Category: Pain

Pleasing God: A Paradigm Shift (Part 5)

~ justlearningtolean ~ Leave a comment

This is part 5 of a six-part series, I encourage you to scroll back to here and start at the beginning.

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Pleasing God In Depression???

I’m sure that those of you who know that I suffered with clinical depression for 12 years knew that I would eventually get around to telling you how this whole paradigm shift came to be. God used it to help me live in the desperation of my depression. God used this precious shift to help me embrace His grace and mercy toward me.

I was asked to share my story about surviving depression to a local MOPS group over a year ago but as I started to learn more and more about the struggles of the women in the group, I realized that depression wasn’t the only sense of shame, dysfunction, imperfection and failure that women all over the world are struggling with! But one of the main reasons I was sought out was because I not only survived 12 years of depression but I actually emerged from it more free and more in love with Jesus than when I went into it. 

I have a story to tell, a life-changing beautiful story about Jesus and not about me. You see, the illustrations that I have given in this series were about me. It was my inner struggle I battled for years. I spent many years banging my head into the wall trying to self-achieve. While I thought I could make the “do it myself” (orange side) work before depression, I was actually trapped in an endless loop of defeat! I’d always keep coming back to “imperfect, failure, defeated, loser, unrighteous” and so I’d head right back off to the right again chasing perfection with sheer will power and determination. 

But God, in His kindness, took away my ability to control anything in my life. I could not self-improve. I could not self-achieve. I was not stronger than the illness. I could not will myself to get better. I could not change the undeniable fact that depression left me utterly depraved.

In my depression: 

  • I would spend days feeling lifeless and dead. 
  • I would sob uncontrollably.
  • I would frequently get really angry for no reason.
  • I couldn’t recognize anything as good in my life.
  • Everything that used to mean something to me meant nothing to me.
  • I couldn’t feel the love of family or friends. I couldn’t even feel God.
  • I was miserable.

But worse than all of these was that all my hopes of trying to convince God that I really was a good person came crashing down. Everything I did PROVED I was NOT a good person. I felt I’d never be able to please God again, and that devastated me! When depression came in and stole away the protective barrier that had masked all my imperfections from the world I was left naked and bare for all to see how imperfect I really was. I despaired for my very life!

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(Find this chart in part 4 of this series- you’ll be lost if you don’t start from the beginning.)

To be honest, nobody showed me a chart like this when I was younger and nobody ever taught me how to accept grace for myself. So, as much as I would like to say, I followed the method on the blue side of the chart during my depression, (leaning into my depression, leaning into my sorrow, and leaning into God) I didn’t. I was clearly in Orange camp territory (“I could do it myself”) and stuck in a cycle of defeat! I was a born and bred performer, clearly trying to please God with my good behavior. It wasn’t until the last few years that I discovered the beauty of the blue side of the chart. That’s when I learned about leaning into my imperfection, into my weakness and into my brokenness.

In my depression, I spent the first five years trying to keep clutching the orange side (my own self-control). But finally, I had to come to the end of myself. I said, “I give up. I can’t keep doing this anymore.” Depression is bad enough on its own without the additional self-hatred and self-loathing of my continual defeat for all my well-intentioned attempts. I was left with no other option but to resign myself to my situation. In that resignation, I believed. “I guess I’ll never please God.” 

I thought, “so, this is my new normal, huh? I can either keep beating myself up or I can just accept it.” I wish I could say this was true surrender to God and His purposes but it wasn’t. It was purely self-preservation. I just could NOT live with that burden of guilt and shame and defeat anymore. 

I was what I was. I didn’t like it. I hated my depression. I’m sure no one else liked it, either. But I couldn’t change it. I resigned myself to being the ultimate failure I was destined to become. But as I began to feel more and more pathetic, more and more worthless, more and more of a failure, His Holy Spirit went to work on my heart. That’s when He introduced me to the blue side which showed me His grace bestowed on me in spite of the ugliness of my heart. 

This chart that I have shared in the last blog with you didn’t come to me easily! (go back one step to find the chart I’m talking about) It was brutal. Giving up my ideals of appearing and behaving good any time I wanted to, perfecting my life and proving my righteousness to God literally had to be ripped from my clenched closed fists. It took years… but I finally let go of trying to change my situation. In fact, in time, I came to believe that God wanted me to be content with my imperfect self because I came to believe that instead of becoming ‘better,’ He wanted me to lean into Him for undeserved kindness. 

You see, before depression, I had forgotten that the God of the universe already knew I was imperfect. But He had already accepted me. He already deeply loved me. But I had foolishly believed I could perfect myself so I kept pushing away the free gifts of grace because I had wanted instead to prove that I could do it myself. 

I finally got to the point where I gave up what I most wanted in life and simply accepted where and what I was. In this specific way, I got to be okay with ME just like I was: imperfect and messed up. I refused to let my behavior (my depression) define my worth. Although I didn’t like the depression, I just decided I would show myself kindness. If I had to live my life always worrying about how others felt about me or how I should be feeling in any scenario, I would’ve committed suicide. 

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But, you might ask, “How can you just accept all that ugliness in yourself?

“How can you just accept that defeat? That despair? That darkness?”  All I know is that when I embraced that most awful desperate place, that’s when the mercy and grace of God came flooding into my heart.  I thought it was the beginning of the end and all was lost, but it was just the beginning of a whole new relationship with my Savior. 

At first, He offered me just little tidbits of grace to chew on. He’d say, “Just chew on this for a while, this little crumb of truth. Find it in my Word. Find a song that sings this truth.” It was bitter at first because it wasn’t MY OWN righteousness, but in time, I acquired a taste for HIS grace He was offering me.  But week after week, month after month, and year after year, He showed me more and more of His grace, and took me deeper and deeper into the truths of it.

Especially, on the brief days when the darkness temporarily subsided, I dug down deep and studied the gospel of Jesus’ finished work for me and determined, “He no longer condemns me! Wrong or right, whatever depression is, He no longer condemns me! Praise the Lord!” So, it got to be that the only way I could wake up each morning was to think, “God doesn’t condemn me. I won’t condemn me either!”

In time, I determined that if God, the Just, was satisfied to look on Jesus and pardon me, that I was safe to give myself as much grace as God did. God showed me grace and it didn’t make Him unholy. I felt this gave me permission to preach grace to myself, too, and believe that His same grace wouldn’t condemn me either.  

I determined to extend to myself the very same grace that the gospel extended to me, which was this: My sin and my imperfection no longer made me unacceptable to God!!!!! I was reminded that grace is a kindness NOT based on merit but based on someone else’s kindness.

The more I studied His incredible grace towards me, the more I gave up all the ideals that I had previously wished for my life and spent my life trying to achieve — and just embraced the life God had given me right then and there.

  • Without condemnation! For God no longer condemned me.
  • Without self-hate! For God loved me unconditionally!
  • Without guilt! For Jesus had erased my guilt!
  • God knew that I was imperfect (always had been) yet He still genuinely loved me.
  • God knew I still made mistakes, but there were none of them that weren’t fully forgiven.
  • Because I was forgiven, every punishment due to me was already paid by Jesus. 
  • Because I was reconciled to God, I would ALWAYS be acceptable in His sight!
  • Because His wrath was appeased, I no longer angered the God of the universe.
  • In fact, His word said that I now have peace with God and was a friend of God!
  • Because I was always and already acceptable, I no longer had to improve my behavior to be MORE acceptable or MORE pleasing to God.
  • Jesus had already made me fully acceptable to God.

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I could not make myself MORE righteous to God because my nature kept me from that standard of perfect righteousness, just like I could not become less depressed and more characteristically “BETTER” behaved because the nature of depression kept me from attaining that standard. In both spiritual and physical realms, I realized my helplessness to simply choose to change my nature! I was trapped in a scenario I didn’t like but which was true nevertheless.

When I challenge fellow depression sufferers that the most loving and kind thing they can do for themselves is to simply accept it, most initially reject my counsel.  You see, people feel like if they reject it, it gives them MORE control over it. They tell me, “but I don’t like it! I want to change it!” What they don’t understand is that depression cannot be beat! The illness is so pervasive that control is nearly impossible. What they are really saying is, “I’d rather keep beating my head against this wall.” The truth is that the only true freedom one can find in the miserable life of depression, as unthinkable as it sounds, is to lean into it. Own it; it’s an illness that God has allowed in your life. I didn’t like it! I hated it! But that didn’t mean fighting for the impossible of control was more admirable. It was just dumb. 

Is it right or good to be okay with yourself?

Embracing the reality of my condition (leaning into my depression) doesn’t mean that everything I did in depression was right or good. Being okay with myself didn’t mean I felt justified for anything I was doing; it didn’t make anything that was wrong right! And grace does NOT justify anything you are doing; it is a kindness shown to you IN SPITE of what you are doing! Accepting the grace of God doesn’t mean you think He justifies your sin; it means He justifies you in spite of your sin. 

You see, some of us learned when we were little that we could only be loved unconditionally when we were good, behaved good, did good things or otherwise had earned the privileges from being good. So this goes against everything that we had learned. But GOD’S GRACE loves us unconditionally when there is STILL nothing good in us! Being okay with myself was my way of showing myself kindness I didn’t have to earn because I was imitating God’s grace towards me. It didn’t make the endless sadness happy. It didn’t take away the depression. But it gave me courage and hope to survive it. It gave me peace in the midst of the storm. “God is ok with me. God is ok with me. God is ok with me,” I whispered to myself.

It changed EVERYTHING for me! I finally experienced freedom in my depression because through the darkest hours, I believed God hadn’t let go of me. He hadn’t turned His back on me. He hadn’t abandoned me! He still loved me. He was still pursuing me. He had the power to hold on to me when I was delirious in my dark disease. And I believe now that my faith that God could love and accept me in spite of the darkness of my heart, in fact, pleased Him. I believe that He rejoiced when He got to remind me of His grace when my heart tried to object because depression didn’t look godly. It didn’t look spiritual. It reeked of the depravity of the human condition! But He pleased HIMSELF, He glorified HIMSELF, when He showed me grace because I gave up my right to be perfect and let Him be perfect. 

How do I know that is the heart of the Lord? Remember Ezekiel 20:44? 

“But you will know that I am the Lord, when I have honored MY name by treating you mercifully in spite of your wickedness”

Here’s an important concept to grasp: God’s grace wasn’t as much of a big deal to me before my depression because I was doing pretty ok without Him. I didn’t need His pity! I considered His mercy and grace pity for the weak and the broken. So, I denied the grace and mercy of God from touching me, the very attributes He Himself was longing to bestow, because I felt no desperation of need for it!

But after my depression, I can’t fathom a life without relying on His grace and mercy. You see, they became MUCH to me! They were the only way I could get up in the morning and take a breath. They were the only way I could face life and a future.

God became the only Person whose opinion mattered to me. For a person like me, who felt like she had never been and would never be “ENOUGH,” that’s a big deal. I had spent my whole life trying to live up to somebody or other’s expectations of me, not the least of them being my own, but pretty much, God’s acceptance of me became paramount. More important than anything else I wanted Him to be pleased with me!

What do we as women want more than anything? We want to be fully accepted, yes, even our true self that we don’t like to uncover. We want to be loved unconditionally, yes, even the unlovable self that we try to hide. We want to experience intimacy with someone. We want to know that we will never be alone. We want to know that there isn’t anything we can do that will make us lose the affection we so desperately long for. And while I didn’t have those things from everyone in my life, I had those things from the only One who mattered to me. “God the Just” justified me forever and always. He is the only One who could say, “there isn’t anything you could do to make me think less of you and there isn’t anything that YOU could do to make me love or accept you more.” My God was the One who knew every corner of my imperfect self and STILL chose to see the righteousness of His son in me!

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How could I be okay with me?

Some of you have a hard time even accepting God’s grace because you have been trained that it can only be received via your merit. Because, you see, grace isn’t fair. It doesn’t satisfy justice. It’s in spite of it. But once you can accept the grace of God in spite of your imperfection, then you too can abandon the chains that say, “I’m not okay.” If Christ can accept you as okay, then you can accept yourself as okay. You see, we only want to allow ourselves to be ok IF we deserve it. So, when God offers us grace, we often push it aside because we don’t think we deserve it. 

I learned that I could be okay with me because I finally understood that He would forever be okay with me. Every objection I could come up with had been satisfied. Every objection you could come up with has been satisfied. Every contingency is covered. It was like God stood on his throne and as fast as I could spit out my “But what about…..?” He’d say, “Covered! Paid for! Forgiven! Pardoned! 

If we turn everything on its head and start with God’s view of us:

The ultimate justice and righteous one, and if HE treats me with kindness (extends me grace) even when I don’t deserve it, then it gives me permission to do as God does and accept grace in my own life. And while it seems counterintuitive, the truth of the matter is that grace received breeds mercy in me, which gives me permission to treat others kindly even when they don’t deserve it either.

Here is the thing I want you to consider: 

While some may think it is more weak to accept imperfection (or even depression), I’m here to tell you that it takes more resolve and more confidence and a firm belief in the biblical gospel of grace to rest in God’s completed work of Jesus Christ to make you complete in Him (okay with Him), than it takes for you to work your fanny off trying to achieve some other type of perfection on your own merit. 

(To be continued) 

Pleasing God: A Paradigm Shift (Part 3)

~ justlearningtolean ~ Leave a comment

This is Part 3 of a series of posts. Please go back here, then here, read the first two parts before continuing on here. 

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What are the disadvantages of holding tightly to unrealistic expectations of idealism and perfection?

1) We deny ourselves the ability to align ourselves with what God is doing in our life right now. If we set perfection and idealism as our ultimate goal, we will lack contentment for anything less. How can we be content with our little house, if our idealism wants us in a bigger house? How can we be content with our husband and our marriage, if our idealism wants a completely different picture of what marriage looks like so that we’re always trying to improve our spouse? How can we be content with our imperfect children if we are never happy with them because they continue to misbehave? How can we be content with our Savior’s sacrifice for us, if our idealism demands that our goodness should be perfect and sinless before God?

2) If we set perfection and idealism as our ultimate goal, we will miss the joy in the now. If we’re a mountain climber and our only joy is getting to the the top of Mt. Rainier as the ultimate fulfillment of our dream, we may very well miss the wildflowers along the way. We may miss the beautiful tranquil streams in the valleys. And so on. If we lack contentment with where God has us right now, we will miss the joy of a husband who may be imperfect but may deeply love us. We will miss the joy of being able to enjoy our little imperfect rugrats. We will miss the joy of the simplicity of a home that doesn’t require as much maintenance as a big house. You get the idea.

3) Do you know the phrase, “if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword?” It means that whatever standard you set for your life, will be the very standard that will one day condemn you or at least imprison you. If our standard is perfection, we will fail every time we aren’t perfect. 

4) Perfectionism and idealism are exhausting. Are there things in life that we can set our mind to and achieve? Sure! But whatever ideals and perfections we set our hearts on achieving will require every last drop of your energy. We will end up enslaved to the chase of that ideal. So, we need to ask ourselves, is that worth giving our lives to? Is it worth the exhaustion? Is it worth the enslavement to continually chase that perfect goal? Do you feel that increases your freedom or enslaves you?

5) Another disadvantage of holding tightly to an unrealistic expectation of ourselves is that we ultimately refuse to agree with God about our current condition. Rather than embracing the thought, “You’re right about me, God. I really am an imperfect sinner who is desperate for You, God.” We claim instead that we CAN still perfect ourselves; we just always need one more chance to prove ourselves.

When you insist that we can do something OURSELVES, it pushes others away. So, in essence, if we are impatient with ourselves and become irritated when we aren’t spiritually perfect, we also push God away, denying Him being welcomed into our sin situation because we’ll refuse His help. We’ll refuse the mercy and grace God is trying to give us now.  Humble contrite surrender throws open the door to His mercy and grace! “I can do it myself” pushes Him away! If we aren’t careful, our self-reliance will end up opposing God because self-reliance is prideful and God says He will oppose prideful ways.

6) The tighter we hold on to this need to perform, to do everything right, to do everything well, to achieve all our dreams and ideals, the less we’ll become dependent on Jesus. That chase will consume us. And the more we are consumed with the ideals, the less we’ll be satisfied with our life and our current situation. We’ll also be less satisfied with our relationship with Jesus because, ultimately, when we are consumed with this perfectionist drive, we’ll become less dependent on Jesus.

7) Here’s another really important point: If we aren’t careful, we will adamantly refuse to allow God to give our lives an alternate ending, a different calling for us which is by His design. Listen, if God does not want us to achieve our own goals, if He has something special He wants to accomplish with our weakness, (with our imperfection), He will oppose our plans so that He can use us how he wants to use us. This isn’t unkindness! In fact, this is great love and kindness. He has a special purpose for our lives! Are we willing to give Him control of that future? 

I know! He gave me depression for 12 years. I have to stop and clarify here! God is always for YOU! You, the person. But He may throw a monkey wrench into your plans (He may oppose your ways) if they don’t please Him or glorify Him. There are endings in some of our lives that God deeply desires to come to pass because those frailties and those weaknesses will open the door to a way He has planned to glorify Himself with our lives. 

What are the benefits of letting go of perfectionism and performancism? 

  • It lets us recognize and embrace the little wins typically insufficient for a perfectionist.
  • It lets us breathe in a breath of contentment and breeds gratefulness for the life God has given us.
  • This will give us more energy for the ones we love and more patience with them.
  • Letting go, although frightening at first, actually gives us the freedom we really want.
  • Finally, letting go of our control makes us more dependent on God, which makes HIM rejoice because HE gets to be the good, good Father and the gentle, Good Shepherd. He gets to please Himself with His own good character. 
  • And, for most of us, our desire to be “good” probably was birthed out of our ultimate purpose to please God anyway, right? So, why do we then deny God the right to change His desired outcome in our lives?

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Spiritual Benefits of Letting Go Of Our Self Righteousness 

Because our value is now based on God’s unconditional love, we will always feel loved. Because our value is based on God’s unconditional acceptance of us, we will never feel unacceptable. Guilt and shame won’t cripple us anymore. We choose contentment in Jesus making us enough, not our own efforts to make ourselves enough. We believe the gospel! We embrace grace! We embrace freedom in Christ. God means more to us! 

As we lean into our confidence that no matter how imperfect we are, no matter how far we fall short of the standard, no matter how many times we have fail to achieve and no matter how many mistakes we make, we realized we will never surprise God. So we can never disappoint God. We will never be unacceptable to God because God’s wrath is forever appeased. His holiness has been satisfied. Our guilty consciences have been cleansed. Our crippling shame is denied a foothold because our guilt has been erased. 

When we believe the truth of the gospel, we learn to trust that we are still accepted by God in spite of our unacceptability. We learn to trust that our deeds no longer condemn us anymore because they have been pardoned by our Savior. We learn to trust that we are loved in spite of our unlovability. We believe that we are bestowed grace and mercy when we come to Him in our honesty, humility and brokenness. We learn to accept God grace for ourselves because what God says is good cannot be evil.

We learn to embrace God’s plan for our lives rather than chase our tails trying to achieve all our hopes and dreams, even our spiritual ideals. We learn to rest in God’s finished work on the cross for our sins. And we learn to rest in His grace for all the rest of our imperfections, all the ideals we fail to meet, and all the perceived failures that we feel. 

We learn to choose to not be defined by our imperfections. We learn to embrace grace for the person that we truly are. We learn to choose freedom from being chained to and defined by what we do and don’t do. We learn to choose contentment with where we are, who we are and where we are going. We learn to choose to be okay with where God has us and choose to remain humble and surrendered to His future which He will, by the way, complete in His way and in his timing.

So how can we posture ourselves in a way that God has promised He will respond to with tenderness, compassion, mercy and grace?

God opposes the ways of the proud self-reliant but gives grace to the HUMBLE God-reliant. Remember, He promises that a broken and contrite heart He will never despise. We can either posture ourselves / align ourselves with what God opposes by pushing relentlessly to be the best we can be at all costs (self-reliance and self-fulfilling idealism) OR we can posture ourselves in a humble, contrite manner which God says He will always accept.

You see, when we humbly acknowledge we are weak and often broken, and embrace a contrite heart and a life surrendered to God’s will for us, no matter what that is, our heart is demonstrating its desperateness for God in all areas of our life (God-reliance and a God-desired outcome whatever His will asks of us). I mean, admit it. If you achieved every perfection you ever dreamed of, wouldn’t that just decrease your desperate need of God?

A Greek Lesson about Perseverance and Endurance

James 5:10 tells us “We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” 

Who doesn’t want to be known for their incredible endurance and perseverance? But when we read that word (endure or persevere), we think of an athlete who victoriously crosses the finish line and wins, right? Or we envision a mountain climber getting to the top of some mountain and planting his flag… right? He persevered, and with that perseverance he won the prize, right?

Endurance “hypomo-ne” literally means to “REMAIN UNDER.” Which means to exist in the tension of a difficult situation. Like with Job. He existed in the tension of a difficult situation. It does not necessarily mean patience but it means persevering (remaining, waiting, staying) in a difficult situation.

It certainly does NOT mean overcome! It does not mean win! It does not mean become victorious! It means that people who were identified in Scripture as those who persevered with endurance were the ones who surrendered to steadfastly “remaining under the oppression.” What James 5 tells us about Job was that in the storm, Job just held on. When the weight of his trials pressed down on him, he released his control and surrendered to God’s plan for his life. Then, He cried out to God for relief.

But what Scripture is saying is that what God found acceptable in Job was NOT his strength to overcome. It was his embracing his weakness. It was Job’s choice to submit to the will of God for Him and “remain under” this oppression, something that he found incredibly difficult. The suffering was excruciating. But Job “remained under” (persevered, endured) thru great tragedy to find God’s compassion and mercy on the other side. 

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Are WE willing to “remain under” our difficult life situations to experience that degree of compassion and mercy from the Lord? Job didn’t receive that by winning or overcoming. He found it in losing his way and ultimately his control over his own life. Job didn’t find mercy and grace by leaning away from his pain. He found it by owning it and leaning into it. That is where he found the Lord. That’s when we find Job summarizing his suffering by saying, “I only thought I knew God, but now I’ve seen Him face to face.” 

Great Need Precedes Great Compassion

You see, mercy must always be preceded by recognizing our great need of mercy, and it is received by LEANING INTO our NEED. If we refuse to embrace the authenticity and desperation of the way things are right now (the life God has given us right now), we will never find mercy in it. It cheapens mercy when we don’t want it, because we don’t feel we need it. 

The more desperate our authentic confession that we desperately need it, the wider the door is to finding it IN the Lord. You see, God often pulls us into a desperate, broken, unfulfilled life to force us to interact with Him because He wants to display His kindness and His grace. Danielle Strickland (from the Salvation Army) said that it is in the chaos of life where she finds the Spirit of God hovering over us. I agree with her. Because in the chaos of MY life is where my need for Him was the greatest!

It’s also true that if we hide our brokenness from our brothers and sisters in Christ or our spouses or even our children, we shut the door to them showing us  compassion and mercy IN it. Nobody will know! We’ll give the illusion that we’re strong already. Nobody will be given the opportunity to show us mercy.

What do we perfectionists (what I call performancists) hate more than anything? OUR NEED! NEEDINESS! INSUFFICIENCY! Not being able to do it OURSELVES? But what does God desire more than anything of our hearts, the recognition of our NEED!!! Owning up to our imperfection and our recognizing our inability to ever achieve true perfection! 

Here’s a really good check of our dreams and aspirations: 

Are the dreams for your life causing you to be more self-reliant or more God-reliant? Does your picture of success increase your need for God or attempt to prove yourself to God, thus decreasing your need for God? If your goals in life don’t cause you to become more God-reliant, you’re chasing your own tail. You’ll never find contentment. You’ll never recognize mercy and compassion when God tries to give it. 

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So, how can we align ourselves with what GOD’S will is for our life?

Start with where you are— right now (all your circumstances… even the messy ones). I know it is hard, but I challenge you to release your death grip on how YOU want your life to look. Start with being honest with God and agreeing with God about the truth about you (you are imperfect, you can’t be righteous no matter how hard you try, you can’t fulfill all your ideals, you can’t fulfill yourself by remaking yourself perfect), because you need Him desperately! 

Recognize that God in His sovereignty has allowed everything that has happened in your life to happen and He has kept from happening everything that hasn’t happened. Lean into the way life is RIGHT NOW (even the negative things), drinking in your life as a result of His perfect sovereignty. Lean into the imperfection that you hate because in doing so, it acknowledges your great need. I’m NOT saying to rejoice over any sin and imperfections and unrecognized dreams but embrace them in that you own up to your shortcomings, which means aligning yourself with how God sees things and sees you. 

A biblical truth you can take to the bank: Even if you are imperfect and, in fact sinful, as a child of God, are you despised or rejected by Him? No! You are still loved and still forgiven! So, as you seek to align yourself with how God sees you, don’t be afraid to see yourself as an imperfect sinner because you are still loved and forgiven (if you have asked Jesus to save you). Drink in the truth of both of these tensions!

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how we can experience freedom in Christ in spite of being imperfect! (To be continued)

Pleasing God: A Paradigm Shift (Part 2)

~ justlearningtolean ~ 1 Comment

This is Part 2 of a series of posts. Please go back here and read the first part before continuing on here. 

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What is the significance of the cross?

All humans are born into the world imperfect. From Adam’s very first sin, we were sinners because a sinful nature was passed on from his generation to our generation, from Adam until me.  There is not a single human on earth, nor has there ever been, who does not have a sin nature or who does not sin. 

Unfortunately, once Adam had introduced sin into our heritage, we no longer could be at peace with God. God’s holiness and His justice demanded punishment for sin. Our sin made us enemies of God! We were irreconcilable! In fact, that original sin set about a chain of events and consequences made it absolutely impossible to EVER please Him. You, see, someone had to pay for it. A sacrifice had to be made to punish his sin and ours to satisfy the justice of God.

So, God sat down at the beginning of time, and came up with a plan to satisfy His own holiness, His own justice, and appease His own wrath. A perfect sacrifice had to be offered; anything but perfect wouldn’t have been acceptable. So, God sent His own perfect Son Jesus to live a perfect life and to die a sinless death, so that the penalty could be paid for all who would believe in the ages to come. And THAT death was acceptable to God. In fact, because God placed the entire weight of all of mankind’s sin on a His shoulders, and as He died, He took on Himself the penalty of all of mankind who wanted in on the deal (those who would call on Him to save Him). 

His one atoning sacrifice would once for all cover ALL the sins of mankind in eternity past, in the present and throughout eternity future, on ONE condition! A transaction had to occur. The transaction begins with acknowledging our sinful condition and our great need to be rescued from our sin, to escape eternal judgment. A person needs to recognize that Jesus Christ was and is indeed God incarnate. A person needs to believe that when Jesus died on the cross, it was for the sole purpose of paying the penalty for the sins of mankind. Then, one needs to unquestionably believe that He could save them forever from their sins. And finally, a person needs to ASK God to save them. With the confession of our need, our declaration of our belief in Jesus as the son of God and our belief that God would save us because HE promised He would in His Word, the transaction is complete. Upon our acceptance of that legal deal, our names are written into the Book of Life and can never be removed.

So, does everyone on earth have this gift of salvation? Unfortunately, no. Salvation only belongs to those who in simple faith, believe God and trust Him to save them. The transaction is so simple, a little child can understand it, but a transaction still needs to occur to reap all the benefits of being justified by faith. 

So, what is the beauty of the gospel (which means the good news of Jesus)?

After I am saved, the beauty is that Jesus gave the Father what He wanted from me, which I could never give Him. Perfectness.  Jesus offered HIS perfectness for ME and God the Father accepted that sacrifice for ME! I trusted Christ as my personal Savior completing this transaction for me at the tender age of five. But, I admit, it took years to fully understand the ramifications of that transaction on my life in Christ! But the fact is that once you accept Jesus’ sacrifice and become a child of God, God says “your life is finally enough to please me” because God gave HIMSELF all that He demanded from me through Jesus. God the Father is pleased with Jesus’ sacrifice and has forever made peace with us.

Once we are saved, will we finally be perfect? 

Do any of you know any perfect people? No! None of us are perfect. Why? God didn’t take our sin natures away! He simply forever pardoned us for all our sins. He used His own righteousness to cover our sinfulness. But we are still plagued with these dumb sin natures that make mistakes every single day! But, unfortunately, it doesn’t stop us from trying to chase down and achieve a state of righteousness in and of ourselves.

Doesn’t God want us to do what is right? 

Yes! Absolutely YES! Does He think we can ever reach His righteous standard? NO, Absolutely NO!

But the irony is: Before salvation, we needed Christ to save us BECAUSE we were sinners. He didn’t make us righteous first so that He could save us. He saved us to redeem us back and apply Jesus righteousness to us. He saved us so that HE (not us) could make us righteous in the Father’s eyes!

So, why do Christians have this misconception that AFTER salvation, we can make now ourselves righteous with our own attempts when we could not BEFORE?

The Bible reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10a)

It does NOT say, if you try hard enough, you can make your heart ‘better.’  To believe that you can actually make your unrighteous heart righteous is actually refuting what the Bible says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23)

In fact, while we are trying to become better and better, we may actually be sinning in order to attempt to arrive there. And here is how: It is actually a sin to attempt to justify ourselves, trying to self-fulfill our own self-righteous perfection. Another word for self-righteousness, self-fulfillment, self-achievement, is PRIDE! And pride is sin. In fact, pride is one of the very things that God specifically says He opposes.

James 4: 6 “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

So, while we are trying so hard to become perfectly righteous, we are actually doing it the opposite way of how God says will please Him. (stay with me-I’m getting there) 

So, what is the “will of God” then if it isn’t becoming more and more perfect / more and more righteous? 

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Contrary to what we’ve learned, His word says that God draws near to those with a broken and contrite heart (NOT a heart who is becoming more and more perfect, more and more confident, more and more strong, more and more put together, more and more self-controlled or more and more sinless). This is really important: Listen! 

Ps. 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.” 

Ps. 34:17-18 “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.” 

Doesn’t God want us to obey His commands and attempt to do better?

Just because there are commands in Scripture that tell us how God wants us to live doesn’t mean that DOING those things make us any MORE righteous, or that God is MORE pleased with US when we do them. The truth is: there is NOTHING we can do that will make us MORE loved or cherished by God. 

The truth is: there is NOTHING we can add to the righteousness of Jesus that God has not already attributed to us by His son’s death on the cross that can make us MORE righteous.

There is nothing WE can do that makes God take notice of us and have a special affection for us because we are good, “Wow, THEY are pretty special (THEY are such ‘GOOD girls’) because THEY are living life so well.” But we also don’t have to worry that God thinks poorly of us when and if we don’t live sinlessly, because Jesus has already accomplished all the perfect that was required to be accomplished on our behalf.

Why do we want to achieve idealistic righteousness of any other idealistic dream anyway (besides possibly just being proud of ourselves or making others proud of us)? Because we want to be accepted by others. Because we want to please the ones we love. Because we don’t want others to point their fingers at us and condemn us for being bad. We want to be easy to love. We want to be treated with compassion, kindness and tenderness, and not accusations and condemnation. 

So, if we are achieving these things so that we will be loved, accepted, and treated with kindness, then aren’t we simply desperately trying to ultimately achieve what God has already given us?  And if the method we are using to achieve them with (self-fulfillment, self-reliance, self-righteousness) is going to push God away, aren’t we just shooting ourselves in the foot, meaning we’re doing everything that God Himself says He will oppose?

Rather than aiming for the ideal end result, maybe we should be more concerned with the method that brings God running to us, our hearts in love with Him. 

“1 Samuel 16:7 (NAS): for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Sometimes, I don’t think we trust God to really know our desires to please Him. We believe we have to SHOW Him with our perfection. However, if we are honest, we discover we just can’t ever be perfect. But through humility, with honest authenticity, when we acknowledge to Him that we are weak and often broken, and contritely acknowledge the truth that we are indeed imperfect, that is when God comes running to us to show us mercy and compassion. 

Matthew 9:13 (NAS): But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’  for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

You see, LEANING INTO our weakness and imperfection throws the door wide open for God’s mercy (compassion) and grace. PLUS, His GREATEST joy isn’t experienced in OUR triumphs, but He is glorified more when HIS own attributes glorify HIMSELF, not when we try to replace His perfection with our own. (Carefully examine what God says here! …When I (God) have been made happy by MY actions.

Ezekiel 20:43-44 “You will look back on all the ways you defiled yourselves and will hate yourselves because of the evil you have done. But you will know that I am the Lord, O people of Israel, when I have honored MY name by treating you mercifully in spite of your wickedness.”

Are we embracing the world’s definition of success — or God’s definition of success?

I John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of your flesh and the desires of your eyes and the pride in your life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 

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Is it possible that all of our aspirations that we women have spent our whole life trying to achieve have been driven by self-reliance which we learned would prove us to be “good girls” and that would make others happy and proud of us? Isn’t another word for self-reliance and self-fulfillment of something you want more than anything else in life, just another word for the “pride of life”  which says “I can do it myself?”

So, I guess what we all have to ask ourselves is, “Do all of our high expectations for ourselves even please God? Or is it possible that most of our high ideals are really about making us feel good about ourselves? Looking good to other people? Earning people’s favor? Worrying about other people’s expectations? Etc.”

Another lie we believe is that our high ideals and expectations are actually realistic goals. They are NOT! God never promised you can achieve everything you want to achieve! The world might have told you that, but God never did. You can climb that cliff and climb that cliff and climb that cliff but if the cliff is not climbable, you are only setting yourself up for failure.

My dear sisters, do we realize that there has never been a perfect mom? There has never been a perfect marriage. There has never been a perfect home. There has never been a perfect bank roll. There has never been a perfect body. There has never been a perfect friend. And there has never even been a perfect Christian. (Gasp!)

If you set an impossible ideal in front of you as your goal (perfect mom, perfect wife, perfect Christian, whatever it is), you will ALWAYS end up feeling defeated. You will ALWAYS fail. You will NEVER attain that wonderful elevation of yourself having arrived at the life of your dreams. The only possible outcome for all those unrealistic idealized expectations is failure. And failure is the one thing we don’t want! Am I right?

 

My husband, a firefighter, told me recently about a call his crew had gone to. A woman had fallen down a flight of stairs. While the firefighters urged her to go to the hospital to make sure she hadn’t broken her back, she was impertinently stubborn. She was determined to get up by herself, and walk by herself, and climb those stairs by herself because she felt it showed her strength and fortitude. But in reality, it showed her stupidity. She chose self-reliance over acknowledging she was weak, broken, and injured. It is more likely that her valiantly portrayed fortitude, pushing through the pain, probably cost her a lifetime of back problems—all so that she could prove to observers that she wasn’t hurt and that she could do it herself. 

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We women often do the same thing, pushing through impossible situations, to prove that we can do it ourselves. We’re more like a bunch of two-year olds than mature realistic adults. We don’t want to admit that we’re just plain ol’ everyday humans who can’t achieve all our idealistic goals. We aren’t super-woman! We are afraid to admit our weaknesses and our brokenness! We’re afraid deep down inside that it will prove that we are failures. Ladies, we’re not failures unless we try to pretend to the world that we are winners! That’s unfortunately, when we simply prove our naive stupidity! On the other hand, we prove that we are mature when we can freely admit that we are not everything we wished we were, and that we’re only human, and that we might not ever arrive at any level of perfection, and learn to be okay with that.

Is it even good for us to hold so tightly to all these expectations of success and achievement? What about self-control and righteousness? (To be continued)

The Idolatry of Religious Self-Improvement

~ justlearningtolean ~ Leave a comment

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Sometimes I get such a heavy heart as I ache to share what God has done in my life, but the words either won’t come or seem trivial, or offensive, or theologically impertinent. How can I possibly tell you how much Jesus changed this performist’s heart? How can I possibly tell you how God turned my theological world upside down? How can I possibly share the shocking paradigm shift God showed me in the last 10-15 years? 

Like the apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, God decimated me so that He could help me see that I wasn’t actually glorifying Him with my spiritual fervor. I was idolatrous of perfection and self-improvement. I was so mistaken to believe that my drive for spiritual self-improvement could make God more pleased with me. I completely misunderstood the life He wanted me to live for His glory. Like the apostle Paul, I thought I knew how I was supposed to prove my commitment to my God and King; I learned how to be a ‘good’ Christian growing up in Sunday School and in a Christian home.  It was all about achievement of a sinless life. It was all about having more self-control. It was all about beating my body into subjection, until I could become ‘just like Jesus.’ I zealously set out to prove myself with my righteous deeds. But in the end, those actions and those attitudes were born out of idolatry to become better, to sin less than others, to achieve more than others, to gain more favor from the Lord.

You see, seeking to become “just like Jesus” is the most offensive phrase to me today.  Because my whole problem began by believing I could become “just like Jesus.” How arrogant and impertinent is that!

It reminds me of two Scriptures: First, In Genesis 3:5, Satan comes to Eve and tempts her with the phrase, “when you eat of the tree, you will be LIKE GOD.” And in Isaiah 14:14, during Satan’s very famous boast, Satan says, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself LIKE the Most High.” Friends, there are a lot of Christians who would scoff at the arrogance of the devil, but in their hearts, still think they are pretty good Christians. They believe with all their religious piety, that their perceived righteousness has raised themselves to some level in which God takes note of THEM, “wow, look at how righteous they are!”

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Although I didn’t know it at the time, more than anything in the world, I wanted God to take notice of ME. I worked hard to earn His favor. Listen, I was already saved. I had already taken care of my eternal security many years before. This was about my idolatrous heart that wanted to become better and better so that I could rest in my perceived belief that God was somehow impressed with ME! I worked hard to acquire self-control. I set very high standards for myself and my family so that we didn’t accidentally fall short in some way. I read my Bible and attempted to implement all the “that shalts” and stayed far away from the “thou shalt nots.” I worked hard to perform in just the way I thought Jesus-followers should perform. But the problem was that I was trying to create a self-improved version of myself. The glory of my life was my achievements. God’s grace and His mercy meant very little to one who thought she was doing pretty good on her own. No, I didn’t worship myself. But I did want more than breath itself to become a better version of myself. And do you know what? As long as I applied a little extra self-control, I could manage to keep that old sinful nature at bay (I thought). I could pursue holy living. I could force myself to adhere to righteous behavior and righteous thinking. As long as I grit my teeth and worked hard enough at it, I felt like I was succeeding. 

But, I believe God, in His kindness, eviscerated me. You see, He knew that I would never feel like I was ‘enough’ as long as all I could see was my SELF and my performance. So, He gave me a devastating illness: DEPRESSION! Depression takes all your desire for life and improvement and satisfaction away. The most crushing thing it takes away is a person’s SELF control (a person’s ability to control what their SELF is feeling and is doing!)! You see, what was keeping me from realizing God’s sufficiency for my insufficiency was MY ability, up until that point, to SELF-CONTROL my life and my actions. I had worshipped becoming ‘better’ but missed the Savior Who had come to rescue me from a life of bondage, the bondage of trying to become as good as God, to earn God’s favor, to be favorited by God (you might even say). I thought that’s what Christians were supposed to do! I thought God would be proud of me for achieving religious improvement! But without realizing it, I had raised that standard of MY becoming ‘better’ above my Savior’s already provided perfection for my imperfect self. My glory was my religious zeal and fervor! It wasn’t in my gracious and merciful Savior, to my shame!

After Paul’s own evisceration on the road to Damascas, he realized his religious zeal was misplaced, too. The God he believed he was serving was actually unhappy with his actions, as religiously zealous as they were. God didn’t strike him down in His anger; He struck him down in His kindness because He had so much He wanted to show Paul about His gracious mercy and what God actually wanted for his life. 

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Don’t you find it ironic, that the religious zealot of Saul, became the apostle Paul that penned these words: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24) Paul! He calls himself a ‘wretched man’ and he describes in agonizing detail his battle with his sin nature which, though he hated it, kept winning.  Yet, two verses later, he reminds us that there is “NO condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus!”

In my depression, I lived in the tortuous prison of “wretched man that I am.” There was no possibility of self righteousness. God saw to that, in His mercy. There was no possibility of self-improvement. There was no “take the bull by the horns and better your life by grit and determination” mantras. There was only defeat, disillusionment, despair, and disappointment! Is it any wonder, that when I discovered that I was in the most wretched of situations, that God’s mercy and grace for an imperfect life started to become really important me!? It was like I came to know the Lord all over again. I had learned Him to be a task master and a God of high expectations for me. But I came to know Him in my depression as a gentle shepherd, a loving Father, a tender friend, and a merciful Savior! During my 11-12 years in depression, I finally gave up all my attempts at perfection and at self-righteousness. I came to embrace the truth of my condition, that I was a totally depraved and needy sinner, in desperate daily of God’s mercy for my failures and His grace to even hold my head up some days. 

During God’s surgery on me, I learned to love basking in the tender affection of a Savior toward me, a saint who had NOTHING to offer Him but my brokenness. I had nothing left to show Him of my merit. While my view of mySELF decreased, my view of HIM increased. (“He must increase while I must decrease!” – John 3:30) The effect of unmerited favor powerfully drew me into His heart. I longed to be loved like that. I longed to lay down my burdens, battle worn and weary, and feel love like I never had before. It felt so unnatural to know I was loved so deeply when I felt so unworthy! I was so surprised to find such satisfaction in being loved without having earned it. 

The way God kept me alive I think, during such darkness of my heart, was to teach me to cling to Him and His righteousness in spite of my unworthiness! He taught me to fight the darkness with this truth: God passionately loves me in spite of the continued darkness of my heart. He passionately longs to show me how all the things that showed me how depraved and unworthy I was were already settled in the debt He already paid! There was nothing left He needed me to do to prove my worth to Him.  My worth was determined when Jesus died to take away the penalty for my sin (my ugly, depraved life). He made me a child of God, which gave me infinite unmerited affection from my loving Father. And until God eventually removed my depression in 2014, that unmerited affection for one who felt short of feeling ‘enough’ had to be enough for me. Chronic, miserable, devastating imperfection would have to be enough for me because of one redeeming truth: God loved ME as I was! Imperfect, sick, without the ability to act righteously, without the ability to think righteously, but redeemed, loved and cherished! What a treasure He was to me!

Many who hear my story think I am callously promoting lawlessness. It couldn’t be further from the truth. “God’s word says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.” I love my Savior more than these pathetic words could ever express and I wouldn’t choose to hurt Him. If I could, I would remain sinless the rest of my life. But God didn’t make us sinless when He saved us; I suppose He could have. But if he had removed our sin natures, why would we need Him!? Why would we be so amazed by His grace and overwhelmed by His mercy when we failed? He left us with our sin natures so that we would sing of His amazing grace for our continued imperfection. He left us desperately needing Him. He left us longing for redemption from these miserable and yes, even sick, bodies. He left us craving His perfection for our imperfection. He left us here in our sinful world so that we would consider HIS GLORY more important and more precious to us than our own successes and perceived goodness.

7E07BD83-120D-4278-AA06-850BC78D1C3ADo you see it? Do you see how much God wants us to be amazed by HIM!? By HIS love? By HIS kindness? By HIS grace? By HIS mercy? Friends, this Christian life isn’t about OUR SELF IMPROVEMENT at all! Our job  in this life is to show forth the glory of HIS grace! Our job is to be daily amazed by His incredible perfection and glory and to shout it from the rooftops! 

When your desire to self-improve ultimately brings glory to YOU, you steal God’s glory! You elevate yourself to become ‘like God.’ So, while we should never seek after lawlessness, we should never, EVER, EVER stop being amazed by His incredible love and undeserved kindness! 

When you fail in this Christian life and sin (which you WILL do!!!!!!!!!), take heart because God’s love never fails. When you stop and think how kind God is to love a miserable wretch like you, you demonstrate your utter dependence on His daily grace bestowed upon you and you reiterate your desperate need for Him. When you are content to rejoice in your Savior’s glory and perfection in spite of your brokenness, you demonstrate, “You must increase, and I must decrease!” You demonstrate, “whom have in heaven but You!” You demonstrate, “Your mercies are new every morning.”

You see, while the Christian community to this day, is yelling from the rooftops, “become better versions of yourself!!!! It’ll make God happy!!!!” I’m cringing!!!!! For in my drive to become better, I took my eyes off Him and set it upon myself!  So, for me, (this is MY story), getting better, doing better, thinking better, behaving better were all seeds to my idolatry. ‘Getting better’ made me believe I could actually become better – this depraved, sinful soul. (The Bible says, “There is NONE righteous, NO NOT ONE!!!!”) I was disillusioned to believe that my sinful depraved heart could achieve a particular holiness that God would count as HOLY! God cannot call ‘righteous’ anything that is not 100% righteous!!!! And there is NO WAY for even Christians to be 100% righteous! The only reason He can be pleased with us at all is because of one thing: Jesus, His son, did everything to compensate for my sinful condition, and bring me into a right standing before Almighty God. He did this for me at salvation, but He does this every single day that I remain unrighteous. For anything that isn’t 100% righteous, God calls unrighteous! 

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So, when I sit in church and listen to a preacher pound the pulpit and tell me I need to do better, think better, make life changes, have more self control, make better life choices, and the list goes on, so I can make Almighty God ‘happy,’ my spirit revolts. When I read Christian pop stars self-improvement memes about making choices to just overcome difficulties and get busy improving your Christian life, I just scream! Because for me, those powerful self improvement messages sent me head long into the idolatry of self-worship. As righteous as those exhortations might sound to the Christian community, they tempt me to start wearing the crown again.  They tempt me to believe that I can achieve everything my heart desires. They tempt me to believe I am the author of my life and the captain of my ship. I’m not! God is the captain of my ship, and I pray that I will never steal the glory from Him again nor seek validation from Him for my righteousness that doesn’t first come from a systemic love for my Savior.

You see, His grace perfects me day by day, but not by my digging down deep and making choices to perfect myself. God, Himself, is sanctifying me because I love Him more than breath itself and He’s restored to me a right mind with which to respond to His promptings. Praise God! His Spirit working in tandem with my spirit longs to show Him my love, but yet, I choose to remember to wholly embrace the fact I’m still a wicked sinner. You can’t magnify the Lord for His incredible grace and kindness without first being intimately aware and disgusted by your own depravity and shortcomings. But it is that very depravity that should leave you running headlong on a straight path to the protection of His mercy and kindness. And there, my friends, God will have you right where He wants you, needing HIM. Glorifying HIM! Magnifying HIM! Thanking HIM! Praising HIM! 

Friends, there is nothing more freeing than learning to become wholly dependent of Him for His righteousness! NOTHING! No more striving! No more beating yourself up! No more self-flagellation! No more lying to yourself as you attempt to show the God of the universe your pathetic attempts at righteousness. No more trying to fool the world around you into thinking you are more righteous than you are! Just stop! You are seeking self-adoration. It may be religious thinking, but make no doubt about it, it is still sinful! It is quite  possibly even idolatry.

So, here’s my story: My sin was rooted in my drive for perfection, but my redemption was born out of my brokenness! That blessed brokenness, which was so painful to me for so many years, was what took my eyes off of myself, and placed it wholly and completely on the only One worthy of my affection, my LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ! And friends, that is Who should get the glory. Yes, that puts a lot of the emphasis on God and very little on you. That’s exactly where the emphasis should have always been, all along. God says, He is our ‘enough!’

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So, I will never cease to glorify my Savior. I will not (I can not) become enchained to this idea of self-improvement or self-achievement. My only glory will always be God’s amazing love for me and my undeserving life. And my life has never been happier. I have never felt more freedom. I have never felt as loved as I do today. I have never felt freer from the shame and condemnation of failure. 

I wonder how many Christians would benefit like I did to living with depression. How many of God’s people would consider HIS works on our behalf more amazing than their works on His behalf. Not because of their successes, but via the path of their failures. How many of His children might sit there reading this article on their phones and laptops and begin to bawl like I am now because they finally discovered what they were searching for all along, the relentless, passionate love of God, even in the face of their failures and in SPITE of their brokenness?! How I want this gift for you!!! Embrace His grace and mercy for your imperfect life!

As a final note, if God has allowed you the devastating illness of depression, could I offer you a possible suggestion? Might He want you to make MORE of HIM than you make of yourSELF!?????? He may not heal you but if you learn the love and mercy and grace of your amazing Savior, it might make the journey more bearable. It did for me. God’s grace and peace to all of you.

 

 

 

 

 

Jehovah Shalom, The Lord is My Peace

~ justlearningtolean ~ 2 Comments

You know, until the Lord takes you through deep waters, I think most of us remain in that place where Paul described the early believers in I Cor 13, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” Until you have had your faith tested and you have been tried by fire, you tend to lean on your own sufficiency.

But in those great periods of suffering come your deepest growth, depth of understanding and surrender are developed and refined, if indeed you learn to choose to surrender to Him. It is my confession that I am still a baby in so many more aspects of my Christian life than I’d care to admit. When life has been easy, I have been a rock. I knew the biblical answers. I had confidence in my God and Lord, so I believed. But when suffering came, I was shaken. I found my faith was only strong when things were going well. But I became distraught when things weren’t going well for me or weren’t under my control. I hope I’m not the only one who can admit to this. God has NOT been my peace, my ability to control the various aspects of my life was my peace.

This year, I believe God has been asking me to make Him my peace. My “Jehovah Shalom.” Things have been so out of control this year. In fact, even for the 12 years prior, when I “knew” clinical depression. Talk about a lack of peace which comes from inside the raging storm of my mind!!!! Then He took that weight from me (it appears) but replaced it with great physical suffering. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

During my years with depression, I came to see it as God asking me to surrender control of my mind and even my ability to act and think in a holy way (as if any of us are capable of being sinless creatures no matter how hard we try on our own). I was hopelessly under the control of something that I couldn’t beat into submission; I could not squash it down with a power of my will. It became an exercise of humility and surrender under the mighty hand of God, and a new perspective of God’s reminder to me that His ways are not our ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts. He was in this, yes, even in this!

I think I’ve grown in this area of allowing God to be my Jehovah Shalom this year. I’m probably more like a pre-schooler now. I pray I am underestimating it but I know my human heart, my self-reliant, self-sufficient human heart.

This entry is getting long so I’ll begin to bring it to a close. On this journey we’re on, this journey we make in the grace of our Savior, can you relate to my confession? Is your “peace” in how good you feel your life is going right now? Or is it in Jehovah Shalom, the God of Peace?

Just this past year, I was introduced to a new Christian musician who has ministered to my spirit so much. Many of Shannon Wexelberg’s songs speak of worship and surrender and touch me deeply. Meditating on the Word of God for me often comes attached to music; me and King David. Our spirits commune with the Lord through His gift of music. Music is the vehicle that opens up our hardened hearts, brings us to a place where we willingly let down our guard and then delivers us with a contrite spirit right into the presence of God, where He can start whittling away at our character and our self-sufficiency and self-righteousness.


This morning, I was listening to Shannon Wexelberg’s album, “I Have a Song” when one of her songs began (“Jehovah Shalom”) and I found myself in honest reflection, “Is God my Jehovah Shalom?” I know I want Him to be! I know it takes a confidence that flows out of the very heart of God Himself, from His Spirit, but also a surrender of my own weak spirit to His Holy Spirit’s control. Scripture tells us that His Spirit helps us in our weaknesses and He also promises that if we ask anything according to His will, He will do it. Sometimes we don’t know for sure what the will of God is (so we can have the confidence to pray expectantly to receive what we ask for), but I do know this: it IS the will of God that I make my God my Jehovah Shalom and I’m longing to make Him my Jehovah Shalom. My prayer is from the words of this song, “Jehovah Shalom.”

Jehovah Shalom (by Shannon Wexelberg) (watch a lyric video on YouTube)

“Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Shalom, You are my peace. You are my peace! In the darkness, Your presence wraps around me like a blanket of rest that covers me. When my heart is overwhelmed, You’re my comfort and my help. You are with me…. When the pain of my yesterday is before me, and the fear of the future floods my soul, You are singing over me deliverance and healing. You’ll never let me go. Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Shalom, You are my peace. You are my peace. Your spirit soothes me, fills and renews me. I am completely in need of You! Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Shalom, You are my peace. Yes, You are my peace. Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Shalom, oh You are, You are my peace!”

I say, Selah! And I echo the psalmist’s prayer, “Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”  Psalm 19:14

 Judges 6:24 “And Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh-Shalom (which means “The Lord is Peace”).”

You can find Shannon Wexelberg’s music on both Amazon and iTunes. This song is on her “I Have a Song” cd (Amazon link or ITunes link). Another of my favorites is her “Take Heart” cd (Amazon link or iTunes link).

The Sacrifice of Listening

~ justlearningtolean ~ Leave a comment

comforting-hands

I’ve recently been reminded of how hard it is to witness someone’s pain, hardships, trials, sufferings. It’s hard being a member of their inner circle of friends and family who are aware of the suffering and not know how to handle it.

What do we say? What don’t we say? Should we share a Bible verse to encourage them? Should we send them a link to a web page? What gift can we give to make them feel better? Should we help them analyze their situation so they might have a better perspective (well, more often than not, we believe they should share OURS). I think you get the idea…

And what if their pain results in our pain? What if their fears only spread fear on to us? What if their unknown future becomes our unknown future? If we enter into their pain, it is likely going to weigh on us, mentally, emotionally, physically. There’s no easy way to sugarcoat it: sometimes loving someone becomes just plain difficult. Just reading 1 Corinthians 13 makes it obvious how far short we all fall to loving like Jesus loves or wants us to love.

The topic I want to briefly discuss is listening. Listening to the hurts, the sadness, the laments of people going through trials is tough. It’s so hard to emotionally invest in someone else’s pain by listening, by simply being present. Presence with them, listening to their laments, is a labor of love. It is a  great sacrifice of love.

But one of our worst tendencies is to think that it is our right or maybe our duty (tough love), to help them through it or over it. We tend to think they need our insight or our answers or our analysis, for their own good.

But consider Job’s friends: After Job started complaining to them about his suffering, Job’s friends basically said, “ENOUGH! Stop talking! I can’t keep listening to this! You are making me angry. In fact, your laments just make God angry.” However, interestingly enough, in the end, it was God who reprimanded these same friends for their lack of compassion and their judgmental attitudes.

Job’s friends basically said, “ENOUGH!
Stop talking! I can’t keep listening to this!”

Scripture tells us how the conversation went:

“Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job:
2 “Will you be patient and let me say a word?
For who could keep from speaking out?
3 “In the past you have encouraged many people;
you have strengthened those who were weak.
4 Your words have supported those who were falling;
you encouraged those with shaky knees.
5 But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart.
You are terrified when it touches you.
6 Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence?
Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?” (Eliphaz- Job 4:1-6)

“Then Zophar the Naamathite replied to Job:
“2 Shouldn’t someone answer this torrent of words?
 Is a person proved innocent just by a lot of talking?
3 Should I remain silent while you babble on? 
When you mock God, shouldn’t someone make you ashamed?” (Zophar- Job 11:1-3)

My friend, Steve Siler, wrote a beautiful song about listening many years back. Mr. Siler knew this VERY important principle when he wrote this piece. If you visit this link, you can listen to it, too. (Scroll down the page and click on the preview link.) I pray that you will let it touch your heart. Let it sink down and marinate in your soul.

There are people out there who just want to be loved. Sometimes, they need space. Let them have it. Sometimes they will ask you for advise and counsel, but be careful… are they really asking or are they doing self-reflection and trying to sort things out on their own? Whatever the scenario, it takes real godly wisdom, spiritual discernment and restraint to know when to just sit quietly beside them when they turn to us and begin to speak. More often than not, what they really need is for us to just LISTEN and be present with them.

One of my favorite lines from the song is, “Sometimes, the greatest gift of all is presence in the front row of the sacred concert where you played the music of your soul.”

When people give you an audience in the sacred concert of their souls, practice presence instead of speaking. Hear them instead of sharing. Listen instead of breaking your uncomfortable silence. Your friends will thank you.

“Listening” (Steve Siler, MusicForTheSoul.org)

“You came to me. Said you needed someone to talk to.
Had a secret that was tearing you apart.
Couldn’t look me in the eye.
Wasn’t easy for you to speak it
And share these pieces of your broken heart.
Before I knew it, I heard myself talking…
Making your story about ME.

I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t hearing you.
Too caught up in myself to put you first.
I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t with you in the moment.
You didn’t need my vain and empty words.
Silence and a shoulder, that was what was missing.
Forgive me, I wasn’t listening. 

I spoke too soon, so uncomfortable with questions.
Couldn’t stand to let your pain speak unopposed.
When you needed a nod of reassurance,
When ‘nothing’ would have been the thing to say.

I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t hearing you.
Giving you the same old answers I’ve rehearsed.
I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t with you in the moment.
Oh, you didn’t need my vain and empty words.

Sometimes, the greatest gift of all … is presence.
In the front row of the sacred concert
Where you played the music of your soul.
I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t hearing you.
I didn’t give you the attention you deserved.
I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t with you in the moment.
You didn’t need my vain and empty words.
Silence and a shoulder, that was what was missing.
Forgive me, I wasn’t listening.
Forgive me, I wasn’t listening.”

My Psalm of Lament … Or My song of Surrender

~ justlearningtolean ~ 1 Comment

Doesn’t it just figure? A little more than two months ago, I felt led to start a blog to write down what God was teaching me, the insights that I was receiving especially during my morning walks when my mind was clear and the blood was vigorously pumping through my brain. Since I am now aging at a seemingly very high rate of speed, my mind is often foggy. Walking, for me, is like a whole new world opens up to me… Remember the movie, “Limitless”? When the main character is given a new test drug, he can instantly see and wisely act upon situations which come up in life with so much clarity and insight, learning at incredible speeds, understanding depths of what he never could have possibly fathomed before. It changed his life as long as he kept taking the drug.

However, since the week AFTER I published my first two-part blog, the ability to get out and walk was ripped away. In fact, my ability to get out of the house and get off the couch was ripped away. So, as I stare at that “write a new blog” icon on my desktop every morning from my ‘prison’ on this couch, I am so frustrated that I am soooo lost for ANYTHING to say. My world has been turned upside down and what little tiny victories I may have begun to experience in a 12 year season of incredible emotional and often physical torment, my mind, my will, my emotions are slogging through mire and muck that has left me devoid of knowing what the heck God is trying to teach me during this season in which the physical pain and emotional discouragement have been ramped up ten-fold.

So, I’m not here to share anything profound today. I’m simply here to say, “I’m feeling lost.” What little speck of the peace of God that He had graciously given me (well, let’s say what he allowed me to accept and surrender to as I began to see God’s hand in things) has now been taken away, too. Trial upon trial, sadness upon sadness, ongoing helplessness, but instead of allowing it to ease up, God has sovereignly added all the more. And I just don’t understand it. So, I’m still here but I’m not sure what I can say right now. I’m waiting to see a glimmer of insight that God might be willing to shed on my situation so that I know in what context I should seek to find out what God wants to teach me and show me about Himself. And, to be truthful, I guess I’m a little afraid that if I blog out any answers, insights or little victories, the next day will prove how naive I was and how weak I really am.

But today as I have finished reading through the book of Psalms (this past month), I’m reminded of the quote that while you are in the hallway of God’s will for you (waiting for doors to open and close), “praise Him in the hallway”. That one I get. One does not have to read the psalms for more than a few minutes to find the psalmists’ cries for help in the midst of dire circumstances and yet they finalize their psalm with “God is still good. God is still faithful. God knows us and loves us. Therefore, I will still sing to Him and still praise Him.” They don’t put stipulations on that praise; they just choose to praise Him regardless! Period! I’ve tried to exercise that power of choice during this period.

Because of the last twelve years of God’s classroom for me, I have wrestled through similar times of trying to figure out what God wants me to learn. I have learned and now even counsel others, “what good could possibly come from fighting with the Lord, from resisting Him, from becoming angry with Him, from trying to retake back your former life which He has taken away?” We, my friends, are NOT in control down here on earth, no matter what you may otherwise convince yourself of. “Resistance is futile.”

So what have I counseled in the past, then? Fall back into the torrential river of God’s sovereign will for you. Stop floundering and grasping for every twig and log and life-preserver and any other potential lifesaving object that you think you could save YOURSELF with. If God has willed it, you will never escape it if He has divinely determined that it will happen this way. Oh sure, you may feel like you are accomplishing something, that you are “doing your part,” that you are doing spiritual warfare even and taking the bull by the horns and shouting cursings at Satan for attacking your life. But I ask you, as in the case of Job, if Satan is restricted by God Himself, then to whom are you really shouting cursings? What I am really struggling to discern is, at what point does that human/divine cooperation become a fist in the face of a loving, sovereign God who has purposely pushed you so far over the bank of that mighty rushing river that you could not possibly stand or even rescue yourself?

The only thing I have learned in the last 12 years is to choose to surrender to God’s hand. That is something I am struggling to do right now though because I’m not sure what it is I am surrendering to this time. 😦 Frankly, as I have become accustomed to practicing this in one arena of my life (after many years of resisting-at times kicking and screaming), this particular situation has left me bewildered, not really knowing what surrender looks like in this situation.

My challenge to others has become: Do the trust exercise so many group team-building programs do: back up to the Lord Who stands behind, before, beside, above and below you, and fall backwards in an act of trust and surrender. He WILL CATCH YOU, one way or another! What that looks like is not for you to know. Surrender to the rushing torrential river! He is God! If He carries you downstream and leaves you terribly bruised and scarred, He is God. It is His right. If He snatches you right out of danger, He is all-powerful God. It is His right. If He puts you in the safety of a raft and let’s you ride it out down the frightening river but safe from all harm, it is His prerogative. He is God.

But to stand on the banks and argue and wrestle with God?!?!?! That, my friends, is foolishness. I believe the greatest act of worship is SURRENDER to Almighty God! Win, lose or fail? It’s not under our control, but in the hands of the One who holds us in His hands. Yep, we may be the one who has to suffer the repercussions of surrender but no less than the one who chooses to not surrender. So, why fight and argue with Him? It is arrogant and self-reliant. It is useless.

So, where does that leave me today as I continue to suffer with a medical condition that leaves me anxious, fearful, not knowing what the cost will be this time…? I don’t know! 😦 Do I pray more? Do I plead for His mercy? Do I ask in faith for His healing? For twelve years I have sought the Lord to remove from me my “thorn in the flesh” (the pre-existing one) and He has chosen to NOT remove it (I’ve stopped asking knowing that God knows my heart for healing but my spirit tells me to choose to echo, “My grace is sufficient for you.”) It has taken a long time to accept this thorn and weave it into my daily life allowing it to be turned around for the glory of the Lord. Do I dare ask Him to take this one away? Is my lesson, to always accept the Lord’s thorns in the flesh? Is my lesson, this time, to ask Him in faith for healing as He really does want to heal me this time? Is this lesson, it isn’t about me, it is about God’s glory? Is this lesson, it really is about God’s glory and He wants to heal Me but wants me to ask Him to? Is it about joining my Christian brothers and sisters together around me to exercise theirs and my faith in our Healing God, woven into the body of Christ, submitting myself to their intercession on my behalf because that is the way God designed the church to work? Is this a lesson about patience and waiting in the dark? Is it about “being still” when humanly I want to struggle free?

I don’t know the purpose of this trial right now. And each morning and all through the day, I anxiously try to discern and submit to the hand of God, yet also asking for wisdom to wisely decide which decisions and paths to choose. Talk about win, lose or draw… My emotions wildly throw me into a tornado of thoughts and choices and outcomes all day long. At any given moment, I may be at peace or in panic? I may be decisive or feel lost in choices that I am completely unqualified to make. I may be surrendered or I may be clawing for the shore. I may trust that God is the Greatest Physician or I may be fearful of all the physicians out there “practicing medicine and screwing up people’s lives and bodies.” I may be asking for God to take away excruciating pain or simply be asking the Lord to comfort me in all my afflictions.

Do you see why I feel like I have nothing to say? I feel lost!!! I want to do what God wants me to do! I want to trust that no matter what happens to me God will have accomplished His perfect will! I want to be found faithful in my trials and tribulations! I want the Lord to be able to say, “well done my good and faithful servant, enter into my peace.” I want to be faithful in bringing my requests before Him with thanksgiving and leaving them at the foot of the Master, no matter the outcome. Yet, I’m a poor example of that when I can’t stay in one frame of mind for more than 15 minutes sometimes. I confess, I’m just lost right now.

There! That is my blog entry! A big honest mess of questions and inner struggles. May the God of all comfort and peace grant me the courage and perseverance to stay the course and wait on Him to deliver or not. I challenge myself today, “Be still and wait in on the Lord.”