Currently Reading Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays By Wendell Berry see related

"COME DOWN IMMEDIATELY. I MUST STAY AT YOUR HOUSE TODAY."

Humility is freedom.  Don't believe anything else.  You do know, don't you?  We pillage the wealth of others in an attempt to cover up our own worthlessness and we climb to great heights with hope that we won't feel so small.  But we are small.  And we are thieves.  And we must get out of the sycamore-fig tree, let Jesus see our smallness and our poverty, and invite him into our meager homes.  We must be hospitable in ways that are true to our nothingness, our insignificance.  We must give back that which we have stolen and accept the fact that we have nothing, we are nothing.  Except Jesus.

I realize that saying that I am nothing, that you are nothing, is a risky thing to say.  But I think the self-esteem revolution has done a great disservice to 21st-century Westerners.  It contends that we should be somebody and that we should make something of ourselves.  Wrong.  We should become nothing.  We should realize that we are nothing, that we have nothing.  And then, in that, recognize and rejoice in the fact that all we have to offer anyone is Jesus.  Nothing else.  Anything that we can offer anyone is Christ manifesting Himself in us.  Food.  Wisdom.  Hope.  Forgiveness.  Beauty.  Intimacy.  These gifts we can give only as Christ overflows in us, so that it is not we who give gifts, but Christ.

This revelation is in my lifetime top 5: I am nothing and that is just what I should be.

We will never be depressed by merely acknowledging that we are nothing, we will only be depressed if we think that we should be more.  But to accept our nothingness, that is freedom.  And we find out we are nothing when we are humiliated--over and over--and do not justify our humiliations or tell ourselves that we are better than those who mock us.  We are not better than they, for we are nothing, just as they are.  We are all nothing.  Pray for humiliation and you will receive it.  It is a prayer that God answers.  It will make you humble.  It will make you free.  It will give you sight--sight to see that you do not have to be better than nothing.  As a dirty clay pot filled with gold, you have value only when you hold that which is valuable.

Currently Listening Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band By The Beatles see related

LOVE IS PATIENT

Earlier this week I was discouraged and I thought to myself, "I just need a lot of love."  And then I realized, "I need a lot of it because I so rarely accept the love that is given to me.  I filter it." A tidal wave of love can leave me feeling parched, because I pick and choose what kind of love I will accept.  That's kind of vague, I know, so I'll put a face on it:

I accept love that I deserve, and I reject love that I do not deserve.

But what kind of love could I ever deserve?  To be honest, probably no kind.  I have a skewed view of love.  For me, love is in no way tied to grace.  It's more like a pat on the back.  Love is honoring that which is lovable.  So, the only way that I can receive love is if I become or do things that I deem lovable.  This absolutely sucks.

"You can't understand love until you understand grace."

I don't understand grace.  And I hate needing something that I don't understand.  I don't want to need grace--I want to be perfect, and thus exempt from grace.  I want people to love me because they like me, not because they are willing to show me grace.  I want to be the grace-giver and I want to be loved because I give grace, not because I need it.  Actually, I don't want to be loved at all.  I want to be adored.

This part of me is very ugly.  Satan wanted (and still wants) the same things, I think.  It is just hard for me to think of love as a kind of active tolerance.  I want people to genuinely like me, not just put up with me.  And I'm not sure how much of that want is sinful, prideful, selfish, and how much of it is good, or at least acceptable.

Currently Reading Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality By Donald Miller see related

THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT SWEARING

I swore the other day.  The word just fell out of my mouth with ease.  It slid right down my slippery tongue and out my mouth.  Swearing never used to be so easy for me.  The words used to feel sticky in my mouth, like peanut butter and fresh white bread.  I would chew on them slowly, then finally spit them out after several seconds of anxious uncertainty, but any experienced cusser standing nearby surely recognized the hesitance and uncertainty in my tone and pronunciation.  Even as a college student, I sounded like a third grader when I swore.  My words were tinged with discomfort and guilt, and that is, of course, no way to cuss.  Well, perhaps all of the aforementioned is a bit misleading.  I said and thought swear words when I was angry, but using them in casual conversation was another matter.  The other day though, I just swore.  I sounded like a real cusser.  Language, I've been told, creates things.  I believe that it does.  Now, if this is true, what am I creating when I swear?

When I was little, I had no real concept of grace.  There are obvious downsides to this, but there was also an upside.  My heart was more consistently in a position of repentance.  I remember crying when I repented.  I was mortified, filled with a deep sense of how horribly I'd behaved.  I hardly ever repent in that same way anymore.  I've become desensitized to so many sins.  Even when I confess my sins, I rarely do so with a sincerely contrite heart.  I want to work on this.

I remember this time in fifth grade--I was coming back to my desk after an extra recess at the end of the day.   There was a redheaded, freckled, chubby girl in my way.  Her appearance was of no importance to me, though.  I was equally awkward and unbecoming.  It was fifth grade--only Kelly with the caramel hair was cute.  The redhead, though, she was in my way.  I couldn't get through the narrow walkway and so, without thinking even a smidge, I blurted out, "Scoot your ass in."  Immediately, and I mean straight away--without any passage of time--I was remorseful.  I completely regretted saying it and I had no idea why I said it.  My parents had sworn around me, so had my babysitter's kids, but I had never sworn.  Not out loud.  It was an accident, believe it or not.  And I remember going to bed that night, bawling in bed.  Not because I had gotten caught--I hadn't.  I was just sorry.  Understanding prostration to be an important part of prayer, I folded myself in thirds on my bed.  I asked for forgiveness over and over.  I wonder why I don't feel that way anymore.  A new understanding of grace or something else?

I think it is something else.  I want to be sad about my sins again, not because sadness is a prerequisite to grace and not sad in a way that allows for me to beat up on myself, but sad in a way that is sensitive.  Sad in a way that says, "This is important."  I get emotional about things that are important to me, and if I am not emotional about my sin, well, that speaks to my priorities.  I am going to work on this.

Currently Reading The Problem of Pain By C. S. Lewis see related

GRACE

And I finally got you off my back.  Fully excised.  There might be scars from the stitches laced up my spine, but I can look at those and remember the goodness of the Lord.  The One who called me is faithful.  You are gone for good.

For good.

Romans 8.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we are saved.  But hope that is seen is not hope at all.  Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

And there is more, but you should turn the pages of scripture with your own hands--mark the pages with ink and carefully decide where to leave the ribbon bookmark.  I am also tempted to make bold those pieces that are most meaningful to me, but that is, of course, the work of the Holy Spirit, not my keyboard.

Thanksgiving was three days ago, but I have not posted a "thankful" list.  I am thankful for many things.  I made a list of some of them with pen and paper, but there is something so important that I left out.  Still, I wonder, how can I even begin to offer thanks for this?

God talks to me.

Currently Listening A Collision By David Crowder Band see related

BENEATH SILENCE

Swallowed words cluster in my throat.  I'm about to choke.