Worth It

At the birthday party last night we gathered around and watched as our 11, 8, and 3 year old sons sang and danced to all the Barbie songs. They twirled and spun, we cooed and clapped. Ahem. What's wrong with this picture? It was our daughters, not our sons of course. They wanted to know, "Do you see me? Am I lovely?" It's not so much that the boys don't want to be seen, but boys from a very young age want to be seen doing something like smacking down their brother with a sword or throwing a ball through a hoop (which is pretty close to what they were doing when they weren't messing up the girls' performance). Girls from a very young age want to bee seen themselves, to draw attention not to what they do, but what they are. And they are lovely.

This is not to say that boys and girls are altogether different. John Eldredge identifies 3 desires in a man's soul: a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue; and 3 desires in a woman's soul: to be fought for, to share an adventure, and to unveil a beauty. His book for men, Wild at Heart, is brilliant. His wife Stasi's new book for women, Captivating, is simply stunning. Since they started waking the world to these things a few years ago, what I have looked around and found is that for the most part, it's true—right down the line—these are how a man's soul and a woman's soul are different and complementary. However, there are some crossovers. Just like men have much higher levels of testosterone than women, but women do have testosterone—women do have a desire to fight a battle, although it is a greater desire in men. And just like women have much higher levels of estrogen, but men do have estrogen—men have a desire to be rescued, although it is a greater desire in women.

When I was maybe 8 or 9, we had a softball throw competition at the city park. I had a lousy arm, still do. Those years I thought I was doomed to be a social outcast as a wimp's wimp because I couldn't throw and I wasn't very fast. In fact, I can remember crying myself to sleep because a kid named Matt had everything: not only could he punt, pass, and kick, but he was fast and he was fast and he was, well, he was fast. My mother had no idea what to do but give me a pep talk and laugh about my juvenile worries. I was devastated. It wasn't until later that I found my athletic prowess in another area: I was a pretty good running back, good enough to make the Varsity football team my sophomore year and rush for 100+ yards a game, making me the king of the world! Oh, excuse me. Where was I? Oh yeah. It was my turn to throw the softball. I already knew what was coming. I stepped up and threw it, and it went some puny distance. Everyone laughed. Someone cackled, "Is that as far as you can throw it?" Waves of embarrassment washed over me, and I could already feel myself withering. But all of a sudden, a friend of mine (who was to become a lifelong friend of mine) stepped up and said, "Of course not you dummies. Does he look like he was straining?!" Inside I had two thoughts: Hmm, that might actually be about as far as I can throw it, and Wow—it's great to have a friend like that. I was rescued. And it meant a lot because this guy had an incredible arm. He was always winning contests. And he was fast, too.

I don't know why he thought I was worth speaking for. Maybe he saw something in me that I didn't. I'd really be surprised to hear that anyone wouldn't like to have a friend like that, or to be rescued like that, to be stood up for in his weakness. It's not that anyone likes being a wimp, but none of us is good at everything all the time. Whether age or gender or talent or interest makes us fall short in some area, we all appreciate being rescued. But as a man, I do feel a deep desire to fight, maybe against an injustice. And I'm always itching for an adventure, even if it involves getting muddy, sweaty, or potentially injured. And I do feel a deep desire to rescue the beauties in my life.

But back to the girls. With no script, with no one suggesting it, they scanned the isles at the video store for anything Barbie, they watched all the movies—over and over and over—they got the soundtrack and sang the songs—over and over and over—and then they couldn't contain themselves any longer. Watch me dance. Do you delight in me? Am I lovely? We didn't miss our chance to say with our eyes, our ears, our applause, and our hearts a resounding yes! Yes, you're worth it.

Suicide

Did you ever think about committing suicide? Pulling that trigger? Popping those pills? Cutting that vein? Writing that letter? If you have begun to plan your own demise, experts say that is a major problem and warn you to seek immediate help.

But did you ever think that the world would be better off without you? That all you cause is pain? That at least if you were gone, the people who are so disappointed with you could finally move on? If you have had these kinds of desperate thoughts, you are not alone. I have thought this, and I don’t know anyone who has honestly never thought along these lines. Even though it is common it is not true. You have to understand that the world is not better off without you, you are not here just to cause pain, and not everyone is disappointed in you.

Most of us have heard at some point or other that within each human heart there is a God-shaped hole that can only be filled by Him. As the song says,

There's a hole in my heart
That can only be filled by you
And this hole in my heart
Can't be filled with the things I do

But did you ever think that the reverse is also true? It is. There is a you-shaped hole in God’s heart that can only be filled by you. Let that sink in. If you are missing, then part of God’s glory can never be expressed, not by your rival, friend, teacher, student, mother, father, sister, brother, or even your twin.

The truth is that you were not created by God for destruction, but in fact you were created by God so that He could rescue you from your desperate situation, take away your black heart, give you a brand new one, take up residence inside it, and then through you enter into His world again bringing new life and hope to maybe just one person, maybe a nation.

And when you feel like you’d be better off dead you’re right in a sense. Jesus does want us to “die.” He wants us all to “die” to worrying about our own life so that we can make room to take from him his very own life. His offer is to trade us our life for His.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)

What He wants us to do is quit trying to preserve our creature comforts and promote ourselves—just let all that go and trade up for the only life Jesus can give. He would have us to give up on everything we could possibly do to preserve our life, and just depend on God to come through for us. He said it this way:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

You may not think there is any way out of the pit you’re in right now. You may think you're worth more dead than alive. You may feel like you have absolutely nothing to offer. It may feel like the whole world stopping and spinning backward couldn’t undo the mess you’ve made or the crap you’re in. It may seem that no matter what you do or say or become couldn’t redeem your life. But it’s all a mirage. Those thoughts, those feelings, that scenario is a brilliantly conceived illusion to blind you to the truth that God loves you and has a way to make this world better in some way that can only happen through you. It may not be this week, this month, this year, or even this decade, but if you will hold on and hold out for it, you will live to see the beauty and the strength that He meant when He meant you.

Never give up on God. He will never give up on you.

Have You Been Loved?

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,

doesn't have a swelled head,
doesn't force itself on others,
isn't always "me first,"
doesn't fly off the handle,
doesn't keep score of the wrongs of others,
doesn't revel when others grovel
takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.

Amor non tenet ordinem

"Love has nothing to do with order."

-Columbanus

There's No Remedy for Love

There's no remedy for love but to love more.

- Henry David Thoreau

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

- Erica Jong

Love never fails.

- Paul of Tarsus

I'm lost in the magic and the mystery
In our own small part of history
Our hearts have started making here
And I know there'll be no cure for me
But what sweet malady

There's no remedy for love
Nothing can change the way I feel
I'm hopelessly head over heels
For worse or for better
There's no remedy for love
But I'd have it no other way
The symptoms are clear, I'm yours
For now and forever
There's no remedy for love
There's no remedy for love

- Susan Ashton
There's No Remedy for Love

Hold the Religion, Please

The only reason I have said yes to Christ’s offer was because someone has always been there to tell me I could be a Christian without being religious.

Growing up, I was always in and out on Jesus. It’s really sad to think of it now—to have a friend like Jesus, so powerful, so humble—to invite Him to come in and take over, and then a few months later to swipe the keys back from Him and escort Him out. That He would allow me to repeat that cycle several times shows His humility and yes, love, for me—He would have it no other way than I choose to give Him my heart.

But I came to Christ at a big church service that was not in a “church,” but in a convention center, not as a result of a powerful evangelistic message (heard plenty of those, and since) but as a result of hearing a testimony of two people, one a Christian artist, the other a Christian businessman. And the invitation was to a new way of life, a new way to walk with God, not to a religion. Then there was a guy named Ranger Gary Horton who came and talked tough to a bunch of us cadets about a faith in Jesus apart from religion, “Religion,” he said, “is a lie. I grew up in a town where one church said, ‘There ain’t no hell.’ And the one across the street said, ‘The hell there ain’t.’” My experience, too. Of course, he exhorted us to a relationship with Christ. And then I remember a good friend gave me a copy of a book called How to be a Christian Without Being Religious, a little paperback based on the book of Romans. I also remember getting hold of another book by an author of a brand of Christianity I was a part of for 10 years, without which I doubt I would’ve joined the brand I was a part of for 10 years, called No Wonder they Call Him the Savior. There’s an outstanding chapter in there called “A Candle in the Cavern” where he talks about of all the dark things Jesus came to save people from, religion is the most treacherous. This author reminded us of the hope we have for God to raise someone up at the right time to light a candle in the dark cave of religion, to show us the way out:

There is still a sizable amount of evil that wears the robe of religion and uses the Bible as a sledgehammer…And it is still often the case that one has to find faith in spite of the church instead of in the church.

But they have also observed that just when the religious get too much religion and the righteous get too right, God finds somebody in the cavern who will light the candle.

I know, I know. Walk into any church today and they will tell you that they believe in being a Christian without being religious—that it’s about a relationship with Jesus Christ. But walk into any church today and see if even that is practiced. Walk into any church today and ask them to change their order of worship, to change their style of music, to change the way they do “ministry”, to alter their current views on homosexuals, or drug abusers, or other deviants, to meet every evening instead of Sunday morning or something strange like that, and see if it’s not a religion. See if they will take a different stance on some doctrine that other churches in their denomination take, or other evangelical churches take or shoot, different than the Church of the last 2000 years has taken. Walk into any church today and see if they act like Jesus—cleansing the temple, having real compassion for people, intervening for the ones in bad situations, saying things like “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” or “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” or “Will he not leave the 99 and go after the 1 that wandered off?” or “My house shall be a house of prayer.” In the last church you visited, did it go like this: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need”? Did they have a lower divorce rate in the last church you visited than in the “unchurched”? Did they know anything of the lost art of one anothering? Like: greet each other with a holy kiss, look out for each other’s interests, accept one another, agree with one another, lay down your lives for each other, confess your faults one to another, rescue each other, love one another, wait for each other…? And I’m not down on churches—not at all—it’s just that the faith I profess has been hijacked by a religion called Christianity, and it’s suffocating it. And I don’t just see it—I feel it. We have started a new church, and the pull to keep the same religious plates spinning that we’ve always known is enormous. No, this is not about finding the perfect church—I’m amazed that it is exactly that pursuit which has created most of the schisms in the last hundred years in American church: every group is wanting to be “righter” than the church they break away from. Who cares who’s righter? (If you’re backpedaling now because I’m talking about not being righter, see if you’re not defending your religion rather than Christ.)

This is why there are a growing number of people who wouldn’t claim to be Christians, just followers of Jesus Christ. Christianity has in fact become a religion. Ask the rest of the world what being a Christian means—you may be surprised. Many of them know what’s really going on better than many Christians: Christianity is not about Jesus Christ, it’s about Christianity. It’s become a system of belief, and like any system of belief, it helps some and destroys others.

Strangely enough, though, some who come to Jesus Christ…live their lives with every step moving forward and with every fiber of their being fighting for the heart of their King. Jesus Christ has become the all-consuming passion of their lives. They are not about religion or position. They have little patience for institutions or bureaucracies. Their lack of respect for tradition or ritual makes them seem uncivilized to those who love religion. When asked if they are Christians, their answer might surprisingly be no, they are passionate followers of Jesus Christ. They see Christianity as a world religion, in many ways no different from any other religious system. Whether Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity, they’re not about religion; they’re about advancing the revolution Jesus started two thousand years ago.

- from The Barbarian Way

I am not down on any Christian or any church that’s alive today. I just know for me that if the only way to follow Jesus Christ is to join the Christian religion then I’m lost. Looking back, I am eternally grateful that I was made another offer.

Your Name

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.

You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.

- Billy, Age 4