Ruth Session Four

Ruth Session Four is posted and ready for listening or downloading. If you would like the link to the blog that it is posted on, please email me from my "About Me."

And in other, totally unrelated news, I need your help.

I have found myself with a very frivolous dilemma and I just can't seem to resolve it.

The problem, you see, is that in a rare feat of shopping achievement, I have managed to fall in love with, and purchase, two new purses in one day. Now, I don't buy purses all that often, so when I buy a purse it is a major commitment. Me and that purse are gonna stick together for a while. And I don't normally change purses based on the outfit I am wearing (seriously, who has the time??). I might take a small purse out to dinner in the rare event that I go out on a date with my husband, or something wild and crazy like that. But mostly, I carry my one big purse with me everywhere I go.

So while this is frivolous, it is making me a little bit nuts trying to decide which purse to keep! I bought them both deeply discounted, but they are still expensive enough that I can't keep both. So help me out, would you? Which one would you keep, the gray one or the blue one? And if I could trouble you to include the reason for your decision, I would be forever grateful.

This snazzy gray purse is from a really nice name brand and has functioning zippers on the side that make the bag full or narrow, depending on how much space you want. You could almost live in the thing, it is so roomy. It is basic, with just a hint of style, and I like that in a purse.

This "Tiffany blue" purse made my heart surge. It was admiration at first sight. Seriously, I LOVE this color. I'm just afraid I might get tired of it. I wear a lot of basic colors, so I'm not too worried about it clashing with my clothes, but it is on the flashier side of what I normally choose. Should I cut loose a bit and risk a bold new color?


***Update***

For those of you waiting with baited breath...I have decided to keep the blue one. It was with a heavy heart that I took the lovely gray lady back to the store and returned her. She would have been a great friend, I am sure, but the blue purse just edged her out. Thanks for all of your input, it actually helped a ton!

Vampires and Other Imaginary Beings

Vampires, Bigfoot, Leprechauns and Fairies.

What do the four things listed above have in common with ex-Christians?

They don't exist.

Oh, there are plenty of people out there who think they do. And I'm sure you can even find large numbers of people who passionately claim to know from personal experience that one of the five fictitious creatures named above is as real as dirt and rocks. But they would be flat out, no mistake about it, excruciatingly WRONG. (By the way, this is yet another reason that personal experience as proof of a matter should be treated with skepticism, but that is a post for another day.)

I don't care what they say.

I'd even be willing to budge on the first four. Perhaps I could be convinced that small, elvish creatures with red beards and green pointy hats live in the wilds of Ireland somewhere. Well, maybe not. But I would probably just roll my eyes (discreetly) at anyone who claimed to believe in a leprechaun. (As fun as the whole idea is, and that whole pot of gold at the end of a rainbow thing, it's kind of a shame that isn't true either.)

But believing that such a thing as an ex-Christian exists is dangerous. It can cause some real problems for the true sheep. Things like doubt and disbelief.

Let me just be blunt and perfectly clear about this issue. I realize that I run the risk of alienating some of you, my dear readers, by taking such a bold stand. Because I do realize that there are many Christians who are disagree with me on this matter. Even if you are one of them, I hope you will still come by for a visit every now and again. But at the risk of permanently irritating you, allow me to present my case from Scripture.

The most compelling case for the "perseverance of the saints" (that is the fancy term which means basically, once really saved, always saved, you can't lose salvation,) is found in John 10:27.

John 10:27-29

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand."

If you believe what these verses proclaim, then in order to remove a sheep from the Father's hand, one would have to be greater than the Father. The very power and sovereignty of God, in His ability to keep the true sheep from straying, are at stake. I don't see any way around that.

Notice that I said the true sheep. Because you can't deny that there are people who once professed to be Christians, who now disavow the whole thing entirely. Some of them were even the really passionate, committed type of "Christian." (Maybe even most of them, which is a rather strange phenomenon, that probably bears exploring at a later date.) I personally know of two who at one point, seemed to all of the outside world to be the real deal. But who now profess to be atheist.

Are they ex-Christians? No. They were never Christians to begin with. Jesus did not call them by name, they never belonged to Him. They might dispute me on that point, based on their personal experience. And while I mourn for them, and feel somewhat confused that they are so blind, I don't believe that they ever belonged to Christ at all.

We know from Matthew 7:21-23, that not everyone who says to Jesus, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. To some of them He will say, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." So obviously there are people out there who have some trappings of Christianity, but who are really the wolves in sheep's clothing referred to in Matthew 7:15.

Another passage of Scripture that speaks to the perseverance of the saints is Romans 8:29-30:

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

Obviously, even Christians, the real kind, go through periods of what is so elegantly termed "backsliding." You know what that is don't you? It is when a believer goes through a time of sin and rebellion. It happens. You are deceived if you think it doesn't.

In fact, the beauty of the gospel, of God's faithfulness to the sheep, is that He makes promises to us, even knowing ahead of time that we will fail, we will sin, and yes, we will even backslide. The thing that distinguishes the wolf in sheep's clothing from the backsliding believer is the final outcome. A true believer will ultimately come to repentance, will seek forgiveness and be restored to faithful service to God. That wolf ain't going to do any such thing. (The repentance might be a long time coming, too, which is why we should be pretty cautious about pronouncing judgment one way or the other.)

But if there is never repentance and restoration, there was never a Christian.

And you can be as sure of that as you are of the fact that nobody is going to suck out all of your blood and turn you into an immortal bloodsucker yourself.

Philippians 1:6

"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."

Isaiah 54:10

"For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall my covenant of peace be removed,
Says the LORD, who has mercy on you."

Groanings Which Cannot Be Uttered

That title will get your attention won't it?

I'm talking, OF COURSE, about Romans 8:26-27!

What did you think I was talking about???

Romans 8:26-27

"Likewise the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

I made reference to these verses at the end of my last post "Big Britches." I would have included them, but that post was already pretty long.

I am fascinated by the idea of the Holy Spirit making prayers for me that cannot even be put into words. Have you ever felt a strong desire to pray, but you didn't really know what to say? I have. Many times, actually. It usually happens when something tragic has happened or might happen, and I know I need to pray about it, but I'm not quite sure how. There have also been times when I felt a strong inward desire to pray for myself, but again, was at a loss as to what exactly I needed to ask God for.

How amazing it is that these verses make us confident of two things. First, that the Spirit is making intercessions for the saints (that would be you and me, my fellow Christians) according to the will of God. And second, that God, who searches the heart, knows what the Spirit is praying for. It's a complete circle. God knows what the Spirit is requesting, because the Spirit only requests what is God's perfect will.

Our inability to conjure up the right phrases, or even requests, doesn't get in God's way at all!

And the best part is, that this entire cycle of intercession and God's will work together to....wait for it.....wait for it.....help us in our weaknesses!

So don't be discouraged my fellow saints. Even if you ain't got the words, the Spirit Himself is interceding for you with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Big Britches

I have been thinking about my tendency to get "too big for my britches." It's kind of a funny thing, because I work so hard at staying humble and restraining my natural feelings of pride and self-righteousness. I'm not a total failure at doing it, but it appears that for me at least, this is a life long struggle.

Lately I have been thinking about Peter, and his triple denial of Christ. It strikes me that Peter and I might have a few things in common. I'm obviously not the rock upon which Christ has built the church, but personality-wise, me and Peter might be formed alike.

He had a tendency to get too big for his britches too. To put it in gentler terms, he sometimes made grandiose claims in the heat of the moment that he couldn't follow through with later on.

In Luke 22:33, Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death."

Less than 24 hours later, Peter did just the opposite.

Luke 22: 55-60

"Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, "This man was also with Him."

But he denied Him, saying, "Woman, I do not know Him."

And after a little while another saw him and said, "You also are of them."

But Peter said, "Man, I am not!"

Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, "Surely this fellow also was with Him, for he is a Galilean."

But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are saying!"

The thing is, I have no doubt that when Peter claimed that he would follow Jesus to prison or death, he absolutely meant it. He wasn't saying something that he didn't believe in his heart at that moment. I've done the same thing.

"Lord, I will always be this passionate for Your glory!"

"Lord, I will always seek Your face before anything else in the world!"

"Lord, I will never be distracted from loving and serving You above all else!"

But of course, when life takes an unexpected or disappointing turn, the reality becomes much less glamorous than my momentary exuberance could possibly have expected. And like Peter, I fail to do what I so earnestly claimed I would.

You see, Peter got quite a shock when Jesus was hauled off by that band of thugs in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, and all of the disciples, had the wrong idea about Jesus's kingdom and His victory. They were still expecting a great military hero who would overthrow the earthly enemies of Israel and reestablish her as a mighty, victorious nation. Despite the fact that Jesus told the disciples many times that he was going to suffer and die, they just didn't get it.

So when Jesus was in the custody of the high priest, you can imagine that Peter's expectations of going to prison and death with Jesus were turning out a little differently than he thought they would. Maybe Peter thought that he would die in a glorious civil uprising, fighting alongside his Master. Or that they would be thrown into prison together and somehow defy the odds and still emerge as the victors.

But little did Peter imagine, in all of the scenarios he could conjure up, that Jesus was going to blindfolded and beaten, mocked, scorned and spit upon, by the very men Peter imagined that Jesus was going to defeat.

And in the disappointment of this reality, Peter failed. He denied the very One whom he had so passionately claimed he would never deny.

But, you see, there is more to the story than just Peter's failure. Jesus knew ahead of time that Peter was making claims that he wasn't going to fulfill. He saw ahead to Peter's denial of him, and He even told Peter that it was going to happen.

Luke 22:34

"Then He said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know me."

And even more than foreseeing the event, Jesus comforted Peter before the denial had even taken place.

Luke 22:31

"And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren." (emphasis mine)

Look at what Jesus says. He has prayed for Peter, and when, not if, but when Peter returns to Him, He will be equipped to strengthen his brethren.

Do you suppose that a man of big-britches claims is very encouraging to a struggling, distraught brethren? I don't tend to think so. I can only imagine that if I were always in a state of big-britches boasting, I wouldn't be very encouraging to my fellow brethren at all. It would be hard to relate to a sister in Christ who is experiencing the real disappointments and pain of life, if I always lived in the place of sheer happiness in the Lord.

You should know, I don't. I go through peaks and valleys in my walk with God. Once, I spent over a year on the mountain top. It was the best year of my life. But I'm afraid that all that high-mountain living brought our some pretty big britches claims from me. I kind of thought that I would always be 'high.' That it was the natural result of my faithfulness and dedication in seeking God.

But in reality, life threw a disappointment at me. Things didn't go as I imagined they would. Like Peter, my expectations of fighting for the Lord turned out differently than I thought. And before long, I ended up in a valley, in a place of denying the very claims I had so boldly made.

God knew I was going to do that. When I was making my big claims, He already knew I was going to fail. But that's OK. He knew I needed some humbling, some ability to relate, some equipping in order to strengthen my brethren. It was for my own good, and hopefully for the good of those around me as well.

I really want to get back to that place of 'highness' with God. There really is nothing better in all of life. If you have ever been there you know what I am talking about. Nothing, nothing, nothing even begins to compare to the delight of that 'place.'

But perhaps I will cherish it all the more next time, knowing that it is a gift not meant to be permanently sustained in this life.

Even Paul, who was temporarily caught up into the ecstasy of Heaven, was given a thorn in his flesh immediately afterward. Maybe a person who is very naturally humble can handle the headiness of God's fullness without getting too big for his or her britches. But I am not that person.

For me, I suspect it must come and go.

It has been 'going' lately. But I am not discouraged. Because I know that Jesus is praying for me, just as He does for all the saints, and the Holy Spirit is making intercessions for me that I cannot even comprehend to ask for myself, since I don't know how to pray as I ought.

And because of those things, my faith will not fail.

Hurt Feelings

One of the toughest lessons to learn in this life is that your personal feelings are often irrelevant. I really mean that. Of course, there are some situations and relationships in which your hurt feelings are the most relevant aspect involved. But those situations are very close to home and heart, and for most of us, a great deal of our lives are lived beyond our most intimate circles.

And even there, we sometimes get it wrong when we let our personal feelings be the judge. I could totally flip out on my husband and have an emotional fit--and be not only wrong for exhibiting the fit, but wrongly motivated for having it to begin with.

It takes hard work to look past our personal feelings and evaluate a situation from an impartial point of view. I'm talking across the spectrum here, in everything from our relationships with family, with friends, with acquaintances and even that jerk driving too slowly in the car in front of me. When I've made the struggle to look past my FEELINGS, I have often seen that I am completely in the wrong. That, of course, is hardly any fun at all, which is why I think most of us avoid looking too closely, most of the time. (Am I being harsh? Maybe you do this all of the time?)

Anyway, here is where all of my rambling comes into play with God. I can't even count the number of things in the Bible that hurt my feelings. I'm not trying to be flip about this either. I should more accurately say that there are many things in Scripture that deeply offend my sense of justice and my own personal opinions.

Let's start with sin. The Bible tells me that all are sinners. That ALL is comprehensive. It includes that sweet little lady that I sometimes see walking around in my neighborhood, the funny guy who makes everyone laugh at every gathering, the person who reads the news to me on television, the crossing guard who stands in the middle of the road and seems to take her authority to the extreme by flailing and stamping her feet at every car driving past. Every one of them, no matter how kind, charming, famous or quirky, is a sinner who deserves God's condemnation.

That offends me sometimes, even though I know and accept that it is true. I didn't mention myself in the above list, because I have no illusions that I am free from sin. I have gotten to know myself too well over the years and I am not at all deceived about my lack of inherent goodness. But when it comes to other people, it is harder to swallow.

On a smaller scale, suffering and tragedy offend me. I know too many people who have suffered through gut-wrenching circumstances to gloss over this reality of life. You probably do too, when you stop and think about it. Or you could just turn on the news and listen for a few minutes. Your own personal bubble of life might be pretty charming and peaceful, but that is not the case for the majority of people in the world. Painful things, horrible things, really happen.

And that offends me. Where is God? How could He let this happen? Why is He allowing this? How can this be good? If God is so loving, why did he let that child die? If God is just, how can life be so unfair?

But, as usual, my feelings (while normal) are wrong. God is just, He is loving, and He is in control. I don't understand how all of those seemingly inconsistent things fit together, but I accept by faith that they do. And I accept that God sees things differently than I do. And He is the one who is right, and I am the one who is wrong.

Isa 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."

Fortunately, God is bigger than my puny emotional reactions. He has compassion on my confusion and weakness and invites me to struggle through those feelings by interacting with His revealed Word, Scripture. You see, I can't go around struggling with shadows and imaginations. I have to deal with God in truth. And the place to discover who God really is and what God really said is in the Bible ALONE. My feelings and I the things that I think are right don't count. Because, usually, they are flat out wrong.

If you have never studied something in the Bible that has offended you somehow, I can't imagine that you are actually paying attention to what you are reading. The Bible is not some kind of happy-happy-joy-joy fluff story about a swell guy named Jesus who just really liked and loved people an awfully awful lot.

It is the story of a Holy Creator God and the creation that rebelled and hated Him. It is a story of gut-wrenching, sacrificial love on the part of the Creator, and rejection and scorn on the part of the created. And the amazing Redemption of that creation back into fellowship with the Holy One, at the total cost to, and initiative from, God.

It's a hard read, but an amazing one. Because you and me and all of humanity don't get to play the hero's role in this true story. We get to play the villain. And a crazy reversal of justice takes place, as the villain becomes the cherished, adopted son of the hero, despite it all. If it wasn't such a good deal on my behalf-and yours-I would be tempted to be offended. But, as usual, I would be flat out wrong.

P.S. - I really shouldn't go for so long without posting. I tend ramble when I finally get around to writing something. Hope all of the above actually seems cohesive.

A Lion in a Manger

So, at church this morning, I was overawed at the profound implications of a song that the choir sang.

"There's a baby in Bethlehem, a Lion in a manger.
There's a baby in Bethlehem, a Lion in a manger."

I sat in the pew and reflected on the richness of that image. A baby, helpless and scrawny to the eyes of the world, and yet at the same time, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, as described in Revelation.

Revelation 5:5

"But one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals."

How often we fail to see things through God's eyes, and are instead distracted by what seems to be true. It is sometimes hard to think of a Christian in a Chinese "reeducation camp" as a victorious saint who is ransacking the house of the evil one. Or of a starving Christian in North Korea as one who has been fed with oil, milk and fatness. We don't always see the elderly man in church as a mighty warrior, wielding weapons of battle: truth, righteousness, peace, and most importantly, a two-edged sword sharper than any surgeon's scalpel.

But so they are.

I was enthralled by the baby in a manger who was really a roaring Lion, ripping the power of the evil one to shreds and claiming His righteous bride.

Then I listened more closely to the lyrics of the song realized that I had it all wrong.

"There's a baby in Bethlehem, a lyin' in a manger.
There's a baby in Bethlehem, a lyin' in a manger."

Hmph.

I liked my version better...

Locks of Love

I had somewhere between 11 and 15 inches of my hair cut off today. It was 15 inches when I measured it last night, but the actual braid of hair that was cut off was only 11 inches long. I am donating it to an organization called Locks of Love. They provide natural looking, custom fitted wigs for financially disadvantaged children who suffer from long term hair loss.

I don't want you to leave me a comment telling me how great I am for doing this.

Instead, I want to tell you a little bit about why I decided to spend over a year growing my hair out in order to make the donation.

I don't usually mention my children on this blog, but I'm going to make an exception today. Because becoming a mother affected me in ways that are too profound to even express in words. I literally became a different person after the birth of my first child.

I don't have time to give you all of the details of that process. But I want to describe a snapshot moment which birthed an incredible thing that had previously been in short supply in my heart: compassion.

One of my children was born prematurely and suffered some complications for the first six months of life. That child is perfectly healthy today, but for the first few years, we kept a very close eye on whether normal development seemed to be taking place.

There were several episodes that gave us cause to panic. One, in particular, is imprinted in my memory. My child began to make strange, twitching-like head motions. It was odd enough, and recurrent enough, that I couldn't ignore it. I did some online research about strange head twitching, and the most common diagnosis was something called Tourette's syndrome. It causes a person to make strange motions or utter strange words in an uncontrollable way.

I had seen some daytime T.V. shows featuring children with Tourette's. To be cruel and blunt, they seemed strange. One of them yelled out cuss words in the middle of perfectly normal sentences. Another would hit himself on the head out of nowhere. Still another made clucking sounds for no apparent reason.

But suddenly, I was faced with the possibility of being the mother of one of those strange-seeming, different-acting children.

My heart was torn open at the thought of watching my precious child navigate through childhood constantly marked out as the one who was different. The one who had something wrong. The strange one. The one nobody wanted to be friends with. The one that everyone laughed at and made fun of.

I cannot even begin to describe the overwhelming sensation of pain and anguish that those thoughts generated. I could hardly swallow. It became hard to breath. I didn't want to think about it, but I couldn't seem to think about anything else.

In that moment, I would have given anything to take the place of my child, and suffer the ridicule and ostracising of being abnormal. But, of course, it doesn't work that way. Mother's can't take the place of their children.

In my case, my child did not end up having the condition that I so dreaded. My child is normal. But I have never forgotten the horror of those days, when the future seemed so uncertain and ominous.

And I can't forget that there are thousands upon thousands of mothers for whom my passing dread is a daily reality. This world is full of children who are born different. The multitude of possible health complications is mind numbing when you think about it. It is a miracle that even one child is born without health problems.

Growing out my hair in order to give some anonymous little girl somewhere a pretty wig is so minuscule an act that it should hardly register on the radar screen of kindness. I don't feel like I did anything spectacular. But I hope that somewhere, there is a mother whose child doesn't have to feel quite so different.

And in a bigger way, I hope that my own children will grow up feeling the compassion that I seemed to miss out on in my own development. I was not the nicest girl in the world when I was younger. I used people. I discarded friends if they didn't have anything to offer me anymore. A lot of that was plain old immaturity. But still, I think a big part of it was the fact that I lacked compassion for other people, and their pain.

I have no doubt that God intended the trauma of my experience to do exactly what it did. Because compassion is something that I have seen over and over again as I have read through the gospels. There are many references to Jesus feeling compassion for individuals, and even for whole groups of people.

Luke 7:13

"When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep.""

Mark 6:34

"And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things."

In Psalm 145, God is described as "gracious and full of compassion." There are plenty of other verses that ascribe compassion as one of the attributes of God.

And in the process of sanctification, God molds us more and more into His own image. For me, the most effective means of sanctification have been hard blows from a painful hammer. But the end result is beautiful. I wouldn't trade the ability to feel compassion for any kind of smooth and worry-free life. I would much rather see the world through lenses that help me to see things just a little bit more like the way God sees them.

And when God sees his children, He is moved with compassion for us. If my child had never suffered temporary complications, I wouldn't be able to understand that at all.

I can't say that I have a heart that is perfectly able to feel true compassion all the time. But I'm a lot better at it than I used to be.