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And We Thought It Was Over…

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

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When was slavery abolished?

Not yet, apparently…and that must give us pause. It must give us more than pause. It must pull at whatever strings are connected to our hearts, and if it doesn’t, we must ask ourselves why.

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“Slavery still exists. We want every man, woman and child to know that there are 27 million men, women and children, just like them, living in the shadows. Working as slaves. In 161 countries. Including our own. Let’s shine a light on slavery and END IT.” End It, Non-Profit Organization.

For as long as I was online today, I added my voice to those others supporting Shout Out Wednesday. I posted on Facebook quite a few times today, and I wondered if it irritated people, and then it hit me…who cares? Who cares who is annoyed by my posts, if we still have people–27 million at that–without the option of basic human freedom, not to mention any hope of the social media we’re so dependent on? In fact, if there were some way to irritate people into caring, I’d so be on it, but there just isn’t. Whereas I don’t seek to be obnoxious, it makes me wonder what could have gone so wrong with “civilisation” that we can have one set made up of the overindulged, and another made up of…slaves? In the 21st century? Like, really?

I’ll be honest, when I first saw it on my friend’s profile, I was a bit stunned, but I moved on. I didn’t not care, but it didn’t break my heart. Does it have to break our hearts? Not necessarily. Does that make (our) indifference appropriate? By no means.

We don’t have to care to use the oh-so-abused “Share” button. We don’t have to care to add our voices in any way we can. We don’t have to care. At all. But, maybe that’s why we still don’t have an answer for the question I asked above: “When was slavery abolished?”

Then again, maybe we have more answers than we care to think about. 27 million of them.

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8 (NKJV)

The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The Power of Weakness

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

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What do you do when you get to the end of yourself? What will it take to get you there?

It’s funny how I’ll know something is true, but spend years denying it. I know I can’t be trusted. As much as I appear to have it together on some levels, there’s just something in me that tends towards my own destruction–gleefully.

Even knowing that I can’t be trusted to do something as simple as brush my teeth every night or take a shower every day (most days, though. Teehee), I still want to get things right. I want to be strong enough to resist the things I know I should stay away from. Why? Because I know I should stay away from them. I want to not do what I know is wrong. I want to be strong, but I’m not. I’m terribly, terribly weak.

Not only am I frail beyond my own comprehension, I also delight in things I ought not to. No matter how I try to deny it, no matter how I take refuge in the illusion of improvement, this is who I am.

But, this is good news–excellent, even. I can’t make myself different. There isn’t going to come a day when my desires will suddenly line up with military precision to the standards of morally acceptable conduct. There won’t be a day when I wake up loving God above all, and hating sin (general or specific) to the point of utter repulsion. It’s just not coming.

It doesn’t need to.

See, when I stopped trying to fix myself, and just embraced the reality that I am truly wicked, I had to fall on God’s mercy. All these things I ought not to do will never fade by human effort. Only God can change me. God, who loves me as I am, just wants me to look into His eyes and give myself to Him, wretch that I am. That is where the fullness of joy comes from … from seeing God and knowing He is Love … from facing the reality of my own brokenness and the incomparable greatness of the God who makes all things new.

So, what’s your story, your “struggle”? I won’t say it doesn’t matter, but it is not the hindrance you may think it is. God knew us in advance, and He chose us. He saw that we’d fail, saw that we’d watch pornography, have sex when we shouldn’t, have homosexual desires, have abortions, kill, rape, steal, hate, lie … saw that we’d willingly and gladly worship all but Him. He saw that, and He loved us … still loves us.

He saw us, and He chose us … He delights in us through Jesus, as we are.

Let’s just be honest with ourselves. We’re not gonna beat those things, and the sooner we face it, the better. God longs to bring us to Him, to transform us as we fix our eyes on Him. He is the goal, not acceptable behaviour. Let’s be honest with God. Let’s be honest with each other. We suck, and it’s okay.

I dare you. Open up to God. Open up to someone about your struggles, someone who will pray with and for you … someone who will love on you. See where it leads.

Perhaps the first step to freedom is facing the power of our own weakness.

The Days Add Up

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

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I’m back home. Been here for eight full days. I was out of the country for almost one hundred days, and if I learned anything, it’s that the days add up.

I went to St. Lucia with every intention of changing, inside and out, but it took me the better part of three months to see that I had already changed. It was so easy to think I was unpleasant in reaction to my often annoying family (love you guys! :P), as opposed to unpleasant, full stop. Too easy to think I was too tired or busy (or idle) to talk to God, rather than admitting my heart was nowhere near Him. Too easy to admit a problem and tack on an external “because”, rather than admitting responsibility for where I was in life.

For the first time in my 15 years as a Christian, it became difficult to talk to God. I had more free time than I knew what to do with, no children to look after, no one to annoy me (during my sister’s work hours, that is…once she got home… :D), and lots of space. Still, having devotions was a struggle. Sure, I’d skipped devotions before, sometimes for days, but I’d never before felt as if I were just going through the motions.

It didn’t hit me until close to the end of my time there that the consequences of sin are often not what we think they are. Sin is degenerative. However “little” or “big”,  it costs us. Like, Jesus and I were cool, and I knew He wasn’t holding my actions against me, but I didn’t understand that they were changing me.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in how much God hates sin that we forget it is linked to His love for us. He knows what sin does to us. He knows it leads only to death. He knows the death is often slow and escapes our notice. It’s for our own good. Think about it: how does God benefit from us not sinning? He doesn’t. He’s still God, anyway, but there’s no doubt that our lives are better when we live God’s way. So, it’s not that God warns us from sin so that He will love us, but because He loves us. 

I have a huge collection of “little” sins and a few “big” ones. Even though I know there’s no ranking system where this is concerned, I tell myself it’s not such a big deal. But, you know something? These not-so-big deals kill us…one day at a time. One day at a time, my heart drifted from Him…and I didn’t even notice. For the most part, I was quite fine…happy, even. That’s the scary part.

Thankfully, the days add up for the better as well. When I, by His strength, fought through and spent the time I needed to with Him, the distance gradually decreased…until I ran away again. But, it screams hope. One day at a time, one situation at a time, we make choices that either lead us to or away from God. Nothing’s neutral. Anything that isn’t helping us draw closer to God is pulling us away. We may never have one huge consequence, but there are worse things. For too many of us, the price is our affection for God.

Is anything or anyone worth that? The reality of our choices often reveals that question is nowhere near as rhetorical as we think it is.

Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.

       – Brennan Manning

Expiry Date?

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

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“‎::Sometimes, we’re so busy casting God as the Guy who punishes sin, that we forget He’s also the Guy who DELIVERS from sin…the God who loves us and wants so much better for us than the chains we’re so fond of…the very chains killing us. Jesus is LIFE!:: #OnlyGrace”

Welcome to my FB status for today.

It’s really been bugging me…this idea that God has some kind of ranking system for sin, or expiry date for His love, and that after a while, we’ve pushed it too much, and it’s thumbs down time…off with your head. I have felt that way many times (like, MANY times), and I realised that it is a reflection of who I believe God to be. It is as if, because I have changed so much and gone so far from principles I used to hold dear, I believe that God’s view of me has changed as well…that God has changed.

Think about it, though. If you gave everything you had, your most valuable possession, just to make it possible for people to understand that you love them, what would make you decide it’s no longer worth it? The bar is set as high as it can possibly go…the highest price has been paid. What could make you decide to withhold love from an individual for whom you have already poured out ALL your love, that is, the ultimate expression of that love?

Would it be because that person had a bad year/week/way-too-long and went on a path of self-destruction? Are you likely to stop loving people because they are ruining their lives? Why, then, do we want to give God that role?

Do we even understand this salvation we’re inviting people to share? If we believe God is out to get us because we’re messed up (and because we mess up), why would anyone want to join us? Is the notion of becoming God’s next target so appealing?

Even if we hate ourselves, God doesn’t hate us. ♫Jesus loves me, this I know…♫? God doesn’t hate us because we sin. God doesn’t hate us, full stop. It is because God loves us so much that He has to keep us away from sin, because sin is both degenerative and inherently destructive. It exists for no purpose but the destruction of God’s creation.

A loving Creator doesn’t want us hiding from Him…running from Him. He wants us hiding in Him…running to Him, weaknesses and all. That is the whole point of grace…not that we are free to sin, but that we are free from sin…because He loves us.

Remember the grace.  He saw us coming, man… and He chose us, for His glory.

Romans 5:8 (NIV)

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I like this song:  

Leftovers…

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

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It is so unlike me to have had absolutely nothing I wished to share with my little section of this vast blogosphere…for over three months! My mind was far from blank, but the thoughts were less than comforting. When my mind runs away with me, it often goes to places too dark for comfort (and yes, some dark places are quite comfortable, thank you very much).

Recently, I found myself doing a bit of a mental inventory, taking stock of all the things that were within my reach and would have been mine without there needing to be a miracle. Of all the things I could have done, of all the things I (kinda) set out to do, of all the things I came close to wanting, how many of them have ticks (not the parasites) beside them? None… zero… not even one.

When I take the time to crunch those numbers, I wonder what’s the point. I’m pushing 30 (26 is almost 30, so there), and what do I have show for it? I wouldn’t say, “nothing”, but there are days it seems pretty close. I ask myself…what’s left? After all I’ve lost/thrown away/strangled to death and then stabbed for good measure, what remains of this Lori creature? That is perhaps the question of my lifetime.

My nephews were watching the first episode of “The Jetsons” the other day–the one in which they acquired Rosie (epic robot maid). There were complaints that all they had were leftovers, and Spacely (boss dude) was coming over for dinner. Rosie saved the day…with the leftovers.

One of the hardest things for me to accept is that God can and will redeem (buy back, restore value to) my life. I believe firmly that He is able to redeem anyone and anything, but I somehow manage to exclude myself from this process, if only on a subconscious level.

I do not dare to suggest that God is an epic robot maid (He’s infinitely cooler), but I dare to believe that one day, I will believe in His power to redeem from a place that transcends intellectual acceptance of God’s goodness and faithfulness…to me.

If God could make the world from nothing (which He did), if He could make the way for all mankind to be restored to Him through Jesus (which He most certainly did), then imagine what He can do with leftovers… with Lori. Imagine what He can do with you.

Honestly, I can’t picture it yet, but it’s coming…like a sunrise stealing across my soul.

Hosea 13:9, 10 (KJV [paraphrased])

O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help. I will be your king: where is any other that may save you…?

But we must…

05 Saturday Nov 2011

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Sometimes, there are no words… other times, you must bleed through your fingers, turning black and white to red… depending on how normal you are, sometimes you cry, and only those saline streams form an effective outlet.

Still, sometimes, nothing works.

Nothing works, and all you can do is take one tortured breath after another. Repeat.
No pause.
No stop.
Repeat…

How do you stop your heart from becoming one huge callus? You can’t change the pain, so the answer must be to change the heart… to shut it down, so it registers no sensation, be it pain or pleasure. Life sucks… sometimes. What can we do about it, really?

I dare to suggest that maybe the point isn’t to change life, but to BE CHANGED by the tide of trials and the fires of agony… to allow the God who is with us when we pass through the fire to watch over us as He refines us into vessels that please Him. Either life is some twisted cosmic game, or God has a plan. A good plan. A plan to prosper us, and not to harm us. A plan to give us a hope and a future. A plan for us to cry out to Him, pray to Him, seek Him, find Him, and be FOUND IN HIM.

Life stinks… but we must believe. We must believe that the God who is Love has not deserted us, even when other ‘loves’ have.
Love hurts… but we must recall the goodness of the God who takes the time to number the hairs on our heads, because He’s either an obsessive compulsive or He really does care about us.
We bleed… but we must call on the mercy of the God who heals, the God who makes alive the dead.
We fail… but we must fall on the grace of the God whose strength is perfect in our weakness…we must fall on His grace, thus learning to stand.
The fire may not cease… but we must believe that God is able to deliver us, and even if He doesn’t, we must believe that He will never desert us.
There are things we will never understand this side of heaven… but we must run to God…with our tears, our sorrows, our questions, our joys…with everything.

How easy it is to forget the goodness of God in a world where life is one heartache after another… a world in which we see death, sickness, starving children, injustice, and every horror imaginable. We may not be able to change the things around us, but we must allow God’s love to change us, and we’ll find that we’re already making a difference, simply by being different.

God is good. Say it. Remember it. Believe it. We are still here. We have life in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We have hope. God has not forgotten us.

God is Love.

Lamentations 3 (NKJV [mostly :P])

17 You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity.
18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.”
19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul still remembers and sinks within me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
22 It is because of the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “ The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “ Therefore I hope in Him!”
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him
26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

I am NOT Perfect (and I know it, okay?)

29 Thursday Sep 2011

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Recently, I’ve been a bit–is annoyed the right word?

Maybe I’m confused, but I think people are confused too. One minute, there are those who say I’m evil (or some other synonym), and then we have the ones who think I should be canonized, or already have been.

I don’t do many of the things that a lot of people do, but it just means I am different. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect, righteous, or some other word for stuck-up Christian. All those things I don’t do, I can lay at the feet of personal preference or the sheer grace of God. For example, I don’t drink, because alcohol tastes nasty… don’t smoke, because breathing isn’t optional… don’t swap spit or other body fluids, because–have you seen me recently? No one is challenging that particular state of affairs, plus I have a complex about hygiene and sharing body fluids… I could keep going.

Long and short, I’m… tired of being seen as some sort of super ‘holy’ creature, because God factors highly in my thoughts. The alternative is to go full-on crazy. I don’t talk about God because I’m trying to make a point or preach to people, so I can check random evangelism moment off my checklist (the one I don’t have, by the way). I talk about God, because He is what makes sense to me… He is how I maintain this tenuous hold on my sanity… He is why I’m alive, rather than existing in my zombie zone.

I am not the standard… never have been… never wish to be. God is the only one worth comparing ourselves to, and He is willing to embrace and rescue us when we fall short. Remember that thing called the Gospel? Yeah, that’s the point…

Don’t look at me and think I’m better… or think I think I’m better. If I’m perfect in any way, it is this…

I am perfectly human… just like you.

I Used to be Christian…

22 Thursday Sep 2011

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No, there’s no word missing in the title…

Before I started this blog, I went back to my very first blog, which I started in 2004.  As I read those thoughts, I was shocked. I wrote that? Seriously?!?!? I mean, I was clearly a bit on the weird side, but there was such substance to my thoughts back then. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I even had a functioning heart.

I’ve never been perfect, and there was even a time in my life when I was a full-blown psycho, but I can honestly say I used to be Christian. Although modern usage essentially limits the word ‘Christian’ to a noun, it started out as an adjective. The word, by definition, is clearly descriptive, so even though it was a name (noun) back then as well, the usage suggests that ‘Christian’ was first an adjective (if only in the minds of those who coined the term), which became a noun when used collectively. Those early church dudes were so like Christ that they called them ‘Christians’. (I doubt it was a term of endearment, by the way).

There was no parting of the sky, no grand herald of the changes taking place in my heart, but somehow, it became easier to be cold… easier to not care… easier to use curse words in my head… easier to say yes to things that should be automatic NOs… easier to ignore that Voice extending an invitation to discover His heart, to grow in love, and to be loved by Love… easier to close my heart (dubious as its existence is) to the changes that years of devouring Scripture had wrought.

I’m too much a creature of habit to overtly deviate from a lifetime of teaching, but there’s a nice little phrase for that: going through the motions. See, in the same way there’s no wake-up-and-suddenly-you’re-in-love, there’s no wake-up-and-suddenly-you’re-far-from-God. Baby steps lead to giant leaps, and maybe it’s skipping devotions, or holding that little grudge, or listening to that one little song that you know is gonna leave your mind in a dangerous place… just flirting with danger, as if sin exists for any purpose but the destruction of the human soul. I don’t know what your story is, but this is mine. I used to be Christian… and God, in His nice gently-smack-you-upside-the-head way, is pulling me back towards Him.

The journey to God’s heart is never easy, but it is worth it. Jesus is the Way.

A me one a wicked? (Ehem, does anyone have a similar experience?)

Jeremiah 32…

37 Behold, I will gather them out of all countries where I have driven them in My anger, in My fury, and in great wrath; I will bring them back to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely.

38 They shall be My people, and I will be their God; 39 then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them.

40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. 41 Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.’

*SMILE*