Made New

Recently, a sister in Christ invited a group of us to enjoy a time of fun and refreshing at her home near the beach. As I was going over logistics with my husband, he began looking up directions and mapping out where I would be. No, no, no, I said. That's not where I'll be. I know exactly where I'm going. The house was located minutes away from a place I stayed while I was in my early twenties. The day I was supposed to leave, I set my GPS, and pulled out of the drive, listening to a podcast I'd been eager to hear. About eighty minutes later, the navigator's voice interrupted and directed me to a shortcut, a series of back roads to get me just where I needed to go. A couple of rights and lefts later, I recognized names and landmarks I'd not thought about for thirty years. Memories --some pretty horrible --flooded my mind, and the weight of my emotions caused me to struggle to breathe. This is who I used to be. Let me first say, the things you see and read about when it comes to heavy drug use, they're all true. People who spend their days and nights getting high, who are fully dependent on illegal substances live like hell. Their houses are filthy and falling down around them --or they don't have a place to live at all, in which case they crash at someone else's filthy, falling down house because no one with a shred of sanity and a mortgage is able to sustain the madness drug dependence brings to one's life. Generally speaking, addicts' lives are a mess, their finances are a mess, their clothes are a mess, and their relationships are a mess. And it was my life with an addict, being an addict, and hanging out with addicts that had come back to me as I drove.

A single house, filthy and falling down, of course, was where I found myself one day. Nowhere to sleep or sit but dirty mattresses and a torn sofa. Evidence of drug use lie all around, and the floor was littered with food and wrappers. Little children, barefooted and clothed only in diapers toddled about. Children just a fraction of life older, faces smeared with dirt and whatever they'd fixed themselves for lunch, were keeping watch as "parents" used and argued. Their drug was not my drug of choice, so I was not partaking that day. I was just an observer, quiet and tense, trying not to look uptight, trying not to get called out and coerced into being one of them. But it was the first time I'd ever seen freebasing, and I remember knowing the police had been watching the house. Neighbors had been demanding for months that something be done about the drug use and all the chaos that came with it. What if they come and I'm here? What will I do if I get arrested? Who will come get me? But I didn't leave. In fact, not only did I not leave, did I not do drugs that day, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything the next time I was there either. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. I never did anything. Not drugs. Not leave. Not help those children. Not help those adults. Not cry and grieve for their pain and the futile ways they chose to deal with it. I did nothing. But that is not the most egregious realization that arrived with all of those memories: the most egregious thing is that I convinced myself they were all okay. Time after time, as I stayed entire afternoons at that filthy, falling down house, the initial shock of all that was taking place faded. No longer did I notice the smeared faces and littered floors. No longer did I care that people were so destitute of reason they lived this way. No longer did I think they needed to change course --at least for the sake of these sweet little babies. It was okay. They were okay. I was okay. And I was desperately wrong.

This is who I used to be. And I say that not to remain in that place or to punish myself in any way. I say that not to beat my chest and emphasize how far I have come. I say that to bring glory to the God who was with me even in those days, who looked on --How that must have hurt Him! --and kept me safe; not because I was His, but because I would one day be. I say that to bring glory to the One who forgives me for all of that; for my selfishness and my self-medication and my failure to obey Him in those days. I say that to bring glory to the Waymaker and Healer, my Redeemer and Transformer, who pulled me from that life and is every day making me a new creation. I say that to point to the only One who can use a filthy and falling down mess to bring glory to His name --the only name worthy of it --and give me a heart that now aches for people in trouble, a heart that is today praying for all of those I knew back when that was who I used to be.

"3 Cans Buttermilk...Biscuits"

The text was supposed to read: 3 cans buttermilk biscuits. Instead, as I hit SEND I realized biscuits had been sent to one line and the line above simply read, 3 cans buttermilk. I knew things wouldn't end well unless I sent Scott another text. Just a sidenote: I NEVER send my husband to the grocery store with a long list. Pick up milk, please or Could you grab another box of linguine? perhaps, but more than three items? NEVER. When it comes to grocery shopping, I have a system. And, I like to have control. (But that's a topic for another day.) As I was preparing to send that clarifying text, I received an email alert. I made the decision to ignore that but saw someone struggling with some bags. I couldn't let that go. After helping with the bags, I hurried to get unlock the door and turn on some lights. My phone chimed again. Ooo, gotta silence that before Bible study. I tapped the volume off. A voice called from the hall; ladies were arriving, and I hadn't placed chairs at the table yet. Someone asked for a pen and some paper. Another had gotten an important text asking for prayer... Bottom line: I never sent the text. So, while I was teaching on the topic of evangelism, my husband, with our youngest in tow, was going from store to store, soliciting employees to aid him in a snipe hunt. He nor his unsuspecting aids had any idea their search was fruitless. As I said, I was teaching on evangelism, and the irony is not lost on me.

Evangelism, or spreading the good news of Jesus Christ is a huge part of Christianity --or it should be. As followers of Jesus, we are given a clear example of how to do life with others. Jesus prayed for others. Jesus had meals with people. Jesus helped others. Jesus defended people. Jesus attended worship services. Jesus told others the Good News of why He had come to earth in the first place. As if His example is not enough, He directly commanded all those who follow Him to go out into the world and make more disciples. The Good News of Jesus is not for us to keep to ourselves. We are all in need of a Savior --of The Savior, and it doesn't end with the "sinner's prayer." Surrendering our will to Jesus and being born of the Holy Spirit is just the beginning. The remainder of our life on Earth is spent --or should be --seeking to become more like Jesus and inviting others to do the same. It is a lifelong search --not that God cannot be found; He reveals Himself clearly in the pages of His Word --but it is a lifelong search to know Him more deeply, to dig within our hearts and find more to give Him, to discover areas we remain more like our old selves than the new creation we have been made in Christ, to experience His benefits and be satisfied with good things, and to bring others along on the journey to toil and delight and wonder with us. 

But this is no wild goose chase! God promises we will find exactly what we seek. As we open our Bibles and dig into His written Word, we discover things about Him and about ourselves; how He uses people (in a good and transformative way) for His glory, how He makes us into the human beings He before time designed us to be, how He works even the difficult and grievous parts of our lives in such a way as to bring us good and bring Him glory, how all of this is predicated on us being separated from God by our sin but being offered the opportunity to partake of the substitutionary atonement of a benevolent and sufficient Savior. This is the Gospel! And evangelism is sharing that Good News, partnering with others as they embark on a journey to know God, and inviting them to partner with us as we live on our own adventure imitating Christ as well. We draw others in as we navigate life in Christ and explore what it means to trust Him. 

Not for lack of willingness or effort or compassion, my husband and his search party never found 3 cans buttermilk. Because they don't exist. Because the message was not clearly communicated. As evangelists --all of us --it's important the message of God's goodness toward a fallen humanity is clearly communicated. It's not enough to "do good things" and expect people to know it is because of Jesus we do them. We have to tell them. We have to be ready to answer their questions and explain the power of a God whose love toward us has enabled us to love others. That starts with each one of us knowing who He is and what He says in His Word. We have to be sharpened by our brothers and sisters and fueled by the steady influx of Scripture so that we are equipped. We have to be certain those around us receive the message clearly. 

Midweek: HEY, PHILADELPHIA!!! (2013)

Welcome to Wednesday! I hope your week is progressing nicely. Continuing with our little journey into the posts of the past, I found this little gem. In September 2013, I couldn't have known just how crazy the desire for depravity and the level of arrogance within our nation's governments would get.

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Did you know we have a sister city? Yeah, I know! Who knew, right? Well, we do. In fact, we have a few, but it's this little one in Russia that seems to be causing all the flack. It's a cute little town with a population just shy of Philly's. Its name is Nizhny Novgorod, or Nizhny for short.

Now, here is the issue at hand. Mayor Nutter is facing a bit of pressure to cut ties with our dear sister of 20 years because it seems she has banned homosexual literature. Yep. Does it get any worse than that? One of our illustrious former mayors would have probably dropped a bomb on her by now, but that's another story for another day. Anyhoo, certain factions are crusading to dump our disagreeable sister, and I couldn't agree more. Here's my argument:

1) All free thinkers and rubes who have the gall to disagree with popular opinion need to be taught a lesson.

2) Separation of church and state (the current, popular translation - not the one that says the state needs to stay out of the church's business) is obviously the first step in separating sex and state. If Mayor Nutter is called to task and cuts off Sister Russia, there can no longer be any issues amongst folks who wish to see the state recognize gay marriages -- once the state is out, it's out!

3) It's a wonderful thing to have the fifth largest city in America dictate how to run the fifth largest city in Russia. Those poor, ignorant folks in Nizhny need our help! Arrogance is always a good characteristic -- the rest of the world loves Americans for it!

4) Once Nizhny reaches our enlightened status, they can beg to be back in our good graces. Who knows, maybe then they will have surpassed our enlightenment and can tell us how to run our city - sort of like Mother England did with the colonies back in the 1700's.

5) If Philly divorces our little sister over banning certain literature - in its own city - or over any other difference of opinion, that will give a whole new meaning to extortion. You disagree? I want a divorce. You smoke within the confines of your own car? Relinquish your driver's license. You like mind-numbing reality TV? Oh ok, you can stay. But you don't participate in casual Friday? You're fired. You don't speak Russian? You are dead to me (or however they would say that in Nizhny Novgorod). Everyone knows, the best way to woo someone to seeing things your way is to make ridiculous threats. 

6) Lastly, and this is the one I really want you to let hang there a moment...
Philadelphia public schools banned prayer and Bible reading 50 years ago. Who has divorced us?

But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 10:33

Virtue Signaling or Forgiveness?

Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

~ Luke 23:34a

"Virtue signaling" is a phrase coined in the early 2000s, and according to Merriam-Webster's is "the practice of conspicuously displaying one's awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action." In a world where false piety and hypocrisy existed, Jesus words on the cross may have seemed like virtue signaling: Look how good I am! Look how innocent I am! Look how unjustly I am being condemned! All the while, the Man accused of crimes against God and Rome, hung from His execution stake, unable (unwilling) to free Himself and barely able to speak. Easy to appear good when all opportunities to do otherwise have been removed. But if Jesus' motive for crying out such a request was not self-serving, we have to assume He really meant it! That He was really interceding on behalf of the crowd gawking at His battered body! That He was really asking His Father to pardon everyone before Him!

I think Luke wanted us to know that's exactly what Jesus was doing. Now, the Author of Scripture through the writers He hand-picked did not insert verses and chapters. But the above verse in Luke's Gospel doesn't end there. His very next thought is, "And the soldiers gambled for His clothes by throwing dice" (Luke 23:34b). There is a disturbing scene in the 1984 television adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The Ghost of Christmas Future is showing Scrooge what is to be. He takes Ebeneezer to the market where an opportunistic woman has stolen from "a dead man's" home. She presents a broker with silverware and other valuables which Scrooge recognizes as his own. She then shows him bed curtains. The broker asks incredulously, "You don't mean to say you took them down --rings and all --with him lying there?" "Why not?" the misery-hardened woman asks with a smirk. Scrooge is overcome by the lack of compassion and human decency; he fights back his fear by raging at the ghost whose vignettes are meant to transform him. Who is that greedy? That shallow? That disrespectful?

Those whom Jesus forgave. 

The fact of the matter is, not much has changed. We are still a world where false piety and hypocrisy exist. The term "virtue signaling" came into use in our lifetime, not when Christ walked in body, among humanity. We put on smiling faces or use tender words when in the presence of those we wish to impress. We say what we think others want to hear to protect our own position or move ahead. We are champions in word. But inside, behind the closed doors of our homes or hearts, we are in need of forgiveness. Wretches all are we. In need of a true Savior, One willing to die an excruciating and humiliating death so that we might be forgiven. One willing to hang suffocating, bleeding, every bone aching and every muscle straining, and intercede for the most callous of us. 

How does Jesus' cry resonate with you? Are you prepared to forgive as He forgives? Or are you just virtue signaling?