PearlS | The Average Pearl

Tied to the altar

Over the past year of thinking, writing, and the regular old raising of kids, I’ve had to make a handful of changes in direction. Oftentimes, I feel like I’ve walked myself right into a corner when I thought it was a clear-cut path, exactly where I was supposed to go. I thought I was doing all the right things because it seemed good and noble and required a bit of sacrifice. Then, alas, the door slams shut and I’m frustrated at my lack of clarity. I think I should be further down the road than I am right now, like I ought to have met more goals and checked more off my life’s to-do list. If only I knew what God wanted from me.

When we lived on the mountain, I met Kendall. She’d just had her third baby and, via some online meal-sharing website, I signed up to take her a meal. I didn’t know her, but her address was familiar and she seemed like a real, live human after I verified her personhood on Facebook. She lived on the mountain north of me. On a Tuesday, I strapped my babies and teriyaki chicken in the car and drove up the gravel road, tires spinning out on the steep, winding path that turned into rutted dirt. The house sat at the top of an even steeper driveway. Even my sturdy Subaru didn’t trust this incline as I pointed it up at what felt to be a 45-degree angle, our heads pressing back into our car seats.

Kendall and I crossed paths again several months later at a park. We became fast friends. Our upbringings were similar, and we had both found ourselves on a mountain because it offered affordable housing. We shared a lot of the same struggles–loneliness, raising babies, runaway strollers, losing every ball and toy our kids ever chucked down the mountain never to be seen again. But we also lamented on the more practical, serious hardships of living on a mountain, and her problems outweighed mine by a landslide. Her husband worked crazy shifts in law enforcement, leaving her worrying about his safety. She didn’t have studded tires–she had to chain up everytime she wanted to leave the house. She had a washing machine that lived in a little room on the outside of her house, no dryer. She draped wet clothes around the house, waiting for the heat from the woodstove to dry them. We both had to chop and stack wood for the pile in the winter, but she had the additional burden of hauling potable water and keeping the cistern full. It was inconvenient to drive all the way into town. We debated the merits of public school (where we would need to move mountains to catch a bus) versus homeschool (where we would undoubtedly feel even more isolated).

I suppose misery loves company. We forged a friendship in the wilderness and we can both laugh about the memories now. They are golden in our minds, wonderful times spent together keeping our gaggle of kids from falling off rocks, in streams, down rough terrain. We always had at least one child strapped to our back or front, always hollering for the more independent-minded to slow down and wait for the rest of us. We were young moms cloth diapering and commiserating our era of long-suffering. We were in the same boat and somehow it made it all bearable, and (dare I say?) enjoyable.

Eventually, we were able to move off the mountain and away from those primitive cabins that every man who ever watches Alaska Survival dreams about. Now when we talk on the phone, we reflect on our time on the mountain. How, in the moment, we were sure we were made for the struggle because that’s what we both understood as our calling. Frankly, I thought I had it figured out. God put moms like us on the mountain for some purpose, so we were going to struggle well. We were in it together.

Slowly, as our kids became school aged, each of us realized our unrealistic expectations of making it work. Kendall left first, a job opportunity moved their family to another town. Then our family sold our house and moved closer to civilization (at least closer to a gas station and school). Life suddenly became easier. I’d never been more thankful for pavement instead of mud and a garage to park my car. It was an abrupt, welcome, and sometimes guilt-inducing change of environment. The first winter I was giddy as I watched snow fall, unlike the pending sense of Donner party doom I’d had on the mountain.

This shift, from mountain to town, is the situation I remember when I get stuck in times of decision making. Should I stay right where I am, settle in to the wrestle, or is it time to pack up and leave the mountain? There is a purpose in struggle, but no struggle is the ultimate purpose. Sometimes God tells us we’ve done enough here and it’s time to move on. Could it be a hint of pride or self-assuredness that makes us want to stay and dig in our heels? We press into that hard spot, thinking we might make a dent in the rock, or at least prove to ourselves we have what it takes, that we are faithful.

Who knows why we do it, but I think maybe I often confuse endurance with obedience. I think if it is difficult, it is probably a sign that I’m doing the thing I was called to do. A touch of the martyrdom complex.

Maybe I fancy myself an Abraham, faithful, and God has led me up a mountain, asking me to put to death what I hold precious. I stand there and wait for the sacrifice to be slain, but God has already provided a different way and I refuse to go back down the mountain. I wait and wait and wait, thinking I’m on the mountain, doing everything God asked me to do…but when he points the way back down the path, I refuse to follow because I’ve tied myself to the altar.

I don’t want to be misunderstood–I’m not saying I think this is a typical scenario–after all, He told us we have crosses to bear. But He–Jesus–also advised on how we are to act in this world, being wise like serpents, innocent as doves. We are to be discerning and not carried away by what feels right. He told the parable of a shrewd manager, a guy who was worldly, lazy, and selfish–then proclaimed this guy was more discerning than people of the light (Luke 16).

Yes, he wants our obedience. To obey is better than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22). Obedience relies on our constant listening, asking, seeking, knocking. We are to pray without ceasing. But we also must realize we are in a world that throws wrenches in well-wrought plans. We are sometimes dominoes in a chain reaction. We get trapped in a cycle of people pleasing or cultural expectations. We know it isn’t good to overpromise–we are to let our yes be yes and our no be no, but we can convince ourselves that it won’t sync with our idea of Christian generosity or suffering, so we ignore the warning signs of overdoing it. We pave a path to martyrdom when God has never asked us to suffer for the sake of suffering.

He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

We are well-meaning in our pursuit of righteousness and good deeds, but acting justly and loving mercy go along with walking humbly, which seems to be the first thing we kick out of the way. We swell with pride when others praise us for doing it all and keeping it all together, for staying on the mountain. However, it is the walking humbly part that might be key to understanding why Jesus ever brought up the shrewd manager as an example for us.

Our lives are really just a breath, a small matter of inhale and exhale. Gone. This is humbling to the point of disbelief, don’t you agree? Breathe in, breathe out. That is you, in the grand scheme of things (and sometimes I think my laundry pile is insurmountable).

Yet we waste away our days trying to insert meaning and a touch of suffering, martyrdom. Our lives are such small things and we try to fit enormous plans inside them, agendas that will fulfill our calling, whatever that is. Who hasn’t held their baby in their arms and hoped the child might grow up and change the world? What baby has ever changed it? Are we dreaming away our purpose?

Many of our days are wasted, even with good intentions. Jesus, speaking of the shrewd manager, said that only whoever is trustworthy with this tiny breath of life, with this tiny bit of worldly money, will be trusted with heavenly riches and real reward. Even people of this world are humble enough to admit our days are finite (both Tim McGraw and King Solomon suggested one ought to “live like you were dying”), but “people of the light” don’t seem to act so shrewdly. We imagine we are limitless just like God is limitless. We look for that ultra-special calling, and a touch of suffering seems like an indicator that we are on a higher path.
Our first mistake is forgetting our smallness. Our job isn’t to honor or wow Him or anybody else with our big plans, our big personalities. In fact, it is the opposite of honoring him when we try to attain something spectacular for even a smidgeon of our own glory.

In other versions of Micah 6:8, the word is “mortal”. Adam.
He has shown you, O mortal, Adam, what is good.

You and I, we are very tiny things. To recognize our smallness within the vastness of God, to lose our pride and allow Him to provide another way–sometimes this is the hardest part of faith to swallow.

Abraham didn’t stand there on the mountain, urging God to kill his son even after a ram was provided in the thicket. Abraham believed with shaky knees, lifted Isaac off the altar, and headed back down the mountain. It was the next step of obedience. It was a humble move! God wasn’t after Abraham’s suffering, He didn’t say I’ll really nail this old fool! He was after Abraham’s obedience. Do you trust me even if you might suffer for awhile? Do you trust me if I take the suffering away? Will you follow me, humbly, wherever the path leads?

May we struggle well when it is time to struggle.
May we be shrewd enough to recognize when it is time to leave the mountain.

what is truth

I have a child in the fourth grade. He is pensive and silent when I pick him up from school, simultaneously deep in thought and happy to be free. His feet are long and stretching longer. His teeth are half tiny, half huge in his mouth. In his face I can see equally his smiles and coos as an infant and his future countenance as a man. His mind, independent of my own, is grasping new concepts and holding them in court, judging right and wrong based on what he’s already been told.

Fourth grade feels like the beginning of middle childhood, when self-awareness blooms alongside great possibilities and doubt. I remember certain feelings in the fourth grade. In particular, I remember certain conversations with a fellow fourth grader who enlightened me on new vocabulary since I wasn’t in love with any of the boys in my class.

“Well,” she said, “you’re a lesbian, then. A gaywod.” She laughed and I laughed along with her, because she was ten and clever and I wished I had half her confidence. We were friends but I was certainly the shorter end of the stick. I’m not sure why she had befriended me in the first place. I never offered more than pure awe at her maturity–something she, no doubt, took as a huge compliment. If she were making fun of me, it still felt like a pretty cool insult. I put it in my back pocket to retrieve at an opportune time.

My parents weren’t so impressed when I repeated gaywod at home to my brothers.

When I returned to my friend and finally had the nerve to ask her to explain the vocabulary to me (proof that if kids don’t get their questions answered at home, they will find out elsewhere) I had to stop and consider. Who was I? Did I like girls or boys? Was it even up to me? What a heavy question for a fourth grader, for the beginning of growing up years, the crisis of identity.

What is truth? I wondered, and what is mine?

Jesus, before he was hanged on a cross, found himself dragged before the Roman governor, who asked this very question. What is truth? The man, Pilate, surely uttered these words with rhetorical contempt. Jesus had just made his last statement before he was beaten, before the crown of thorns was pressed onto his head, before they mocked the king of creation.
“..the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone this side of truth listens to me.” (John 18:37)

Pilate was astonished–here was a man with a chance to defend himself (he had done nothing wrong, after all) and all he did was defend Truth…whatever that was.
To the discerning, this is propaganda. So, in fact, was the life of Jesus. But isn’t every word ever uttered, every life lived, an airing of opinion? The choice is yours, we all pick a master.

Propaganda, perhaps, but Jesus was all I knew as a child. I knew He was right and perfect because no one ever caught him in a lie. He was humble and he didn’t give a rip about what people thought. He was the way, the truth, and the life, and even as a kid this never failed me. He was rogue, he was right, and I knew Him. Because of this, I knew who I was created to be, even when introspective questions started popping up in the fourth grade. In my deepest parts–even when I couldn’t put a finger on the why–I knew there was only one way the Father, whether I liked it or not. Whether I agreed or not. Whether I ran away or stayed. Whether I liked boys or girls.

My parents wisely stopped letting me spend the night at my friend’s house. They pulled me away from her influence without me detecting too much insensitivity on their part. They didn’t sit me down and explain heavy matters, they just set up some safer boundaries to contain my curiosity. They faithfully kept walking in the light and leading us kids in the same direction.

I am so thankful. So, so, so thankful. Because I wanted attention and I would’ve looked for it anywhere. I did, for a little bit, before I was drawn back into His arms. But without my parents there would be no internal compass, no installation of Scripture in my head and heart to bring me home. The wandering would’ve been heartbreaking. Not all who wander are lost, but many who wander are in deep, deep woods.

Imagine, as a child, the hunger to be known by another person. Attention. It is no different than how some people hunger for money, success, power. While we live in these bodies of flesh it is so easy to justify our wants as our needs, simply because it feels like hunger. And when our bodies say we are hungry, we eat. We can rationalize any number of habits and persuasions, but as we lack restraint they quickly turn into unhealthy cravings and addictions. Our Creator knew we would get hungry, but he also offered us a compass to guide us.

Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3

My faithful parents put this compass in my hands, the hidden Word in my heart. Without this compass, I’d be lost.

And today many are wandering, lost. They have no compass, they have no moral weathervane pointing left, right, up or down. Maybe they’ve only ever been around people sneering, “Truth? What is truth?” They send out questions into a void universe that only echoes back its own emptiness. They are the most susceptible, the kind that need rescuing from the darkest of dark places.

Now that I know what truth is and Who truth is, I cannot think of anything better to do with my life than make it available to those wandering in the dark.

When Jesus spoke to the multitudes (it seemed he had a well-waxed sermon, judging by the detailed, word-by-word gospel accounts) he wrapped it up with a little parable. He said,

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” Matthew 7:24

This is the truth we may choose to believe; the propaganda that can rightly influence our lives and the lives of others who are looking for a solid rock on which to stand. It’s truth that helps us avoid certain heartache and is firm enough to support our entire future.
Without it, parents choose distraction over discipline. It matters because young men are bringing guns to school to shoot children and teachers. Teenagers are slitting their wrists and starving their bodies. Children are encouraged to experiment with gender identity and perverted lifestyles. It matters because the because this world is an awful mess and we know the Truth that can set them free.

All of us harbor disdain for God’s eminent order and purpose in the world. We find ourselves lacking in every way possible, proud yet hopelessly incomplete.

This is the mystery–that we are unbearable yet Christ bore our burdens in his body on the cross. In his crucifixion he crucified our old nature. He put to death our penchant for self and all its temporal desires. For the believer, our taste for the things of the world has dimmed, turned metallic and foul. We find ourselves hungry only for His words, satisfied only with the hope He is making all things new. Fighting like hell against the old man, the old nature, and the world that wants to make us check one box.

I look at my boy, almost ten years old, and I know (achingly so) I won’t be able to keep him out of the woods much longer. The world is full of perversions and half-truths, trees ripe with forbidden fruit.

But he has been fed a sturdy diet of the Word. The compass is in his pocket should he feel lost. There is the full armor of God, and we’ve been trying it on since he was little. The shield of faith that is heavy in his small arms is getting easier to hold.

We bind kindness and truth around his neck and pray it becomes graven indelibly on the tablet of his heart.

Hungry in Rio

When I was in college, I flew down to Rio de Janeiro for a semester. Within six weeks, I realized I was in trouble. Not because I’d have to take courses like psychopathology in Portuguese (thought this was a serious concern), but because I barely had enough money to pay tuition and rent. How was I going to eat? My cash flow wasn’t restricted; it was nonexistent. I walked everywhere because I couldn’t even afford a fifty cent bus ticket.
Every month or so my mom would send me a twenty dollar bill, not knowing I was dependent on it for my meals. I began getting bad headaches. Some days I was too dizzy to attend class. I’d ration out the money mom sent, buying myself a two dollar cafeteria meal once a week where I could eat all the beans and rice I could pile on my lunch tray.

I didn’t tell a soul. There was no way I was going to let anyone know I was failing. Me–the girl they thought brave enough to move a hemisphere away for school–I was too proud. I wasn’t going to fail because I was out of money. I’d rather starve than admit I was failing.
It’s funny how hunger chips away at pride.

Around this time I began attending a church. It was a tiny little group that met in an upstairs room on Sunday evenings (I suppose to give everyone time to enjoy their morning café and beach excursions). In Brazilian churches they call their worship service culto. Once I realized it wasn’t a cult even though they didn’t meet on Sunday mornings (mind-blowing for this mid-westerner), I began walking the hour long journey from Gavea to Botafogo. Past the lagoa and through the concrete jungle I ambled, wondering at the smells and sights of the tropical city. I tried not to get there too early so I didn’t seem overly eager. But even introverts can get lost and lonely, and my feet picked up the pace when I knew I was near.
The tightly knit members became my weekend family. I was safe there. No matter what happened during the week, I knew on Sundays I was welcomed and loved.

No one ever asked me to put my money in the offering plate, but I felt a Holy Spirit dare to put in what I had, my widow’s mite. I emptied my pockets–a bashful promise to keep my hands open. Each week as I walked home in the dark I wondered, Jesus, did you see what I just did? What am I going to eat tomorrow?

I did this for months, which, of course, stripped me of food security. I was barely covering my rent and tuition, but I was definitely not eating enough. I stopped eating beans and rice in the cafeteria. I relied on the occasional exchange student meet-ups to temporarily fortify myself with complimentary salgados. I took up every invitation to homes of friends, dates, beach hangouts–any social opportunity where food was offered.

In the mornings, I had coffee and a slice of white bread with a layer of queso crema. For lunch I boiled a piece of pumpkin and sprinkled it with cinnamon. At night, I slowly ate my bowl of runny grits as I watched (and tried…and failed to understand, pre-google) the popular telanovela, O Clone.
Looking back, I don’t recommend starving, but no one stopped me. How could they? I didn’t tell a soul about my dare. My mom knew funds were short in other areas, but I was making ends meet. She didn’t know the details, and I wasn’t going to worry her. I was in a big city and I was making big girl decisions. It wasn’t so much about pride anymore, but survival, endurance. Released from the need to overcompensate my physical needs (I was eating a little, which was more than nothing), I was able to taste possibilities I’d never before considered. It was physically uncomfortable, but my experiment in giving was unintentionally turning into a form of fasting…and was growing into an intimate dependency on God. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Trusting Him became sweeter in a way I’d never known.

I’d stare out my open bedroom window at the Cristo Redentor statue, his arms held out to me. I was reading my Bible and begging for wisdom. How do I navigate relationships? How do I express myself in a different language? What is socially and culturally acceptable? Why was I raised to think only in terms of black and white? God, what do you want from me?
I was befriending people and telling them about Jesus. I was volunteering in a couple of drug-lorded favelas, meeting the kind of people I didn’t know existed. I was offered a position as a missionary at a kids’ outreach and health program. I was considering breaking up with my long term boyfriend in the States, sending him vague letters to test how he might feel about me staying in Brazil.

One day after classes, I stood in line in the basement of the life sciences building waiting my turn to check my email in the computer lab. I was antsy as always to get news from home–anything that wouldn’t make me feel hungry and homesick. My mom had written me a note. Pearl, it said, I hope you’re having a great week. Just wanted to let you know–someone gave me $200 today to deposit in your bank account.

I powered off the computer and walked out of the lab. It was unexpected, and I was stunned.

Pragmatically, I knew God could do it. Through the testimony of others, I’d seen Him show up in a thousand ways. But until I’d actually given my last pennies away and sat at the door, waiting, I don’t think I had any idea what He could offer me. I could gaze out on the waves from my safe perch on the boat and believe He made the water and could walk on it. I could never get my toes wet and still believe there was a Jesus that loved sinners, a God who looked down from Heaven at His tiny creation. I just didn’t know He loved them in a way that surpassed the way human beings can understand: food, water, clothes, shelter. I didn’t know he loved it when I asked him questions and heaped my cares on Him. I didn’t believe He mothered his little ones, patiently answered their questions, wrapped His arms around them and fed them from the spoon on his table. Nor could I comprehend His peace, patience, hope and joy while I was waiting on the little things.

When I was finally, totally desperate, God proved himself dependable. In fact, He waited for me to become desperate before He wrought miracles. How else would I know? Could it have been anyone but Him who came to my rescue? I was a Gideon, tentatively setting out my wool at night to see if He might get it wet. I was the lady in the crowd, quietly sneaking in and out of people to try and touch the hem of His garment. I had no business putting myself into a position to gamble… I was just banking on the promise that He is a good father and that he generously rewards those who seek Him. Until I was empty I didn’t understand His gifts were perfect, wholly beyond my scope of what I thought I needed. The money I needed for food had become secondary to the revelation I was having: Jesus is all I ever really want.

This is an insane privilege to acknowledge. His provision, His crazy love keeps proving itself true in my life again and again. Me–a person who has no title, valuable training, personal history, resumé, or talent–no business even pretending I have control over my life–I have access to God the Father. He hears me, he knows me, and He has let me know He is enough. He doesn’t do contracts and deals, but He listens to and loves His children. He answers their prayers in tangible ways and then some.

I cannot elbow my way into His presence. I can’t draw up a blueprint and ask Him to stamp His approval on my plans. It doesn’t work that way because He is a Father. It’s like my little girl who begs to not go to bed at night. I still make her lie down by herself, because she needs to learn to sleep on her own. God knows what is best for me, but I have to agree with Him, have to offer up my will to His, in order to receive His best.

I’ve realized this is how He works: He waits for me to continually make room for Him to surprise me with his goodness. I must choose to keep things wide open to make room for His big moves.

This doesn’t mean it isn’t a calculated risk. Neither is it a “let’s add things up and see how much this is gonna empty my savings–that which I could technically recoup.” No, if we use this math, we will never take the leap. It’s actually a bigger risk than we could safely bet on. It’s cliff diving, potential harm, maybe death. It is putting my whole life on the line.

Jesus said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”

How much do I trust God to make up the deficit? Do I have faith he can help me break even? Will he redeem the things I can’t fix? Do I believe if I give to him–my kids, money, lifestyle–he can make up the difference–filling my lap up, pressed down and overflowing (Luke 6:38)?

This is what Rio taught me: God loves a dare–he loves it when we gamble and bet our entire lives on him. My poverty, my hunger. It’s the weakness in us that exposes His strength, His power to love us in deeper ways we’d never otherwise understand.
I’ve done many other things that were, in a sense, a slaughtering of dreams. I’ve abandoned my college degree, the one that labeled me as a senior “most likely to succeed”. We’ve moved away from family and friends. We decided I’d stay home with the kids and he could follow the career path. We’ve given up our time, resources, and income to walk away from prettier pursuits.
How else could we approach the Savior and say, “we’ve left everything to follow you” (Mark 10:28)?

How can he promise an increasing return if we haven’t invested what is precious to us?

How can we “count it all as loss” (Phil. 3:8) when we hold so tightly to our temporary treasures?

You worried about your kids? Work? Relationships? Money? Church? School? Your ideas about how the future ought to look? Put it in the hands of the One who gives the best returns, the One who has already laid a firm foundation.

What does the first, small step look like? It could be a few pennies in the offering plate, a few paces in the opposite direction of success and security.

It’s a bit of a dare.
Test me and try me, He says.

Drinking milk

I sit in Chik-fil-a, trying to coax my skinny three year old into eating the nuggets and waffle fries. She frowns in the direction of the play area, sullen at the deal I’ve struck. Two nuggets and two fries and then you can play. I honestly don’t know why my kids won’t eat. It’s not that I don’t try.

While we sit and pout, I hear two men sit down in the booth behind us. It doesn’t take me long to overhear their conversation. The first man mm-hmms as the second lays bare his wants and needs. He has just recently left a church and now he is listing his likes and dislikes of the new church he’s attending. On and on he talks, the first man continually mm-hmming. M-hm. M-hm. The m-hmer is obviously a minister of the new church. Perhaps the outreach guy or the discipleship pastor. They must have secured their first meeting at Chik-fil-a to sort out their potential relationship. Finally the second man finishes his rant, his voice trailing off and upward, posing a question to the minister. “So, what can your church offer someone like me?”

I put my little girl’s uneaten nuggets and fries in their greasy box, wrap it in a napkin, and stand up. I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, and I’ve lost my enthusiasm to force feed the preschooler.

“Okay, baby, let’s go play,” I said, and we walk away, the negotiations fading behind our back.

Everyday I walk to school to pick my children up at 2:30. Without fail, three boys come running down the stairs to the field where I wait. They are not my kids. In fact, I only know them by their first names. They are latchkey kids headed home to an empty house, an afternoon of video games and whatever snacks they can find in the cupboard. But before they run home, they first run to me to say hello. I love it. While I’m waiting for my own kids, I ask these boys how their school day was, what they’re up to, what they had for lunch. I ask if they have a pair of boots at home, since there is snow on the ground. They order the excitable puppy on my leash to sit and stay, and then give her pats and tell her she’s a good girl.

Eventually my own boys run down to meet me and we form one big group. We amble through the park, breaking off one by one to go to our own homes.
Because nothing else is pressing, I’ve made it my business to be just a mom, one who asks questions and calls them by name. I mother the temporarily motherless for a few minutes after school. I remind them to not dawdle on their way to Boys and Girls Club, to tie their shoelaces so they won’t trip. It’s a standard fare sort of bossing. And, as if by magic, more kids keep joining our group. One snowy afternoon, I showed up with a carrot in my pocket in case the kids wanted to build a snowman. You’d have thought I’d brought a bucket of candy.

I once read somewhere that a parent’s job is to study their children. I think this is valuable advice since Jesus said we must become like children if we want to be a part of his kingdom. Little kids, I’ve found, have a few things in common. They love the attention, protection, and safety of responsible grown ups. They are honest, shameless, and uninhibited. They’re curious and ask questions. They expect honest answers. They freely express emotion–joy, sadness, anger.

They’re actually much easier to be around than adults. With kids, you can tell them no followed by “because I said so.” You can hold up their emotions to the light and say, “I know you’re sad right now–maybe you’re just hungry.”

You can sit on the couch, open a storybook, and they will naturally come sit around you, eager to see the pictures on the pages.

Before they grow up too much, kids are simple and profound. Now this is good, and it paints a picture of how our relationship is to be with the Father, purely dependent, eagerly expressing our needs, wants, opinions. As new believers, we are to be nourished by milk. It’s a picture of our infancy, our reliance on our caregiver as we begin to cut our baby teeth. This idea of milk is referenced three times in the New Testament.

Peter wrote to believers,
…Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation…
1 Peter 2:2

Paul said to the Corinthian church:
I could not speak to you as spiritual men but as men of flesh, babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3

We all begin growing with milk, but it’s obvious we are also to mature into adults that can be given solid food to chew on.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Hebrews 5:12-14

This is what I was pondering as I followed my three year old to the play place in Chik-fil-a. By this time you ought to be teachers, the writer of Hebrews said, but you’re still drinking milk because you are spiritual babies.

How did the wonder and excitement leave this man in the booth behind us? Why was he satisfied with milk–just wanting a bigger bottle? When did relationship and pursuit of the Savior become a negotiation of what church can offer? Our generation has coined the word adulting and spewed hate over it, as if grownups ought not carry any responsibilities. I wonder if the man at Chik-fil-a was a kid once that had to walk himself home after school. Did he ever have to feed himself or finish his homework on his own? Had he forgotten about it? Was he reverting back to babyhood, still a little fleshy bundle worried about his own desires? All I heard from his mouth was discontent; he threw a Chik-fil-a pity party. He was looking for someone new to serve his needs. He’d either forgotten he was a grownup or he’d grown accustomed to the baby bottle.

As a mom, I’m uniquely aware of how much kids long to be in the presence of their parents. They love being loved. They don’t cry and fuss when they are well-fed, well-rested, and enjoying the attention of their big person.

That’s exactly how God wants us to approach Him. He wants us to be like the kids that come running down the steps after school, just looking forward to seeing Him waiting on the field. Interaction and relationship with someone who cares. Anticipation in his Word and for the future. What surprise does He have waiting for us?

I don’t know about the guys at Chik-fil-a, but I don’t want to ever be there, eating my chicken sandwich and negotiating favors. Love is bigger, and love is better. It decides what is best, not what is just okay. It forces a skinny three year old to eat her chicken nuggets to put meat on her bones. Love grows babies into grownups. It speaks truth instead of massaging wounds. It picks up kids at school, risking exposure and conversation and fifth grade weirdness. It doesn’t ask, what can the world offer me? Love is affection for the Father–we love because He first loved us.

He waits on the field and we run into his open arms.

Wax Apples

Lately, church culture has me wound up. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who sees the hypocrisy–but then again, most people I know who have left the church have brought it up.

As a kid, our family slid in and out of churches. Some were old fashioned, with a basement fellowship hall with kind but stern ladies, styrafoam cups of red koolaid and oatmeal cookies before Sunday school. At other times, we attended the local college ministry or met in the living room of a nursing home, rolling the residents’ wheelchair down the cold, stale halls to join us. We were non-committal–a reflection on my dad’s “question everything” philosophy. He was sincere in faith to the fault of his supposedly legalistic upbringing, seasoning every conversation with a distinct flavor of superiority. I didn’t know any different, and it was a fool’s endeavor to ask questions, even though I was always considering the whys. He taught me, wordlessly, to appoint myself judge in the courts of human affairs. As long as I kept my robe clean and remained unaffected by other people’s problems, I was on the straight and narrow path.

Although I hated walking into a new start-up church that was meeting in the old highschool gym, where our voices echoed and we sang awkwardly, huge fans drowning out our words, I knew we belonged. We were odd, and nothing was odder than walking into the school day six out of seven days of the week, setting up folding chairs, passing the communion tray in the same space where I regularly ate school lunch and pretended to be invisible.

It was a disjointed experience–turn on the Jesus on Sundays, then walk back into school on Monday and keep my thoughts to myself.

The very first time I visited a modern church–by this, picture a large, open auditorium, sound system, soft chairs, professional worship team–I was fifteen years old. I was touring with a summer music group (do not be in awe–there was never an audition, as the organizers were absolutely not judicious in acquiring singers) and it felt glorious. How ingenious to have stage lighting! How indulgent to use a sparkling restroom stocked with freebees and scented lotion! To sit on leather couches in the youth group’s very own game room and eat plates of spaghetti before taking the stage to “bless” the congregation with our choreographed musical!

I knew my dad hated this sort of thing, but I loved the idea of merging my teenage desire for meaningful relationships to fit in with the looming presence of God (and His ever burning disapproval of the world–the judge in me stood in solidarity with this notion).

The only thing that seemed to sit uneasy on my soul was the homogeneity of the church. All the cars in the parking lot were shiny and new. All the people were upper-class, well-dressed. The youth minister was cool, funny, and confident. The youth group itself was a handsome bunch of blemish-free, carefree teenagers with keys jangling in their pockets. They had the money and time and their parents’ blessing to seduce one another at Taco Bell after Wednesday night church meetings.

They didn’t look any different than the people on the outside of the church who didn’t need a god to satisfy their urge for morality. The impression was foreign to me, but it was incredibly attractive. I wanted a piece of it.

It was my introduction to the world of American Christian culture; heavy on consumerism, low on guilt. I got the feeling deep inside of me that the values didn’t measure up, but I was too enamored to care.

It has taken me awhile to sort it all out. I guess I’ve grown up. I came to the realization that my stick-in-the-mud dad was more right in his “question everything” philosophy than the “all is grace” hashtag that excuses every stray ignoble action. Maybe by God’s grace I was able to sniff out the fake.

Pretty much all of us good Christians like to secretly put restrictions on God. We like to sing things like I surrender all to you and Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. But our hearts tag on sneaky little clauses, like if I can still make 200k or if we can still live in the neighborhood with highly rated schools and nice landscaping. We pray for all sorts of things and hope our Heavenly genie in a bottle will grant our wishes. We might even have good intentions when we begin, but our flesh is a tricky thing. It’s like a three year old–it wants what it wants, and it doesn’t like to be told no.

The thing is, we don’t see these clauses for the chains they are. We also like to sing the song, who can stop the Lord almighty? If we’re being honest, pretty much all of us are trying to stop the Lord Almighty, put Him on a leash. We want to protect our pension plan, preserve our vacation days, not get sick. We don’t want a rogue god doing just whatever He wants to do, playing us like pawns.

The disparity between following Jesus and maintaining security is a massive sinkhole. I think most American Christians are happy to dial back their faith in favor of the approval of the world. We’ve talked ourselves into this idea that responsibility and respectability are the crown jewels of the kingdom. Even the atheist, who says there is no God, will pat you on the back for counting your dimes and living such a careful life.

This is exactly the problem. No wonder we are confused.

The people we surround ourselves with tend to impact Who we choose to be our master. And as long as we seek to fit into the current mold of culture, as long as we keep our dusty Bible on the shelf, as long as we live exactly like the people around us we can avoid looking Jesus in the face. We are all very well the rich man–I speak of the American Christian. We arrogantly want our big churches, our almost-sincere words and pictures plastered on the internet to justify us. We don’t want to forfeit our comfortable complacency in the meantime.

This should rattle us no matter what side we fall on, that God isn’t joking. Our friendship with the world (and everything in the church that carries the same aroma) isn’t an Amish-friendship bread type relationship, but a pimping out of our souls.

Who was the Lord talking about when He referenced Isaiah–

“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me:
They worship me in vain;
Their teachings are merely human rules.”
(Matthew 15:8-9)

Does my need for independence, self-care, comfort–you name it–trump my life-as-a-living-sacrifice worship?

Privilege is the advantage of being able to look away and remain unaffected. Entitlement is the shoes it wears, the art of escaping reality. I hate to be the one to say it, but we are mostly all living, breathing, entitled brats.What troubles me most is our flagrant inconsistencies within the church. We want little more than a casual experience yet our expectations are extremely high. We require theater seats, flawless music, pats on the back. We’ll get riled up over the color of the walls or disrupted flow of service. We don’t readily admit it, but we are becoming (have become!) lovers of selves, not lovers of God. Do we realize we ourselves will be judged by the holy, righteous, God of love–even when our pencils want to erase the part about Him being holy and righteous? Has our scepticism so muddied our convictions? Has our pride so leveled our rationale? Are we just plain ignorant?

J. Vernon McGee articulates this, speaking of the attitude of today’s American Christian culture:
“‘Let’s do as little as we can, have as much fun as we can’…If you’re going to follow the middle of the road, remember to have plenty of money. And actually, I think, today the rich have moved to the middle of the road. That’s the ground that they want to take. They want to be liberal and they want to be conservative. It’s the middle of the road.”
(Thru the Bible Podcast, Ecclesiastes 10:11-11:10)

This is what is filling our churches, and God hates it because it mocks Him.

Christians, take note! We must not use entitlement as a security blanket. The church was not made for social ladders.

It blindly treads right into the dangerous tepid waters of the church in Laodicea. They were warned:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm–neither hot or cold–I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
Revelation 3:15-18

If that doesn’t scream American church, I don’t know what does. Ours is a culture that values cheap grace because we don’t want to compromise on comfort. We don’t practice denial or abstinence in practically any form because we’ve convinced ourselves to “come as we are.” Indeed, Jesus will take us with all our warts and mistakes. We just go ahead and figure it will be alright if we go on hating one another, gorging ourselves, doing exactly what we want.

Let’s not forget that when we come to Him, we are submitting our old selves to crucifixion. He is not playing a petty where-do-you-see-yourself-in-five-years life coach. Jesus wasn’t joking when he promised his disciples “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)

He urged his would-be followers to first count the cost of pursuing discipleship so that they might not be worthless, lipstick-on-a-pig, salt-lacking-saltiness jokers. (Luke 14:25-34) He’d rather us be ice cold–not even interested–than lukewarm pretenders.

What a difficult truth to process! What a soul-wrenching reality! Perhaps we don’t want war because we love peace, but because we don’t want our comfort to be threatened.

The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it an unscalable wall.
Proverbs 18:11

I have met more life insurance agents and investment advisors in church than anywhere else. I find this so funny, but isn’t it telling? We have so departed from God’s promises that we welcome hedging the risk of trusting our Creator. We buy newer things with warranties, we save up for retirement–as if this life was our main goal. As if the parables Jesus told about talents and wages and were about financial peace and not Heaven.

Should we never give up comfort? Will we wrestle this beast to the grave?

How many of us pretend to care about recycling and conservation and global warming yet will only live in a brand new or remodeled-to-Gaines’-perfection house? We step on our own toes with the best of intentions because we are incredibly short-sighted. We will never look as far as Heaven when we think we can DIY it here on earth.

God’s wisdom confounds us because it isn’t in our frail nature to step out in faith. Rather we like to take a peek at what everyone else is doing and stick with the majority. We understand things only by our five senses–we don’t have any other guarantees–and so, to preserve our mortal selves, we almost always decide that the most secure place is with the masses. We sure don’t want to rock the boat too much. But even this is a departure from God’s Word:

Put off your old self, which is corrupted by deceitful desires…Put on the new self, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness…speak truthfully to one another.
Ephesians 4:22-25

You see, we must speak up and call one another out on our faithlessness. Otherwise we are just pretenders, wrapping ourselves up in so many false securities that our lives don’t seem attractive to unbelievers. And believe me, we were made to be attractive. Not in a youthful, aesthetic way, but in a magnetic way. The Bible says we will either be an aroma that is life to those being saved or fatal to those living in the dark. Magnetism. We draw or repel people with salt and light, the unashamed proclamation that God made us for more.

I’ve always wondered about John (the baptist) preaching repentance. What, exactly, was the purpose in this? It’s occurred to me that in “preparing the way for the Lord” he was breaking fallow ground so that the seeds Jesus was to plant would land on tilled, fertile soil. Weedy, overgrown hearts wouldn’t readily receive the Word himself, wouldn’t even recognize a Savior if he was standing in front of them. John garnered a following early on simply by preaching repentance. He was firing up the rototiller, preparing the way, and there were people in the vicinity ready for a fresh start. They didn’t know how, they didn’t know Who, but they knew their lives needed to be uprooted. The heart of stone sitting in their chest was too heavy to keep dragging around. Before they knew of a replacement, they realized they must have the dead rock uprooted.

Aren’t we living this very moment on some hard ground? I wonder if these days we haven’t let our soil become overgrown with zealous thistles and dandelions. It radiates out from the lusts of our sinful nature, and I’m not talking about the obvious offenders. I’m thinking of the American church where the lobby looks like a gratuitous Starbucks and the man or woman on stage could be giving a TED talk. Something is terribly wrong if we are trying to look more like Hillsong than Jesus. Jesus, who touched lepers and liars. Jesus, who gathered twelve misfits and called them his friends. Jesus, who died alone on a cross.

Have we lost this spiritual instinct that life cannot be whole when we always get our way? That life cannot be ruled and regulated into happiness? Do we open the Word with the expectation of being sifted, dividing our bone from marrow, a regular tilling of the flesh? If we don’t, we are in for a rude surprise. More likely, though, we’ve stopped opening the Book altogether.

I am the Vine, you are the branches–remain in me, He said, and we grabbed a pair of garden shears and began sawing ourselves free. No wonder our Spirit fruit–love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control–stopped growing. We try and duplicate it with our fancy church talk, our insincere “seeker-friendly” welcome and false piety, but it doesn’t add up. It is a lot like biting into wax apples. Hungry people prefer the real kind.

Hungry people want to know the man-God, Jesus, the bread of life. They want to devour the Story, to eat the Word–something to fill up their starving, empty soul. This is all that we, as Christians, have been tasked to do. “Go into the world and give them the good news,” Jesus said before he departed.

We must give the world something better to chew on.

the price of pride

There’s a story about a maniacal leader who was once in power of the entire known world. He was braggadocious and outrageous and completely bi-polar. He was feared and hated, but too powerful to stop.
Pause the story–this sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

But this is actually ancient history, way back when Babylon ruled the world. The king’s name was Nebuchadnezzar, and he regularly put lives at risk while exalting himself as a god. So that he might not be forgotten, he stamped his name on some 15 million clay bricks that made up his kingdom. It took an immigrant named Daniel (a slave to Nebuchadnezzar) to boldly approach the king before history was altered. Daniel didn’t suggest he see a psychiatrist–rather he begged the king to humble himself before God:
“Be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.”

Do you know how the story ends? Did the king, like Kanye, renounce his sins?
One year later, he was out walking on the roof of the palace, admiring the sights and boasting about his accomplishments to everyone who could hear, when a voice boomed from heaven. It said,
“This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals: you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

The story says that “immediately what had been said was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of the bird.”

Now who wouldn’t cheer for this–God humbling and humiliating the arrogant leader of the known world! About the only thing we like better than rooting for the underdog is watching Goliath fall. To me, the fascinating thing about this story isn’t the fact that Nebuchadnezzar went mad and wandered off to live like an animal in the wilderness. It isn’t the modern day equivalent, if you think I’m comparing the king to some current world leader. What intrigues me is how similar we are to that old king, admiring our own accomplishments. We shamelessly promote our own image and agenda. We’re addicted to the spotlight–the very American notion that anyone can become a ruler if they have the gumption. A dream and some hustle can buy a kingdom of internet followers. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”–yet we erect million dollar buildings, stamp our names on the bricks, and play church inside.

What worries me is how close we are to hearing a booming voice from heaven after we’ve had so many warnings. The last thing we want is a Daniel, some scrappy nobody, suggesting we renounce our selfish, proud ways to turn back to God.

I think it’s easy to look around and assume this is the affliction of a younger crowd. When we poke fun at millennials and the attitude of obsessive me-first thinking (self-promotion, self-care, becoming an influencer, etc.), we must understand how this came into fruition. We didn’t just happen to birth a generation of self-absorbed people. I don’t pretend I can pinpoint exactly when it all started, but I think we can trace our steps back to a moment when we entered darkness because we walked away from the light.
J. Vernon McGee called it spiritual apostasy, and said it is always closely followed by moral awfulness. No wonder we are losing the grip on reality.

We quite easily forget who put us in our privileged state. We walk on our palace roofs and pat ourselves on the back. We become god to ourselves, so when unwelcome voices start talking in our head, when we are tempted with the sweet aroma of pride and flesh, we can’t say no. How, then, can we teach our children ‘no’?

We have normalized and diagnosed such things as high-functioning anxiety and clinical depression. This is not to say chemical imbalance isn’t a real issue–our bodies and minds are intertwined and must be treated holistically–but the wholeness of man is also reliant on making sound choices. In court, a person charged for murder might be acquitted on the basis of insanity. I think, therefore I am…unless I’m not thinking clearly–in which case you can’t blame me because rules don’t apply. It’s the attitude that responsibility is negotiable. In our current society we have determined it is perfectly acceptable to be a person with a mental illness, yet we will kick and scream if anyone attaches stigma to our condition. Instead of asking God to break our chains and renew our minds, we hold tight to our labels to excuse our behavior. But can’t we see that pride and prosperity itself can lead to discontent, then paranoia and depression? We can choose self-advancement and suffer the consequences of the proud.

Nebuchadnezzar, with his power and prosperity at stake, didn’t want to be exposed. Pride led him to the brink of insanity and plunged him right into the pit. If we think all mental illness happens through none of our own doing, we are wrong. Like the king we have eliminated our boundaries and made ourselves vulnerable. We have become haughty, and it is costing us our souls.

Very clearly in his Word, God establishes boundaries. He tells us who He is (defining His boundaries) and He tells us who we are (defining ours):

You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands. Psalm 119:4-6

Among other things, we are to guard our hearts, capture every thought and make it obedient, consider the needs of others. We aren’t to make promises we can’t fulfill or think of ourselves too highly. We are to love God, who is perfect, and love people, who aren’t.

Any confusion generally stems from our unfamiliarity with scripture. Unfortunately, the further we drift from his Word, the further we get away from His established mile posts that mark our path. We don’t realize how modern psychology is seducing us, asking us to forfeit boundaries and replace them with blame. We ought not be alarmed–after all, this is exactly the way the enemy works. It looks okay, easy to swallow and non-offensive. Humanism tells us we can reason out our hurts–we were damaged as children, it’s someone else’s fault. We make our own destiny; self-promotion is just good marketing. But it’s a dangerous tweaking of truth, a fork in the path that sets us in the wrong direction. It goes back to the garden with the serpent and Eve. “Did God really say….?” the evil one whispered, and Eve began to doubt God’s goodness.

Recently I’ve been convicted about my own tendencies to lean into modern psychology rather than God’s word. The enneagram trend, crazy popular in Christian circles, is a personality-typing tool used to “better understand” ourselves and other people. But it doesn’t offer hope for the slovenly to get up off the couch. It doesn’t reduce one’s obsessive tendencies. It doesn’t empower a worrier to release their burden. The writer of Ecclesiastes, the wisest man in the world, claimed that every worldly pursuit is meaningless. The enneagram might help us discover our hidden motivation to do or not do, act or not act–but it, on its own, cannot lead us in the way everlasting.

When he walked this earth, Jesus noted that the people were like sheep without a shepherd. His compassion for the masses of hurting, sick, demon-possessed, struggling people was apparent as he ministered. On the other hand, he scolded the religiously proud, those who like to justify themselves by their traditions and false piety. In front of everyone, he established the absolute equalizer–that all are utterly depraved apart from God. And then, in Love’s perfect example, He died, sinless on the cross, so we might know the Father. There wasn’t an ounce of pretentious talk or humanistic rationale in Him. Only love that looked down and had compassion.

After seven years in the wilderness living naked and animal-like, Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity was restored. The book of Daniel says the king praised God,

“His dominion is an eternal dominion;
His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven
And the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

Believe it or not, Nebuchadnezzar was welcomed back to his throne. It is written,
“At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”
Daniel 4

Nebuchadnezzar, a brutal, self-worshipping, arrogant ruler was ultimately given back everything he had lost! His pride led to madness, which God used to change him. Can you believe it–this maniac was loved and used by God! Even through his mental illness, God had a purpose for him.

Isn’t that just like Him, to work miracles with the maniacal, to deliver the depressed?

When I look back on my lowest, I really can’t get over how God restored my life to me. How He drew me back into His Word, seeking me out and filling my empty heart with hope.

In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
My cry came before him, into his ears…

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
He drew me out of deep waters
He brought me out into a spacious place;
He rescued me because he delighted in me.
Psalm 18:6,16,19

I have written on my own struggle with depression here and here. I recommend Boundaries, an excellent book by Cloud and Townsend, if you struggle internally with setting up boundaries regarding depression, obsessive thinking and relationships (and actually every aspect of taking control of your life).