Jawbones, Swords, & Crosses

This post is about revenge, betrayal, and the incredible healing power of the act of forgiveness.

Forgiveness Is A Grand Idea.

It’s stronger and more powerful than any act of violence, injustice, abuse, wrong, hurt, or suffering. It can help heal a wounded soul and further bring healing to nations.

Why is the action of forgiveness so difficult for so many of us to choose? Perhaps because we do have other options which often feel like the more natural impulses to choose. What are those options?

Jawbones. Donkey jawbones are options. They’re the choice tool to use to execute revenge [as demonstrated by Samson in Judges 15]. “I’m merely going to do them what they did to me,” or “I won’t stop or rest until I get my revenge on them.” These are impulses that fuel revenge. And, by the way, how do you know when you’ve finally gotten enough revenge anyway?

Revenge never truly satisfies, makes up for, redeems, or heals; it only escalates and is a boomerang that cannot be thrown without retaliation or further harm to the thrower. Spitefully, we still pick up donkey jawbones and go at those who hurt us with them, and without much regard to the consequences of our actions.

In Contrast: Forgiveness is a surrendering of our right to get even.

Swords. Are another option, and we all have them. Swords seem to be the easiest thing to pull out, to lash out of emotion with, when someone’s betrayed or hurt us, or when something was said about us or done to us.

We must learn, what one of Jesus companions learned about swords directly from Jesus [Matthew 26]. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” You’ve heard it said—and it might actually feel like the most natural way to respond—“pull out your sword.” But, I say [Jesus], “put it away!”

Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay.

Crosses. Are an option too. Jesus and the cross, shows us clearly and practically what forgiveness looks like. Parker Palmer describes it like this:  

“The cross says the pain stops here. The way of the cross is a way of absorbing pain, not passing it on, a way that transforms pain from destructive impulse into creative power. When Jesus accepted the cross, his death opened up a way for the redeeming power of love.”  

Each of us has a cross to carry. And, we’re invited to take them up and follow Jesus. [Luke 9:23].

Maybe someone wronged, hurt, or wounded us. Maybe we’re mentally or physically handicapped in some way, or suffer from depression. Maybe we’ve experienced conflict in our families, or are victims of violence or abuse. We didn’t choose any of these. But we can’t ignore, reject, refuse, or hate them either. These are our crosses.

Carrying our crosses is an act of forgiveness in itself. It’s an entrusting of ourselves entirely to God, in full confidence that He is able to take care of justice far better than we.

One Final Thought. Jawbones and swords are options, but only crosses have real power to heal and resurrect new life. Choose crosses!

What Every Person Should Know About Worship

I think some of us might be missing a central understanding of the influence worship plays in our lives.

Worship is something we all do every day and yet we can be completely unaware of what it nurtures in us. We actually worship more often than we think and are influenced by it more often than we can imagine.

Let’s begin with a basic definition of what worship is: ascribing worth to something or someone as being worthy of our highest respect, value, love, adoration, and praise.

It can also mean celebrating the worth of something or someone we idolize blindly and or excessively.

One thing is for sure: Whether we worship God, or something or someone else, every human being is worshiping.

We Need A More Holistic Understanding Of Worship.

In a christian culture, when we hear the word, “worship,” many assume it to mean it’s time to sing in church. While singing in church is a great way to worship God, it’s not entirely what it means to worship. If that’s our holistic understanding of worship, we are missing out on so much. Worship is actually much broader, grander, bigger, and more mysterious than just singing to God Sunday in church.

The influence of what or who we worship is profoundly energizing the trajectory of who we are becoming every day—whether we acknowledge it as doing so or not. And spirituality is about the deepest values and meanings by which we all live, and nothing helps shape and form that spirituality more than what we worship.

The Golden Rules At The Heart Of Spirituality.

There are “two golden rules at the heart of spirituality,” as N.T. Wright puts it. I think these are what every person should know about worship and it’s fundamental influence in our lives. I’ll leave you with these to ponder and consider…

You become like what you worship. “When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship. Those who worship money become, eventually, human calculating machines. Those who worship sex become obsessed with their own attractiveness or prowess. Those who worship power become more and more ruthless.”

Worship makes you more truly human. “When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive. Conversely, when you give that same total worship to anyone else, you shrink as a human being.”

Made Perfect In Weakness

In a culture that seems to perpetuate the constant propping up of ourselves and hiding our weaknesses, I find this text to be both challenging and life giving…

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Now, to be clear, weakness isn’t something we should be striving for. It’s just something that we all have and we should be able to freely admit it.

The greatest weakness of all is the fear of appearing weak. That’s pride to always feel the need to appear strong.

There is a way to actually live stronger. It is counter-intuitive to our culture and prideful nature, and is an unassuming pathway to discovering a new kind of strength.

This strength emerges out of an awareness of our weakness and a growing dependence on something other than ourselves.

A Humble Heart Can Help Us More Than A Proud Mind.

We try to control this situation or that person, and they just won’t do what we want them to do. We spend all kinds of energy, and that situation still will not submit to our will. Our will is not being done on earth.

How many of us have had those moments when we say,  ”I’m tired of this Lord, I give up attempting to control it, help me!” And later we realize we were given both grace and strength along-the-way; and it was not our own strength…it came from somewhere else.

God is all powerful—not us! And when we are weak, we lean more on God…discovering His strength.

Whatever the weakness, let’s humble ourselves, and pray to discover the strength that comes with acknowledging our need of God’s grace in moments of weakness. It seems God thinks he’s strong enough…

“My grace is enough; it’s all you need…”

“My strength comes into its own in your weakness.” ~ 2 Corinthians 12

Lastly, and it’s important to finish here: when we truly experience God’s grace and strength in weakness, we’ll finally be humble enough for a more meaningful use of our natural strengths—and in more than just boosting our own pride to only appear strong.

And so we are made perfect in our weakness through humility.

“He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.” ~Psalm 25:9

Spiritual Growth: The Essential Nature of It

One’s whole life is an ongoing process of spiritual formation.

We don’t get to pick and choose when or where because it’s actually already happening all-the-time.

Every day, moment-by-moment…

We are ALWAYS becoming a certain kind of person.

Opening up to God more deeply or closing ourselves off. Growing emotionally or staying immature. Developing relationally or suffering the injury of under development.

Spiritual growth touches ALL of our life. There is no such thing as our “spiritual life” and then our “real life.” It is all integrated into ONE life—the one you live every day.

Adversity: The Outer Clothing Of Growth.

I find it difficult to accept [even though it’s too often true] that the deepest kind of growth happens in the most challenging and difficult spots of my life. And even though I know I’m growing in the middle of it, it never seems to be a satisfying consolation in real-time.

Ever pray this prayer: “Lord, is there any other path I can go rather than this one I’m currently on?” I know I have. And Jesus did too. But experience teaches that what we’d rather avoid, can indeed be something God uses to grow his purpose in and out of our life.

I often seem to think that some other place will be the ideal spot for me to grow more adequately. But rarely is it the place I’m presently at; I most often think it should happen somewhere else, or in some other way—mostly in greater comfort and on a smoother path.

Fully Embrace YOUR Life.

I’m realizing a seed only flourishes by staying in the ground in which it is sown. And, the SEED is US and the GROUND is OUR LIVES. We can’t replant ourselves into another life. We can only flourish in the life we’re planted in, because it’s the only one given to us.

We might do better to realize and trust that the “ground of our lives” [no matter what circumstantially is prevailing or where we find ourselves] is in fact the best place to discover everything that we need to flourish and grow.

Gripping Too Tightly To Your Life.

Spiritual growth implies a lessening of self-concern in conjunction with a deepening awareness of God’s presence at work in our lives. Often we are too preoccupied—thinking too much of or feeling overly sorry for ourselves—to notice the presence of the divine in the moment, at work, in our inner most being.

Lessening of self-concern? But why? So that we can engage more fully in our life—the life that God gives and created for us to live. When we are too full of ourselves, we fool ourselves into believing that we are the source of our own life. And, when we swim in the deep waters of self-pity for too long, we soon discover we’re drowning in a lack of gratitude to fully appreciate and enjoy our life.

Spiritual growth moves us in the direction of the best possible life for us. And we have a living, breathing picture of how God wants us to live. Jesus is a living portrait of the many ways in which we can live the best possible life.

Three Things From a Living Portrait Of Jesus.

Which seem to be foundational for spiritual and life development.

• Emptying our selves by giving up “equality with God.” Our sense of entitlement must die. Life has been given to us; it is a gift. We cannot be the source of life to ourselves, or be in control of everything, attempting to play God. But as we take on the very nature of a servant, serving others and their interest as well as your own, we’ll grow by getting smaller. Ascent by descent, humbling ourselves, this begins it all.

• Submitting to God’s will. In all growth we have to accept and bow our knee in trust of God’s path for us rather than making for ourselves our own. Embrace all of your life—the beautiful and the ugly—and trust that God is at work in the center of it all to bring about good. Even when there’s a misstep or a redirection on the path you currently know; trust in God, lean not only to your understanding, acknowledge God in all your ways, and know he’ll direct you.

• Overcoming evil with good. Regardless of how you’re treated, give back better than you receive. And, never become the evil that’s being done to you. Your health and maturity are not dependent upon someone else. You’re not a slave to someone else’s immaturity. Jesus was concerned with doing the right thing, no matter what was done to him. If we will identify with that kind of suffering, we will certainly grow much faster in spite of what is thrown at us and transcend the immaturity around us.

The opportunities to grow, mature, and be formed spiritually are present every day in things like conversations, relationships, emotions, circumstances, etc., the very real stuff that makes up our daily lives. Let’s embrace it all, allowing every part of our lives—and the example of Christ’s life—to develop, shape, and form us?

Instruments Of Peace

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.”

“O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.”

~ Prayer of  St. Francis~

May we all make this our living prayer. In our workplaces where there’s hatred, sow love. In any relationship where there’s injury, forgive. In every place you find despair, darkness, and sadness around you–offer hope, light, and joy!

At The Center Of Them All

How might you rate God’s place in your life?

Is he number one? What tool of measurement is accurate to even rate such a thing? Many people rate God’s importance in their lives by the following equation:

GOD 1st + everything else placed 2nd = GOD IS IMPORTANT!

Our relationship with God is the most important relationship of our lives on earth. This is true. But perhaps the way we measure that importance is different than we may usually think.

I’m not sure we make God the Lord of our lives by rating everything else in our lives as: second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on. I’d like to challenge that! Now, I know I’m playing semantics here, but go with me on this. What if we changed the way we envision God’s preeminence in our lives.

From a list that looks like this…

1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Vocation
5. Interest, and so on…

To something like Fig.1 [pictured above]; God being at the center of everything.

Family. Friends. GOD. Vocation. Interest.

Don’t we more properly honor God when we value family, friends, vocation, and interest, not with a secondary kind of value, but rather as a primary value that flows out of God’s place being at the center of them all.

Rather than think God’s position means everything else is secondary or less important, it is precisely because God is at the center [or "number one" if you'd prefer], that everything else actually matters more.

I think the way in which we value ‘everything else’ may in fact be the best indicator of where God’s place actually finds itself in our lives.

Ash Wednesday Prayer

Today is Ash Wednesday.

And I believe it can be more than just empty ritual for those who take this season of Lent seriously. Click Here: for yesterday’s post on Lent.

Ashes give us a real important picture. They remind us that LIFE IS SHORT! We are fragile and need to be forgiven.

Ashes played an important part in the ancient world of the scriptures, they were used as an external way of identifying outwardly with what was happening in their hearts.

Ashes were also a SYMBOL OF CLEANSING. In ancient cultures when they didn’t have soap, they’d cleanse themselves with ashes. Ashes remind us that cleansing is possible because the LOVE and GRACE OF GOD ARE SO GREAT!

So ashes then symbolize both OUR need to repent and GOD’S cleansing of our hearts and lives!

“Now, now, – it is the Lord who speaks, come back to me with all your heart… for God is all tenderness and compassion…” (Joel 2)

ASH WEDNESDAY - PRAYER OF REPENTANCE

Please, Lord, be with us at every moment and in every place. Give us the strength and the courage to live this life faithfully and hear this prayer…

Most holy and merciful Father: (We confess to you, Lord) and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven. We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit. (Have mercy on us, Lord).

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of our lives, Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, Our anger at our own frustration and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves, Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work, Our negligence in prayer and worship and our failure to commend the faith that is in us. (Have mercy on us, Lord).

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, for all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us. (Accept our repentance, Lord).

Lent: A Call To Examination

Our lives are so absorbed in the day-to-day experiences of life.

We focus on the…

Name brand of our clothing.

Square footage of our houses.

Balances of our bank accounts.

Year and make of our cars.

Esteem in which others hold us.

All the symbols of our own power and accomplishments!

As a result of these focuses, we can too often and easily forget our Maker and Redeemer, replacing God with things and selfish-ambitions. Lent is the season that we do something about that.

It calls us back to God, back to the spiritual realities of our lives that ground us. It’s a time to examine our lives and return to God in the places where we have begun to stray. It’s also a concentrated period of time leading up to Easter that invites us to come to God for restoration, healing and wholeness where we may have broken apart.

We need the reminder that WE CAN BE PUT BACK TOGETHER.

In our Americano version of Christianity, with all its seven quick steps to do and fix everything, the Lenten season invites us to slow down and create space for soul-searching—not rushing to fix ourselves, but rather opening our hearts to God in the most meaningful places of our lives to be touched by Him.

As we enter into Lent…

We pause.

We examine.

We listen.

We reflect.

We repent.

We return.

Lent’s ultimate goal is to reflect on what it means to change, and that we CAN be changed, as we humble ourselves before our creator who’s redeeming every part of our lives.

It is necessary, however, that, while fasting, praying, and rededicating ourselves, we seek to surrender our whole life and practice virtue. We don’t want to just talk about words such as: love, generosity, forgiveness, mercy, humility, confession, repentance, faithfulness, sacrifice, and selflessness, but we want them to be actually how we live.

May we all draw closer to God in this season and know that He is not far from anyone of us. “For it is in Him that we live and move and have our being!”

What Is Hell Like? Does It Exist?

In the wake of this weekend’s internet blow up over Rob Bell’s upcoming book release, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, I’m praying for humility and ‘cooler heads’ to prevail, which should remind us…

We all need to know the Christian faith beyond our own experience. None of us has all of the angle on truth to take in and comprehend all of it; we need one another!

I haven’t read Rob’s latest book yet (although I definitely will), but I firmly don’t believe that he is a heretic or a universalist. I’m excited about an honest and respectful dialogue emerging in the Christian community about hell–I believe it’s needed and actually a very good thing to re-explore together.

I immediately thought of this video clip from N.T. Wright on the topic of hell. It was a compelling initiator for me in desiring to explore and study hell more thoroughly from both the historical tradition and scripture. Check it out…

“I’d love to be a universalist and say, it will all be alright, everyone will get there in the end. I actually think the choices you make in the present are more important than that.” - N.T. Wright

Ugly + Grace = Beauty!

Most of us feel guilty when we’ve done something wrong. Have you ever given much thought as to what guilt might be producing in your life?

For instance, if we never felt any guilt, no one could ever heal–it’s the first warning sign that something’s not right!

The truth is that guilt can either help heal or harm us depending on how we use it.

The helpful result of guilt should be to restore health, not feel bad. In fact, guilt has ‘directional movement’ pointing us toward more than just a mood or bad feeling.

It can help us when it reminds us of our place as human beings accountable to God. It can hurt us when we punish ourselves for not measuring up to someone else’s standard–perhaps even a parent’s, religious system’s, or society’s.

When guilt directs our movement toward accountability to God, we progress through three things:

• GRACE: God’s unique free gift to us.

Our sin is often so great, that GRACE has to be greater [Romans 5:20-21]: Covering the shame. Taking the blame. Removing the stain. Grace is so GREAT that it finds the goodness in everyone and everything and makes beauty out of ugly stuff.

Ugly + Grace = Beauty!

Grace meets us surprisingly with something unexpected and undeserved. And it leads us through the rest of this guilt-freeing progression as it moves us along…

• REPENTANCE: the steps we take to return to the person God made us to be.

We need to repent because somehow we’ve be lured off God’s path for various reasons and we know we’re not being true to who God made us and the life he gave us. To repent, then, is to say…

“God,  I’m so sorry. How messed up is this thing I’ve done. Please restore me!”

It’s not just being aware of our brokenness or a better kind of life. But intentionally taking steps back onto to God’s path for us. And these steps are guided by God’s grace and not just guilty feelings.

True repentance is a prayer of surrender that might sound like this: “Jesus, I need to be united with you in the DEATH of THIS, so that I can be united with you in the RESURRECTION of LIFE OVER THIS!“

• CONFESSION: involves sharing the secrets about ourselves that we try so diligently to hide.

Central to confession is the idea that we’re no longer carrying guilt around alone, otherwise it can become too heavy and wear us out! We often forget that confession is part of the healing process.

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” – James 5:16

Honest confession might be the only way to silence the “shaming voices,”  as author Keith Miller puts it. Our secrets control us and hold power from the threat of being revealed. When we voluntarily share these secrets in spiritual community, says Miller, we break the power of shaming voices which opens us to even greater healing.

The goal in this entire progression is to restore our health, which can only take place if we fully cooperate in the process and use guilt appropriately leading us to grace.