It has been about a month since I have blogged. I wish I could say in that month I have gleaned some great wisdom or found a direction for my life, but I have nothing too profound to report. Instead, I have been inundated with work, life as a mom, life as a wife, and life as a friend. I have been a witness as people around me struggle in their marriages, struggle with family illness and struggle with just finding who they are in this world.
I have also caught a few people cheating in their work for my classes and that has been a major bummer. I have had students tell me that "they deserve a better grade" than they are receiving currently and that they will not accept the failing grade that they earned from me. I stare at the screen and blink when I read this or hear these words over the phone. It has brought me to the deep and philosophical question: what do I really deserve?
Wouldn't it be great if we could just say, "I don't really deserve to lose my family member" or "I don't really deserve to make a meal that no one will eat" or "I don't really deserve to have to laundry again"? I mean, after all, I am much more important than these common tasks and daily struggles. I deserve a bigger life where I am just more important and people value me for my gifts and talents.
I don't think I know many people who feel like they "deserve" bad things or want to struggle. In America, we believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We worship at the idol of success. We don't really deserve any of the bad stuff in life, we really only feel like we deserve to be blessed and prosperous. Those "other people" might make bad choices, but I am doing it all right, so I should get the good stuff. Good behavior equals good stuff and happiness. Bad behavior and bad choices equals punishment and bad stuff. We are very black and white about life here and can easily see the speck in our neighbor's eye through the two by four in our own eye.
I have decided that I live and respond to my life based on my ideas about what I deserve. In other words, if I think I am a good person and deserve good things to happen to me, what happens to me if (more like WHEN) bad things do happen to me? (I speak from experience here.) Life can be black and white until you experience the hard and miserable situations that arise in life.
What happens when I don't get what I deserve? What happens when something occurs that makes we question the whole point of life on the planet? Well, something like that did happen in my life 9 years ago. My mom (56) died of cancer when I was 30 years old. I had 2 small kids: 3 and 1. I had barely begun parenting, and she died. I watched her take her last breath and I knew that that was not what she deserved. She deserved to live a long life, filled with joy and peace and good health. She was a good person, who loved her family and enjoyed her work.
After a little bit of living, what I realized is that sometimes I DO get what I deserve and sometimes I DON"T get what I deserve. The truth of life is that sometimes I get away with being a stinker, and sometimes I get busted. Sometimes things happen that take my breath away, and sometimes things happen that fill me with dread. It is a mixed bag this living thing we do everyday on the planet.
For me, beyond the question of what I deserve is something even more important, who runs this show down here? Where is the complaint department and where do I go to get my money back when I want to exchange the bad for the good?
Well, for those of you who know me, I hope you know that Christ is the center of my world. He has been since I was about 6 years old and He is where I turn when things are good and when things are bad. He is my rock and my fortress, a very present help in trouble (see King David and Psalm for more about who He is).
What I know from the Bible, which I believe to be true, is that "in this world there will be trouble" (Jn 16:33) that that isn't the end of the story. Jesus talking:"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."(Jn. 16:33) This is super news really, because I have most definitely NOT, nor will I ever, "overcome the world".
The other thing we have to realize is that having a faith in Christ does not give us a "get out of bad situations that I don't like" card. In Matthew 5:45, it says that God "sends the rains on the righteous and the unrighteous". So why believe then, if bad things happen even if I don't deserve them--why should I trust in God?
The difference is how we handle the deserving and the undeserving things. How do I get through the yuck? If I believe in God then I know that God doesn't want my life to be about me. He wants to purify me, and He wants to call me into a closer relationship with Him. He wants to use the struggles in my life to teach me to rely more on Him. He wants me to come to Him and allow Him to be glorified through my mistakes and through my circumstances. He wants to turn something full of sadness and mourning into joy and beauty (Is. 61:3).
If you don't believe in God, then I don't really know how you get through the undeserved struggles and pains in life. I don't know how you find meaning in the horrible, senseless things in life. I don't think life from this paradigm would be very easy to live. It would be easy to take credit when everything is working out, but who do blame when it doesn't? Perhaps, this is where the entitlement in our culture kicks in, and we say "it's the governments fault".
See we want to get what we deserve, as long as what we deserve is a blessing. The truth though, is that not one of us was born clean. We are all born rotten and separated from God because of our own disobedience. Anyone who doesn't believe that has never had a 2 year old. In 1 John 1:8, it says: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." The consequences of sin is death. We don't want to think that we deserve death for our sin, because after all, we are good people. Romans 6:23 says "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus." This is not popular stuff I am talking about here. No one wants to deserve death and we all want to be able to "fix" or "earn" our way out of this situation. Yet, God gave us a gift. He gave us a way to be in relationship with Him that we don't deserve through Jesus.
I once heard Francis Chan ask the question: "If you could go to heaven and have all the good stuff that God promises in heaven, like seeing loved ones, getting mansions, no more pain and suffering--but Jesus wasn't there with you, would you still want to go to heaven?" (see Crazy Love, his book for more questions that blow your socks off). It was a profound question to me, because in our consumer culture, where getting what I worked for, what I earned, what I deserve is all about ME and MY GOOD WORKS then the truth would be I feel I DESERVE heaven. Do I love God or His stuff? I want so much to love God, to have Him be my focus.
However, the truth is, I am rotten. Even on my best day, in my heart of hearts, I know that I deserve nothing close to heaven. So, I am learning after all these years, that it isn't about the pursuit of happiness, it is about the pursuit of Jesus.
What do I really deserve? The truth is I don't get what I really deserve because I serve a merciful God, filled with grace and love. Every day, whether a challenge or a victory, is really defined in terms of WHO HE IS rather than WHO I AM. It isn't about WHAT I DO or DON'T DO, it is about living a life that is focused on God and His glory, everything else is extra.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Be AFRAID!!
Have you noticed how many messages you hear in a day that are designed to encourage you to be fearful or anxious?
I drive the kids to school and I hear that the radio station I am listening to is "safe for the whole family". On said radio station, I hear a commercial instructing parents to check out an online elementary school that is "safe from bullying".
Then, over lunch, I am watching the news (which by the way, you shouldn't do if you are prone to anxiety or fear, in general) and I see a commercial with a young mom holding her baby and coughing on the baby. (I am tempted to think this is a Saturday Night Live skit commercial, yet it is noon.) The announcer declares, "studies have proven that parents and other family members are the people most likely to give children whooping cough, a sometimes deadly virus." Parents are strongly encouraged to run, not walk to the local doctor's office to get the "adult vaccine" to "protect" junior from the virus that might be passed down.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that are genuinely in need of our concern and attention. In my small community, there have been a lot of robberies and even an attempted child abduction in the last few months. I know there are scary people out there. However, when the majority of messages that I hear and see from the media tell me to be "afraid", it makes me wonder, are we afraid of the right things?
Turn on any political news station (CNN, MSNBC, FOX) and during the day or in the evening (if you dare)and there are generally people in little boxes on the screen disagreeing with each other or drumming up conflict. There is very little on these programs that ever gets accomplished or resolved, except for perhaps a little cardiovascular exercise as people watching and participating have their blood pressures rise.
I am someone who used to embrace fear or worry or anxiety. If I wasn't anxious about something, I would start to worry. Then, a lot of the "bad things" that I worried about happening in life, actually happened. To my surprise and amazement, I actually survived them. So, I learned that worrying doesn't stop bad things from happening, and that worrying was my attempt to control things well out of my reach.
What does worrying do to us as a people? I think it makes us distrustful and disconnected from one another. When we are only shown images of tragedy and disaster, we start to believe that only bad things happen in the world. The messages become "the world is a scary place" and "people are not trustworthy". The fear begins to separates us. It drives a wedge between neighbors and communities. If you live in the suburbs, do you fear going to the city? If you live in a neighborhood, do you know your neighbors?
Mary Pipher, PhD. refers to America as a "hotel society". We live next to one another, but we don't really know one another anymore. In her book, Another Country, she writes, "In our "hotel society", a different set of norms is practical. We learn to swim with the sharks, every person for him- or herself...It's better not to get too attached to people one may soon leave, Conformity doesn't matter much in a culture of strangers. The pinnacle of good manners is leaving people alone" (p.69).
My real concern here is:
What if we are afraid of the wrong things?
What if our worries are actually a distraction from the really important things in life?
What if our worries and fears isolate us and keep us from really connecting with one another?
I mean, rather than worrying about whether LeBron James goes to South Beach, why don't we worry about the kids who need a role model that they can actually interact with that will be present when they need them? Why don't we start to think about how to end poverty and hunger and homelessness?
For those of us who believe that faith in Christ is deeper than a ceremony and ritual that we "go through" each Sunday,why aren't we worried about the fact that oftentimes, some of the most unfriendly, unwelcoming encounters people have each week occur while inside a building that professes to represent the love of Christ? What if that "hotel society" carries over into our faith? What if we don't want to really be bothered with "other people's problems" because we simply don't have time?
See these are the things I question. I am afraid that soon what we aren't doing (because we are afraid) will be the strongest representation of what we believe. Anyone can say they are a Christian, but really, people don't need one more thing to do in a week. They need a family. They need a connection. They need to be able to trust that they will be loved and accepted for who they are, not what they do or don't do.
The other piece of being afraid, is that fear keeps us from moving out of the places we are comfortable. It's funny because God directly orders many folks in the Bible to "Fear not" or to "not be afraid", but most of those folks were actively following a call on their life that was actually life threatening. I mean those hungry lions Daniel faced were not playing. Joshua was actually standing in front of a giant wall and was going to try to knock a big wall down with trumpets and shouting. Or, let's think about Gideon, about to fight a war with a few hundred men against about a million man army. Then, there was Abraham, who was told to slaughter his only son. Let's not forget Mary, the teen mom of Jesus, who was not married at the time she conceived. I think in the midst of living out what they believed, they were afraid. I just wonder if we are afraid, and we haven't really even stepped out into a scary situation yet?
"God does not give us a spirit of fear". Fear is clearly not from God.
What if in all of our fear and anxiety, we are missing the chance to do something thrilling?
What if there is a blessing in reaching out of our comfort zone and reaching out and helping someone, just like us, or even totally different than us?
Is there anything more thrilling than living out what we say we believe, rather than just talking about what we believe?
Truthfully, I am more afraid of not being in relationship with people, than I am of the risk that I might make a fool of myself and be rejected. I mean it wouldn't be the first time someone thought I was a little off. So the next time you get the message to "be afraid" from some one or some media outlet, stop and ask yourself, do I really need to be afraid, or is that fear just a distraction from an opportunity to reach out to a world desperately in need of connection and relationship?
I drive the kids to school and I hear that the radio station I am listening to is "safe for the whole family". On said radio station, I hear a commercial instructing parents to check out an online elementary school that is "safe from bullying".
Then, over lunch, I am watching the news (which by the way, you shouldn't do if you are prone to anxiety or fear, in general) and I see a commercial with a young mom holding her baby and coughing on the baby. (I am tempted to think this is a Saturday Night Live skit commercial, yet it is noon.) The announcer declares, "studies have proven that parents and other family members are the people most likely to give children whooping cough, a sometimes deadly virus." Parents are strongly encouraged to run, not walk to the local doctor's office to get the "adult vaccine" to "protect" junior from the virus that might be passed down.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that are genuinely in need of our concern and attention. In my small community, there have been a lot of robberies and even an attempted child abduction in the last few months. I know there are scary people out there. However, when the majority of messages that I hear and see from the media tell me to be "afraid", it makes me wonder, are we afraid of the right things?
Turn on any political news station (CNN, MSNBC, FOX) and during the day or in the evening (if you dare)and there are generally people in little boxes on the screen disagreeing with each other or drumming up conflict. There is very little on these programs that ever gets accomplished or resolved, except for perhaps a little cardiovascular exercise as people watching and participating have their blood pressures rise.
I am someone who used to embrace fear or worry or anxiety. If I wasn't anxious about something, I would start to worry. Then, a lot of the "bad things" that I worried about happening in life, actually happened. To my surprise and amazement, I actually survived them. So, I learned that worrying doesn't stop bad things from happening, and that worrying was my attempt to control things well out of my reach.
What does worrying do to us as a people? I think it makes us distrustful and disconnected from one another. When we are only shown images of tragedy and disaster, we start to believe that only bad things happen in the world. The messages become "the world is a scary place" and "people are not trustworthy". The fear begins to separates us. It drives a wedge between neighbors and communities. If you live in the suburbs, do you fear going to the city? If you live in a neighborhood, do you know your neighbors?
Mary Pipher, PhD. refers to America as a "hotel society". We live next to one another, but we don't really know one another anymore. In her book, Another Country, she writes, "In our "hotel society", a different set of norms is practical. We learn to swim with the sharks, every person for him- or herself...It's better not to get too attached to people one may soon leave, Conformity doesn't matter much in a culture of strangers. The pinnacle of good manners is leaving people alone" (p.69).
My real concern here is:
What if we are afraid of the wrong things?
What if our worries are actually a distraction from the really important things in life?
What if our worries and fears isolate us and keep us from really connecting with one another?
I mean, rather than worrying about whether LeBron James goes to South Beach, why don't we worry about the kids who need a role model that they can actually interact with that will be present when they need them? Why don't we start to think about how to end poverty and hunger and homelessness?
For those of us who believe that faith in Christ is deeper than a ceremony and ritual that we "go through" each Sunday,why aren't we worried about the fact that oftentimes, some of the most unfriendly, unwelcoming encounters people have each week occur while inside a building that professes to represent the love of Christ? What if that "hotel society" carries over into our faith? What if we don't want to really be bothered with "other people's problems" because we simply don't have time?
See these are the things I question. I am afraid that soon what we aren't doing (because we are afraid) will be the strongest representation of what we believe. Anyone can say they are a Christian, but really, people don't need one more thing to do in a week. They need a family. They need a connection. They need to be able to trust that they will be loved and accepted for who they are, not what they do or don't do.
The other piece of being afraid, is that fear keeps us from moving out of the places we are comfortable. It's funny because God directly orders many folks in the Bible to "Fear not" or to "not be afraid", but most of those folks were actively following a call on their life that was actually life threatening. I mean those hungry lions Daniel faced were not playing. Joshua was actually standing in front of a giant wall and was going to try to knock a big wall down with trumpets and shouting. Or, let's think about Gideon, about to fight a war with a few hundred men against about a million man army. Then, there was Abraham, who was told to slaughter his only son. Let's not forget Mary, the teen mom of Jesus, who was not married at the time she conceived. I think in the midst of living out what they believed, they were afraid. I just wonder if we are afraid, and we haven't really even stepped out into a scary situation yet?
"God does not give us a spirit of fear". Fear is clearly not from God.
What if in all of our fear and anxiety, we are missing the chance to do something thrilling?
What if there is a blessing in reaching out of our comfort zone and reaching out and helping someone, just like us, or even totally different than us?
Is there anything more thrilling than living out what we say we believe, rather than just talking about what we believe?
Truthfully, I am more afraid of not being in relationship with people, than I am of the risk that I might make a fool of myself and be rejected. I mean it wouldn't be the first time someone thought I was a little off. So the next time you get the message to "be afraid" from some one or some media outlet, stop and ask yourself, do I really need to be afraid, or is that fear just a distraction from an opportunity to reach out to a world desperately in need of connection and relationship?
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Examined Houselife
Well, I must be ready for some new adventures in life if I am starting a BLOG. I mean people who BLOG have things to share, right? This will be the story of my upcoming year. God has cleared from my "schedule" so many of the things that I have held dear for many years. I even joked with my husband that I wouldn't be surprised if I get fired from my job of 10 years this year because, God knows I won't go willingly. I am stubborn. I prefer persistent. However, the truth is, if I get an idea and I think it is what God would want me to do, then I probably wouldn't leave unless something dramatic happened. So, I am excited and anxious all at once to see what God will lead me to this year.
Since I am a college professor, everything in my life revolves around the school year and semesters. I define my life in 16 week increments. Time passes very quickly this way, and sometimes years go by and I can't believe it is the start of another school year.
This BLOG is going to be about my journey to examine life in the suburbs. I work online. I work out of my house. I am social but I am also introverted, so The Examined Houselife seemed to combine exactly what I want to do this year.
I want to write, I have been afraid to do so until now. I don't know what has changed, but something has changed. The fear has lifted and now I just feel the freedom to explore. Possibilities are endless when you just let go of the fear of failing. There is nothing to lose. There is only knowledge and wisdom to be gained.
Authenticity and honesty are two characteristics I value above many other character traits. I am looking forward to the journey now, and not so worried about the end product. I don't know why there has been a shift. I think it has to do with letting go of perfection. Anyone out there know about trying to live up to some ideal or expectation?
I am passionate about many things. I am most passionate about my love for Jesus Christ. I was introduced to God when I was 3. I heard the Gospel message of Salvation and Redemption when I was 6 and I remember when Mrs. Trudy Rose invited the children in the chapel in front of her to receive the gift of Jesus, the indwelling Christ, to come "into our hearts". I knew that day, I wanted more than anything a love relationship with this guy, this God of the Universe. I was sold. That was 33 years ago, and although we have had some times where communication was limited, we have never broken up. He has always pursued me with the love that He showed me on that first day. I wish I could say the same about my own pursuit of the things of Heaven.
My attempt to examine and dissect this next stage of life will be what this BLOG discusses. I am going to try to focus a bit more on the things that matter. I think life moves faster than the speed of light sometimes, and I value taking time to think through the deeper issues that arise as we live. I don't want to be a passenger in life, I want to be fully engaged. I want to squeeze every drop out of every day and go to sleep exhausted from having enjoyed it all. If you are like me, then welcome to the ride. If you aren't like me, well, we should talk, you may be someone I need to get to know. Anyway, all are welcome, but be warned--it might not be pretty.
Since I am a college professor, everything in my life revolves around the school year and semesters. I define my life in 16 week increments. Time passes very quickly this way, and sometimes years go by and I can't believe it is the start of another school year.
This BLOG is going to be about my journey to examine life in the suburbs. I work online. I work out of my house. I am social but I am also introverted, so The Examined Houselife seemed to combine exactly what I want to do this year.
I want to write, I have been afraid to do so until now. I don't know what has changed, but something has changed. The fear has lifted and now I just feel the freedom to explore. Possibilities are endless when you just let go of the fear of failing. There is nothing to lose. There is only knowledge and wisdom to be gained.
Authenticity and honesty are two characteristics I value above many other character traits. I am looking forward to the journey now, and not so worried about the end product. I don't know why there has been a shift. I think it has to do with letting go of perfection. Anyone out there know about trying to live up to some ideal or expectation?
I am passionate about many things. I am most passionate about my love for Jesus Christ. I was introduced to God when I was 3. I heard the Gospel message of Salvation and Redemption when I was 6 and I remember when Mrs. Trudy Rose invited the children in the chapel in front of her to receive the gift of Jesus, the indwelling Christ, to come "into our hearts". I knew that day, I wanted more than anything a love relationship with this guy, this God of the Universe. I was sold. That was 33 years ago, and although we have had some times where communication was limited, we have never broken up. He has always pursued me with the love that He showed me on that first day. I wish I could say the same about my own pursuit of the things of Heaven.
My attempt to examine and dissect this next stage of life will be what this BLOG discusses. I am going to try to focus a bit more on the things that matter. I think life moves faster than the speed of light sometimes, and I value taking time to think through the deeper issues that arise as we live. I don't want to be a passenger in life, I want to be fully engaged. I want to squeeze every drop out of every day and go to sleep exhausted from having enjoyed it all. If you are like me, then welcome to the ride. If you aren't like me, well, we should talk, you may be someone I need to get to know. Anyway, all are welcome, but be warned--it might not be pretty.
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