One of the few verse fragments I had actually heard before I got my Bible a couple years ago was from Matthew 22:46:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
I was listening to a sermon from Tim Keller on suffering (I think it was from a long time ago), and he was saying that the suffering now will make whatever is to come all the more sweet and talked about how the reason Jesus endured such suffering was not to get to heaven, but to get us to heaven, that we were his hope in his time of greatest pain.
And aside from the sermon message, it occurred to me that if Jesus is God, how could He feel abandoned by God? And I know I've heard preachers explain it already, that in that particular moment, because of some accumulation of sins, Jesus was actually apart from God. Some even go so far as to say he went to hell for a while.
But if Jesus was fully human, there could be another explanation.
In the depths of greatest suffering, what happens to us? In the midst of some suffering, we shrug it off. Give us a little more and we're likely to turn to God, right? Given the right conditions, even the non-believers might find themselves pleading with a God they don't otherwise believe in. But throw us into extreme suffering, suffering where the body is absolutely overwhelmed and can feel nothing else but suffering and what happens?
I've never been there, I guess, but at the same time, I suppose my own moments of greatest suffering, even if they're insignificant in the realm of possible suffering, might paint a glimpse of what might happen and I think it really is the feeling of being abandoned by God.
If you're a self-aware believer, you've probably noticed that very many of the atheists you meet carry with them this deep unresolved pain (as do most humans...). And I know in my experience before learning about Jesus, I had it too and it did keep me away from God. If my own family, in particular my own mother, did not love me when they are naturally predestined to love me, then how could God love me and not only that, but why would He allow me to experience such a strong, irreparable abandonment? Those questions, along with the fundamental sorrow I carried with me about them, did keep me from knowing God. It all kept me angry at God, even if I didn't believe in Him at all.
So what if that is a layer to Jesus' death on the cross?
And I also realized that the actual physical death on the cross and its complex multidimensional physical nature has the potential to grasp anybody. I've noticed that people who are afraid of death are left in awe by the fact that Jesus knowingly died, but for people like me, who aren't afraid of death, the dying part isn't the most significant. For us (of course I'm speaking generally), it's the earthly suffering that is what creates awe. He didn't just die knowingly; he endured hours of torture first. Knowingly. That is a sacrifice.
Back to my point. What if the human body in a state of suffering overwhelm detaches in such a way that there is no God? What if God, in all His might and power, is intangible at that level of suffering because our broken body creates this impenetrable wall to block out anything but the knowledge of our suffering? And it would be a wall so strong that even Jesus endured it. It would be a distinct human limit to our connection to God.
Then let's take that concept and modify it to accommodate each individual's ability to cope in the face of suffering, however mild or extreme and then you'd have this sort of human predisposition to losing faith under certain pressures.
And so, under these particular circumstances, depending on our own personal vulnerability, we find ourselves utterly alone, completely abandoned. But we know that Jesus wasn't actually abandoned. We know God never stopped loving Him, right? We know that eventually, Jesus was going to be at the right hand of God. (Or maybe we don't and I'm wrong?) But even if we are limited by the mechanisms we've evolved to cope with suffering, even if those mechanisms might have the potential to bring about a state where faith is impossible, it is also impossible that our perception in that moment causes God's love to cease to exist.. While we might not be able to feel God in that particular moment, God is always there.
And I think, as with anything about God, you can look at it as infinitely vast beyond our realm of knowledge, but you can turn it the other way, into the microscopic aspects of our lives. In moments of great suffering where we are rendered incapable of anything but suffering, God is there and conversely, in moments of minor suffering, even if we aren't overwhelmed and isolated, God is also there.
I don't know- I just thought it made sense as a possibility because if God is God and God influenced the Bible, then without a doubt there are layers in there we can't even begin to analyse.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
On the lies demons tell us...
Me again.
As I do my copying and pasting, as I have been for work for the past... um, longer than I can remember anymore, I finally figured out that it's so mindless that I can listen to sermons again while doing it. And so, until I'm done, which will hopefully be this week, this place will probably be flooded more than usual with sermon snippets. Apologies if you find it dull and/or don't really like Matt Chandler's sermons, but really, I think they're awesome, and so that's how it goes.
So he rambles on (in the sermon from April 10th, 2011, which you can hear/read here) and somewhere near minute twenty, he quotes Colossians 2:13-15:
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14. by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
And then a little later he says this:
And sure, anybody who knows me might see how that sort of explanation might affect me directly, even though my story isn't nearly that brutal, but I've never heard demons explained that way. I mean, I've heard them explained in a few ways, mostly with self-destructive behavior alteration, but this is the first time it's been said in a way where the person still makes all their choices on their own, but the information they're given in order to make those choices, and in particular, the information they're given about themselves, is very, very wrong.
And in my own personal story, there was a really distinct and abrupt shift from that perception of me where that treatment was what I deserved to realizing that I could get out of that pattern if I would just call a spade a spade and stop justifying the mistreatment of myself as being something unchangeable or even usual.
And in that sentence, it makes it seem like an easy thing to do, but it really wasn't. I spent months trying to figure out what it was that I was emitting that made me vulnerable, what those men's radar was picking up. And then just like that, a friend last summer told me my perception of events that had transpired in the winter of 2000 were wrong, it negated everything I'd felt about what I deserved in a flash, even though I'd spent the ten years after those events in that same trap of abuse as Matt Chandler described.
The thing with deserving is we don't deserve anything. I think I've talked about it before, either in this blog or the black blog, but even from a natural, non-religious standpoint, we don't deserve anything. I mean, nature is a cruel, cruel game of survival and the fact that we have shelter, that we have food and water, that we have things in our lives that go above and beyond simple survival and that's not enough and we think we deserve things on top of that? It makes no sense. We don't deserve anything. There is no deserving. Even earning is iffy in the world we live in. You earn your living, earn your car, earn your house and then what? It gets wiped away in a tsunami. Just like that, in a second, it's gone. Add to that the disproportionate way that income is inversely related to work and really, what is earned anymore? You have the person working their ass off making minimum wage, going home utterly exhausted and spent physically and emotionally and totally beaten down at the end of the day and you have the executive who spends three hours of his workday on facebook.
So what is it that makes us feel we deserve anything?
But what I never realized in having that point of view is that I also held the opposite view. It's not that I deserve nothing at all, which really is what not deserving anything is, right? No, instead, all along, I've believed I deserve bad things. I deserved to be abused. I deserved to be mistreated. And it was only when Matt Chandler used that word that it clicked.
I've never said I have bad luck, but I have said I am unlucky in some aspects of life. To me, they're not the same. One implies junk is forced upon you as though you're some sort of victim, while the other, I felt, was more proactive. I tried, I did my best to remain idealistic and to stave off the cynicism, but in the end those aspects of my life just weren't meant to go well. But I didn't stop trying, even though I "knew" that. But the thing is, when you try and try and try all while believing you deserve horrible things, you will get those horrible things.
And I did analyse to death how those men got into my life, and I did find a pattern wherein they'd hurt me or reject me in some brutal, blatant way and when I wouldn't leave, when I'd forgive them and move on, that's when they knew. Whether it was conscious or not on their part, it was the same in every abusive relationship I've been in so far. And because I craved that indifference because I thought that was all there was out there because it was all I knew, I stayed and in staying, I shut myself off to any other possibilities.
But really, when I found God, or God picked me, stuff started to fall apart. How could God love me, how could I be a child of God, and- not that He'd let these things happen, but that He'd let me do these things to myself- how could He not make me feel loved enough to not even know what kind of love to hope for? And it made no sense because He made me loving. He made me forgiving. He made me strong enough to not carry a grudge (in the majority of situations anyway). What if God's example for love in my life was me all along? How could selfless, sacrificial love not exist if that was how I was living?
Or at least, striving to live.
And then that friend said without using the words, "You were loved; it just didn't come across that way," and things changed. There was love for me in the world, but I was missing it.
And so, I kind of do believe that explanation of demons. Not to shield myself from responsibility, but people say I'm fairly self-aware, but how else could I miss something so huge?
As I do my copying and pasting, as I have been for work for the past... um, longer than I can remember anymore, I finally figured out that it's so mindless that I can listen to sermons again while doing it. And so, until I'm done, which will hopefully be this week, this place will probably be flooded more than usual with sermon snippets. Apologies if you find it dull and/or don't really like Matt Chandler's sermons, but really, I think they're awesome, and so that's how it goes.
So he rambles on (in the sermon from April 10th, 2011, which you can hear/read here) and somewhere near minute twenty, he quotes Colossians 2:13-15:
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14. by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
And then a little later he says this:
Now I love that last line in that text that says, “He puts to open shame the rulers and the principalities.” That’s a reference to demonic creatures. And I know we’re in the West and we want to pretend that stuff is not real, but in the Scriptures and in our experience here as your pastors here, there are demonic activities still very much functioning. Really the sole weapon they have is lying. They just lie and get us to believe lies. And those lies lead us into dark places.
Here’s what the text just said. A couple weeks ago, we were doing baptisms, and the girl who was baptized before my daughter gave this testimony of being sexually abused by a family member who was a deacon at a church. And then another family member did the same thing, which led her into a life of deep darkness, depravity and choosing to be abused by people. In fact, in her testimony, she said, “There are men with a radar for women like me.” She talked about how she had been abused and had just surrendered herself, thinking that she deserved that abuse somehow. Those are dark lies that she has believed. Who is whispering those lies to her? The authorities and principalities of this fallen world. And then yet in the middle of all those lies, being led down dark and deplorable, unspeakable paths, Jesus intervenes. Do you know what’s crazy? She gets in the water in front of a thousand strangers and shares her darkest moments. Do you know what happened in that moment? Jesus just said, “See? I’m better, bigger and stronger than this.”
And sure, anybody who knows me might see how that sort of explanation might affect me directly, even though my story isn't nearly that brutal, but I've never heard demons explained that way. I mean, I've heard them explained in a few ways, mostly with self-destructive behavior alteration, but this is the first time it's been said in a way where the person still makes all their choices on their own, but the information they're given in order to make those choices, and in particular, the information they're given about themselves, is very, very wrong.
And in my own personal story, there was a really distinct and abrupt shift from that perception of me where that treatment was what I deserved to realizing that I could get out of that pattern if I would just call a spade a spade and stop justifying the mistreatment of myself as being something unchangeable or even usual.
And in that sentence, it makes it seem like an easy thing to do, but it really wasn't. I spent months trying to figure out what it was that I was emitting that made me vulnerable, what those men's radar was picking up. And then just like that, a friend last summer told me my perception of events that had transpired in the winter of 2000 were wrong, it negated everything I'd felt about what I deserved in a flash, even though I'd spent the ten years after those events in that same trap of abuse as Matt Chandler described.
The thing with deserving is we don't deserve anything. I think I've talked about it before, either in this blog or the black blog, but even from a natural, non-religious standpoint, we don't deserve anything. I mean, nature is a cruel, cruel game of survival and the fact that we have shelter, that we have food and water, that we have things in our lives that go above and beyond simple survival and that's not enough and we think we deserve things on top of that? It makes no sense. We don't deserve anything. There is no deserving. Even earning is iffy in the world we live in. You earn your living, earn your car, earn your house and then what? It gets wiped away in a tsunami. Just like that, in a second, it's gone. Add to that the disproportionate way that income is inversely related to work and really, what is earned anymore? You have the person working their ass off making minimum wage, going home utterly exhausted and spent physically and emotionally and totally beaten down at the end of the day and you have the executive who spends three hours of his workday on facebook.
So what is it that makes us feel we deserve anything?
But what I never realized in having that point of view is that I also held the opposite view. It's not that I deserve nothing at all, which really is what not deserving anything is, right? No, instead, all along, I've believed I deserve bad things. I deserved to be abused. I deserved to be mistreated. And it was only when Matt Chandler used that word that it clicked.
I've never said I have bad luck, but I have said I am unlucky in some aspects of life. To me, they're not the same. One implies junk is forced upon you as though you're some sort of victim, while the other, I felt, was more proactive. I tried, I did my best to remain idealistic and to stave off the cynicism, but in the end those aspects of my life just weren't meant to go well. But I didn't stop trying, even though I "knew" that. But the thing is, when you try and try and try all while believing you deserve horrible things, you will get those horrible things.
And I did analyse to death how those men got into my life, and I did find a pattern wherein they'd hurt me or reject me in some brutal, blatant way and when I wouldn't leave, when I'd forgive them and move on, that's when they knew. Whether it was conscious or not on their part, it was the same in every abusive relationship I've been in so far. And because I craved that indifference because I thought that was all there was out there because it was all I knew, I stayed and in staying, I shut myself off to any other possibilities.
But really, when I found God, or God picked me, stuff started to fall apart. How could God love me, how could I be a child of God, and- not that He'd let these things happen, but that He'd let me do these things to myself- how could He not make me feel loved enough to not even know what kind of love to hope for? And it made no sense because He made me loving. He made me forgiving. He made me strong enough to not carry a grudge (in the majority of situations anyway). What if God's example for love in my life was me all along? How could selfless, sacrificial love not exist if that was how I was living?
Or at least, striving to live.
And then that friend said without using the words, "You were loved; it just didn't come across that way," and things changed. There was love for me in the world, but I was missing it.
And so, I kind of do believe that explanation of demons. Not to shield myself from responsibility, but people say I'm fairly self-aware, but how else could I miss something so huge?
Saturday, July 16, 2011
On idols and love...
From Matt Chandler's sermon given on March 20, 2011, questions which he says he took from Tim Keller originally:
I figure the best way to answer those questions is to just whip out answers as fast as possible without thinking. Here are mine.
1. Everything. There’s no real singular subject, but it’s everything. My dad refers to it as my anxiety, but it’s not usually anxiety so much as trying to figure things out. Assessment, I guess.
2. Love. More specifically, to be loved.
3. Everything. Life itself.
4. Lack of control.
5. Hard to put into words, but there are these moments where I’m the bad guy and I’m going to lose somebody and I have zero control over what they will do with me next. In those moments, I am ruined for the day. It doesn’t help that they’re usually brought on by things I’ve said or done that I really shouldn’t have.
6. Dogs. Probably. But I talk a lot, so I’m not sure that’s the only subject they might pick up on.
7. A car. Cars are freedom. And my dogs. Dogs are joy and family. Comfort and protection, I guess, is what I get from both.
8. Nothing. God, I guess, because nothing of this world brings me solace. It’s a major complaint lately. I have no escape. I have no tv, I have no substance that I can take to take me away and people would say the internet is my solace, but really, it’s more work than it is fun most of the time. It’s not relaxing. Writing does give me some relief, but I haven’t gone without it in over four years so I don’t know how big of a part it plays. You can always write- wherever you are. There’s always a pen and a receipt or business card or whatever. And if you know yourself well enough, you can write tiny and in code to fit it all in.
9. Happiness, I guess. Just knowing what that feels like. Maybe I already have it but I just don’t realize that this is what happiness feels like.
10. Love me. I wish I could know it’s there. I wish I could feel it even if I don’t feel it directly. You know? I wish I could be sure of it. Same goes for earthly loves too. I’m not even sure my own dogs love me.
Sometimes, I wish my idols were the easy ones, like money or lust or stuff. Or maybe they are easy ones and I just don’t see it. The most obvious one is my dogs but even then, I don’t think they’re idols so much as a part of my life I know a lot about and that just makes me laugh every day. They’re a source of a lot of stories. But I guess that’s it, right? If God is everything, shouldn’t He be a source of stories? I never do talk about God. Well, not never, but rarely. Of all the things I talk about, His pepperings are probably among the rarest. Shyness, I guess. How do you talk about greatness without ruining it? It’s like trying to describe how the Rockies make you feel to somebody who has never been. (Except that there's a 98% chance that they're somehow adamantly opinionated and confrontational about whether or not mountains exist.)
The other most obvious one is control. There are two instances of control with which I have the most trouble. One is the one I talked about in #5 and the other is with my dogs in public. I got yelled at by neighbors in the city so often that I am actually still quite scared of walking them in the daytime. I'm on high alert the entire time, waiting for somebody to come out and scream at me. As a result, if I'm out with my dogs in the daytime, I stress an enormous amount over the control I have over them. If they do something out of line, I panic. I become so easily frustrated because of the tenseness of the situation that the whole ordeal becomes so unpleasant that I just won't do it. I'll either walk them in the middle of the night or not at all.
I guess if I branch that out further, the overall theme is that I can't make mistakes. Whether I make a mistake in a relationship or I make what some stranger perceives as a mistake, I lose the control. I lose my confidence and my equality. All of a sudden, I'm the underdog and there's nothing I can do about it. In those moments, to be honest, I loathe myself.
Because if I was good enough, if I was a quality individual, I could make mistakes and people would forgive me. But since I'm not, people don't forgive me and instead, choose to walk out of my life completely or berate my person without any regard for me as a soul. Evidently, my quality of person makes it such that either one of those becomes easy.
And there is the other point Matt Chandler made in the same sermon:
Right there, the point being I should be allowed to make mistakes, I should be allowed to fail and I should be allowed to just be me because that's enough. I may not be the best and I may not be perfect, but God made me lovable.
Jesus, the most loving character ever written, was sacrificed to make me perfect and take away my profound failings and to make me enough just as I am.
One day, I'll figure it out. Maybe.
And until then, it (this particular bit of idolatry), among many other things, will stand between me and God, from my end, not His.
So how do you identify idols? I have ten questions to ask yourself:
1. What consumes most of your thoughts and feelings?
2. What motivates the things that you do?
3. What are you most afraid of?
4. What brings the highest amount of frustration or anger into your life?
5. What is one thing that can change your mood in a second?
6. What would your friends say is your favorite topic of conversation?
7. What are some things that you feel you can’t live without?
8. What brings you solace?
9. What do you yearn for?
10. What is one thing that you wish God would do for you?
If you begin to answer those questions, you’ll be able to find your idols. Because what you think about, what you yearn for, what you talk about, what you want God to do for you, what drives you, what makes you angry, what satisfies you and what brings you comfort is what you worship.
I figure the best way to answer those questions is to just whip out answers as fast as possible without thinking. Here are mine.
1. Everything. There’s no real singular subject, but it’s everything. My dad refers to it as my anxiety, but it’s not usually anxiety so much as trying to figure things out. Assessment, I guess.
2. Love. More specifically, to be loved.
3. Everything. Life itself.
4. Lack of control.
5. Hard to put into words, but there are these moments where I’m the bad guy and I’m going to lose somebody and I have zero control over what they will do with me next. In those moments, I am ruined for the day. It doesn’t help that they’re usually brought on by things I’ve said or done that I really shouldn’t have.
6. Dogs. Probably. But I talk a lot, so I’m not sure that’s the only subject they might pick up on.
7. A car. Cars are freedom. And my dogs. Dogs are joy and family. Comfort and protection, I guess, is what I get from both.
8. Nothing. God, I guess, because nothing of this world brings me solace. It’s a major complaint lately. I have no escape. I have no tv, I have no substance that I can take to take me away and people would say the internet is my solace, but really, it’s more work than it is fun most of the time. It’s not relaxing. Writing does give me some relief, but I haven’t gone without it in over four years so I don’t know how big of a part it plays. You can always write- wherever you are. There’s always a pen and a receipt or business card or whatever. And if you know yourself well enough, you can write tiny and in code to fit it all in.
9. Happiness, I guess. Just knowing what that feels like. Maybe I already have it but I just don’t realize that this is what happiness feels like.
10. Love me. I wish I could know it’s there. I wish I could feel it even if I don’t feel it directly. You know? I wish I could be sure of it. Same goes for earthly loves too. I’m not even sure my own dogs love me.
Sometimes, I wish my idols were the easy ones, like money or lust or stuff. Or maybe they are easy ones and I just don’t see it. The most obvious one is my dogs but even then, I don’t think they’re idols so much as a part of my life I know a lot about and that just makes me laugh every day. They’re a source of a lot of stories. But I guess that’s it, right? If God is everything, shouldn’t He be a source of stories? I never do talk about God. Well, not never, but rarely. Of all the things I talk about, His pepperings are probably among the rarest. Shyness, I guess. How do you talk about greatness without ruining it? It’s like trying to describe how the Rockies make you feel to somebody who has never been. (Except that there's a 98% chance that they're somehow adamantly opinionated and confrontational about whether or not mountains exist.)
The other most obvious one is control. There are two instances of control with which I have the most trouble. One is the one I talked about in #5 and the other is with my dogs in public. I got yelled at by neighbors in the city so often that I am actually still quite scared of walking them in the daytime. I'm on high alert the entire time, waiting for somebody to come out and scream at me. As a result, if I'm out with my dogs in the daytime, I stress an enormous amount over the control I have over them. If they do something out of line, I panic. I become so easily frustrated because of the tenseness of the situation that the whole ordeal becomes so unpleasant that I just won't do it. I'll either walk them in the middle of the night or not at all.
I guess if I branch that out further, the overall theme is that I can't make mistakes. Whether I make a mistake in a relationship or I make what some stranger perceives as a mistake, I lose the control. I lose my confidence and my equality. All of a sudden, I'm the underdog and there's nothing I can do about it. In those moments, to be honest, I loathe myself.
Because if I was good enough, if I was a quality individual, I could make mistakes and people would forgive me. But since I'm not, people don't forgive me and instead, choose to walk out of my life completely or berate my person without any regard for me as a soul. Evidently, my quality of person makes it such that either one of those becomes easy.
And there is the other point Matt Chandler made in the same sermon:
The Bible is filled with shady characters. And this goes back to the point that the book is about the mercy and beauty of God in Christ and not you and me. Because almost all the men and women in Scripture are these abject failures who God uses mightily. Why? Because the point is Him, not you. So for those of you who like the other end of the spectrum where you loathe yourself, that’s just as much idolatry as loving yourself. Both are saying, “I have no need of the cross of Christ.” Both are wrong.
Right there, the point being I should be allowed to make mistakes, I should be allowed to fail and I should be allowed to just be me because that's enough. I may not be the best and I may not be perfect, but God made me lovable.
Jesus, the most loving character ever written, was sacrificed to make me perfect and take away my profound failings and to make me enough just as I am.
One day, I'll figure it out. Maybe.
And until then, it (this particular bit of idolatry), among many other things, will stand between me and God, from my end, not His.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Always critical...
There are some things I find difficult about the church structure. And I'm always hesitant to say anything about it (even though this blog would suggest otherwise) because I really don't want to be the one who sits on the outside and tells the inside how to do its thing. But there are two things a few pastors seem to do that I've noticed a lot lately that just lose me.
1. Rehoming animals.
This one, if you know me at all, is kind of obvious. If somebody rehomes a dog, I immediately begin to question their person. To discard a dog is to discard a soul. It's to actively participate in the emotional scarring of an individual. It's also to throw that individual you've scarred onto somebody else.
Sure, life as a pastor is rough. I don't doubt it. But how many pastors these days say church comes in fourth on the priority list?
1. God
2. Wife
3. Family
4. Church
Seems to me that a dog would fit in #3. And not only is the emotional scarring of the abandoned dog significant, the negative lessons it teaches your children and those around you about loyalty, unconditional love and frankly, the elderly are also very important.
Dogs, I think, are a gift from God to show us what unconditional love looks like. They're meant to help us understand how to give sacrificially and how to put aside the events of our day and love wholeheartedly as if that were all that mattered.
Something about a pastor rehoming a dog, especially an elderly one, makes me question whether he knows love at all. How can he teach the love of God when he has no respect for the love of a dog? I'm serious too. Dogs don't need much and as they grow older; they need less and less (albeit more in vet bills sometimes). To abandon a faithful friend as they enter into their older years where they require compassion and the fulfillment of trust is just cruel. It's blatantly unloving. And somehow, I still hold pastors above regular people in that sense. They should love more. They should strive to love harder and fuller than the rest of us.
And really, if you foresee a pastoral life in your future, don't get a dog if you can't prioritize properly. Be responsible.
2. One-sided communication.
In another lifetime, I joined a pet forum on the internet. At the time, I was pretty sick and couldn't really do anything with myself, so I decided to try to help people with their dogs online. When I first got there, there were about twenty threads updated every day. It wasn't that many in spite of the admin's bloated membership number.
Once in a while, somebody would post a thread with some obscure medical issue that nobody knew anything about. They'd be upset and you could kind of tell by the tone of their post that they'd be sitting there waiting for a response. And I won't hesitate to say that a couple times after I was made more aware of those empty threads, that person was me. I remember asking how to train Jemma when she overreacts in a very negative way to any sort of correction. At the time, she had really low estrogen too, so that contributed to her submissive upset. Nobody answered. I remember feeling hopeless and a little bit rejected.
All that to say, I quickly learned that people just want an ear most of the time. They don't necessarily need all the answers but they do want somebody to hear them and just be there. And on this forum, it was a little bit of an extreme because of the panic that sets in when somebody we love is afflicted with something we can't figure out, but on a lower level, this happens everywhere with everybody in every situation.
A commenter on that forum who appeared out of nowhere one time, commented that this Prin person (i.e. me) had a "sickness" whereby she'd answer everything. And I did. I tried my best to answer all the threads nobody would answer, even if just to push it back up to the new threads so somebody with actual answers would see it.
When I left that forum a few years ago, the daily thread count had risen from the twenty or so when I'd arrived to around 120. And it's not just because of me. Other people started doing the same and it became a really caring forum. People listened. They tried to help. It was great.
I still try to do it now, in my daily life. I try to hear when somebody just needs an ear- although sometimes, it's hard not to offer unsolicited advice. I've been told that somehow, people feel they can open up to me and say things they wouldn't otherwise say out loud. I love that. I love the privilege of people letting me in.
Pastors have that privilege built into their role. People open up. People want to be heard. People want direction or at the very least, understanding.
A pastor has to reply. Has to. I understand schedules are tight and pastors are pulled every which way, but still, there has to be a way, even if that way is finding a volunteer who will help you sort through your email or phone messages or other requests. You have to answer.
Nothing makes a person feel invisible quite like being asked, "How are you?" and being shut down during the reply. Sure, in some parts of society, people ask that question without meaning, but a pastor is supposed to care. And worse still is the next time the person is asked the same question. How do you answer a question to which the asker has already expressed no interest in hearing an answer?
You just stop answering. You shut down. You build a boundary between you and your pastor and that boundary makes the relationship superficial and uncaring. It makes it so that you and your pastor will never become more than acquaintances who exchange meaningless pleasantries.
And I honestly don't think any pastor goes into ministry with that kind of goal for personal relationships.
Answer the emails. Answer the phone calls. Learn to communicate so that your replies are thick and juicy and the interaction can be short and fulfilling.
Learn to communicate so that, as tight as your schedule gets, nobody feels left behind.
Learn to communicate.
Because really, who cares if you give three hundred talks and write seventeen books this year when nobody (as far as I know) has felt true community from a book? Or even a lecture? Who cares when none of those words you put out makes anybody feel loved? Who cares when all the effort you put into those endeavors is not felt at a level of personal connection?
Stop putting effort into things that seem big but do nothing for the people you love or are called to love. Who cares if the biggest pastor in the United States thinks your book is great when your most loyal church member's life is falling apart and you're just not there? Who cares if other pastors lift you up when you slap away the hands reaching out to you?
It's the little things that count.
1. Rehoming animals.
This one, if you know me at all, is kind of obvious. If somebody rehomes a dog, I immediately begin to question their person. To discard a dog is to discard a soul. It's to actively participate in the emotional scarring of an individual. It's also to throw that individual you've scarred onto somebody else.
Sure, life as a pastor is rough. I don't doubt it. But how many pastors these days say church comes in fourth on the priority list?
1. God
2. Wife
3. Family
4. Church
Seems to me that a dog would fit in #3. And not only is the emotional scarring of the abandoned dog significant, the negative lessons it teaches your children and those around you about loyalty, unconditional love and frankly, the elderly are also very important.
Dogs, I think, are a gift from God to show us what unconditional love looks like. They're meant to help us understand how to give sacrificially and how to put aside the events of our day and love wholeheartedly as if that were all that mattered.
Something about a pastor rehoming a dog, especially an elderly one, makes me question whether he knows love at all. How can he teach the love of God when he has no respect for the love of a dog? I'm serious too. Dogs don't need much and as they grow older; they need less and less (albeit more in vet bills sometimes). To abandon a faithful friend as they enter into their older years where they require compassion and the fulfillment of trust is just cruel. It's blatantly unloving. And somehow, I still hold pastors above regular people in that sense. They should love more. They should strive to love harder and fuller than the rest of us.
And really, if you foresee a pastoral life in your future, don't get a dog if you can't prioritize properly. Be responsible.
2. One-sided communication.
In another lifetime, I joined a pet forum on the internet. At the time, I was pretty sick and couldn't really do anything with myself, so I decided to try to help people with their dogs online. When I first got there, there were about twenty threads updated every day. It wasn't that many in spite of the admin's bloated membership number.
Once in a while, somebody would post a thread with some obscure medical issue that nobody knew anything about. They'd be upset and you could kind of tell by the tone of their post that they'd be sitting there waiting for a response. And I won't hesitate to say that a couple times after I was made more aware of those empty threads, that person was me. I remember asking how to train Jemma when she overreacts in a very negative way to any sort of correction. At the time, she had really low estrogen too, so that contributed to her submissive upset. Nobody answered. I remember feeling hopeless and a little bit rejected.
All that to say, I quickly learned that people just want an ear most of the time. They don't necessarily need all the answers but they do want somebody to hear them and just be there. And on this forum, it was a little bit of an extreme because of the panic that sets in when somebody we love is afflicted with something we can't figure out, but on a lower level, this happens everywhere with everybody in every situation.
A commenter on that forum who appeared out of nowhere one time, commented that this Prin person (i.e. me) had a "sickness" whereby she'd answer everything. And I did. I tried my best to answer all the threads nobody would answer, even if just to push it back up to the new threads so somebody with actual answers would see it.
When I left that forum a few years ago, the daily thread count had risen from the twenty or so when I'd arrived to around 120. And it's not just because of me. Other people started doing the same and it became a really caring forum. People listened. They tried to help. It was great.
I still try to do it now, in my daily life. I try to hear when somebody just needs an ear- although sometimes, it's hard not to offer unsolicited advice. I've been told that somehow, people feel they can open up to me and say things they wouldn't otherwise say out loud. I love that. I love the privilege of people letting me in.
Pastors have that privilege built into their role. People open up. People want to be heard. People want direction or at the very least, understanding.
A pastor has to reply. Has to. I understand schedules are tight and pastors are pulled every which way, but still, there has to be a way, even if that way is finding a volunteer who will help you sort through your email or phone messages or other requests. You have to answer.
Nothing makes a person feel invisible quite like being asked, "How are you?" and being shut down during the reply. Sure, in some parts of society, people ask that question without meaning, but a pastor is supposed to care. And worse still is the next time the person is asked the same question. How do you answer a question to which the asker has already expressed no interest in hearing an answer?
You just stop answering. You shut down. You build a boundary between you and your pastor and that boundary makes the relationship superficial and uncaring. It makes it so that you and your pastor will never become more than acquaintances who exchange meaningless pleasantries.
And I honestly don't think any pastor goes into ministry with that kind of goal for personal relationships.
Answer the emails. Answer the phone calls. Learn to communicate so that your replies are thick and juicy and the interaction can be short and fulfilling.
Learn to communicate so that, as tight as your schedule gets, nobody feels left behind.
Learn to communicate.
Because really, who cares if you give three hundred talks and write seventeen books this year when nobody (as far as I know) has felt true community from a book? Or even a lecture? Who cares when none of those words you put out makes anybody feel loved? Who cares when all the effort you put into those endeavors is not felt at a level of personal connection?
Stop putting effort into things that seem big but do nothing for the people you love or are called to love. Who cares if the biggest pastor in the United States thinks your book is great when your most loyal church member's life is falling apart and you're just not there? Who cares if other pastors lift you up when you slap away the hands reaching out to you?
It's the little things that count.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
On secrets...
I've been thinking about secrets lately. I'm not a very secretive person and as such, the life dramas I get into tend to be of a different nature than people taking issue with me as a result of some inconsistency or omission on my part.
But secrets and misunderstandings wherein both parties lack forgiveness and empathy tend to be the main driver of television and movies on the whole, and I find that sad. It's sad because even if you know what's going to happen, even if you see it coming the entire time you're watching and you know how it'll end, so many people do it in their own lives anyway, as if they are somehow immune to being outed.
In truth, they are immune, for the most part. In this society where everybody talks and nobody listens, you can say pretty well anything, truth or not, and very few will take notice. Even fewer will notice when something has been omitted. We're all very busy in our lives, right? Too busy to reply to emails, too busy to return calls and too busy to worry about whether or not those in our entourage are genuine.
We've stopped caring also because even if those in our entourage are found to be disingenuous or blatantly devious, we can just discard them, as loyalty these days is scarce, if at all existent.
But the thing is, Matthew chapter 9 says this:
3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
And Matthew 12:25 starts in a similar way as verse four above. So if the Bible is true and Jesus is God and Jesus hears thoughts, then what of secrets?
There's endless talk about how the Bible says we should or should not live, and yet, openness seems so frowned upon among Christians I know.
When a pastor asked me a few weeks ago how I was doing and if I was involved in a church, I took my time answering. I could have gone two ways: I could have answered no, but I'm still looking, or I could have answered honestly. I chose to do the latter.
I explained things from the perspective that from all I've learned through the teachings of my favorite pastors, there is a distinct difference between living in sin while living a life of repentance and living in sin knowingly all while refusing to change anything about it. I am living in the latter.
I'm living with my boyfriend now, as of May first. We're not married. We do plan on getting married eventually, but we're not engaged either. And God only knows how often even the best laid plans fall through, in spite of all the wishful thinking.
So there it was, laid out as text on a screen, honest and in an effort to state where I am, how I'm doing, why I'm not in church without making excuses for myself.
And I know most people these days- Christians or not- wouldn't really see the sin in living with one's boyfriend before marriage if marriage is intended, even if there is a strong statistical possibility of dissolution. (That statistic is much higher for people who live together prior to getting engaged.) But the difference here is that I know it's not what God intends. It's the knowledge that creates the problem here. It's what makes this rebellion against what God intends for me.
While I don't repent and make my boyfriend move out or marry me immediately, I do pray a lot. I pray that God would make of my mistakes godliness and guide me to what He intends for me anyway, even if I trip on my own feet the entire way. I pray it because I want to know what it feels like to have what God wants for me, even if I'm too cynical, controlling and distrusting to allow it and plan it for myself. I want to not be wrong about the outcome of this. I want this guy to be the guy I commit to forever because we find ourselves in this situation already and because that is the only way to honor God through this blatant rebellion. If I refuse to repent by going backwards and undoing things that have been done, then I will repent by moving forwards toward what will hopefully make this right.
But I digress.
My point is, I was open and honest and didn't get a reply. Maybe my email got lost. Maybe. Or maybe he just didn't know how to respond.
But I find myself protecting the Christians I know from me. I find myself censoring myself, not for my own protection but for theirs, as if somehow they believe that their own faith is so fleeting that to be touched by the sin of another individual, however minor or major, will be the end of their own relationship with God.
How well do you trust God if those around you have to keep themselves secret in order to protect you? Does it imply such a strong lack when even the people around you see it?
But what of these secrets? If I had told the pastor everything was fine and I was still on the hunt for a church where I'd fit in, cleverly omitting the part where very few gospel-centered churches would allow me to fit in in my current circumstance, what would that serve? Is he better off for it? Am I better off for it?
In this society where nobody is listening anyway, what difference does it make? I could have just as easily not even replied.
But you can't compartmentalize truth. You can't compartmentalize honesty. It's either your everything or it's nothing at all. Ultimately, there are no secrets from God.
So really, what difference does it make? It depends on where your heart is, I guess.
But secrets and misunderstandings wherein both parties lack forgiveness and empathy tend to be the main driver of television and movies on the whole, and I find that sad. It's sad because even if you know what's going to happen, even if you see it coming the entire time you're watching and you know how it'll end, so many people do it in their own lives anyway, as if they are somehow immune to being outed.
In truth, they are immune, for the most part. In this society where everybody talks and nobody listens, you can say pretty well anything, truth or not, and very few will take notice. Even fewer will notice when something has been omitted. We're all very busy in our lives, right? Too busy to reply to emails, too busy to return calls and too busy to worry about whether or not those in our entourage are genuine.
We've stopped caring also because even if those in our entourage are found to be disingenuous or blatantly devious, we can just discard them, as loyalty these days is scarce, if at all existent.
But the thing is, Matthew chapter 9 says this:
3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
And Matthew 12:25 starts in a similar way as verse four above. So if the Bible is true and Jesus is God and Jesus hears thoughts, then what of secrets?
There's endless talk about how the Bible says we should or should not live, and yet, openness seems so frowned upon among Christians I know.
When a pastor asked me a few weeks ago how I was doing and if I was involved in a church, I took my time answering. I could have gone two ways: I could have answered no, but I'm still looking, or I could have answered honestly. I chose to do the latter.
I explained things from the perspective that from all I've learned through the teachings of my favorite pastors, there is a distinct difference between living in sin while living a life of repentance and living in sin knowingly all while refusing to change anything about it. I am living in the latter.
I'm living with my boyfriend now, as of May first. We're not married. We do plan on getting married eventually, but we're not engaged either. And God only knows how often even the best laid plans fall through, in spite of all the wishful thinking.
So there it was, laid out as text on a screen, honest and in an effort to state where I am, how I'm doing, why I'm not in church without making excuses for myself.
And I know most people these days- Christians or not- wouldn't really see the sin in living with one's boyfriend before marriage if marriage is intended, even if there is a strong statistical possibility of dissolution. (That statistic is much higher for people who live together prior to getting engaged.) But the difference here is that I know it's not what God intends. It's the knowledge that creates the problem here. It's what makes this rebellion against what God intends for me.
While I don't repent and make my boyfriend move out or marry me immediately, I do pray a lot. I pray that God would make of my mistakes godliness and guide me to what He intends for me anyway, even if I trip on my own feet the entire way. I pray it because I want to know what it feels like to have what God wants for me, even if I'm too cynical, controlling and distrusting to allow it and plan it for myself. I want to not be wrong about the outcome of this. I want this guy to be the guy I commit to forever because we find ourselves in this situation already and because that is the only way to honor God through this blatant rebellion. If I refuse to repent by going backwards and undoing things that have been done, then I will repent by moving forwards toward what will hopefully make this right.
But I digress.
My point is, I was open and honest and didn't get a reply. Maybe my email got lost. Maybe. Or maybe he just didn't know how to respond.
But I find myself protecting the Christians I know from me. I find myself censoring myself, not for my own protection but for theirs, as if somehow they believe that their own faith is so fleeting that to be touched by the sin of another individual, however minor or major, will be the end of their own relationship with God.
How well do you trust God if those around you have to keep themselves secret in order to protect you? Does it imply such a strong lack when even the people around you see it?
But what of these secrets? If I had told the pastor everything was fine and I was still on the hunt for a church where I'd fit in, cleverly omitting the part where very few gospel-centered churches would allow me to fit in in my current circumstance, what would that serve? Is he better off for it? Am I better off for it?
In this society where nobody is listening anyway, what difference does it make? I could have just as easily not even replied.
But you can't compartmentalize truth. You can't compartmentalize honesty. It's either your everything or it's nothing at all. Ultimately, there are no secrets from God.
So really, what difference does it make? It depends on where your heart is, I guess.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Something's not right...
One of the "versions" of Hell that was explained to me at some point was the idea that Hell isn't a flamey pit of intolerable heat for eternity but an absence of God. On the other hand, Heaven would be where we get to see the big picture. We get to stand with God and learn what all this was for.
If that is the case, then atheists would have their way. Upon dying, they would simply die, as they tend to predict, and that would be it. No afterlife, no judgment, just an eternity dead. That eternity, of course, being spent apart from God without ever knowing what this life was about and without knowing the essence of who God is.
But if that is the case, that would imply then that those who spend their lives believing but come up short of salvation would endure a more painful eternity without God because they would know that God does indeed exist. Not only that, but they would have faced Him for judgment and the Bible tends to say that being in the presence of God is something we just are not equipped to handle because He is simply too great and too Holy.
Also, if that is the case, it would imply that God is not enough. It would imply that even if we'd know God upon our earthly death, the real benefit of Heaven would be to finally have the answers to the questions we'd spent this entire lifetime asking.
So then what is Heaven and what is Hell? Or do we have the right to know as Christians? Because shouldn't God be enough? Shouldn't we be focused on Him anyway, rather than projecting the outcomes of our curiosities onto the future to appease our worries and falsely stifle the unknowns?
What if only God knows what happens after this? Shouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't we trust Him enough?
If that is the case, then atheists would have their way. Upon dying, they would simply die, as they tend to predict, and that would be it. No afterlife, no judgment, just an eternity dead. That eternity, of course, being spent apart from God without ever knowing what this life was about and without knowing the essence of who God is.
But if that is the case, that would imply then that those who spend their lives believing but come up short of salvation would endure a more painful eternity without God because they would know that God does indeed exist. Not only that, but they would have faced Him for judgment and the Bible tends to say that being in the presence of God is something we just are not equipped to handle because He is simply too great and too Holy.
Also, if that is the case, it would imply that God is not enough. It would imply that even if we'd know God upon our earthly death, the real benefit of Heaven would be to finally have the answers to the questions we'd spent this entire lifetime asking.
So then what is Heaven and what is Hell? Or do we have the right to know as Christians? Because shouldn't God be enough? Shouldn't we be focused on Him anyway, rather than projecting the outcomes of our curiosities onto the future to appease our worries and falsely stifle the unknowns?
What if only God knows what happens after this? Shouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't we trust Him enough?
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Romans and I don't get along. (Still.)
Romans 9:1-3:
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
The ESV study Bible says this about it:
So let me see if I have this right. Paul would sacrifice himself such that his fellow Jews would be saved but that would be futile because only Jesus can do that. Right? But being that he wrote that in Romans, which was written after Jesus' crucifixion, doesn't that mean... that... Jesus already did that? Or was what Jesus did not as good as what Paul would have done had he been the one sent to be the sacrifice?
You know what I mean?
Why, by human standards, does it seem through this passage and its ESV explanation that what Jesus did was incomplete? Why didn't Jesus sacrifice Himself so that all of us could be saved?
And if He did, why doesn't Paul believe it?
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
The ESV study Bible says this about it:
Paul suffers from great anguish because his Jewish kinsmen are unsaved (see also 10:1). Indeed, if it were possible, Paul might almost choose to be accursed (to suffer God's punishment in hell) so that his fellow Jews would be saved (cf. Moses in Ex. 32:30–32). But he knows this would achieve nothing, for none but Christ could be any person's substitute to bear God's wrath.
So let me see if I have this right. Paul would sacrifice himself such that his fellow Jews would be saved but that would be futile because only Jesus can do that. Right? But being that he wrote that in Romans, which was written after Jesus' crucifixion, doesn't that mean... that... Jesus already did that? Or was what Jesus did not as good as what Paul would have done had he been the one sent to be the sacrifice?
You know what I mean?
Why, by human standards, does it seem through this passage and its ESV explanation that what Jesus did was incomplete? Why didn't Jesus sacrifice Himself so that all of us could be saved?
And if He did, why doesn't Paul believe it?
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