Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

People are hurting in our nation, in our communities, in our churches. Each week we seem to hear of more people losing their jobs, of co-workers filing bankruptcy, of neighbors struggling to make ends-meat. Despair is all we get from Wall Street, empty promises from our political leaders, and bad news from the media. We look to November 4th as a day that will either doom us for years to come or redeem us for the future.

Some democrats see Barack Obama as “the One”, others see McCain as the only one in the race able to defend our nations freedoms. Our nation is looking to a man, whichever one, to save them from these hard economic times, but no man can do that, not a great orator nor a military hero. No salvation is from God alone, and He determines who will sit on thrones and who will not.

It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings. Dan 2:21

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says that Jews look for miraculous signs and Greeks for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks. The cross is a stumbling block to the Jew because they thought the Messiah would come as a conquering King and defeat Rome.

Instead, He came as a humble peasant. He died for the sins of the world and
was killed by the ones He was suppose to set free and by the ones He was suppose
to defeat. The cross is foolishness to the Greek because they couldn’t understand why anyone would follow someone, who came to the uneducated and the weak. Why would anyone do that if He was a great leader? What would Paul write today about our nation, our people?

Jews demand miraculous signs, Greeks look for wisdom, and Americans what do
we look for? (MONEY, MONEY, MONEY). We call Christ crucified foolishness because:

He held no property,

He had no wealth,

He wasn’t famous,

He died teaching that we should die to ourselves.

We don’t want some guy to come to save us who is going to tell us we have to do anything. We want him to solve all our problems, to make everything better, so we can have everything we need….

The Jews were looking for a political leader. Someone, who would not just set them free from Rome, but someone, who would also provide them with an endless supply of bread. Sound familiar???

In this trying time, it is easy to start looking to men to save us, to make everything better, but in the end “The One” has already come. He wasn’t real concerned about making us comfortable here on earth. He didn’t lower taxes, instead He said give to the government what belongs to the government. He didn’t give affordable health care to everyone, He didn’t even heal everyone He came into contact with. He didn’t kick the Romans out, instead He submitted to their authority. What Jesus did come for was to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to save our souls.

Sean Hannity always says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” And I would echo those words. Jesus is more than enough to meet our ever need, even if the guy you don’t want to be president is elected. He can bring good out of just about any situation.

All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. Romans 8:28

One Day

My daughter was in a car wreck with my Mom about six months ago. She was sitting in the backseat, my other little girl was in the front (older car, no airbags), when the accident took place. No one was injured, just bumps and bruises, but the car looked really bad. When the ambulance arrived, the medics strapped everyone down to backboards and transported them to the hospital. This was the most traumatic part of the whole wreck.

Since that day, my daughter has been rather nervous riding in the car. She watches constantly out the window, flinching every time someone pulls out in front of us, no matter how far away they might be. She has become frightened in other areas of her life as well, and at times does not want to even ride her bike because she is afraid something might happen.

Today, we were driving to ballet class, and a truck turned at a light in front of us. There was never any danger of us hitting him, or him us, but my daughter gasped and said, “Why did he do that?”

I said, “He had plenty of room. It was fine that he turned at the light. It is okay, you don’t need to worry.”

I tried to hide my frustration, but I am sure a little of it came out. You see, for the past many months we have been comforting her, assuring her, and calming her down every time we rid with her in the car. It has gotten to the point that she is questioning our driving as well as the driving of everyone around us. Thankfully, today, the Lord gave me wisdom instead of angry frustration to share with her.

As she asked why that truck turned in front of us, the fact that she has only been in one car accident entered my mind. I asked her how many car wrecks she was in.

She said, “One.”

I then asked, “How old are you?”

She said, “Nine.”

I responded, “How many days a year do you ride in the car.”

She said, “About every day.”

Finally I said, “Well, there are about 365 days in a year, and you are nine. So, nine times 360 (taking off some for days not in the car), is 3240 days. You have had one day with one accident, so 3239 days have had no accidents, right?”

She said, “Right.”

I said, “So should you always be worrying you will have an accident or should you look at all the days you haven’t had an accident?"

I then heard her voice, lighter than I have heard for awhile, say “Oh, but I am worried about the next time.”

I said, “Honey, don’t worry about the next time, think about all the times you haven’t been in a wreck. Think on those things.”

All of us tend to be like my little girl, at least some of the time. One painful event, one harmful person, one agonizing experience traps us for years to come. We wait, looking for that car that is going to hit us, all the while missing the hundreds of cars driving around us and with us safely. We so want to be ready for the pain that we live the pain over and over again hoping that will somehow help us avoid it before it hits us the next time. We start obsessing, playing things out in our head, replaying the wreck and for some very strange reason we take comfort in doing that. Somehow, we feel like we have control because at least in that situation we know the outcome.

That is the exact opposite of what God wants from us and for us though. He said in Matt. 6:33-34: Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all the other things will be given to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

No matter how much we worry, obsess, or try to avoid pain, we can’t add another day to our lives. We can only live the moment we are in, and if we look up from our pain, our fear for long enough we might just be able to see the big picture; all the wonderful, safe, good days we have had. Sadly though, we end up living in the past pain, worried about a future event that in all probability won’t happen. We focus on the one wreck, and miss the other 3239 days of safety.
I pray that my little girl’s relieved, “Oh, but….” will be a move in the right direction, and that she can sit in the car like any other little girl and feel safe.

If there is a pain day that your life is centered around, I pray that you would count the number of your days and place those painful moments inside the context of all the entirety of your life. Wouldn’t it be so much better if we could see the world from that vantage point, instead of from the prison one day built for us.

Twilight

Boys, girls, doesn’t really matter. They are looking for the same thing; the only difference is in where they try to find it. They want to be loved, to feel important, and to be valued. They want to feel whole. In the end, it is God they are looking for, but instead of going to the real thing, they head to one another.

I know that God made Adam and said, “it isn’t good for man to be alone,” so He made Eve to complete Adam. It kind of fits then that man would look to woman and woman to man to find their completer. So maybe before the fall, Adam and Eve did fully make one whole. In their complete state, they could have perfect fellowship with one another, as they walked with God. But since then, things haven’t gone so well in the completeness realm, and when a boy looks to a girl to perfect him, he tends to look at a girl, not walk with the girl. And when a girl runs to a guy to find her whole self, she tends to make him her everything and that just doesn’t work in a fallen world.

The newest rage among young girls is the Twilight series. It is marketed to teens as a wonderful romance. Now boys aren’t going to read about the beautiful Edward, the one who perfectly, and self-sacrificially loves Bella. No, this series of novels is solely for the consumption of teen girls, who believe that prince charming is real. In Twilight, they are sold on a prince who willingly denies himself, for the well-being of his beloved. He overcomes his own temptations and desires to keep her safe and wholly undefiled. Bella, the heroine, is constantly in danger and her beloved Edward is always there to save her, even when he isn’t there. He lives in her mind at times, a type of memory always guiding, always protecting.

Sounds great right, a guy who isn’t after that “one” thing. A guy who places his love for a woman above his own selfish desires, who could ask for anything more? I mean, he sounds like he is right out of a Barlowgirl song, but there is a catch. Wonderful, beautiful, noble Edward is a vampire. His desire for Bella is not sexual as much as it is carnivorous. He wants to eat his darling Bella, and on a few occasions has to run out of the room to keep from killing her. Not exactly, the kind of guy we want to see our daughter bring home for dinner, but Edward Cullen is the hero of these books.

He and his “family” are good vampires. They abstain from human flesh and hunt animals to feed their blood thirsty appetite. This ability to overcome their nature is one of the books most compelling narratives. Edward is a man who sincerely loves, and Bella is overwhelmed by how much he cares about her. He is all a girl could want; that is if she is not bothered by the fact that he is a walking corpse. When Bella describes his touch, she says it is cold and hard. Edward finds peace and rest in the warmth that lives inside Bella, the lifeblood that flows through her veins, and that is one of the reasons he will not make her into a vampire. He also believes that vampires are the undead, and therefore damned. In his uprightness, he refuses to condemn Bella to eternal damnation.

Edward has a noble character, and if it was simply that he were a vampire, the books might not be seen as harmful to the virtue of teen girls. But the books don’t leave Bella and Edward at that warm, romantic level. There is no actual sex between these two characters in the first book, but the sensual sparks that fly between them stir emotions and feelings that are best left to the marriage bed. Edward’s breathe on Bella’s hair, Bella’s warmth against Edward’s chest, their constant physical closeness and discovery could cause sensations to arise in a young teen’s body that would best be left unstimulated.

But that stimulation is what drives girls to run from store to store looking for the next book in the series. They are driven by Edward’s perfection and want Bella to find more of him in the next book. One fourteen year old, I was with at a girls day at the mall kept asking if the mall had a bookstore because she needed to buy the next book. She was consumed the whole day by her desire to join a world of darkness because she had become so deeply attached to the characters.
We would never willingly buy soft porn for our sons to keep under their beds, to fill their minds with false images of women, who are airbrushed copies of the real thing. Why would we buy books for our daughters that fill their minds with unrealistic imitations of the real thing?

When Adam and Eve fell, they lost their ability to complete one another. They no longer had a perfect relationship with one another, because they no longer walked in complete wholeness with God. They were missing their center, they were missing their God, and that is when they started to look to one another to meet their most basic need for relationship. A need that in their imperfect state, neither could ever satisfy and it is because that need is so strong that the Twilight series is doing so well, that is why lonely women watch Soap Operas daily, that is why pornography is rampant in the lives of our men.

Men and women try to meet that need for intimate relationship, and when their lover fails to meet it, they look elsewhere, believing there was a deficiency in the one they were with, but the deficiency is not with their lover. No, it is with them. Jesus is the lover we are looking for in books, in movies, in relationships, in photographs. Apart from an intimate, living, passionate relationship with Him, there is no other relationship that will ever complete any of us.

Fetal Position

“Are you going to get out of the fetal position today,” these words reverberated through my head as I got up to walk my dog this morning. I think they were from the Lord, but not 100% sure. It sounds like something He might say to me, especially since I’ve been in the poor me state for a few weeks.

I changed churches, gave up my position as Bible study teacher, my safety as a member of a great women’s ministry team, had one of my closet friendships change, and been crushed in my hope to write a book. I mean there are a lot of people out there hurting way more than I am, so the crying over my “loss” seems really rather sad. But when a hope is deferred, no matter what the hope is, the heart gets a little bit sick.

The other factor in my moping is that I have not felt the Lord’s presence in my life. That close community of spirit that radiates through my soul warming my inner man like the sun warms my face on a clear October morning. I realized just the other day that it is the loss of His presence that is breaking my heart more than anything else.

If God’s hand is absent, what is the point of a Christian’s existence? I can try all day long to live a godly life, to teach the Bible, to write inspiring posts on my blog, but in the end there is absolutely no fruit without the Jesus. His working through me has been missing for a while now. That is why I resigned from women’s ministry, and stopped teaching Bible studies.

At the time, I thought those were the areas He was no longer blessing and that He was moving me into a “bigger and better” arena of ministry. With the book proposal rejections and no one calling for me to speak at any of their events, I started to realize that those ideas might have been just that, ideas. I started to sense that I had moved out on my own, not just from those I had once ministered with, but moved out on my own from my Father.

My many layers of depression are rooted in His absence.

My spiritual “fetal position” has lasted awhile now because I have chosen not to make everything, including myself, seem all right. I know the tools I have used in the past to fix myself. I read my Bible in the morning, ask God to bless my day and the day of those I love and those I don’t love as much. I fulfill my responsibilities to my family, friends and church, and my activity level makes me “feel” like I am walking in the Spirit. I get a “spiritual” shot in the arm, a sense of self-worth because I am doing stuff for the Lord. Funny though, I can do all I want, but all that doing doesn’t work if my goal is to restore my friendship with God.

You see, I know this, because I have tried to make myself feel better in Jesus a hundred times. I decided this time I wasn’t going to try to “make” anything happen. I decided to mourn my losses, to wait on God’s Spirit to move in me, not to fix myself, and the cool thing is that the Lord is okay with that. He doesn’t want us to pull ourselves up by our boot straps. He hasn’t pushed me, He hasn’t rushed me to be better. Now, I have been tempted time after time to “get back in the game,” but I have tried to resist that temptation.

I’ve been too depressed to actually realize all of this, and I am thankful that my sadness finally demobilized me long enough to cause me to know I was missing Him. I don’t want to move forward without His presence, I need Him more than I need anything or anyone else. I need Him more than I need to serve Him, I need Him more than I need to know my place in the world around me, I need Him more than I need to fit in, I need Him more than I need to be active or seem important. I need Him more than I need to eat, more than I need to breathe, more than I need my heart to beat. I need Him.

So, when I heard His words today, “Are you going to get out of the fetal position.” I knew He was talking to me again, or at least I could finally hear Him. I was a little surprised at the words, but not at the meaning behind them. I looked up and said, “Ya, Lord. I think I am ready. I think I am ready to walk with You today.”

Passion Part 4: Unchecked

Passion can be a wonderful thing. It can move us past complacency and cause us to care about something or someone more than we care for ourselves. It can grow people into leaders, it can transform countries, it can move mountains, but if it is not lived out in godliness it can become a powerful and a times destructive force.

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem the week before the crucifixions. It basically means, He had an iron will to carry out the Father’s plan and nothing could distract Him from the His path. Jesus’ sacrificial offering on the cross for all mankind is known as the Passion. He was absolutely in union with the Father in their love for the world and willingly gave up His live because of that love. Jesus is the perfection of Passion, and is the example of a passion lived out from the heart of godliness.

This is the kind of passionate life most Christians want to live. They want to do the Father’s will, they want to sacrificially give of their lives to others, and they want to ensure that nothing taints the name of Jesus. This, however, is where things can get a little sticky, where Jesus never missed the mark but where too often we, as Christians, tend to.

Passion is defined as, “Intense emotion; intense or overpowering emotion such as love, joy, hate or anger; a strong liking or enthusiasm for a subject or activity; the object of someone’s intense interest or enthusiasm.” Passion in and of itself is a natural response, and at time a very good and stimulating emotion, but when taken too far, when not checked by reason or patience, passion can be detrimental.

This said, passionate people are fun to be around, they add energy to causes, they draw people to themselves, they ignite interest and they are interesting. Passionate people tend to be leaders, driven by their vision of what could be, of what should be. This is what can make them dangerous to themselves and others. If all of life is lived with such intensity, there is little time for quiet, for God to direct and lead. It is passion without wisdom that causes the most damage in our world.

Unchecked passion, too often is called zeal for God, defense of the faith or standing up what is right. Recently, I heard Beth Moore say, and I believe it to be true, that no one has ever one anyone to their side through arguing. Now there is a difference between honest, open conversation, persuasion to ones point of view and argumentative debate. The first is a sharing of ideas in a respectful manner, not concerned with winning the day, but instead with loving the heart. The other is a take no prisoners mentality, with the goal to dominate the discussion and conquer the opponent.

Saul was passionate. He loved God’s Law with all of his heart; a Hebrew among Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless as to the Law, and devoted to keeping the purity of the Jewish faith. He was a devoted to God. He would stand up for, defend and protect all that Moses had taught, even if he had to kill people to do it. He was a defender of the faith. He stood up for what was right, but he lacked love. Now, Saul would have said that was not true. He no doubt believed that he loved the Lord, his God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength, but John wrote:

If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone
who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has
not seen. 1John 4:20

Saul stood by and held the coats of those who stoned his fellow Jew, his brother, Stephen. Saul was passionate about the Law and thought that equaled passion for God, but passion without love, is hate. It was the Saul, who finally surrendered his passion for truth, his vision for the world for love who wrote:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am
only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and
can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor
and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1Cor.13:1-3

Too often, I find myself in a place of passion, that is zealous for a semblance of the truth, the truth of God as I perceive it. I often feel, as Paul did, that I must defend my Father. That I must stand up for what is right, and convince others to my view, even if I need to argue that point of view. I can be a persuasive, debater. Laying out a case for my position with clear and distinct examples arguments. I can win a room if I work hard enough, think long enough, and speak passionately enough. At the time, in the heat of the moment, I am sure that I am fighting the fight to defend the name of Jesus, to protect the God I love, or say that I love.

Sadly, it is only as I stand in the wake of my own zeal that I realize that I acted from passion that lacked love. As my heart stills, as I look around at the chaos that was derived from the argument, I understand that I allowed a self-pleasing passion, drive what I thought was a God-pleasing one. It is then, in those moments when I hear my Father’s voice, when I am alone in the after emotion of passion, which He says to me, “I can take care of My Own name, Heather. I have called you simply to love Me not defend me.”

Of course, that is when I tell Him, that love equals loyalty, and loyalty defends those it loves. But what I have discovered, I was going to say learned, but I keep making the same mistake of living out passion without wisdom, so I can’t say that I have learned the thing I have discovered yet, is that too often I value loyalty to an idea, an ideal, an institution, a belief, a person or group of persons, above love.

We all have ideals we live by, virtues that we hold too as we set up our own internal system of right and wrong. We, as individuals, have values that are more important to us than others are. For one of my friends, honest is the basis to judge all other things or people. For another an attitude of joy is highly valued, for another it is devotion, and to another kindness is the most important quality someone can show. For me, loyalty is at the top of my list. The trouble is that all of these qualities are important, they all make up morality, they are all attributes of God, but when they are placed in an order of significance, they get out of balance and when that happens they turn into our passion, not God’s character in us. There is a need for honest, for joy, for devotion, for kindness, for loyalty, but without love, they are a clanging cymbal, because the greatest of these is love. This is because God is love, and in Him, there is no darkness.

You see, passion lived apart from love is radicalism, is and always will be only an ism. It is not faith, it is not God’s heart, it is our zeal. It is destructive and unchecked it can lead to horrendous acts against those who do not have the same value ranking as we do. We must live in the spirit so that the desires of our flesh do not lead us into sin.

Passion is not the value we must live by instead it is love. We know we are off track, when our passion will conquer anyone who does not agree with us, when we will destroy someone to ensure that we win the day.

Passion Part 3: Service Means Sacrifice

Passion carries a cost, service means sacrifice.

In the late 1700’s, John Adams was one of the leading forces behind the American
Revolution. He spoke daily in the Continental Congress, persuading, arguing and
at times verbally accosting other delegates to move them toward the idea of
Independence from Great Britain. He was dogged in his passion to see the
Thirteen Colonies become a free and independent nation. He did everything in his
power to ensure that the United States of America became a reality, even if it
meant years away from his beloved wife, Abigail, and their children.

John’s dream was not his alone, however. Abigail was just as passionate about the need to break away from Great Britain, as her husband was. She saw the tyranny of England, and knew that a new nation needed to be born. One that would defend liberty, grant freedom and one day bless the world with its democratic ideals. Abigail also understood what that goal would cost. She wrote,

How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and
to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal!
How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels
worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future
recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most
assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end.

For a period of ten years, John and Abigail Adams lived the majority of their lives apart. First, John was in Philadelphia persuading his fellow countrymen to declare independence, he then sailed to France on two different occasions to ask for their help in the American war effort. He secured loans for the new nation of the United States from the Dutch, and he worked with John Jay and Benjamin Franklin as they negotiated the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. Finally, Adams became the first American ambassador to the court of George III.

It was not until the very end of the war that Abigail, and their daughter Nabby joined him, yet the years of separation had not lessened their love for one another, or their intimacy of thought. It had tested them both, however. John was almost lost to a severe illness while in the Netherlands, Abigail determined to inoculate herself and all of her children from smallpox, almost losing her beloved daughter, Nabby, while John was away. There was constant danger for Abigail at home during a war without a husband, and yet she supported John in his sacrificial service to their new nation.

John’s years of public service did not end with his arrival back in the United States after so many years abroad. He served as the first vice president, and the second president of the newly formed nation. He endured political intrigue, partisan politics, the assassination of his character, public and personal attacks by friends, and discouragement over his place in the annals of history as compared to his contemporaries. He had lain down his life for his country and wondered if his country even cared, but always at his side stood Abigail, strengthening his resolve to continue in service, even as their own family was hurt by all they had sacrificed for their nation.

They understood that there was a cause greater than themselves.

This idea of public service, and personal sacrifice did not die with the Revolutionary generation. The noble example of John and Abigail Adams continues today. Thousands of Americans place their country before their personal well-being, especially those in the military.

We do not often attribute the qualities of self-sacrifice to modern politicians, however. They tend to be seen as power hungry, arrogant individuals, who serve for selfish gain not national interest. The Founders stand on a pedestal of greatness because of all they sacrificed in the creation of our great nation, willingly setting aside their own fortunes and lives for the greater good. Yet, even today, individuals rise up who love their country more than their own lives, who believe in the ideals established in 1776. The ideals lived out by John and Abigail Adams.

Sarah Palin, as Governor of Alaska, had a job approval rating of 84%, the highest rating in the nation, before she was tapped as John McCain’s running mate. Her family was secure financially, and their personal struggles were just that, personal. The people of her state valued Sarah. She was great at her job, a loving wife, and her family was well established in their home state. She had no reason to say yes to McCain, and every reason to say no. Yet, she and her husband, Todd, decided to place their personal well-being and the well-being of their family aside in order to serve their country.

If John Adams felt personally attacked, I wonder how he or Abigail would feel if they stood in Sarah and Todd Palin’s shoes. Every area of the Palin families lives has been invaded. The media has attempted to portray Sarah as unintelligent, backwards and uninformed.

(Saturday Night Live Skit http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/ )

They have exposed the pregnancy of her seventeen-year-old daughter. They have accused her of placing her political goals above the needs of her son with Downs Syndrome, and they have tried to out every photograph she has ever had taken.

The public is using her image on items I am sure she would rather not have her face on, and her husband has been made to look like Mister Mom instead of the strong, commercial fisherman he is. The Palins have had their finances looked into, their past dredged back up, and their lives scrutinized in ways none of us would stand for. The amazing thing is that they knew all this going into the presidential race, yet they willingly decided to serve, to say yes to putting their country first.

They laid down their lives for a cause greater than themselves.

“whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times,
and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by
patience and perseverance.” Abigail Adams

Service is sacrifice, and passion carries a cost, but a nation touched by those who understand this and are willing to endure is blessed.