No denying it

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. All power to him forever! Amen. (I Peter 5:8-11)

At times, we believe we are the only ones under attack. It as though all the world goes on around us, busy with their business, and there we are right in the midst of the worst kind of attack. We feel alone, like nobody knows we are there, much less that we are struggling to just keep our heads above water. What is one of the greatest tactics in our enemy's arsenal? The feeling that we are alone - that we cannot share the burden we are bearing with anyone else. Our instruction today is quite clear - we will all experience suffering from time to time - but we are not alone in the battle. There are other believers, put alongside us expressly for the purpose of helping us stay alert and stand firm in the midst of what otherwise would be a losing battle. When we realize we are not experiencing these things alone, we might just see the advantage to forming a 'gang' to deal with the attack! We might call this 'gang warfare'. It is when we stand as united force against all the 'crap' our enemy is hurling our way. Our battles may not be identical, but we all have the same enemy! It could just be time for us to unite in our battles. 

God called us to be a 'body of believers' who stand firm against the enemy's attacks, but we oftentimes attempt to do this all on our own. What a foolish maneuver on our part. We won't avoid the suffering, but we might just find restoration coming quicker when we are battling together. If we are afraid, or too prideful to admit we are facing the battle of our lives, we may just find ourselves overwhelmed in the midst of the battle. No single soldier wins the battle - it takes a united front. Perhaps this is why God establishes us in community - so we can form a solid wall of resistance against our enemy. Support is important, but it seldom comes to those too proud to admit they need it. Oh, maybe that is the real issue at hand today. Maybe we find ourselves struggling with our pride - unwilling to allow others to see our flaws and failures. My flaws are out there, my friends - they are no longer hidden. I hide behind whatever I could for way too long. It did me no good - in fact, it actually did me more harm than good. How? The more I tried to deny my faults, the farther away I was from what I needed most for my rescue, restoration, and strength!

The attacks are real. The temptations are never-ending. The moments of weakness come, Words are spoken without thought, Frustrations are allowed to overtake the moment. Before long, we find what we had worked so hard on our own to avoid has come to a full head right there in front of us. Then we have to begin the 'mop-up' and we even attempt to do that on our own! Whatever made us think we'd resist alone, let alone be able to 'clean up' the mess left behind in our lives all in our own power? God gives us good, Bible-believing friendships for a reason. It is time we bring out the 'big guns' to fight the battle. The 'big guns'? Community! We need each other's strength when ours is wavering. We need one another's perspective when all we see is our own limited view. We need the combined learning of each other's experiences and God-given answers to help us sort out truth from our enemy's lies. We cannot, and should not, live without each other. We are not 'we' until we are open to living open lives before each other. Just sayin!

Not quite at 100% yet

I will freely admit that I don't have my life all put together, packaged up in a neat little 'perfect' package. In fact, there are frayed edges, places where the seams are coming apart, and some pretty messy 'junk drawers' in my life! How about you? Do you have a 'perfect' package going on? Or are you probably a little like me - still not quite as 'put together' as you'd like, but well on your way?

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. (Philippians 3:14)

The real crux of it all is that we are 'well underway'. We aren't turning back and we aren't going to get off on tangents, going who knows where. The more we commit to this walk with Jesus, the more we realize that we aren't as 'put together' as we might have thought. The closer we draw into his presence, the more we realize there are just parts of us that are yet to be touched as deeply by his grace and presence as they need to be.

Anyone who puts forward the façade of having their life all 'put together' in a neat little 'perfect' package is really trying to pull the wool over your eyes. There is only one who walked out a perfect life on this earth and he went to the cross! It is sometimes viewed as a weakness to admit we don't have our lives as 'put together' as some might imagine it to be, but there is also something quite liberating in being truthful about how 'imperfectly' you live on occasion. 

I struggle with my thoughts - how about you? I let my thoughts go down a path of comparing myself to another - how about you? I get all wrapped up in what they have done or said, over-emphasizing the stuff I find fault with - how about you? I struggle with my motives at times - how about you? I sometimes want something I know I shouldn't pursue, but find it hard to let go of that internal motivation to pursue that wrong path - how about you?

You see, we aren't always going to have 'perfect' packages, are we? We are going to get stuff wrong. We are going to go against the grain on occasion. We are going to make incorrect choices or dwell way too long on stuff we should have let go of a long time ago. The good news is that once we set our feet on the path TOWARD right-living (righteousness), we are not walking out that path alone - Jesus and the Holy Spirit are right there with us - helping us get the 'package' a little closer to perfect with each step we take. Just keep walking, my friends - we won't get it right 100% of the time - but we are well underway. Just sayin!

Well, that was a flop!

I like the social media site known as "Pinterest" because it gives me tons of ideas of things I can do to not only save money around the house, but plant my garden, organize my drawers, and even take better pictures with my camera.  It has such a wide variety of stuff posted there and I just love taking an hour here and there to peruse the content which has been uploaded.  Now, I don't take advantage of the full site, because I don't have little kids around anymore, so those crafts and "hacks" are not as helpful to me.  They are good, but they don't touch my life where it is I live life everyday.  I think this is why the Word of God is sometimes so rich for us in some respects and there are portions which just don't seem to touch us as deeply on occasion.  We find those portions which are very helpful for wherever it is we are living life at the moment and these become the tools by which we "do life".  Just as we have examples of good gardeners, crafters, and cooks to follow from the posts on Pinterest, we have great examples within God's Word which paint a picture for us of what it is like to live in a way which honors God.  We also have those examples of some "life projects" gone wrong!  I like how God doesn't just "post" the successes, but lets us see life sometimes has the failure points we can share, as well.  Those shared failure points are actually stepping stones which provide "dry ground" for others to pass over the things which caused us to get mired down in the mud of life.  We benefit from the passage of another, even if they didn't manage to do it with "flying colors"!

Follow the example of good people and live an honest life. If you are honest and innocent, you will keep your land; if you do wrong and can never be trusted, you will be rooted out. (Proverbs 2:20-22 CEV)

I think there are times in life when we don't want to admit we have impure thoughts, dreams which bother us, or struggles with certain habits.  Why?  They are kind of embarrassing and we don't want to put them out there on display for others because they aren't "perfect" examples of how to live life.  As those actors would say on those pesky insurance commercials: "News Flash....nobody's perfect"!  I have made some batches of cookies which just wouldn't hold their form - spreading out all over the cookie sheet as they cooked and connecting one with another.  When they were done, they didn't taste any different than the ones which stayed in perfect shape.  I still ate them!  I have made some fudge which never did set up quite as firm as it should, but I still enjoyed the richness of that chocolate flavor melting in my mouth!  I have made some mistakes in how I communicate with people, but I have worked to remedy those.  We still talk!  Here's the truth - we all make mistakes. We are not perfect.  This side of the grave, we will never reach that point of "perfect".  If we think we will, we probably better take that belief to God and let him root out that root of pride which exists!

Good people set not only "good examples" of the "right way" to do stuff, but they help us learn from the examples of the "wrong way" they have tried, as well.  Maybe this is why we need to connect with each other on a little deeper plane than just "posting" our successes for everyone to see.  We need the freedom to show our failures - not just our "pretty well done" life moments.  Honest people are not afraid to be honest about the hard stuff.  Yes, being open or transparent about the bad stuff we do is hard, but oh so worth it.  In our relationships with each other, we might just grow on a deeper plane if we were to be open and honest about the stuff we struggle with.  When we don't get "perfect" right every time, we need their encouragement to try again, but maybe in a different way.  When we are honest with each other, it allows us to find those "different ways" to live out the experience we have been struggling with on our own.

Trying to cover up wrong in our lives is kind of futile because the evidence of wrong actions will eventually come to light.  You cannot hide forever what gives you the worst of your nightmares and becomes the toughest of your struggles.  Eventually it comes out in other ways, even if you try to hide it at the place you think it is.  It is kind of like my sprinkler system and the roots from my trees.  For a long time, little leaks can go undetected, because the tree puts pressure on the pipes buried underground.  As that pressure is applied, micro-fine cracks can begin to occur, or joints can be stretched until their glue begins to loosen.  At first, the micro-fine crack just provides a little extra water to the tree's roots and the tree is all the happier it caused the crack.  The failure of my pipes is not noticed and the tree thinks it has successfully kept that from me.  When I get my water bill next month, I may think I just watered the grass a little more, or that we took a few longer showers.  I may not be too alarmed.  When this continues to spike for another couple of months, I become a little more concerned there must be a leak somewhere.

The leak may not be evident to me at first - concealed well because the tree "covers it up" by producing new growth.  That new growth is costing me something, though.  It isn't really "planned" growth, it is just deeper roots which are causing more damage to an already weakened pipe system.  Our failures can be like that root from the tree.  Failures do some damage, small at first, and sometimes undetected by the "public eye".  Yet, in the course of time, the "micro-fine cracks" will become larger fissures and the "failure" will become evident. I would absolutely love it if the tree would just confess it broke my pipes and I could be quickly on the repair of that weakened area!  The tree doesn't want to confess it failed to avoid the pipe because it knows it will cost him that particular root!  Maybe we are a little like that - we don't want to admit our failures because we know it means someone will get a view of our roots and there might even be some "root removal" work necessary!  Just sayin!

You a digger or a plucker?

How good are you at covering up your sins?  Yep, you read that one correctly - I asked how good you were are "covering up" your sins - sweeping them under the rug, cleverly diverting attention away from them, hoping and praying with the passage of time no one will notice.  It is that "passage of time" we count on to keep us from being discovered - believing if enough time passes, there might just be a chance we won't have our flaw discovered.  In retrospect how has that worked out for you so far?  Maybe there are a few things (skeletons in your closet) you have managed to keep hidden, but eventually all things get uncovered - no matter how well we bury them!

The sins of some people are blatant and march them right into court. The sins of others don’t show up until much later. The same with good deeds. Some you see right off, but none are hidden forever. (I Timothy 5:24-25 MSG)

Most of the time, my sins are of the blatant type - those things I just cannot hide!  I say the wrong words and set a forest on fire in my relationships, or get involved in something weird and wacky only to find out I have have egg on my face when it is all said and done.  I used to be much better at hiding my sins, but as I have grown up a little, I really figure there is no use!  I simply cannot keep hidden for very long what is really in my heart or mind!  Truth be told, neither can you!

Blatant sins show up right away - like when we say the wrong thing and hurt another's feelings, cause relationship ruffles, etc.  They are just "out there" for everyone to see.  Hidden sins are those ones we hope to keep under wraps and confess silently to God, but would never confess to another human being because it would mortify us to do so.  Yet, I have to challenge us on this one because confession to someone who can actually help to hold us accountable is sometimes the very thing we need to finally get the thing out of the dark and into the light.  It can be dealt with and we can rid ourselves of it only when it is in the light.

I have a great friend that doesn't may not even know she is doing this for me.  At times, in the "regular conversation" of how I am feeling about something someone has done or said, she simply says something like, "Well, why do you think she/he has that impression?"  In those simple words, in between bites of sandwich over lunch, she gives me enough seed thought to begin to think on why it is the other person might be responding the way they do.  In most cases, the discovery I make is something I could be doing differently!  Ugh! The tables turn and I am now taking a look not at what the other person is doing, but what I am doing to contribute to the circumstance!  Accountability at its best!

Recently, mom and I were talking about how it is that some find they have to tell you everything "good" they do while others don't seem to "announce" their good deeds at all.  We almost see some individuals as needing the "props" which they get when they tell their story of "good deeds" they have done. I just have to remind us that when we seek "props" here and now, our reward in heaven may be lessened a little because we have already received our reward in the recognition we received here! Matthew 6:1 says, "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding."  I think it comes down to why we are doing the good deeds in the first place - to be recognized or to be obedient to what God asks us to do.  If it is the latter, we seldom seek to reveal the good we have done, but let God receive the glory for it!

We are all accountable for whatever it is we "push down" into the hidden places of heart - but eventually we need to know they will be revealed.  It is much better to have them revealed now while they are fresh and little enough to deal with.  Anything pushed down long enough and deep enough will give us more effort and hurt to deal with in the end.  Whatever has to be "dug out" is always gonna give us more pain than that which can easily be plucked out! Just sayin!

Attracting the right attention?

Commitment has a way of drawing attention at times, doesn't it?  Get "into" something with all your heart and you will find there are others who will find fault in your pursuit!  If you haven't figure it out by now, God is interested in how we will respond when we are criticized, put down, or when others try to "undo" something we are in the process of doing.  Most of their interference and resistance is really without cause, so a response of telling them they don't know what THEY are doing, or THEY are being unfair seems pretty logical to me.  God's desire is for us to respond differently.  In fact, scripture tells us we are to "put up with" being treated badly, even when there is no good reason for the way we are being treated (I Peter 2).  Our response matters.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  (Matthew 5:10 NIV)

You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.  (Matthew 5:10 MSG)

Our values often differ from the values of others.  Get your values in alignment with what scripture teaches and they will likely differ a great deal from what the mindset of the majority would dictate.  This is what causes us to have a little more of a "target" painted on our chest, isn't it?  We "stand out" because we "stand up".  Anytime you are willing to stand up for whatever it is you value and the values you have chosen to adhere to, there will be others who will try to get at you by their differing opinion or outright resistance to what it is you stand for.  If you have ever tried to live according to the "opinions" of others, you probably have known the frustration of trying to hit a moving target.  Opinions change, don't they?  So, if we are trying to live by what another chooses for us, we are certain to be living a life which is up and down, here and there, and without any real stability at all.  

I think there is merit in understanding how Jesus wants us to really live.  We find this out in our review of scripture, allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us truths which will release us from those things which only serve to keep us in mindsets (and heart-sets) which will give us challenges and pain.  We also find this out in our listening to the right voices - not the loudest opinions.  If you haven't picked up on this by now, the softest voices are sometimes the clearest and closest.  The loudest are demanding, but they may not give that much clarity!  We have to do both - allow our minds and hearts to be made right AND learn to hear the right voices.

As I came through Bible College back in the early 80's, my professor spoke some words I penned into the pages of my Bible and have often referred to over the years.  His advice:  Live in such a way that no one can accuse you - even so as to not give the appearance of any wrongdoing in your life. A pretty loft goal, right?  The context of where he shared these words was in a discussion of morality.  He was speaking particularly to those circumstances when you find yourselves totally innocent in what it is you are doing, but where another may "interpret" what you are doing as something less than innocent (because of the "appearance" which is portrayed).  His example was that of a man and woman having lunch together at a local cafe.  One is married, the other not.  To the outsider who knows this fact, the "lunch" may not appear as "innocent" as it really is.  Living in such a way so as to avoid even the appearance of evil is really tough business, but it gives those who want to find fault with your actions one less thing to grab onto!

Here's one thing I have discovered over the years:  Those who want to persecute us don't point out our good points!  They point out our areas of weakness, don't they?  They zero in on the one thing they know about us which is a small area of weakness and use it to magnify they view of what it is they want to focus on.  Most of life's "persecuting" moments are really centered about pointing out our weaknesses, not our strengths.  So, maybe this is why we work so hard to "cover up" our weaknesses!  We somehow figure if no one can "see" them, they cannot use them against us!  Ha!  Now that's a good one!  Try as we might, our weaknesses are visible even behind the best of facades!  They may not be as they appear to us, but they are evident, nonetheless.  A masked weakness is still a weakness - it makes us a target, maybe just not for the right reason!

One thing for certain - God doesn't make perfect Christians.  He embraces sinners, complete with all their imperfections.  It is sometimes those very imperfections which get the attention of those who want to point them out and zero in on us for their attack.  All we can do is allow God to take our imperfections clearly into his care and cover them with his grace.  When we are attacked for them, we just need to allow his grace to shine through.  God knows these issues already and is at work in us to change those things he has in mind to change within us.  Our enemies and those with differing opinions will point them out so as to discredit the work of Christ in our lives.  We need to stand on the knowledge of God's grace being at work in those areas - despite the evidence others may see which shows we are not yet perfect!

There is something God wants of us:  Follow him close enough so others see a little bit of him in us.  They may not see ALL of him in us yet, but if they at least catch a glimpse of him in us, we are following as we should.  We may attract some negative attention because we still haven't had all the "rough edges" smoothed out in our lives, but when others can see enough of Jesus to know he is at work "smoothing us out", we are living as we ought.  Just sayin!