Not behind - nor forward - but now

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I expect and hope that I will not fail Christ in anything but that I will have the courage now, as always, to show the greatness of Christ in my life here on earth, whether I live or die. To me the only important thing about living is Christ, and dying would be profit for me. (Philippians 1:20-21)

What lies within you if you are a Christ follower? Good things, indeed. How many of us really live with the knowledge that Christ is revealing his greatness through us? Most of the time we bemoan that we aren't living as we know we should be - focusing more on what lies behind and what lies in front of us. We are a bit weird that way, neglecting to live in the moment while we dwell on the past or get hyper-consumed by what is in our future. Christ asks us to settle down right here, where we are today, so he can reveal bits and pieces of himself to the world through our living.

Do you have the courage to live in the 'here and now'? Yes, I asked you if you possessed the courage because it can be tough to handle whatever it is that we are 'not dealing with' in the 'here and now'. If we are honest here, we will all likely admit there are things in our lives today that are a bit challenging. Words will need to be said that may be hard to hear. Chores will need to be accomplished that have been put off way to long, making day-dreaming impossible if they are to get done. Relationships that have been neglected for a bit too long will need some fence-mending. Do we possess the courage to face these challenges TODAY?

Christ in me - the hope of glory. That is what Paul was saying here - if we possess Christ within, putting our faith and trust in his ability, we are going to see his grace and power revealed. Grace to overcome the stuff we have been putting off for way too long - power to deal with the stuff that is harder than our own ability to deal with alone. Courage is required for the present - not just our future. What needs 'doing' today may not be what we planned. We may have to put aside our plans and embrace God's. When we do, we find that one step of faith - embracing his plans - helps us make it through grace-filled and powerfully. Just sayin!

Huh, my mess? What?

Really! There's no such thing as self-rescue, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The cost of rescue is beyond our means, and even then it doesn't guarantee life forever, or insurance against the Black Hole. (Psalm 49:7-9)

Simply put - pulling one's self up by your bootstraps means you are going to 'rescue' yourself - be a success on your own. I don't know how that works for you, but when I have tried it, I fall again! If you are into "self-rescue" - the constant exertion of effort to pull yourself out of the mess you find yourself in - you are likely to fall again because you won't stand very well on your own. Many of us try to deal with life by a series of "self-rescue" attempts - don't we? We simply cannot bring ourselves to admit we messed it up - let alone admit we need someone else to help us out of the mess! As my kids were growing up, they'd pull out all kinds of toys. The floor would be littered with building blocks, little people, and remnants of this and that. By the end of their playtime, just at the point of needing to pick things up so we could "move on" to whatever came next, they'd sit there in the midst of the mess and whine about having to clean up what THEY had done! I cannot tell you how many discussions we had about 'owning' the mess and picking it up. In the end, I'd sit down next to them and begin to help them pick up what they had brought out. Why? It wasn't because I was delighted to "deal with" their toys and mess - it was because I wanted them to understand the love of a faithful God. In fact, when they asked for help from me, I was hoping they'd see just how easy it was for them to approach God with the "messes" of their life they'd be sure to have over the years.

The instruction is really quite plain here - we cannot pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and simply move on. The mess has to be dealt with - just like the toys scattered over every inch of the floor. As long as the toys remained where we needed to walk, we'd never be able to navigate without stubbed toes, painful pricks from sharp edges, and a halting gait that suggested our wounds existed. Our failures, no matter what they are, form the same kind of "blockage" to our path of freedom. We stumble upon them time and time again - unless we let God get down with us, guiding us in clearing them away! On our own, the things of our past which are littered all over the floor of our lives are way too much for us to handle. We just sit there in the middle of them, wondering how we will ever be able to tackle such a big mess. Silly, isn't it? We had no concept of how "big" our mess was until we finally realized we needed to clean it up! As we are "making" the mess, it doesn't seem like much to us, does it? When it is time to clean up - we get pretty disgusted by how much work it is going to be to 'clean up' the mess of our lives - especially on our own! Sin is just like this - we engage in all kinds of sinful deeds or thoughts - then wonder how we find ourselves surrounded by all kinds of daunting things. Thank goodness for our faithful God! He doesn't hesitate to sit down with us in the midst of the mess of our sins, one-by-one picking up the pieces, and moving them out of the path we most need to travel! In church circles, we might call this the activity of grace and mercy in our lives. In parable language, we see God sitting with a child, tenderly guiding the child until each of the pieces are picked up, put away and no longer in life's path where they could cause harm or create delay.

Some of us have more "pieces" scattered around the "room" of our life than others might. We have "pulled out" and "engaged with" more things that serve to just clutter our "space". The amount of mess doesn't matter to our God - it all needs to be cleaned up! Our Lord reminds us we are incapable of doing the "clean up" ourselves - it is beyond us to "pay the price" of our own rescue. My kids used to attempt to "get out of" having to pick up their mess by giving me all kinds of hugs and kisses - sweet talking their way as best as they could in an attempt to just 'leave it all there' for the next day. In the end, did all the sweet talk and affection do much good? Nope! The mess was still there and it still needed to be cleaned up! We might try to sweet talk our way out of the mess we are in - but God is too graceful to let us get away with it! In fact, after all the "loving" is over - he still reminds us about the mess needing attention! He opens his arms and sits right down IN the midst of our mess. We aren't there all alone - he is there WITH us. He is not there as the "mess police" - but as the one who is capable of providing for the "cost" of our rescue. As a mother, I had many demands - dinner needed to be made, dishes needed to be washed, clothes needed folding, schoolwork had to be completed. It "cost" me something to sit down with the kids and help them pick up hundreds of Legos, Barbie doll clothes, and little people! Guess what? It costs God something, too! Yet...he doesn't "balk" at the cost! In fact, he already paid it!

The floor was usually riddled with toys, but you'd also observe fragments of juice boxes, little bits of strings torn from some shabby cloth, or other such "debris" from who knows where. These weren't of any value - they were garbage - they weren't part of our lives, but they needed to be dealt with in the midst of the mess. In "picking up", some of the stuff clearly needed to be discarded. When God is asked to sit down in the middle of our mess, he does so with the intention of not only picking up the pieces, placing them in order once again, but he is also showing us how to discard the stuff which has no value in our lives. He helps to rid us of the debris! Just a few thoughts on the value of admitting we cannot pick up the pieces on our own today - or always identify what we need to part with in the end. Just sayin!

It is obvious, isn't it?

At times, the most obvious thing seems to be the most elusive for us to grasp, huh? We think we can easily grasp something, but it seems to be harder than we imagined. We believe understand something fully only to find we don't really get it at all. Did you also realize that an older meaning of the word "obvious" is that thing that stands in your way? Sometimes the most 'obvious' things are the things that actually become the things that form some kind of obstacle for us. 

“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being." (Matthew 6:19-21 MSG)

There are those who report every obstacle is just a way to develop our abilities to achieve or overcome, but there are others who look at an obstacle and see their inabilities as too many to ever overcome it. For example, I have a very small shop out back - only measuring 8 foot by 12 foot, meant to house all my woodworking tools and give me space to work. Now, if I am working on a small scroll saw project, that makes for a good 'bench top' project. If I am trying to construct a new dining room table, I need more space than my shop will afford in order to lay out the longer pieces of wood and glue them together. The 'obstacle' is the shop size and limitations. The answer is to have a larger space to work.

How do I overcome the obstacle of the smaller shop? In Arizona we don't have as much of a problem working outdoors because we don't get a lot of rain, no snow, and it is usually tolerable much of the time during the fall through spring season to work outdoors. I built a deck outside the shop to allow me to roll out my tools, set up a portable workbench or two, and continue my work. The obstacle is 'manageable', but have I really removed it? No, I am just being creative in dealing with it. There are lots of times in life when we 'deal with' an obstacle rather than removing it. We let the 'obvious' thing exist because we don't know how to deal with it, or we don't possess the ability to deal with it.

The only problem with this tact in life is that the obstacle is never removed! It remains - we just keep working around it. When this is something simple like the need for more space in the shop, we can 'deal' fine. When it is an obstacle in our 'character' that God has asked us to remove, we find it much harder, don't we? Our 'character' obstacle becomes a tripping hazard for us so many times because we don't deal with it more 'permanently'. We don't take it to God, asking for his help to get it out of the way permanently. We allow it to remain, but 'whitewash' it a little so it is less noticeable. The issue is that even though we 'pretty it up' a little, it is still not the character God wants for us to exhibit!

Take those things that are 'obvious' to God for his help. They aren't to become 'tripping hazards' in our lives, or things we just 'tolerate' and 'pretty up' under our own power. They are to become the things we entrust to him, allowing a true change in our path so that we are no longer having to deal with the 'obvious' issue in our midst. Just sayin!

Was it emotional murder?

Hey, dealing with others is just not easy! This should come as no surprise to any of us, but it needed to be said. We deny relationship woes like denying them somehow makes them any less real. These relationship woes grow and never go totally away until they are finally dealt with. Have you ever been so frustrated with someone, boiling over with all kinds of not so nice kinds of thought, or in some other world, just as long as it was not YOURS! Most of us would never consider murder as an option for dealing with someone we'd rather eliminate from our lives, though! So, why does God feel it is so important to tell us not to murder someone?

“You must not murder." (Exodus 20:13)

Society classifies murder into two buckets - premeditated (deliberate and planned) and without premeditation (more of an accidental thing in the commission of another crime such as speeding and causing an accident). Without getting too deep here, God really does not approve of the loss of life at the hand of another when it is deliberate. We all probably know God shared that most of our woes begin in our though lift, so murder (deliberate and planned) must begin there! Yes, God is aiming at the taking of a life during moments of fury, stirring our emotions to the point of such agitation, exploding in actions which result in the loss of life. In fact, he made a way for those who accidentally took a life to have a place of refuge (cities of refuge - see Exodus 21). If your cart was loaned to a man, for instance - wheels coming off in the use of the cart, and the man tumbled down a hill to his death - this was not deliberate, nor was it premeditated - therefore, the "judgment" for this loss of life was not the same. It was "manslaughter", but not murder. Killing, not murder. There was a way back.

Many may ask about war. Is war the deliberate taking of life? Well, I can only answer from what we see in the scripture. God certainly did not hesitate to instruct the armies of Israel to enter into the Promised Land, swords in hand, often eliminating completely the inhabitants of the land. You may not realize God uses two different Hebrew words, both translated in scripture as "murder". One means to murder - the other means to put to death. The action God was forbidding in this Commandment was that which is spurred on by anger, jealousy, hatred, and the like. These emotions actually "burn within" a man, bringing about actions which are in-congruent with the desires of God's heart. The first "murder" recorded in scripture was the action of Cain toward Abel in Genesis 4:8. This action of Cain was condemned by God - simply because it stemmed from emotions of jealousy, spurring him to anger, and maybe even a little hatred, as well.

In God's instructions throughout scripture, clearly he allowed the taking of life in actions of war. Yet, he condemned the taking of life in response to a deep-seated hatred for our brother or sister. So, we must look deep within the heart at the "pre-meditation" of the action in order to understand what is behind the "taking of a life". As with all of God's commands for living well, he refers us to consider the heart and the heart is the seat of our emotions and thoughts! We aren't to examine the other person in the relationship - we are to examine ourselves. Only God can truly examine the heart of man and know the basis for the action man takes. If any relationship woe exists within our own hearts - we need to let God deal with it! If not dealt with, emotions such as jealousy, anger, and bitterness not only eat away at us, they motivate us to take some pretty hostile and damaging actions. Maybe not physical "murder", but emotional murder is pretty damaging, as well! Just sayin!

Was that me?

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. (Eli Wiesel) Indifference is really a condition of the heart and mind in which a person has determined that they have very little interest or concern for something or someone. Another term we use to describe this condition that is quite similar to indifference is the term "mediocrity". There are some very telling telltale signs that someone is pretty much indifferent, or that they have "settled" for a position of mediocrity in their lives. An indifferent individual might be apathetic to the needs in their own life or those of another who may be right there in their path. They may be calm, exhibiting a very cool indifference in the face of what would cause uneasiness or apprehension in others. It could be they possess a seeming absence of emotional connection with others or circumstances around them - removed as it were from the influence the circumstances might normally have on an individual. Apathy is a dangerous condition of the heart and mind - seeping deep into the very soul of an individual and creating a coolness that is hard to overcome.

Patient persistence pierces through indifference; gentle speech breaks down rigid defenses. (Proverbs 25:15)

When you hear about indifferent people, you might think of an individual who struggles with frequent periods of depression or emotional darkness, but they are not the only ones that experience this kind of apathy or distanced-connection with the world around them. In fact, any of us can be indifferent in much the same way simply as a matter of our own choosing. Rigidity is different from apathy in that it suggests a condition of the heart and mind that exhibits an unwillingness to bend, with little to no concern for yielding the stand one has taken on a subject. We might label this person as "hard" or "callous". It comes from a Latin word from which we get another term - rigor. When we think of rigor we might just imagine the stiffness of death! Both apathy and rigor have one thing in common - the lack of movement!

Neither condition of heart, mind, or soul is desirable. An apathetic mind leads to very little positive action. A rigid heart, hardened by life's hurts will do little to reach out to another for help. An unyielding soul is in danger of hell - it will oftentimes make its own hell right here on earth! There is an antidote to indifference and rigidity, though. The patient persistence of a loving God is what breaks through our indifference - he challenges us to take up this same patient persistence in dealing with the indifference of others. The gentle words of a merciful God break through the areas of hardness or coolness in our lives, challenging us to exercise the same gracefulness in our conversation with each other, breaking through with gentleness and compassion into the coolest or hardest of places.

It seems like we have the greatest difficulty allowing God to "get into our business" where we have the greatest amount of indifference, or maybe where we have erected the walls of rigidness toward him. We need to remember that he "counters" our apathy and hardness in much the same way he asks us to "counter" those same traits in others. A wise friend used to tell me, "We are quick to see in others the things we don't want to see in ourselves." She was so true in her assessment of my actions and attitude! What I was unwilling to allow God to deal with in me became the thing I "criticized" most in others. We would do well to ask God to target areas of apathy and hardness in our lives. In turn, we need to ask him for the patience to persist and the gentleness of speech that will allow us to be instruments of grace in the lives of those we have been the hardest on. When we really begin to ask why we are being so hard on them, we might be surprised to know that it is because the area we find fault with is really so close to what God wants to deal with in us! Just sayin!