Can You Imagine A Major Change?

Oct 27-28 Lost and Found

In spite of what I talked about yesterday, stories like Bethany’s amaze me.  In my mind, it is one thing to be born with a certain condition and grow up with it but it is quite another to live one way and then retrain your mind and your body to live another way.  I cannot imagine relearning how to surf!  (Okay.  I can’t really imagine learning how to surf anyway, but RElearning???)

I suppose a new life of faith can be like this too though.  I have grown up in the church and never really had one of those “conversion experiences” where I suddenly realized the gift of God’s grace and changed everything in my life.  However, I have friends who have.  (For the record, while some of these experiences may be emotional reactions more than anything, as some people vigorously claim, from observing certain people in my life, I know that some of them are sincere and very real.)  How do you relearn vocabulary – how not to use certain four letter words every few seconds?  How do you rechoose music – not all of it but maybe certain kinds that are especially angry, vulgar, or depressing?  How do you reexamine priorities – spending more time with friends who encourage your faith, less time with the friends who got you in trouble, and scheduling in some time for God?  For some people, it may even mean a job change – from something illegal to something on the right side of the law or from something immoral to something that allows you to serve God.

Whoa!  Changing all of those things would blow my mind.  But people do.  Take a look at John 8:1-11.  This is one of the most stunning acts of grace we see Jesus make.  I believe we have discussed this story before (read it here) but this time, we’re taking a look at the woman’s life more than Jesus’.  The last thing we see Him say to the woman whose life He has just saved is “Go now, and leave your life of sin.”  We don’t know exactly what this woman’s life was like, but I wonder how much of her life changed after that.  Did she break off the relationship with the man she was with?  Did she change some of the people she hung around with?  Did she commit herself to the Jewish faith again – or maybe for the very first time?  We don’t know.  But what if she did?  Or think about Paul.  Acts 9 tells the story of his conversion and that produced an immediate change, so immediate in fact that the Jews in Jerusalem were afraid of him!

Whether you’re Bethany Hamilton and something about your life changes drastically on the outside or if you’re like the woman caught in adultery or like Paul who go through an inward change, know that God carries us through all of it.  

When you pass through the waters, 
I will be with you; 
and when you pass through the rivers, 
they will not sweep over you. 
When you walk through the fire, 
you will not be burned; 
the flames will not set you ablaze.
-Isaiah 43:2

Redemption on Both Sides of the Social Ladder – Share Your Stories!

This poem rings so true for me.  I struggled through those years too, wanting nothing more than to feel accepted.  As I got pushed aside, I dreamed the same things Heather did – of “walking up to them suddenly beautiful and unafraid” – and I still do.  I still feel like I have something to prove to those girls in the “cool group.”  The 13-year-old inside of me still fights to keep my eyes from dropping to the ground when certain people pass by.  The 13-year-old inside of me still craves their acceptance…

But mine is not the first of these stories you have heard.  There are plenty of people who share about their middle or high school years when they were teased, pushed aside, or just wanted to be popular.  They happily share with their audience just how far they have come…

But what about the people on the other side of the fence?  What about the ones who spent those years a little higher up on the perceived social ladder?  I wish I could share a story with you here and tell you what it was like, but I can’t.

Here’s what I do know – There is healing for the hurting, as well as the one who brings the hurt.  There is healing for the broken, as well as the one who does the breaking.  Paul, the author of nearly half of the New Testament, was one of the greatest persecutors of Christians right after Jesus left the earth.  He worked to find the Christians and either jail them or kill them.  And yet God redeemed even his hatred for the gospel and made him one of the founders of the Christian church.

No matter where you are in the social world, I invite you to share your stories.  It can be either where you are or where you have been in the past.  It can be the ways you have been hurt or the ways God has healed you.  Whatever it is, please share with us! 

To the Heights and A Loving Response to Your Tormenters

Sept 13 – Shed the Dread

You know, I’m going to be honest with you.  (That’s something I will always do my best to be here.)  I tried really hard to write this blog yesterday.  I sat and wrote and thought and erased and wrote and erased some more.  I was frustrated.  Why can’t I come up with anything to say that feels like the direction God might be headed?  So I wrote the one entry, put the rest aside, and left.

This morning was rough again.  I was really down on myself, struggling to find the confidence that my efforts matter.  And then it came time to write this blog.  This time, the verse from the devotion today spoke to me so much more deeply: 

The Sovereign Lord is my strength…

I haven’t had much strength today.  We don’t always have a lot left of ourselves to give.  So He will sustain me.  He will provide for me.  And He has.

…he will make my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.

Do you ever feel like you’re in a valley that you can’t get out of?  You feel stuck.  You’re surrounded by mountains without an escape.  You’re tired…

But what if you could leap up the sides of the mountains?  What if you could bound up and across the steep crags and easily reach the top, easily see the bigger picture of where you had been?  Wouldn’t that be perfect?  I would feel like I was flying!

That’s what God frees us to do.  On our own, we cannot reach the heights of His joy, the deep-hearted places He wants us to live in.  Our feet are gnarled, our baggage is heavy, and our legs are weak.  But He says He will make our feet like the feet of a deer (Habakkuk 3:19).  He says to take His burden because it is light (Matthew 11:30).  He says that His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Trust God to take you to the heights.  Know that He has given you both the ability and the courage to do so.

Sept 14 – Stinky

Have you ever been like the girl in this story?  Have you been the person who people pushed, taunted, made fun of, harassed, whispered about, yelled at, or mocked?  How did you respond?  Or if you haven’t experienced it, how do you think you would respond?

Just before Jesus was killed on the cross, He was mocked too.  Matthew 26:67-68 says that people “spit in his face and struck him with their fists.  Others slapped him and said, ‘Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?’”  Later, a different group of people ”stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him [symbolizing royalty], and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.  They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said.  They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.” (Matthew 27:28-30)

What would you have done in that situation?  If it had been me, I don’t know.  I might have been sobbing and begging them to stop.  I might have been angry and tried to lash out.  But Jesus, as He is dying on the cross prays, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)  Wow.  After being spit on, beaten, mocked, having thorns driven into His forehead, and hung on a cross with spikes driven through His wrists and feet, He asks for their forgiveness…?  If that’s what Jesus means by “love your enemies” (Luke 6:27), then I’m not sure I am up to the task.  It certainly gives us something to work toward.

If you have been the victim of bullying, teasing, or mocking at school or anywhere else, I am so sorry.  Know that you are not alone and that here, we know that your pain is real and justified.  Since we cannot control other people but only the way we respond, I pray that God will give you the strength to love as Jesus did here, to respond with kindness, even when it is not returned to you.