Greedy for Goodness

It's not wrong to want to be a good person. For some reason though, we tell ourselves it is. It's not wrong to desire life. For some reason though, we tell ourselves it's selfish. All we have really done is denied something crucial to our very existence.

It is wrong to pat yourself on the back and become conceited from a small deed, but does that mean it's right to deny yourself the pleasure that comes with doing good? We should of course help people because we feel their pain and cry their tears, not for keeping up a good appearance. However when we do things to help people, there comes this feeling – as if there is a voice inside us saying 'this is good' and 'this is what I was made to do.' It a feeling of deep fulfillment. It is perfectly natural, and we do ourselves an injustice when we suppress it.

Why shouldn't we feel happy about doing what is right? Yet sometimes we neglect to do what is right because we don't want to risk feeling too prideful in that feeling, and the good we could have done never happens – all because of a far bigger pride. I have no doubt when I say Satan has conducted this clever scheme to keep the good we might bring to the world locked away.

Suppress that lie. Be the hero you've always wanted to be.

There is also another lie, and it is one Christians sometimes fall for. In the past I frequently have asked myself the question, “Do I really love God, or do I just love the things he gives me?” I knew Jesus died for us, and bought us eternal life, but I wasn't sure whether I really loved him, or only what his sacrifice granted us.

But why do we give gifts? Why is there so much joy in both the giving and the getting at Christmas time, for example?

Because a gift, given with a sincere heart, is a special thing.

It's a way of saying “I love you.”

Imagine what it would be like if someone received a present, observed it – and threw it out the window, saying, “I shouldn't accept your gift because I don't want to be greedy.”

Imagine the hurt in the giver's heart. Their act of love was deliberately rejected, and not in a heart of actual humility. It was, in fact, the rejection of a heart swelled with pride that eclipses that of the more honest kind of arrogance.

While it is possible for someone to love the gift and not the giver, the danger of false humility should not be overlooked. We should not respond to God's gifts this way. Jesus suffered and shed his blood, gave us the gift of eternal life, an “I love you” message that reverberates throughout history – and we ought not to say we're not good enough to accept it. How can that be right?

As the apostle wrote, we love him because he first loved us, and Jesus' sacrifice showed us just how much he did. He was willing to take our punishment. He was willing to suffer what we should have suffered.

It is not wrong for the receiver of a gift to be endeared toward the giver. The giving and getting of gifts is a love language. Don't say, “I am not worthy of salvation because I want it too much.” God created us to desire life. He wants us to find joy in the life he gives us – because, like a loving father with his child, our joy is his joy. Our happy smiles make him smile.

I realized I do love God. He reached out to me when I was lonely. He gave me a gift greater than any I could have wished for. He became a constant father, brother, friend. My life is in his hands, his love for me will never die, and in that knowledge I can have peace that no matter where I am headed he is with me, guiding my steps and forgiving my mistakes.

Is it wrong to love him for what he has done for me? No.

It would be wrong not to.

This Phenomenon We Live In

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The World.

It spins energetically, it thrives, it thinks, it hurts.

But we don't notice.

It laughs, it cries, it jests, it questions.

But we don't notice.

Why is it here? Why does it ponder, play, and feel?

We don't care. We are too busy.

What keeps our attention?

What are we after that keeps us from pondering our existence?

We don't know. All we know is we want it and are going to get it no matter what.

It is a struggle – a race against time, a war against space.

It is only I, my enemies, and my goals. I know of nothing else.

Are we not blinding ourselves?

Is it so ridiculous to think we are each part of a greater story,

A story much broader than our private realities dared allow?

Perhaps it's time to stop lying to ourselves,

Perhaps it's time to embrace the existence we keep running from,

And be what we were created to be,

More than hungry beasts,

More than indifferent apes,

But children of the God whose image we bear,

Creations of the Creator who brought about this phenomenon,

This mysterious, wondrous phenomenon we call Planet Earth.

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Dust and the Divine

Many prefer to shelve their past like an old volume – fondly to be remembered on occasion, but for the most part leaving it a dust-catcher. Perhaps there are things about it that are painful. Perhaps we dislike what it shows us about ourselves. Perhaps it feels like a weight holding us down and burdening us. But for whatever reason, in pursuit of our new selves we tend to cut off ourselves from anything predating the present, feeling it is for the best.

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The reason we are in search of ourselves, however, is that we think we have no self – at least not much of one to speak of. We feel empty, and so we hope to find ourselves elsewhere.

What we miss, though, is that every person has their own story – and this is what makes every human unique. It is to some degree what's within us, but it's also our experiences. Our story is what is within us responding to what is beyond us, and vice versa in a kind of dance, over a period of time that started with our birth.

We are searching for ourselves, and we look everywhere but the mirror. Perhaps we should treat our pasts as foundations for the future, rather than live in denial of them.

Are you ashamed of it? Then let forgiveness and redemption be your focus. Was it painful? Then let the quest for healing drive you. Was it encumbering? Then your story is about seeking relief from your burden.

Of course you may have heard all this before, and possibly came to this conclusion a long time ago and still are in search. Don't mistake what I am saying, though. I'm not saying follow the winds wherever they take you. I'm saying let the past in. Let it out of the reservoir you confined it to, and allow it to mingle with the rest of the river. Let the past be as much a part of you as the present. Living in denial of it can't do you any good. Only by looking at your life as a whole can you truly be whole.

The past, of course, is passive. It happened already, but the present is happening now. It is what it is, and we are what we are – still aching for fulfillment, for an answer. Accepting the past is one step, but what is the next step?

Personally I have found my wholeness in Jesus. I know I am incomplete, weak, in need of forgiveness, in need of a guide, in need of healing, in need of boundless love. But he is the answer to all of that. He is the God who fills the eternal gap in my world. He is strength even when I am powerless. He made the great sacrifice so I could be forgiven everything. He is wisdom incarnate, directing my life when I can't see my path. He is the great healer. He gives love even when I'm a stubborn and thoughtless idiot.

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Without him my life – my past and my being – becomes meaningless, a hopeless drama ending in bitterness. In him, however, I see the missing piece to this great puzzle. With him it all begins to make sense. All of the rotten things in my past – they happened so God could show me how much he loves me in covering my weaknesses. All the amazing things in my past – he takes them and makes them infinitely more meaningful, renewing them and sometimes introducing a new spin.

My past won't gather dust on the shelf. It will remain part of me as a testament to God's goodness and greatness no matter where I go. I don't have to keeping searching for my self. I simply have to acknowledge it. I am who God made me and is making me. In this I find true fulfillment and joy.

A New Kind of Me

I have decided I'm going to do what everyone says you should do.

And I am going to be myself.

I am a Christian.

I'm going to stop pretending, and start being me.

Who am I?

A Bible-believing, Faith-holding, God-loving, Jesus-preaching Christian.

Don't like who I am? I'm sorry to hear that.

I will not judge you. But neither will I keep the Judge's warning to myself.

I won't impose my faith on anyone. But neither will I be afraid to share it.

I will not tell you what to do. But neither will I turn my back on injustice.

I will not tell you who to be. But neither will I deny who I am.

I will not act overbearing or pretend to be better. But neither will I cower in the dark.

I will apologize for my failures. I will not apologize for my convictions.

What are your charges?

Do you think all Christians are self-righteous, racist, misogynist, bigoted brutes?

Do you purposely promote stories about inquisitors

And turn a blind eye to the ministry of missionaries?

History is littered with acts of good and evil both done in Jesus' name.

But Jesus, who taught us to love even our enemies,

To do unto others as we would have them do to us –

Can you hold him responsible for those who did the opposite in his name?

Can the self-righteous judgments of man, who sees little,

Be blamed on the righteous judgment of God

Who perceives the core of every being?

You can mock me.

You can say I will never live up to God's standard, so I should give up.

You are half right.

I am not perfect.

I will continue to do damage to myself and to others with my actions and words

Because I'm such a rotten sinner.

But I believe in the power of forgiveness.

I know we are broken, fallen, beset with weaknesses.

But I believe we will one day be perfect.

Because I believe in the promises of God.

I believe in the redeeming power of Jesus, who took the punishment we justly deserved,

And bore our pain for us,

Because he loves us.

This is the new kind of Me,

A new kind of Me which follows an old faith,

An ancient faith,

A trust in the one who laid the foundations of the world,

Who gave us our beings,

Who gave us life, and will continue to give life to those who will accept it,

Who believe in the resurrection of Christ.

We are Christians.

This is who we are, and this is what we believe.

God is our Father.

Jesus is our Lord,

And we are his people.

What Could I Have Missed?

Few things can deaden your pace more than a recurring problem. When you thought you had figured something out, imagining you put the nail in its coffin, and yet it still comes back to burden you. You ride on winds of an epiphany one day, and the very next find yourself in the spiritual doldrums as if nothing happened. How can you go on, fearing that you will never find your way out of this dark forest?

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On paper you may be able to pin a complex mathematical issue in minutes. But for some things, even if all the facts line up, even if you can see the result in numbers, you find you still just don't get it. Experience and logic can hammer the same message into you time and again. But still, in the face of new or returning issues, it can still fail to make complete sense to you. What, you ask, do I have to learn that I haven't already? Why am I still so confused?

Sometimes we can accept things in our minds, but our hearts simply do not follow. At this point, it may be we have to wait for the movement of something beyond ourselves. Perhaps this is what it means to need the help of the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 127:1

“Unless the Lord builds the house,

they who build it labor in vain.”

It is hard to wait. When we are confused, in pain or spiritual turmoil, we want answers and we want them right away. We want to know now why this is still happening. We groan, we clench our fists, we pull our hair and grind our teeth, hoping that some miracle will come along to restore the sunlight to what has become our cavern of doubt.

Your first impulse may be to look for distractions. Perhaps if you divert your attention from the problem long enough, it will solve itself by the time you come back to it. And sometimes if you have to wait, it is good to find something you enjoy doing to lighten your spirit. But the distractions are not the cure to the pain. You may spend a day of procrastinating/recreating, and come tomorrow the tension will still be strong as ever. You can continue striving to amuse yourself, but you may find you are only making things worse and sinking gradually deeper into despair.

But what if prayer was your first impulse?

The mention of prayer may make us bristle at first. How do you know that if you pray things will magically get better? Usually, in fact, it doesn't. We ask God to make things better, but nothing happens. Why waste your time?

Prayer, however, has a different purpose.

It's not about putting in orders and expecting them to be filled. It is a reviving of that link between us and the One who shapes the course of our life. It reminds us of who is in control. It takes our focus off the apparent chaos before us, and draws it to the reality that transcends the circumstances.

We may tell ourselves we can have no peace until a solid, incontestable answer to the problem is revealed and clicks within us. But the answer we are looking for may look almost negligible if we compare it to the answer we have already received in Christ, a truth that can be found in simple, stereotypically trotted out verses such as “All things work together for good to those who love God.” Under such knowledge, we can rest in the realization that we don't always have to have an answer for everything right when we want it, because we know something else is going on beyond what we see.

It may be something we have to learn over and over before our heart fully accepts it. But we don't have to torture ourselves for our ignorance until then. Instead we can relinquish our confusion entirely to God, who bears the burden we were trying to shoulder, because he is the only one who can. This, I believe, is the real way to peace in times of uncertainty, a relief from anxiety and spiritual release. This was, and is, the ultimate unchanging answer.

Psalm 55:22

“Cast your burden on the Lord,

and he will sustain you.”