace all the while and trusting Him alone to cover it.

"As for the fact of sin, is it probable that anything cancels it? All times are eternally present to God. Is it not at least possible that along some one line of His multi-dimensional eternity He sees you forever in the nursery pulling the wings off a fly, forever toadying, lying and lusting as a schoolboy, forever in that moment of cowardice or insolence as a subaltern? It may be that salvation consists not in the cancelling of these eternal moments but in the perfected humanity that bears the shame forever, rejoicing in the occasion which it furnished to God's compassion and glad that it should be common knowledge to the universe" (The Problem of Pain).

It's as though the Free are dancing around naked, not because they are stainless and pure but because they are covered by something other than clothes, something other than what the world gives to mask shame. All of the messiness and grit is out in the open, but we refuse to be humiliated. Yes, we will continue to boast in our weaknesses, proclaim our failings from the rooftops, air our stubbornness and our stupidity and our different-ness, laughing all the while and feeling completely unashamed, because of the One who eternally covers us, molds us, and will never abandon his creations. Our hidden things out in the open are all to His glory.

I long for and dream of a world in which no one feels so trapped that death seems to be the only way out. Where no one wants to shrink to the point of oblivion. But those who do not know Love cannot come out of their caves, because they have never known the One who is completely loving, completely trustworthy, and completely unfailing. No one has ever shown them that such love exists. Therefore, to be out in the open means to be torn apart. And so these precious souls wither, souls who never had the chance to hear about grace.

Finally, speaking of Heaven and the Kingdom, Lewis writes,

"...Perhaps the lost are those who dare not go to such a public place."

They would, if they knew the public place was also the place of grace.

Elephants and Termites

Two lifelong friends sit at their favorite restaurant, discussing their day, their work, and their kids. These women have so much in common – the same worldview, the same church, the same hobbies (they always go play tennis while their husbands golf together on the weekends). They have the kind of friendship in which one can confide anything to the other and know that her secret will be safe. They’ve helped each other through family losses, emotional battles, countless tears and joys…nothing can tear them apart.

And then it happens.

One woman says, “I just can’t wait for Halloween! I’m having so much fun helping Jenny look for her Hermione Granger costume.”

The other woman bristles a little on the inside. How can her beloved friend not realize the origins of Harry Potter and Halloween? Why is she exposing her child to such things?

“Oh…well, our family doesn’t believe in celebrating Halloween. And we don’t allow our kids to read Harry Potter.”

Silence. Tension. Judgment on both sides. (How can she take the fun of Halloween away from her kids? And Harry Potter has so many Christian themes!) All of a sudden a wall comes between them.

Between women who have helped each other through near-divorces, through crises of faith, through the loss of one parent to suicide, another to a car accident.

I heard the phrase “It’s not the elephants that will get you, but the termites” a while back. In context, it’s saying that it’s the day-to-day troubles that will wear on you, rather than the catastrophes. But I think we can also apply this to our relationships, and it’s no different among believers. We split over the small stuff.

Two people may agree that trusting Jesus bridges the gap between us and God. They may agree that we have an obligation and privilege to always help out our fellow man, even if it means trouble and sacrifice for us. They may agree that human life is always sacred, even if the person doesn’t “deserve” to live, or even if the life hasn’t appeared yet. They may agree that family is a precious treasure that should be preserved at all costs. They may agree that educating people and then giving them a choice is better than just telling them what to do.

But then one drinks a glass of wine, or the other doesn't allow her kids to watch a certain movie, and the friendship is permanently strained.

It’s amazing how angry we get, how emotional we get, over the things that don’t matter in the long run. And everyone has a valid point. Many conclusions can be arrived at logically, and everyone can poke holes in everyone’s arguments and find Scriptural evidence for both stances.

Paul had a similar situation going on in his baby church in Corinth. Some people had come from backgrounds of worshipping other gods and taking part in their rituals and feasts. Now that they were Christians, they had a huge problem with continuing to eat that food because it reminded them of their past (a valid point). Therefore, they condemned other Christians who ate food that had been sacrificed to these gods, saying that they were sinning. These other Christians responded that all food is God's food, so why does it matter? (also a valid point) Here is how Paul responds in 1 Corinthians 8:1-9:

“Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

"Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

"However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block….”

These people in Corinth are squabbling over termites. Paul brings them back to the elephants, the things that really matter. The important thing is that we know and love the Father, and that He knows and loves us. Whether we do this thing or we do not, we agree that there is one true God, we agree that He alone created everything, and that we exist and live our lives for Him alone. As for this lesser thing, no one’s choices make him better than his friend. However, make sure to love each other in everything, and don’t do or say something in front of your friend if you know it’s going to hurt him.

So next time your friend disagrees with you about a termite issue, your first reaction may be to bristle, and that’s normal…it’s human nature. But remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, remember the elephants you do agree on, and respect your friend’s motivation that led to his or her decision. To love and honor God. To love and honor others. And love edifies.