Life’s Not Fair

“Life’s not fair”–a mantra I heard frequently growing up. And I truly believe that not only is life not fair, but that actually life was not created with a concept of “fair”. The Bible speaks of justice, not fairness–of a perfect God, justified wrath, and of the unfathomable grace created by Christ receiving our punishment before God. We humans cannot stand before the crushing weight of justice… cannot stand before a perfect and loving God with no sin. Moses had to hide in the cleft of a rock with his face shielded by God to even allow God to pass by; Elijah covered his face when approaching a cave just to talk to God. The Israelites cowered from the remnants of God’s glory left on a glowing Moses.

In our weakness, fear, and pride, humans created this fairness god–that our goodness should somehow be measured against other humans; should be relative. Because I do not have a weakness as destructive as my neighbor’s, that I should somehow have a better life or am a better Christian. Because I have already suffered greatly, I should never suffer again. Because I walk with God, I should be spared pain. Because I absorbed great wrongs, I should receive gratitude and repentance.

“The woman gave me the fruit, and you gave her to me,” said the man–in the very first sin, the actual fall of humanity, we were perverting and diluting justice into fairness. Like all perversions of a perfect creation and a perfect standard, this fairness concept slowly destroys us, as surely as any other perversion destroys us–food used to fill our God-given emotional hunger, alcohol used to numb our God-given sensitivity, or promiscuity used to fill our God-given need for love. Our fairness entitlement creates only anger, disappointment, and brokenness.

Creation groans against this fairness heresy–even nonbelievers recognize that it falls short, that it is impossible to attain–that it only causes sorrow, bitterness, and blame. Some of the kindest people have the most unkind lives. Some of the people who work the hardest fail the most. Some of the most generous people receive the least. A woman who barely escaped from the World Trade Center during 911 died two months later on the doomed American Airlines Flight 589. This unfairness takes my breath away, even as I speak against the whole concept of fairness.

Fairness dismisses grace and puts our salvation into our helpless hands. “God doesn’t want you to have the knowledge of good and evil,” hissed the serpent. That’s not fair. And thus began the destruction of the world.

Fairness distracts us from justice and the need for grace–deceives us into thinking that we have some power in our salvation, that we are not wholly dependent on God’s mercy and grace. I can never earn even the smallest fraction of the forgiveness needed to cover how much I fall short every day in the justice equation. Only Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection in my place can stand up under the weight of true justice.

Yes, I want to correct the evils of the world, to live as much like Jesus as possible, but only because I want to be like the One I love. These feeble efforts do not save me, or even move me toward safety. Only God’s grace freely given saves me, and that’s not at all fair. Thank God.

Jesus Wept

A mother of a friend died… thinking about grief and loss.  “She’s in a better place now… You’ll see her again… ”  I have heard all of these things in the past.  I still have my parents but have seen much grief, sorrow, and pain.  Sometimes as Christians, we believe that we should not grieve about earthly things… should not feel pain about earthly things.

I have seen tornados level houses, have seen parts of families killed on the highway, have seen loved ones die horribly painful deaths.  I have seen people lose everything in seconds, have seen uncontrolled mental illness destroy lives and families.  I believe we should grieve these things… I believe God grieves these things.

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.  And he said, “Where have you laid him?”  They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”  Jesus wept.  –John 11:32-35 ESV

Jesus wept.  Even though he planned to raise Lazarus from the dead, he wept.  I don’t think this sorrow was a memory lapse, or even the lack of faith surrounding him.  I don’t think Jesus wept because the Jews thought he could heal the dying but not raise the dead.  I believe that he looked around, saw all the grief and pain of his children, and cried.  I love my child and have cried when she feels grief.  Jesus loves us more, and Jesus wept.

I stopped writing for a while… have struggled with unanswered prayers and reasons.  During this time, God has blessed me: a loving daughter, wonderful friends, a nice house on a pond in the right school district, and the perfect job.  I do not deserve any of these things, but I am thankful that I have them.  Still, I don’t have answers, cannot see the plan with my small vision, cannot explain grief’s entanglement with life.  Jesus wept.  And that’s enough for me.

Rejecting Lies

Leading into this season of reflection, I think about the call on our lives that God has–that after making us He purchased us, and yet even those of us who accept that call often allow fear and doubt to prevent us from answering.  Like Moses, we believe our voices–the voices that God gave us–are inadequate for the life God has created for us, for the life He has created us for.

I speak against the lies that the people of God have accepted about ourselves, against the burdens that God never intended for us to pick up.  For there is no condemnation, no guilt, no penance left for us to carry; Jesus carried all of that to set us free.  How it must grieve Him when we accept those lies from Satan, from family and friends, and even ourselves giving voice to those lies.

God chose us.  Not in the future when we have accomplished something, but while we were yet sinners, and in our weakness.  God chose the Jews, and the Bible says it was not because of their might or even because of their righteousness; it was because of their weakness.  God does not choose the strongest, or the brightest, or the mightiest.  God does not need strength, does not need intelligence, does not need might–He is and has all those things.  God can use us even in our sin, although we shouldn’t try to dwell in sin.  I have seen God use people who do not follow Him; how much more will He use us?

God sets us free, and we need to be careful not to walk back into prison, to put our manacles back on, and to accept punishment that has already been endured.  We were darkness and now are light.  Nothing has happened in our lives that God cannot redeem, cannot turn for good to those that love the Lord.  I sometimes wonder how that can be true, especially when things don’t turn out the way I expect…or even seemingly turn out opposite of all I think I understand about God.

Why didn’t God redeem things I wanted redeemed?  I don’t know.  I see people whose situations are miraculously healed; people who have done terrible things to other people, who have grievously betrayed the innocent and good.  And I see self-righteousness in that line of thought; I know that I cannot earn redemption, that no amount of suffering and my meager ability to show grace makes me somehow deserve a miraculous healing.  Instead I receive miraculous support and grace, and I am grateful . . . most of the time.

I don’t believe that God causes all of our pain, but I know that He is with us through all of our pain.  I know that suffering refines us.  People I deeply respect have testified that God moves us out of brokenness and into healing; that He never intends for us to live in the broken places forever.  I accept this truth on faith.  I reject the lie that the right life is easy; that things fall into place as soon as we learn to follow God.  We have an enemy, and he attacks harder as we take back the ground that he has stolen from us, and his strongest weapon is the lie.

Worthless Guilt

Guilt…for so many people, a life-long struggle based on agreements with lies.  Many of us make so many promises growing up:  I will give my child not just a different experience, but a perfect experience.  My child will have everything that I didn’t get as a child…will not experience any pain…will have the nicest clothes, toys, lessons…will never see parental anger or frustration.  And then when we break these impossible promises, too often the guilt habit creeps into our lives.

“If only I had ___________, my child would not ____________.”  Occasionally, this sentence is valid, but it usually is not.  My child did not get frostbite in July (by holding her finger in ice cream) because I didn’t get her a microscope to satisfy her scientific curiosity.  My friend’s teen did not get pregnant because she didn’t buy her a piano…that’s not how conception happens.  Nothing I can do or feel will reverse the fact that my child shuttles between two homes, goes to a new school, and has started to get the teenage girl mood swings.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus...a verse that I repeat often.  I don’t think guilt comes from God.  Conviction comes from God…forgiveness comes from God…redemption comes from God.  Guilt, on the other hand, comes from the Liar.  Guilt says that we are not forgiven, cannot be forgiven, and that grace does not exist.  Guilt says that we have to pay for our sins, sometimes for the sins of others, and even for a fallen world.  Only one person could and did sacrifice Himself for all mankind…and it wasn’t me.

Sometimes Christians cling to guilt, mistakenly believing that guilt makes us humble and holy, or that our own guilt refines us.  Guilt does not refine us; God does.  Guilt does not make us holy; redemption does.  Guilt does not turn toward God; repentance does.  In many ways, guilt is a rejection of God, not a reflection of God.  Tonight I pray for discernment between worthless guilt and priceless conviction, between the illusion of merit and the reality of grace, between the lie of guilt and the truth of mercy.

Beauty for Ashes

In life, some things cannot be shared with others…cannot fit into a blog or be summed up in a few paragraphs.  Sometimes honoring the wishes and lives of others outweighs the call to transparency.  I am walking through one of those valleys now; the ending of a long marriage.  Details are not solely mine, and we have a young child who reads exceptionally well.  So I am keeping the steps of the old journey private and sharing the new journey that has begun.

“He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, peace for despair…” This song rolls through my mind after a weekend in my childhood hometown.  I have lived within three hours of my hometown for over twenty years and have never visited.  One of three houses haunts my mind…a particularly difficult two years, or just a more sensitive time for me.  The house was beautiful; a Victorian mansion with towers on either side, balconies on all four stories, and a large flower garden.  That house has somehow entangled itself throughout my childhood brain and symbolizes brokenness to me.

I had heard that the house had been torn down and decided to go visit the rubble…to wish it good riddance.  I have enough rubble in my life right now.  As we pulled through the obviously depressed town, I changed my mind and circled around the hospital toward the zoo instead.  Of course, God used my pathetic sense of direction against me, and I realized that I had pulled into the parking lot next to the former house to turn around.  Instead of rubble, though, a beautiful dense woods sat in the middle of a commercial district.  Not a block of foundation remained; only day lilies gone wild, blackberry bushes, and aged trees.  I thought of the story of sleeping beauty, and got out to see if somewhere deep in the woods covered in vines stood the skeleton of this monstrous house, but not a trace remained.  Just poison ivy, I learned later.

“What was that all about, God?” I asked, not really certain what sort of closure I hoped to accomplish anyway.  The answer came immediately: You are not rubble.  I don’t see only brokenness when I look at you…have not abandoned you to your own cleanup efforts.  You see destruction where I see abundant life…you are not destroyed, not useless, not insignificant.  Stop measuring God’s redemption with a human ruler…like a blind man counting the stars.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

The God Who Sees

 

Watching the ocean from my balcony, a dichotomy: easy to see the greatness of God in the vast ocean and endless sky…and easy to miss the greatness of God in our seemingly tiny lives.  Sometimes in life, we can feel invisible, unimportant, unseen.  People who know us best can seem to love us least or hurt us most.  People who should protect us sometimes fail, die, or even give up.  God wrote in our souls a need to feel seen, to be known, to be understood and loved.

Hagar was Sarah’s servant during a time when servants did not matter.  Sarah gave Hagar to her husband Abram to try to help God along in fulfilling his promise of many sons to Abram.  After Hagar conceived, Sarah got angry and mistreated Hagar so that she would leave (who could have predicted that one?)In Hagar’s sorrow, the Lord came to her with the name Lahai Roi, “One who sees me.”  How amazing that God sees us even when we feel like no one else can…that we are never alone, never invisible, and always worth seeing by the Creator of the universe.  God had heard of her misery and sent an angel to name her son Ishmael, which means, “God hears.”

So even in her worst time…when her 85-year-old master had purposefully impregnated her and then washed his hands of the consequences, when her only source of earthly survival abused and betrayed her, the God who sees and hears visited her.  And He is the same God who sees us and hears us.  When we feel completely abandoned and unworthy of protection, Lahai Roi visits us. 

“Good and upright is the Lord;

Therefore He instructs sinners in His ways.

He guides the humble in what is right

And teaches them His way.

All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful

For those who keep the demands of His covenant.

For the sake of your name, O Lord,

Forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord?

He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.

He will spend his days in prosperity,

And his descendants will inherit the land.

The Lord confides in those who fear Him;

He makes His covenant known to them.

My eyes are ever on the Lord,

For only He will release my feet from the snare.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,

For I am lonely and afflicted.

The troubles of my heart have multiplied;

Free me from my anguish.” (Psalm 25:8-17)

 

 

Beach Life

Something about the beach…the constant reminder of God’s presence and goodness…of his vast forgiveness and unceasing mercy. The waves beat against the shore, the glorious sun fills the sky, and I look down at the fragile dune life, knowing that it takes years for sea oats to take root enough to form an ecosystem, that life on sand requires protection and simple faith, and yet it has survived the hurricanes and constant carelessness of people.

We watched an ambulance sit as workers inside tried to stabilize the 15-year-old boy on the bicycle hit by a truck yesterday.  Seeing the abandoned bike alone in the middle of 30A told the story, and people were impatient to get on with their vacations…exasperated trying to get to lunch on the beach, trying to forget the pain of life during the happiness of vacation.  Meanwhile, a family fell apart…unknowing, still in one of the condos…thinking they were whole.

I wonder about that family in a condo somewhere…how easily we go about our lives believing we are whole until confronted with brokenness.  I think about the many times that God protects me as I am suddenly confronted with brokenness, confronted with the knowledge that intactness does not equal wholeness…that vacation and life cannot be separated…that rest does not last forever.

A storm rolls in on the ocean right now, and pelicans dive into the depths for food. The gulls hover, hoping food will float up to them, or just excited by the pelicans…hard to know.  And the pelicans, not surprisingly, outweigh the gulls tenfold. I feel like the sea gull…the ocean seems a little rough…I think I’ll just hover here for a while…hungry but safe.

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked…Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:15-17, 19-21)

Exactly ready

 

My GPS had failed me, mainly because I was too cheap to update the maps.  I drove over a very narrow and unlit bridge and came to a halt…who thought putting a spillway in the middle of the road was a good idea?  It looked like about a foot of water pouring into the lake…and amazingly like the nightmares that I’ve had my whole life; driving onto a bridge with no rails covered with water and being slowly swept under.  I could grasp the physics, the power of inertia, the relatively short span.  I considered calling my husband to come get me, but thankfully I had no cell phone service.

“God, I’m not ready to deal with this fear right now”, I told him hopefully.  Odd, because I think you are…exactly ready, in fact…unless you feel that you’re ready to deal with the fear of backing across a narrow bridge with no visibility knowing how badly you drive in reverse instead. “Well, if you put it THAT way…”  I prayed for safety and floored it, thanking God that I listened to the inertia part during junior year.

“Awesome!” my ten-year-old cheered excitedly–probably because of the speed more than anything.  I thought about how great her attitude is–just jumping into everything with no fear, trusting that her dad and I will protect her, will keep her safe.  Never even stopping to doubt that protection.  I want that kind of trust in God: The willingness to jump in with no fear, to believe God when He says, You are exactly ready. Never even stopping to doubt that protection.

 

Moving mountains

We wrestled with the idea of prayer Wednesday night…with moving mountains, God’s will be done, and greater wonders than these.  I love that we can struggle through something as personal and serious to us as prayer without fear of judgment or offense.  I love that everyone in the room took a risk, revealed their struggles with how to pray, revealed opposite viewpoints, but no one saw danger.

I do not pray with the right words; cannot toss in “if it’s Your will” and “in Jesus’s name”.  God knows my heart…knows whether or not I want His will.  No magic words or phrases will change God’s plan, will change our hearts.  I pray for the miracle, knowing that God will stop me if the miracle is not the answer.

Faith can move mountains into the sea, a common Jewish metaphor for a situation that seems impossible.  I have seen seas full of mountains…marriages healed as we prayed, parental relationships restored through a word of prophecy, lives miraculously saved.  “If it’s Your will” seems like an escape hatch…an easy answer to why prayer isn‘t answered, to why we don’t need to listen for an answer, to why we can just send off a prayer and move on with our lives.

If I do not want His will, tossing in the caveat does not fool Him…a lie to God that only fools us.  In relationship with Creator, God’s will be done defines relationship.  Sometimes people wonder why I don’t spend all my time praying for miraculous healing.  I would love this solution…God knows I would love it, and I have certainly prayed for it in the past.  God puts that desire in my heart…the desire for wholeness and health.  However, God stopped me from the prayer of healing…sorrowfully, but clearly.  I have friends who continue to pray and believe that things will suddenly change, and perhaps they will.  I don’t know.  God may work through them instead of me, or may be working in them…I know only that I am not to pray for miraculous deliverance right now.

A friend once questioned my belief in God and miracles because I did not continue to wrestle with this angel.  But what is more miraculous than God revealing His will to us…God talking to us…verbally answering our prayers?  Why would a healing be more of an answer, more of a miracle?  Not this way…not this place…not this time…I believe God.

Life Is Christ

Amazing church service today…message of God’s perspective and our life in Christ–that Christ is our life.

Praise God that He has given us the miraculous ability to see things from different perspectives; that no matter what our circumstances, how deep and wide our brokenness, God can give us a different perspective on them.  We may live in earthly brokenness, and our lives may not get better…ever.  We may always live in the valley and in the broken places.  But if our life is Christ, we can live without fear, because there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus.

My God is great and can do all things.  My God loves me and calls me His friend.  I still suffer at times, and God often comforts me when I would prefer He deliver me, when I prefer milk instead of steak.  God has promised, though, that we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus…that we can have life more abundantly.  The eyes are the light of the soul; perspective defined.

But what does it matter?  The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.  And because of this I rejoice.  Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.  I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:18-21).