Jesus Didn't Kill Me

I grew up singing a song I never really liked and I now hate at youth group events all over the Southeast. "You must increase I must decrease..." That's from the chorus and the only line I can actually remember. It is nearly universally acknowledged that suicide is not "the answer", that it's not our place to take our own lives. Yet in the Christian culture suicide is unabashedly promoted. Not physically, but spiritually or soulfully if you will. We tout verses, "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come", "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Jesus made us with beating hearts that desire, are passionate about, talented at, angry about, broken-hearted about specific things. If we believe that Jesus is trying to make us less ourselves then why did he make us all different? We talk about "Who I am in Christ" but then we say things like "I just need to die to myself. Put away my flesh. Be more like Jesus."  As if being more like Jesus means being less ourselves. I believe being more like Jesus means being more ourselves. Jesus is not trying to make an army of people who have quarantined the sinful parts of themselves and made the rest of themselves to match a general, broad idea of who Jesus is. How do I know who Jesus is apart from my heart? My heart that is different from any other heart. It is not easy to know yourself. It's painful, exciting, full, and it always costs to realize your dreams and go after them. But is that not where Jesus is? Jesus is in the pursuit of hearts. That is what he does, how can we join him without pursuing our own heart? When I tried "to decrease", "to die to myself" I felt like I was taking the life out of my soul, but I just thought that's what Jesus wanted so I tried to endure the pain with gritted teeth, a hurting heart, and a confused mind. Personality is one of the most intricate things in creation. God knew what he was doing when he made you, you. I need more of Jesus. I am plagued by sin. I am overwhelmed by living here. I don't know what's best for me or the people around me. But these truths don't require that I kill myself and just let Jesus live. I believe that if anyone is in Christ he is new creation. That the old has gone and the new has come. But who decided that means I must decrease? The old patterns, the old sin, the old ways of coping go and Jesus brings us the new ways. "You were once dead in your sins, but now you are alive in Christ." Jesus came to bring us "life, and life to the full." He came to make us alive. To make us who we were meant to be, our redeemed selves, not a generic "holy person" without individual passions and desires. God is telling the world something about himself through you, something no one else can tell. This requires we be more ourselves, not less. But here's the twist: we cannot make ourselves more ourselves. Jesus is the one who gives us to ourselves. Who opens our eyes, and shows us how to move toward who we were meant to be. As Tyler from Vintage 21 said once, "The beginning of the story is God made you, and it was very good." Now we are on a journey back to Very Good not to Less. I hope I die to myself more every day, I just don't think it requires making myself less. I think it means giving space to Jesus to do whatever He wants, and he never seeks to diminish me. He is the One who knows the difference between the sin and the sinner. He tears down the former and builds up the ladder.  We fell from grace, chose evil, and yet He has come to make us as we "should have been." To make me Eve, as "[s]he should have been."

" 'Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.' "
-The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien

The Sins God Forgives

Until about a year ago the thought I heard most often, my mantra for life was, "Be better." I didn't think this was a problem. In fact the only problem I saw was that some people didn't seem to live by this demand. When I thought I was doing well I told myself, "Be better." And when I thought I was doing poorly. When I was sad. When I was angry. When I was anything this was the burden I laid on myself. I would then turn to God, so angry that He wanted more from me than I could give. I couldn't see that it was I who wanted more than I could give. Not God. "Be better"? Really? Is that the goal? I used to think so. Not anymore. "Be better" is only a version of "Fix yourself", which is completely counter to Jesus. Jesus says, "Come to me. I want you." He doesn't say, "Be better. Fix yourself. Then come." And yet I hear it threaded through so many of our thought processes, "I just need to get better about that. I need to pray more. I need to trust more. I need to forgive anyway. I need to read my Bible more." As if this is what God requires. As if as you are God looks and wishes you were better.

 I think we misunderstand God's forgiveness when we try to be better. It's as if we think, "God can forgive me for having sex with my boyfriend or girlfriend in high school, or for doing drugs in college, or for drinking too much before I knew Him" and the list goes on. It's close but He'll let it slide since you didn't know any better. We think these are the sins God forgives. When you were 17 and hurting and trying to figure out the world you did things that didn't bring you life. So did I. You didn't deal with your hurt well. Try taking yourself out of the equation. Imagine someone else, who you know or don't. Think of their sins when they learned the world wasn't safe and life was too much, do you feel anything but compassion? I don't. I'm filled with compassion for these stories, those I know intimately and those I know from a far. If I who am sinful and broken don't feel condemnation for these stories and am flooded with grace for these people, how much more is God? How much more does He look at every moment of our stories with kindness and tenderness? You are no different than the person you replaced yourself with. God does not reserve a harsher standard for you. His Grace is boundless for all. Perhaps you can get to this place where you feel God's compassion for you in your darkest moments and see yourself as He sees you. But you think now it is different. Now you know better. Now you have no excuse for your sins so you must be better. You're wrong. As long as we live on this earth, we will live in a world where things are not as they were meant to be. We sin and are sinned against. Our sinning does not end at the point of conversion. That is one of the most destructive and condemning myths in Christianity. Instead the point of conversion marks the beginning of our entering into the forgiveness and compassion of God. Are we called to change? Yes. Are we called to repentance? Yes. Are we called to forgive? Yes. But are these things achieved through our effort to be better? No. They are achieved by a willingness to walk into the terrifying depths of God's pardon, which means a willingness to walk into our own story and the stories of those around us. God is gentle, He is patient, He is playful, He is kind, He is light and life. The voices of "Better" are not God's. He wants to show you the better way, He's not asking you to construct it yourself. He is the tenderest mother, and the best teacher. The fiercest protector, and the kindest father. The truest lover, and the greatest helper. When we decide the sins God forgives we lessen Him, we attempt to undermine His power. We make the gospel less. We mock the work of the cross. These are the sins God forgives: The sins I commit today. The sins I commit with my eyes wide open. The sins I commit as an adult with the attitude of a defiant child. All of them. He forgives them ALL. Without reluctance and with delight He forgives. Is it any wonder He forgives our former sins? I think so, but I think it is an even greater wonder, one which we often don't see, that He forgives our present sins.

My Breath is Ambivalent

  I had a shocking realization in yoga the other morning. I had a new teacher so I listened to her closely, unaccustomed to her teaching style and directions. At the end, pulsing with heat and dripping with sweat, I reveled in the feeling of lying still and breathing. The instructor began the cool down as usual asking everyone to bring their attention to their breath. She said, "Notice how your inhale shows our innate desire to rise towards the heavens and how our exhale shows our innate desire to feel the groundedness of the earth."
  Incredible. My breath is ambivalent. The very thing I must do every day, all day. That I do without thinking except on rare occasions. You could say the very basis of who I am, me in my most simplistic (or perhaps most complex) form. My breath pulls me forward and draws me back every minute of my life. This is at first upsetting and distressing. I am confused. Should I go forward or stay back? Do I want to fly or rest? And what should I DO? "And the two have become one," I hear in my thoughts. Flight and rest go together. One is only a half and will always be lacking if it's not followed by the other. God is a season-maker. He turns the seasons in our very breath. The brave inhale before we jump, the pause our lungs and belly have reached their fullest, the great release of a long exhale. This is God turning our seasons all the time. Never leaving us where we were. My breath tells me ambivalence is unavoidable. It is woven into my very breath. This is such a relief. I don't have to be one or the other, I don't have to feel only one. God has made me to feel, to want, to be both. I want to stay and I want to go, so I run to the One who marries the two in my breath as my pencil moves along this page (or my cursor across this screen).

For the Joy Set Before Him

"No one does anything without expecting a return for what they've done." My first response to this idea is to push back and say there's no way it's true. Like my friend who had a conversation about this idea with his fiancé. But then my friend really thought about it and realized he doesn't think he does anything without some thought of, "Well I'll be rewarded for this, whether in this world or the next." He looked defeated as he said this. I think his defeat comes from an assumption that may not be true. Did Jesus do things without any thought for himself? At first I thought, "Of course." Then I thought of the verse, "...For the joy set before him he [Jesus] endured the cross..." (Hebrews 12:2) What was 'the joy set before him'? You. Me. Jesus had EVERYTHING, everything. Perfect and complete relationship in the Trinity. The only thing he lacked was you and me. Jesus endured the cross so he could have you. He didn't do it with no thought of himself, or for no return. He knew what his return would be. That's why he died in our place. So here's the assumption: It is wrong or ungodly to act expecting return. But in reality Jesus did everything expecting return. His motives were pure and his actions perfect, and he did what he did to get you. Our motives aren't pure and our actions aren't perfect, but expecting something back, some joy, for the godly things we do is not ungodly. In fact it is fellowship with God because He has also worked for a reward. This is not to be confused with keeping score. God doesn't keep score and He doesn't call us to. This is simply to say that when you do something good, or honorable, or kind and you feel the benefit of it or enjoy what you get from it that is not wrong. In fact it is God-like.

Preface for These Blog Essays

What do you call a compilation of stolen ideas? Finding that answer was my first task when thinking about starting this blog. The moment of wondering was just long enough for me to begin to think that perhaps you can’t write a compilation of stolen ideas. Then it hit me, “Essays”, you call this conglomeration of all that resonates for you from so many different sources “Essays”. These are my Essays, my instances of resonance. Not that I hope they may happen for you, or even that they repeat for me, in fact many of them are too painful to wish for, but that we might begin to recognize where God and our soul’s design overlap by developing the muscle of resonance. From Eve, this muscle has atrophied until we see almost none of what God has plaited into our lives and our world. Like a braid with the third strand pulled out, loosing all the hair. So our world looks to us, nothing fits together, it simply falls without rhythm or purpose. The Third Strand is present, it is we who don’t see it, not it that is not there.  Though braid is to simple a form of weaving, God’s woven tapestry is complex and infinite. It is my hope that we should see wider and wider glimpses of His work among us, what Lewis calls mythology (Divine among the non-divine), that we might begin to strengthen the muscle of resonance and live more fully.

To Know Pain is to Know God

Recently I was thinking about how hard it is for me to sit with my pain. To name it. To feel it. Even to recognize it. I began to wonder how obvious, how real, a thing could be so slippery. I think it is because I had defined pain the wrong way. I defined pain as separation from God. Therefore it was something to be avoided at all costs. In fact one should flee from pain, do anything to not be associated with it. Numb it, ignore it, rename it, belittle it, anything to not sit with it. To feel pain was to deny God for me. I didn’t realize that the opposite was true: that to feel pain was to proclaim God. That pain  ought to be defined as fellowship with God. How can I say that to feel pain is to proclaim God? That it is fellowship with Him?  I’m not entirely sure I can, or that I should. But here is my answer: God is so concerned with us that He is often more evident in our pain than our ease. How many times have you heard someone say, “I learned the most, I grew the most, I saw God the most, when things were tough”? To know pain is to know God. God is so close to pain. He cares so much, they’re almost synonymous. Not that anything of God is inherently suffering, but that God is so deeply concerned with the affairs of Earth He makes Himself one with our suffering: The passion of the Christ. Yet we minimize pain, we deny it, we say it is apart from God, we say it is wrong to feel. These are the whispers of the Devil. So close to true, but poisoned by the slightest nuance. The truth is we were not meant for pain and suffering, in that sense it is wrong, the lie is that it’s wrong to feel it. Evil comes and whispers, “You don’t know pain. Look at her pain. Yours is nothing compared to that. It would be selfish to examine your pain. If you can even call it ‘pain’” Or if your hurt is too blatant for that lie to work the Devil whispers this instead, “Numb it. Drink. Run. Do. Don’t look back. Don’t tell. Ignore it.” Or perhaps he says, “It’s your own fault. Can you really call it hurt if you brought it on yourself? Can God really care when it was your own doing?” Why does Satan accompany our pain so closely? Why does he work so hard to distort our understanding of it? Because to know pain is to know God, and Satan knows this. He saw Jesus know His Father in His passion. He fears you will see the same in your passion. God never initiates pain and suffering. But when He let us love Him we set it in motion, it is nearly the most constant and universal thing about being human, so that is where God is. God is in the Valley of the Shadow of Death because that’s where we are. He is with us. When I have sat with my pain, God has never whisked it away, but He has validated it, He has held my hand, He has brought me friends to help. Satan is the Great Minimizer, ready to tell you your pain is small and you are inconsequential. But Jesus is the Great Truth Teller, ready to tell you that your pain is real and consequential. At first it feels like this is a death sentence. “Jesus are you killing me?” I have thought on many occasions when a torrent of grief over my hurt has rushed over me. But what I thought would kill me brings me life. When we are honest about the brokenness of our own lives and the lives of those around us we are at the heart of God. He brings us to Himself not because he needs our help, or wants to show us our guilt, or to condemn us, but that we might know He is our hope and the pain does not win. He is where we hurt the most because no one, no one else is enough. He is our last hope and He delights to be our only Way. Yet He is also our Complete Hope, lacking in no way, He is More Than Enough.