Discerning Deception

“Christian consciousness begins in the painful realization that what we had assumed was the truth is in fact a lie.”

(Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction)

 

Costly Grace

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.  Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.  It is the pearl of great price to buy for which the merchant will sell all his goods.  It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him … Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.  It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.  It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.  Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son … and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)

 

On the road

I don’t drive a car very often anymore.  A commute on public transportation ensures that my time in the car is fairly limited.  My time behind the wheel is scarce.

The other night I was driving home from the grocery store, and I realized just how much I miss that solitary time.  It’s not that I’d like a really long driving commute, but I miss the solitude of thinking while driving down the road.  I don’t listen to music in the car very often anymore, but when I do, I realize how rarely I belt out a song now.  (Because singing is not my gift, I reserve the belting for when I’m driving alone.  You’re welcome.)  There have been times in my life that certain songs felt like my most vulnerable way of communicating to God what was in my heart.  Thanksgiving.   Frustration.  Love. Desperation.  Awe.  I needed an outlet where I could spill over with passion.  As silly as it may seem, I found it behind the steering wheel of my little Honda.

But, for better or worse, my life is lived much less privately during this season.  Working at a cubicle instead of inside an office.  Washing my laundry with the couple next door.  Displaying whatever I’m reading on the train to the commuter sitting next to me.

Our time at seminary has restored a communal part of our lives that was rare during our first few years out of college.  It has been incredibly meaningful for us to recapture something that was a formative part of our college days, and to do it in the context of our married life.  I don’t hesitate to say that we needed it.

But I’ve recognized recently how critical it is that I also have a place where I can get away.  I’m definitely a homebody, and I love the comfort I find within those four walls, but I’m talking about something different.  I’m talking about a place that invites authenticity, a place where I am my truest self.

Maybe you can chalk it up to my introverted nature.  Maybe I’m the only one that feels like this.  But I tend to think that I’m not the only one who needs this.

There is something inherent in our current society that has us on autopilot.  And we are so far gone that we don’t even realize what we’re missing.

We desperately need places that allow us to bring forth the deepest parts of ourselves.  But we are numb to this fact, and so we continue to consume, trying to conjure thoughts and feelings that will satisfy this longing.  We stuff ourselves full of  books, sermons, songs, and lots of time with church folk, but never realize that our souls are desensitized, imprisoned to a whirlwind pace and the endless pursuit of more.  But we find ourselves with less.  We end up isolated, and we have no idea why.

We were made for communion.  We were bought for true fellowship.

Though we have access to more knowledge than possibly any other believers on the planet, we are still confused and groping in the dark for Him.

We must find the place where we can find our voice again.

He is waiting for us there.

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”  (Jeremiah 29:12-14)

 

Why we come

The other day I read an article about the Cuban church, in which a house church was mentioned.  What struck me about this particular group of believers was the minimalism of their weekly meeting — one basic hymn printed in manila folders, prayer, and corporate reading of the promises of God “out of a small wooden box of cards.”

I recognize that this is not the norm in most American churches.  I’m not saying that it should be.

However, thinking about that small group of my Cuban brothers and sisters naturally made me compare their weekly gathering to the many I have attended throughout my life.  And I began to ponder our motivations for “going to church” in the first place. 

It was clear to me why that group of thirteen men and women gathered in a home each week.  It is not always clear to me why we do the same.

After the lights are shut off,

After the microphones are turned off,

After the music has stopped,

After the gifted preacher has given the benediction,

Did we find what we came for? 

Does it even matter?

Why did we come?

For whom did we come?

For ourselves?

For others?

For Him.

 

In Want

The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not be in want. 

But I am “in want” all the time.  There are so many things I want, so many longings that go unfulfilled.

More than I am at peace, I am in want.

More than I am full of gratitude, I am in want.

More than I even know what I need, I am in want.

So, if I am in want, who is my shepherd? 

Maybe the Psalm 23 that reflects my life sounds more like this:

I am my own shepherd, so I shall always be in want. 
I run myself ragged, in an attempt to prove my value to others but mostly to myself.
I wear myself out, so that what is left to offer others is bone-dry,
And sometimes I just pursue outward righteousness – for my own name’s sake.
When I face the worst that life can throw at me, I cower in fear and annoyance. 
I am quick to forget who guards my life.  I am far too precoccupied by my own inconvenience. 
I spend too much energy on preserving what could be gone in a moment.   
Yet there is still a table prepared before me in the presence of my enemies – Fear, Pride, and Self-Absorption.
My anointing has never been removed; my cup unjustly still overflows.
Surely I am among the most shamefully blessed of all.
Though I dwell under the shadow of Provision and belong to the family Undeserved Love,
I remain a woman with a short memory and misplaced desires. 

But, if I allowed the Lord to be my shepherd, I would realize that I want for nothing.

 

Today

Today I only ate part of my lunch, and that was at 3:00 in the afternoon.

Today I met a young mother who served in the U.S. Navy for four years and now lives below the federal poverty level. 

Every month she makes a donation to disabled veterans, while pursuing her Associates degree and surviving on less than a typical mortgage payment.

But today I didn’t return all of my voicemails.

I met a woman whose four-year-old autistic daughter just learned to speak.  She struggles to find the resources her daughter needs, but once she pays off some bills, she wants to start saving for her daughter’s college education, while pursuing her own.

There were a lot of items left unchecked on my to-do list today.

And I sat next to a single mother, who was one class shy of the minimum hourly requirement to keep her son’s childcare voucher.  She couldn’t pay for that extra summer class, but now she can’t afford childcare when her scholarship enables her to attend school full-time this fall.  If you push one domino, they all fall down.  Today I met the woman upon whom they fell.

I forgot about something I needed to do today.

But I met a young mother who will graduate with a nursing degree in May, little more than a year after losing her young daughter.  She’s behind on bills because the money she had started to set aside for her daughter’s college education didn’t cover all of her funeral expenses. 

Today I met four women I didn’t know yesterday.

And today much of my work was left undone. 

But I was reminded of why I do my work today.

 

Everyone has a story

When I used to work in a homeless services facility in Atlanta, we would often see men and women whom we had previously served.  They would come back and often be in the same situations – or worse.  Sometimes they had stopped taking medications that helped to stabilize their mental illness.  Sometimes they had relapsed.  Sometimes they just hadn’t been able to stick with a job.   Sometimes their job had been eliminated.

But we had no rules about how many times someone could receive services from us.  We had standards about how many times they could participate in certain programs because, if those services weren’t helping someone to move forward, then obviously it was best for us to connect them to other resources.  But we never turned them away from the doors of our building. 

And let me tell you, there were times when it was incredibly difficult for our staff to exercise that kind of patience.  But we did it, and I do believe that it was a biblical demonstration of the mercy God calls us to exercise in all of our interactions with people.  It is unfortunate that we most often ignore this when approaching those who most need our mercy.

It may sound harsh, but as a society, we are often far more compassionate toward children living in poverty than we are toward adults living in the same conditions.  I know what many would say in response to that statement – that adults have made choices that children did not.  Sometimes that is true, and sometimes it is not. 

Each person – poor, rich, or somewhere in between – has a story.  And we need to be willing to sit down with them and listen to it.  We need to be willing to understand what has brought them to today.  Each person is worthy of our time.  Each person is worthy of dignity and our respect.  Without those things, our self-interested aid is judgment disguised as pity.

There are men and women who are homeless today because of the domino effect of unexpected and untimely circumstances in their lives.  Divorce.  Illness.  Job loss.  Eviction.  A year ago they never imagined they would be soliciting a toothbrush from a staff member behind a counter.  And it could happen to any of us.  

There are men and women who are homeless today because of the crippling effects of untreated mental illness.  Sometimes it is caused by severe addiction.  Sometimes it is caused by trauma in a war zone.  Sometimes it develops as a result of living many years in isolation, huddled under a blanket on a side street while others turn away.  Sometimes paranoia develops when no one can be trusted. 

There are men and women who are living in poverty today because no one ever expected a different future for them.  They didn’t grow up dreaming.  They grew up surviving.  Some of them may have made some unfortunate choices along the way, and now they’ve been labeled.  They are humiliated into explaining why they made those choices, rather than dignified by our expectations of a thriving future for their families.  They are parents who care about their children and want them to have the best education available.  They are single parents who stretched already thin budgets to be a foster parent or even adopt a child because they recognized that he or she needed love more than nice clothes.  They are men who wish more than anything that they could work just one job in order to put food on the table.  They are women who fled abuse and had to start over again with nothing to their names.  

If there’s one thing I learned within the walls of that center in Atlanta, it’s that I’m not the only one who has a story.  It is simply arrogance for me to forget it.  Assumptions are just that.  And my willingness to listen and learn will go much further toward restoring lives – theirs and my own.

“Stop having a measuring rod for other people.  There is always one fact more in every man’s case about which we know nothing.  The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that.  I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.”  – Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

 

Write them upon my disordered heart

O God the Holy Spirit,
Thou who dost proceed from the Father and the Son, have mercy on me.  
When thou didst first hover over chaos, order came to birth, beauty robed the world, fruitfulness sprang forth.  
Move, I pray thee, upon my disordered heart; 
Take away the infirmities of unruly desires and hateful lusts;
Lift the mists and darkness of unbelief;
Brighten my soul with the pure light of truth;
Make it fragrant as the garden of paradise, rich with every goodly fruit, beautiful with heavenly grace, radiant with rays of divine light.
Fulfill in me the glory of thy divine offices;
Be my comforter, light, guide, sanctifier.
Take of the things of Christ and show them to my soul;
Through thee may I daily learn more of his love, grace, compassion, faithfulness, beauty;
Lead me to the cross and show me his wounds, the hateful nature of evil, the power of Satan;
May I there see my sins as the nails that transfixed him, the cords that bound him, the thorns that tore him, the sword that pierced him.
Help me to find in his death the reality and immensity of his love.
Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his,”It is finished”.
Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of atonement achieved, expiation completed, satisfaction made, guilt done away, my debt paid, my sins forgiven, my person redeemed, my soul saved, hell vanquished, heaven opened, eternity made mine.
O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons.  
Write them upon my heart, that my walk be sin-loathing, sin-fleeing, Christ-loving;
And suffer no devil’s device to beguile or deceive me.

(taken from The Valley of Vision)

 

The wrong song

I sing the wrong song lyrics all the time.  I can’t even explain how bad it is.  What makes it worse is that I have this strange habit of developing a perpetual medley of songs in my head that really have no connection to each other.  One note reminds me of a different song, so I start singing it.  Then a word in that song makes me remember another one.  And then my poor husband just stares at me, as if to say, “You are the strangest woman I’ve ever met, and I can’t help but laugh at the stuff coming out of your mouth.”

Because usually I am singing an incorrect phrase or word in at least all of them.

The other night I sang, “Hello, how are you, won’t you tell me your name?” (And I have no explanation for why this was the song that popped into my head.)

Why did I choose to sing “how are you” rather than “I love you?” 

I have no idea.  It just came out of my mouth.

I have a warped mind.

But it occurred to me that, after awhile, if you’re used to singing the wrong words, then you have a hard time remembering whether the ones you’re singing are right or wrong.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter. 

But sometimes it does. 

In an age of continual media bombardment, messages are flying into our ears, minds, and hearts at breakneck speed.  Once we’ve heard them enough times, we begin to repeat them.

Then we begin to believe they are correct.

And we live what we believe.

The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes.  He trusts something that can’t help him at all.  Yet he cannot bring himself to ask,”Is this idol that I’m holding in my hand a lie?”  (Isaiah 44:20, NLT)

But we must ask ourselves the question.

And we do it by learning to sing the right words.

 

What can we do?

For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.  When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?  (Psalm 11:2-3)

I think we’ve all been there.  We’ve all wondered how we are supposed to handle circumstances beyond our inherent ability to overcome.

The question is legitimate:  what can we do?

And so the answer comes:

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne.  He observes the sons of men; his eyes examine them.  (Psalm 11:4)

It’s not exactly what we would expect.  Not exactly an answer that makes the most sense to us. 

And yet it is the answer that forces us to relinquish our tendency to control. 

What are we supposed to do when everything in the enemy’s bag of tricks is being hurled at us?  What are we supposed to do when we are in way over our heads and the waves keep crashing over us? 

Know that the Lord is on His throne.

He has never stepped off of it, even when His own Son experienced torment beyond what we will ever know.

He is on His throne.  He is watching.  And He will act in justice. 

There are times when there is simply nothing we can do. 

That’s why we put our hope in the King.