When life is bigger

Have you ever been through something that totally overwhelmed you?  Something that was so beyond your own personal capacity to cope, that you knew it couldn't have come from you?  That's where God thrives - that really is why He created us.  To be dependent on Him, because we are doing things much bigger than ourselves.

That's where I am right now.  Living in Korea with a family with whom I cannot communicate, trying to stay in touch with friends from back home, attempting to forge new relationships with people here, amid the stress of also adapting to a new culture....it's exhausting.  And at times it's too much for me to handle.

But that's why I'm so glad I've got God in my court.  God is bigger than we are.  And no matter what we're going through, He can handle it.  That is, after all, why we were created - to lean on Him.  Ephesians 2:8 (paraphrased) says that He has given us the gift of faith, which allows us to believe in Him, which saves us and gives us life, instead of death.  But it all springs from God.  "Not by works, so that no one can boast."

But we CAN boast - we can boast in what God has done for us, in the favor that He gives us, in the love that He shows us.  So when life has got you down, when life is bigger than you can handle, just remember, God is bigger.  It doesn't matter how big your circumstance is....God is bigger.  And He wants to make you alive in Christ.

Ephesians 2:1-10

 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Mov'd to seeme religious

The 17th-century poet John Donne once said that "When we are mov'd to seeme religious only to vent wit, Lord deliver us."  The first thought that popped into my head after reading this was that of the pharisees of the Bible, against whom Jesus had such strong words of criticism.  From all outward appearances, the Pharisees had it all together.  They tithed, they prayed, they went to the synagogue, they gave atonement for their sins....from the looks of things, they were doing everything that they were "supposed" to do.

But God doesn't look at outward appearances.  He looks at the heart, at our motivation.  It's so easy to fall into the "church rut" - we pray, we go to church, we tithe, we don't cuss, don't drink, don't smoke....and we think that, as long as we have all the right things checked on our little checklist of "Christian" things to do, then we'll be ok. 

That, however, is not enough for God.  Anything can be wrong, if done for the wrong reasons.  Even something like this blog that I'm writing.  It's easy to think, "Oh, it's a daily devotional, how could it possibly be bad??"  But what God wants to know is, why am I writing it?  Am I writing it because I honestly want to get to know Him, legitimately want to spend time with Him?  Or do I simply want others to be impressed with my religiousness?  Am I simply "mov'd to seeme religious?"  Are you?  What's your motivation behind the things that you do?

Matthew 23:23-28

  ²³ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. ²⁴ You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
   ²⁵ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
   ²⁷ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. ²⁸ In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

The little things

I got an email from my father recently.  And it got me thinking about all of the things he's done for me over the years.  He would dance with me standing on his feet, almost from before the time I could stand.  He never failed to give me a Valentine's day card every February 14 - I still have them all, safely tucked away in my dresser.  He was always my biggest fan at all of my dance and theater performances - the first bouquet of flowers that I ever got, in fact, were from him, and 10 years later, one of the blooms is still carefully dried and preserved in a place of honor in my bedroom.

He took me racing with him, he showed me how to hammer a nail and install trim and lay tile, and taught me how to do work that I could be proud of.  He has encouraged me and protected me and given me his wise, godly advice in so many areas of my life, on so many different occasions.  Of course we had our spats, but my overall impression of my father is that he did his best to make sure that I felt loved.

My dad had neither the financial means nor the time to do big, grandiose things for me.  But he made sure, in small, persistent ways, that I knew that I was loved.  It was not the big things, but the little things that he did for me that kept me going.  Our heavenly Father is no different.  Sure, He's got the whole world in His hands....but as the Psalmist points out, He's also the One who is always faithful, who's love endures through all times.  Praise the Lord!

Psalm 92

¹ It is good to praise the LORD
   and make music to your name, O Most High,
² proclaiming your love in the morning
   and your faithfulness at night,
³ to the music of the ten-stringed lyre
   and the melody of the harp.

 ⁴ For you make me glad by your deeds, LORD;
   I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
⁵ How great are your works, LORD,
   how profound your thoughts!
⁶ Senseless people do not know,
   fools do not understand,
⁷ that though the wicked spring up like grass
   and all evildoers flourish,
   they will be destroyed forever.

 ⁸ But you, LORD, are forever exalted.

 ⁹ For surely your enemies, LORD,
   surely your enemies will perish;
   all evildoers will be scattered.
¹⁰ You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox;
   fine oils have been poured on me.
¹¹ My eyes have seen the defeat of my adversaries;
   my ears have heard the rout of my wicked foes.

 ¹² The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
   they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
¹³ planted in the house of the LORD,
   they will flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴ They will still bear fruit in old age,
   they will stay fresh and green,
¹⁵ proclaiming, “The LORD is upright;
   he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

The road to recovery

I was listening to a political activist from the Republican party today ranting about the state that our country is in.  He went through this whole laundry list of problems that are afflicting our country, and at the end his basic summary was that the Democrats are to blame for it all.  It would have been laughable if he wasn't serious.  But even more disconcerting is that this kind of finger-pointing is not limited to Republicans.  Democrats do it, too.  Libertarians, Tea Party members, big businesses, small businesses, rich people, poor people, whites, blacks....we all have a habit of blaming our problems on someone else. 

Now I don't deny that this country is having problems.  Whatever your ideology, whatever your reasoning, it's hard to argue that there are major issues in our nation.  But the thing that can be argued is who is to blame for them.  Jesus said that we should remove the plank from our own eye, before we try to get the sawdust out of our neighbor's eye.  What did he mean by that?  I'm sure that most people, on hearing this, would have thought to themselves, "what's Jesus talking about?  I can see just fine."  


But Jesus was illustrating a simple, yet profound point about humanity.  We all have a tendency to pass the buck, to point the finger, to place judgement anywhere but on ourselves.  We all are, in essence, hypocrites.  A hypocrite is someone who expects something of someone else that they are unwilling to do themselves.  And instead of accepting the blame and working to fix the problem, we instead choose to pass the blame onto someone else.  

But that's a sign of immaturity.  Mature people don't look for someone to blame; they look for something to do.  Do you think there are problems in your family, your city, your country?  Then do something about it.  The road to recovery always begins with "me," not "you."  It begins with "we," not "they."  Take a stand for something that you believe in.  Can you imagine what would happen if an entire nation of Christians did the same?

Matthew 7:3-5

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Let freedom reign

I'm so grateful for the Christian accountability partners that I have in my life.  Last night I was approached by my host sister, saying that she wanted "to talk."  What she actually wanted to do was give me a huge laundry list of all of the things I'm doing wrong in my homestay.  Aside from the fact that it came completely out of the blue, so I was totally blindsided, it was also really frustrating because of the nature of the complaints that they brought against me.  Some of them were legitimate issues and I'm glad they brought them up....but some of them were just plain silly.  Things like I should eat my rice with a spoon instead of chopsticks, and I don't put my laundry in the laundry basket quickly enough, and I should say this greeting as opposed to that greeting.  I make enough legitimate mistakes as it is, that when they brought up all of these silly little things that quite frankly, don't matter, on top of everything else that I'm trying to remember that DOES matter, it was just really frustrating and disheartening.

My first instinct was to get defensive and lash back in anger.  But thank the Lord for my Christian family and friends, who reminded me that the only thing that would really fix the situation was prayer.  Prayer for patience for me, for understanding for them, and for mercy in the situation from God.  Prayer that I would be able to be the bigger person and turn the other cheek.

Don't get me wrong, turning the other cheek is the last thing in the world that I want to do at the moment.  But I've also learned that holding onto a grudge or harboring anger (even if it's passive-aggressive) never hurts anyone but yourself.  God has given us His guidelines for life, and even if they don't logically make sense to us, they are what''s best for us.  Perhaps it's the whole freedom thing that I talked about yesterday.  There is freedom in submitting to God, in letting go of anger, even if it's not causeless anger.

So let go of your anger, your pain, your frustration, your confusion.  Turn the other cheek, give them over to God, and let freedom reign in your life.

Matthew 5:38-48

  ³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’^[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Freedom

What is freedom?  All of my life I've heard these stories and passionate definitions about what freedom is - they all involve broken shackles, or liberated women and children, or incredible restorations of free choice....you get the idea.

But what if true freedom isn't an absence of constraint at all, but rather a submission to the proper authority?  What if true freedom requires direction and structure?  No one in their right minds would call living in a state of anarchy freedom.  And yet, anarchy really is the extreme form of what most people think of when they think of freedom - everyone accountable only to themselves, never having to give an account for anything that they do.

Similarly, most people would not call a rebel, who lives his whole life outside of the laws and restrictions of society, free.  On the contrary, actually, he has become enslaved by the very "freedom" he is working so hard to gain.  Ask any ex-smoker, and he will never say that the liberty he expressed to smoke his first pack of cigarettes made him a freer man.  Instead, the habit that once relaxed him has now trapped him...he is never more than a few minutes away from needing a smoke.

Jesus, referring to Himself, said that "We shall know the Truth, and the Truth will set us free."  So, that begs the question...is Christ free?  Could it be that He is the structure, the direction that we so desperately need?  Is it possible that He is the "proper authority," the one who gives definition to our free-formed lives, the one who's leadership can guide us to freedom in submission?  Are you brave enough to take the leap of faith and find out?

John 8:31-47

³¹ To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. ³² Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
 ³³ They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
 ³⁴ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵ Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. ³⁷ I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. ³⁸ I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.^[b]”
 ³⁹ “Abraham is our father,” they answered.
   “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would^[c] do what Abraham did. ⁴⁰ As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. ⁴¹ You are doing the works of your own father.”
   “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
 ⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. ⁴³ Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. ⁴⁴ You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! ⁴⁶ Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

Where do you live?

I've noticed an interesting dichotomy in my behavior as I travel to different parts of the world.  When I was in Spanish-speaking countries, such as Spain, I was shy and very hesitant to speak Spanish, regardless of the fact that I was nearly fluent and could communicate perfectly well.  You see, my mother is Hispanic, and so I look like a native Spanish speaker.  And so I feel (almost certainly erroneously) that actual native speakers expect me to talk like they do.  So I would get nervous whenever I spoke with them, despite the fact that I can talk about pretty much anything I want to with ease.

But here, in Korea, it's a different story.  My Korean skills are rudimentary at best - my accent is bad, grammar atrocious, and vocabulary tiny.  But in Korea, nobody expects me to talk like them.  As a foreigner in the most culturally homogenous country on earth, I stick out like a sore thumb.  Everyone instantly knows that I'm not Korean, and nobody expects me to be able to say anything at all to them - even a simple "Hello" from me in Korean elicits all sorts of delighted gasps and comments on how well I speak the language.

This knowledge that I will always stick out and be instantly noticed as different here in Korea has elicited a curious response from me.  Whereas in Spain, because I blended in, I didn't want to open my mouth lest I make myself look silly, here in Korea I don't care.  I know that I already stand out, they already don't expect much of me...so I have nothing to lose.  I try, I sound silly, I make mistakes, I put myself out there...it doesn't matter what I say or don't say.

As Christians, we are foreigners in this world, too.  But sometimes I wonder where we think we're living.  Are we in Korea, where everyone knows that we are different, and we are not afraid to speak out?  Or have we put our roots down in Spain, where it's easier to just keep quite and blend into our surroundings?

John 17:6-8, 25-26

⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.
   ²⁵ “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”