You, but New!

With a little disposable income, each of us can be renewed. There are not shortage of products that tell us that if we invest our time and money in them that we can be a "brand new" us in 30 days...or our money back. Whether it is the new look of radiance of our skin or a new feel of our core after (never enough) sit ups, we can be reshaped. The pills are there for the taking.

Many of us though don't want to be swept up in the external vision of a "new" us. That is too shallow so we go for a new "inner" us. As the calendar changes from December 31st to January 1st we reflect on who we have been (and haven't been) since the last moments when we considered those things and are energized to be different next time. Though this year's report card of progress only had C's and D's, next years will be better, right?

All the skin care products available to us, all of the different versions of an ab-roller that are orderable on Amazon, and all the "better you in 30 days" books we could buy (read?), it never seems to be enough. Something is missing. There is still something deeper. More "new" than we can create.

Paul reminds the people living in Galatia that "neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." (Galatians 6:15) There is a more rooted- more supernatural- "new you."

It is a newness that the Creator creates in us...not a newness that we try to conjure up within ourselves. No amount of disposable income our determination can generate this kind of life.

Why then isn't this more of everyone's experience? Why then isn't this the normal life? Why is this reality not just neglected, but actively rejected?

We Are Family

"Organized Religion," for many, brings to mind great abuses. Wars that were fought over seemingly irrelevant theological issues. Money that has been spent on ornate furniture and gaudy buildings rather than giving to those who are hungry. Children (and adults) being drawn into a depraved trap where someone in power could use devotion to take dignity and hope from them for selfish purposes.

Why would anyone want to join an organization where they might be dictated to by some distant group of officials who seem to hide in religious shadows? Why would anyone willingly submit to new sets of archaic rules that were written by dead men in an era whose values died long ago? Why would a person give money, time, or energy to a group of strange (and emotionally unhealthy) people when spiritual freedom is available for free in so many other ways?

That doesn't sound like freedom at all. It sounds like spiritual slavery.

Though each person that would use the phrase "organized religion" means something different by the phrase, maybe they are on to something. Maybe in their suspicion they are pointing those of us who have entrusted ourselves to Jesus to something different and...more than organized religion.

Even though our friends' bent towards distrust may cause them to throw out the proverbial baby with the metaphorical bathwater, can we learn from the desire of their hearts for something that is more meaningful?

Maybe what we need isn't that kind of organization. Maybe what we need is family.

There is something assumed in the New Testament writings that is easy for 21st century Americans to miss: the Church is not merely an organization or structured institution, the Church is people who are in relationship with Jesus and with each other. Like a family. Messy and beautiful.

I will say it again because I think I need to say it again: both messy and beautiful.

I would go nuts without some sort of organization in my life. It isn't like organization is somehow secretly evil. It is how we organize and for what reason. The reason: relationships. The how? Through relationships.

Both the hardest and the best things in the world have to do with relationships...connection with people. Religion without relationship is just a ploy for power. Real religion, though, is relational. We were created, shaped, formed, built to live life with relatives. (You know, people we relate to.)

Oftentimes the real problem with "organized religion" is that it takes the personal and relational out. Forms and structures are there, but relationships- the kind that are good for all people- are missing. Rules and principles have taken priority over the simplicity of knowing Someone and being known.

Paul the pastor (who wrote many of the writing of the New Testament) did not write in such a way to set up institutions to hold up religion, he wrote urging people to take a chance on relationships. To take a risk that real life might be found more in entrusting ourselves to others who love us than either devotion to a religion or determination to stay away from religion.

"So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith." Galatians 6:10

"Faith" is not about a religion to work hard to believe in, but about a real confidence in a Person we can trust. All people who have known the goodness of being known by Jesus are free to trust themselves to others who have done the same.

Yes, it is messy because people are messy. Yes, it is risky because we have all been hurt by trusting someone else. But, it is beautiful because real freedom is found in being family. Even if we cannot fully trust each other, we can fully trust our Relational God who is working in our hearts to make us family.

Would you want that? Would you involve yourself in the lives of others? Would you take a risk in order to live the adventure of faith that always means being deeply (heart) connected with others- even if what hurts them, hurts you and what encourages them, encourages you? What if we are disappointed or let down or (God forbid) betrayed? And what if we had conversations that filled our souls and reshaped our lives' trajectory and drew us deeper into the heart of our Father?

This is the type of "organized religion" the Spirit is creating. It starts in people. Its starts with relationships. He is giving us a family to come home to.

A Diseased Peace

“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” Paul of Tarsus- a man who didn’t do what he wanted to do.

Until I saw the HBO special, Band of Brothers, I didn’t know anything about the 101st airborne. “Normandy” and “D-day” were vague ideas in my mind from a history class that was longer ago than my memory would easily stretch. The paratroopers that jumped behind Hitler’s front lines were novel to me. Omaha beach made sense to me (though I couldn’t tell you where it was), but jumping into an area in which one would be completely surrounded by an enemy who is bent on destroying you was unfamiliar and intriguing.

I couldn’t get enough of the soldier’s stories and I needed the soldier’s stories to further take me into the stores of the people who lived near Normandy’s quiet, disregarded towns. Towns with unvarnished signs that didn’t have the charm or notoriety of the signs around Paris or Marseilles. There were people who had lived in those areas for generations with little desire to be anywhere else, even if they could.

As I watched (and later read) about the trooper’s battles to liberate the people in Northern France from their Nazi occupiers, I started to pray attention to what it must have been like for the people who lived in those small towns. They were overrun by a “superior” force they couldn’t overcome. Some tried to fight, I am sure, but lost. Some watched as the Nazis took their land and confiscated their goods with a sense of resigned hopelessness. Some saw the inevitability of the power of the new regime and tried to grasp some of that power for themselves. One way or another, everyone was under a new set of masters and those new masters spent their time making sure their subjects knew that fighting back was futile.

After the Nazi’s took control of the area, they brought with them a semblance of what the German regime might call “peace.” It was a diseased peace, but a type of peace nonetheless.

That diseased peace was shaken the night the Allied forces dropped into the occupied territory. The silence of the many nights before was replaced with the deafening sounds of anti-air flack and shots fired from bunkers hidden from view by the darkness.

The allied soldiers triggered an inevitable war as they entered enemy territory and the “peace” that reigned was shattered.
. . .

I don’t know what I expected life in Jesus to be. Words like “love” and “peace” are (rightly) talked about a lot so maybe I assumed that everything would be lovey-dovey and characterized by I’ll-never-be-anxious-about-anything-again peace.

I am not sure if anyone ever told me that the moment that the Spirit of Jesus entered my life that so much of what I wanted before would be pushed back on, opposed. How do I put this without sounding strange? The best words that I can find is that a new war started within me. A war I didn’t expect. A war I didn’t mean to sign up for, but a war that I needed more than I ever knew.

A war that is fought against the corrupt desires that I long to hold on to. A war that is fought by One whose heart’s desire is that my heart’s desires would be whole again. A war fought by the Spirit of Jesus to draw me out of my diseased desired and diseased peace and into the fullness of life he offers. The same fullness of life he lives and is fighting me to give me.

I am not sure if anyone ever really told me that life in Jesus, following Jesus, is war. Not a war that I could or would fight on my own, but still a raging war where the desires that come from my corrupt nature are being acted upon by the Lover of my soul. Where there was once only diseased peace, now there is opposition…where I don’t do what I want to do, but the Spirit is working in me so that (one fine day) I will be able to do everything I want to do all of the time.

Only the regime of selfish pride and destructive desires will be vanquished from my heart and all that will be left is the freedom of the desires of Jesus. Desires that will be more life giving than I could have ever imagined any of my former selfish desires ever could be.

Today, though, it is a war. Today I still want to be known by people around me as “someone special” though real life is being free from that compulsion. Today, I can be more interested in trying to creatively control all aspects of my life rather than entrusting myself to a Father who knows what I and those I love need better than I could ever envision. It is, no doubt, a war within me.

But, the good news is that it is not a fair fight. The Spirit of Jesus is not threatened by my desires from my sinful nature. The Spirit isn’t outmatched or even evenly matched. This is a war where the outcome is already determined. The moment that the Spirit of Jesus dropped behind enemy lines in my heart was the day the war began to be over. In one sense, It was over when it started. Even when I sleep, even when I do not have the heart to help him with the fight, he is taking over territory that is occupied with my own diseased desires and diseased peace.

It is not a fair fight. And one day there will be no more diseased peace in our souls. The war will be over and those of us who are connected to Jesus will know nothing but freedom to express ever desire we ever have because every desire will be a delight to Jesus…and to us.

Philippians 2:13 “…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (ESV)

What Freedom Looks Like

In the ancient past people used the word "disciplined." It is still used, but it has been replaced with the word "repressed." Disciplined leans toward holding back desires in our will power. "Repressed" makes us think we are victimized by our society into not being our authentic self. Neither feel like freedom to us.

Recently I asked some friends what they would do if they could express ever desire unhindered. No negative consequences. Just unfettered expression of every desire.

One friend thoughtfully answered, "I wouldn't do anything much differently than I do now." I believe that friend. I think she was honest. But before her answer, there was a profound silence in the room. It is a hard question to answer, I know, because we don't live in a world with no negative consequences to our actions and we hold ourselves back knowing we cannot do everything [italics] we desire.

But, what if we asked that question to a larger group? Or, maybe better yet, gave everyone in the world a "hall pass" for one day and let them be free to do what they want, any old time? (Sorry Mick and Keith) The written laws ("don't run a red light while driving") and the social manners ("don't put your face in your bowl of soup to eat it") are safe, boundary markers to keep us from acting foolishly.

What would people do? Is it fair to say that which is often done in the blinding darkness of night would be done in the exposing light of the day? Could we be confident that we would learn more about our neighbors (and ourselves) than we ever really wanted to know...see more of what is lurking in the dark places of our hearts than we are ever free now to let loose on the world?

I know that some of our desires are fickle and can change based on how well we slept or the food we ate for breakfast. That level of desire is not what I really mean. I mean heart level, unchanging, maybe-I-don't-even-recognize-what-really-motivates-me desire.

I do not think we know what real freedom looks like because we know the freedom to express all of our desires would destroy us. Chaos and confusion would overcome our sense of freedom. We find ourselves to be less than free, but in an acceptable way. We have to hold back to some degree. To be socially acceptable. To hold on to our dignity.

Freedom seems to be that we can do exactly what we want at any moment yet it would not destroy us or anyone else. Let me go one step further: what if we could express our deepest desire at any moment and all of those desires not only didn't create chaos, but actually created flourishing for ourselves and others? What if we had the kind of heart that created desires that only expressed generative love?

I know that seems unrealistic. It feels unrealistic. But, what if what seemed to be unrealistic was actually "normal" and what we live now is (if fully seen for what it is) unreal?

Is your imagination tired like mine is, yet?

But, we don't have to try to imagine that world. We don't have to try to fantasize a reality that looks free like that. We have a person who shows us what freedom looks like. Jesus is freedom embodied.

What we would have to see with our mind is an event in the past. For me it is a foreign land where people are speaking a foreign language and celebrating a foreign ceremony. A group of men are eating a meal together in a room just big enough to hold them all and remembering what God had done for them in the past. It is a joyfully and solemn feast. These men know each other well because they have been together consistently over the last few years. Maybe you could even say they had been too together over the last few years. On this occasion will be obvious that one in their group is still a mystery to them.

They look at their leader strangely as he gets up from the meal and sheds his outer garment. They slow down their talking as one by one they begin to notice that he is filling up a basin with water and taking up a towel.

This is abnormal for a leader. This is something that the most honored of their group should not have to do...and maybe he shouldn't do. They can see he is acting as a servant coming to wash their feet.

But, what they cannot see is that he is not play-acting a role. He is expressing his deep desire to serve. This is who he is, and it is startling to them. It is abnormal and, if honest, uncomfortable to them. It shakes them to see what Jesus' freedom looks like.

Jesus is not repressing his real desires in order to model an ideal for them. Jesus is not being dutifully "disciplined," holding back his true self in order to express love in this way.

No, Jesus is expressing real freedom: the freedom from self-absorbed, self-honoring, self-promoting sin and freedom to express his deepest desire, to love them in such a way that they would flourish. Finding deep joy in knowing that giving for someone else's' good is gain more than striving after selfish longings.

So, what does freedom look like?

Freedom looks like Jesus freely serving those who he loves, unhindered and unfettered by narrow-minded and self-indulgent desires. A heart free to do what he wants, any old time because what he wants is to love another.

More than Imaginary Justice

(A guest post from Adam Warner)

I imagined:

Looking at the news, at the rioting and destruction, the selfishness on all sides, the calls for the removal of earthly authorities, I imagined.

I imagined an alternative world. One where the Body of Christ confronted social issues with the grace and wisdom we are called to. Where, when any member of the body experienced pain or injustice, the other parts quickly rushed in to help support and pray.

I imagined a church that was so interconnected with their brothers and sisters in Christ that it picked up the phone and did outreach and service together, across social and ethnic lines. A church that not only supported and raised money to send people to mission fields around the world, but realized just how fertile and ready for harvest the fields are here.

Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” John 4:35 NIV

I imagined a church that rushed in instead of sat on the sidelines and condemned. A church that, even if it didn’t fully understand, was there to support and love on others. A church fearless about what others might say or think, considering obedience to God more important than any earthly comfort. A people of God that appeared en masse in places of need.

I imagined that this people of God was there, on the ground, filling the gap so greedily taken by socialist movements, anger, violence, and calls for destruction.

I imagined a resulting social justice movement based on the truth of God. A movement that has a higher, solid foundation for justice and equality.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

A movement that doesn’t feel the need to resort to violence, or call for the destruction of authority, because it recognizes God’s authority. A movement that realizes that sin exists in us all, and unless we fix the heart that rebels against Christ, the new systems will be just as corrupt as the old. A movement filled with this humbling truth and that is attractive to all because the only aggressors, the only violence, is caused by those truly opposed to justice. A movement that follows Christ’s lead, willing to suffer and submit to put injustice in stark relief. A movement that only suffers for doing good and whose godly actions prick the heart of those who would oppose it.

I imagined this movement, this church, this people of God, clearly just and unable to be accused by the ignorant of violence and demonization of authority, gaining support by the day. Doing good deeds and marching en masse, locked arm in arm, all races and all denominations. Calling for reform and changes to the nation, broken systems, and above all, a heart change to turn back to God. And ALL repent of our sin that caused this systemic problem to exist, and made us fear to speak out against it when it did.

“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” 1 Peter‬ ‭2:13-16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The Unbearable Weight of Waiting: Abram, Sarai, Hagar, and Us

(see Genesis 16)

A decade is a long time to wait for someone to make good on their promise, even if you have something to keep you busy.

A few weeks. No problem. We still have the sound of the words in our mind. You can hear the inflection in his voice. The hope of the promise is still fresh.

The first anniversary passes. We begin to recite the promise to ourselves, like it is his voice. It isn't the same, but it is enough to keep waiting.

Two years, then three years. We are still looking forward to the promise being fulfilled, but wonder if we heard him wrong. "Maybe I misunderstood." "Maybe I heard him wrong." But, even still our will keeps us strong in order to keep waiting. This fulfilled promises seemed worth it at the time and we hold on to it, but we quietly wonder "Why is he taking so long?"

As each day passes with the promise unfulfilled, our hope tank empties. Small amounts at a time. Often unnoticeable. At one time we knew he would do something only he could do, but now that is starting to seem to be some vague dream from the past- a past that is almost unrecognizable to us now. We say to ourselves (and only to ourselves) "I was naive then. I have grown up now and realize that if it is going to happen, I have to make it happen."

He is not coming through, we tell ourselves. So we act. No more waiting. Our life is in our hands now. No, its not with the joy that we once carried, but now we are wiser; more realistic. What we once believed could happen- that what He said he will actually do- we know now to be a child's ignorant fantasy. We are on our own. That's what everyone around us told us anyway. We are the last ones to see what is really true.

And despair seems to be "normal." But even though despair seems normal, we know we were made for more life than that. We acted and we failed. Its not what we had hoped for at all.

There is a mystery in why there is often a time gap between what our God has promised and when he fulfills it. There is a painful struggle and an emptying of ourselves in the meantime. Doubt, fear, and often anger replace our hopefulness and rest.

There is a spark of confidence in him that will not die though everything tries to quench it. "How long, O Lord?!" we quietly cry. And wait some more.

But here is where a God-given faith is born. Its not because we want it to be, but because He wills it to be. The questions of why He waits are still unanswered, but what seems to change is our point of view. We have longed for what he would give. We have waiting for it so long. But the entire time He was with us. Often quiet, but present. Something in the process of waiting he is teaching our hearts not to wait on what he can give, but to wait for the gift of himself.

He is willing to let us doubt his goodness for a time so that we might recognize and embrace his presence. And, somewhere in the process of knowing his companionship, we understand his goodness too.

Adopted is Past Tense

I have two beautiful daughters. The older is next to me as I type this and the younger is upstairs fighting the urge to give in into her nighttime sleep. They are, without question, my daughters and I am proud of them.

We share a lot of time together, we share a home, we share a love to be outside and playing, but one thing we don't share is biology. Neither of my precious girls has my eyes. Neither of them has their mother's freckles.

Both of our girls entered our family through adoption. The older was adopted a few years ago and the younger just a month ago. Even so, they are my daughters and there is no way they could be any more my daughter than they are.

Notice what I typed though: I didn't say they "are" adopted as in present tense. "Adopted" is not their identity. They "were" adopted. Past tense. Done. One day they had one heritage and identity and the next day they had a brand new heritage and identity. (In their cases, each of them came from families that wish they could have been their parents; loving and sacrificial. There was never a time in my daughter’s existence that they were unwanted, either by their birth families or our family.)

They are my daughters. They always will be. I treasure that. I treasure them.

In Galatians 4, Paul describes the relationship God the Father has with those who are his children with the metaphor of adoption. Roman adoption that Paul knew was different in many ways than ours, but that kind of adoption is a beautiful picture of how a Father brings his children into his family. One day they had a heritage and identity that was separate from the Father...excluded...alone. Then, by his grace, he adopted us into his family and into a new identity: welcomed, reconciled, dearly loved, forgiven.

All who entrust themselves by grace to Jesus are adopted into God's family. Past tense. Not a second class member of the family, but a child who is fully loved and accepted. And none of it had to be earned, but it is all given as a gift.

Galatians 4:4–7: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (ESV)

Walking By Unaware

Yesterday, kind of on a whim, my friend and I took a walk to Capitol Hill to observe the culture of that part of our city. Not like a person would "observe" animals in a zoo, gawking and tapping on other people's (metaphorical) glass, but to be present. We wanted to see people who (generally) think very differently than us, not just do a quick drive by. There is something about walking someone else's streets to begin to understand their hearts.

It takes emotional energy to enter into an area full of people who might think me to be the enemy. Being a follower of Jesus and walking down Broadway can be intimidating because of the difference in our views of the world and that there is so much openly celebrated that I do not want to celebrate. Though the emotional weariness is real, it is worth it to see people and be with them on their terms.

That's the issue though. I am not bent towards valuing people who are different than me. I tend to be subtly prejudiced; not only making judgments (Read: "decisions") about people without knowing all of the facts in their lives, but condemning them for that I think about them. I become a blind judge and then a way-too-eager executioner. That is a human failure. One we are all born with and then our society encourages it.

While I am acting as an ignorant judge of another and then writing them off as a failure, I am missing something important. While walking down the street past the woman who smells like the streets she lives on or the man proudly wearing the Antifa symbol on his t-shirt, I can easily walk by unaware of the glory of God that they still reflect.

C.S. Lewis described who we walk by unaware in his sermon, The Weight of Glory: "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

Our neighbors are made in God's image...and that means much, much more than I can understand. I can walk within feet of another person, look them in the eye, and not know the beauty of God's image that makes up their soul's DNA.*

Though we are capable of living a life of a degree of goodness and (at the same time) harboring the ability to creatively commit new, terrible forms of evil to each other, each person is inherently valuable. The poor, the sick, the weak, the mentally broken, those that destroy lives, the the unborn, the aged, and those who don't give anything to society are just as valuable as those who are high performers, wealthy, polite, young, privileged, intelligent, and well-put-together.

This "value" is nothing that we have earned. It is a very marred reflection of the ultimate Valuable One who crafted each of us to mirror to the world the beauty of his character.

So, though I know our God does not value everything we are, everything we do, and everything we create, (and is often opposed to what we produced from the overflow of our hearts) even still each person we walked by deserves not to be falsely judged and joyfully condemned. Though it is not loving to simply condone every action that comes from our wandering hearts (mine or my neighbor's) Jesus' heart is for all of us to be redeemed to our full humanity, restored fully back to his own image.

This shows the beauty of Jesus' heart: that even though as he walked our streets, smelled our smells, and saw our hearts, his love still took him to a place where he walked by us to the cross fully aware of the depth of what our failure (my prejudice included) would cost him there.

Jesus doesn't walk by us unaware. He is aware of everything we are and can make true, wise judgments based on all that we are. He can see that though we are valuable because of his image in us, we are worthy of condemnation because of how we marred that image. Even so, He did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17)

*I have to note here that this does take into account the deep rebellion and damnable wickedness that we live out before we are made alive in Jesus, but it doesn't change the fact that the people we live by, walk by, work with, are still in some ways still like our God.

Roots that Drink Deeply

“Have a blessed day!”

Honestly, I was thrown off when the teenage guy serving us our fast food said these words to me. I didn’t know how to respond.

So, I responded with something profound “May you find yourself blessed by our eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit today, ah-men.” (Really it was going to be something awkward like “You too also have a blessed day today, also” but the server had walked away already.)

If he had handed me our lunch and said “Have a good day” I wouldn’t have given it a second thought and simply said “You too.”

“Blessed” seems to mean something different. Something deeper, reverent, otherworldly. Though the high school-aged guy didn’t think about his words nearly as much as I have, he knew it meant something more than “I hope you don’t choke on your fried food.”

So, what does blessed mean? I will answer this way, I know, but then again I don’t know. All I have are pictures, not words. A tree planted by waters whose roots constantly drink deeply of the cool water even during raging dryness. It flourishes through all circumstances. (See Jeremiah 17:7-8) Or Jesus multiplying a meager meal until not only had everyone eaten, but he gave until they were satisfied. (See John 6:11-13)

What I do know for sure is that we have often made “blessed” dryly religious rather than meaningful. We have used that word to sound spiritual rather than to have an encounter with God’s flourishing Spirit.

In Matthew 5, Jesus starts off his sermon about his coming Kingdom with the words “Blessed are the…” He is both making a promise and describing a condition of life. To be blessed is to have a life of the fullest good. To be blessed means to experience of life of flourishing instead of languishing. To be blessed means to be so connected to the person of Jesus that all of his “blessed-ness” flows into all of our lives.

Yeah, I still don’t full know what that means. All I know is that I don’t want to be left out of that.

So, have a blessed day. Have a blessed life. Have a blessed eternity. Don’t settle for less because Jesus doesn’t offer less. He welcomes us into a life with him that is not nearly meager, but defined by Jesus’ own lavish nature to love us well.

Not a "Childish" Faith

Matthew 19:14: But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Trusting like a child trusts is not an ignorant kind of trust.

Let me explain. I have noticed this when I carry my youngest daughter down the stairs or lift her up to the ceiling in our house: she trusts me. Her laugh and smile and restful posture in my arms tell me that she has confidence that I won’t let her fall.

But there is something she (thankfully) does not yet know: I am fall-able. I can fall. It is possible that I will fail her in some ways. And, though I am not proud of it, some day I will.

There is a sense that- right now- she would trust anyone who would pick her up and feed her. She doesn’t yet know the difference. She is ignorant in the best possible way to use that word. Not stupid, just not experienced.

The Inevitable Experience

It is experience that causes us to learn not to trust. The experience of being dropped, let down, failed, left in the cold, made an outsider, rejected, stolen from, used, taken advantage of. It is the experience of confidently putting ourselves in the care of someone else - not knowing that we shouldn’t trust them- and feeling of falling when we experience that they fail us.

We begin to think a new thought at that moment: I can’t rely on someone else. We begin to “grow up” at that moment and see the world as it really is. We are no longer ignorant, but we also become unwilling to trust.

When Jesus describes the heart posture that his disciples will have, he describes their attitude as like a child’s attitude. Our perspective, in some way, can be like a child’s perspective. Not silly and unchallenged, but simple and uncomplicated.

We Can Never Go Back

But it is hard, impossible even, to go back to that attitude of ignorant trust. We know too much and have experienced too much failure. We know our own failure to be trustworthy and know that everyone around us is just as fallible as we are. We can never go back.

But, I think Jesus means something different than going back to ignorance. He is not asking us to act as if we trust him while pushing down all of our experiences.

He is asking us to have to have a child-like confidence in him even though all of those experiences. He is inviting us to come to him to learn that even though we have been dropped coming down the stairs by others, he is unable to drop us. Even when those around us have made promises to love us and have broken those promises in a heart-breaking way, he is not able to break his promise to love us and hold us close.

The Invitation to Be Confident in the Trustworthy

Jesus is inviting us to come be held close, bringing all of our experiences and pain and doubt and weariness and unwillingness and say to him “I am here to trust again. Are you trustworthy?”

The rest of life is then to slowly re-learn what we lost: that we were made to rest in another’s strength and love. But, this time it will not be ignorant. This time it will be in the growing knowledge that there is one who is strong enough to carry us down the stairs or lift us up to the ceiling in such a way that we do not fear falling. There is One who is loving enough that he cannot and will not leave us in such a way that that we can laugh and smile and have a restful posture with him like we used to have before all of our experiences.

We can be a child again, but this time it isn’t ignorant. It is a child-like faith in a faithful Jesus, not a childish faith in someone unknown.

Four Little Words that Reshape our Lives

Christ. Lives. In. Me.
Think about each of those words for a moment.

Christ. The fullness of God in human flesh. All of his power, all of his glory, all of his humility, all of his love.

Lives. He is alive. He is not just a historical figure or a wish fulfillment for those who want hope in a troubled world. He is not a mere myth. Jesus himself is more alive than anyone has ever been alive...so much so that he can share his life and still be a never empty source of life.

In. Dwelling in. Abiding in. Residing in. More than geographical. Personal. Intimate.

Me. Imperfect. Stubborn. Undeserving. But, also pursued. Loved. Called a dearly loved child. Adopted as a full family member. Welcomed.

This is the neglected part of the gospel, but part of the gospel nonetheless. Misunderstood at best. Probably seemingly unexplainable. But, even then, still true. Still worth exploring together.

For those who are bought by Jesus, surrendered to his lordship, rescued from their sin, Christ lives in us.

Friend of the Unfriendable

So many people around me find Facebook engaging and a great way to keep in touch with people. (Maybe too much!) I'm not a huge fan. Though there is a lot of value in what Facebook's brand of social media can do for us, to keep up with that many friends is overwhelming to me.

But that's just it isn't it: friends on Facebook tend to be a different kind of friend. We call some of those relationships "Facebook friends" to distinguish from other kinds of friends. Maybe "acquaintances" would be better or even "connections."

Jesus has heard what people have said about him. He has heard the side-conversations of the religious leaders who do not hide their distrust of his choice of dinner companions. He has seen the skepticism (revulsion?) on their faces as he walks into the homes of the traitorous tax collectors or the degenerate sinners. Jesus is not unaware of what his friendships communicate to those who don't yet understand his heart.

They call Jesus a "friend of tax collectors and sinners." (see Luke 7:34) Jesus' detractors spoke those words as something shameful, something that should be run from or hidden from the view of polite society. It is easy to see that Jesus doesn't dispute who he befriends, but he wears it proudly.

In spending time meditating on Jesus as a friend of sinners this week, I recognized that I safely and comfortably redefine Jesus' heart by misreading the words of the text. If I am honest, I almost want the text to say "Jesus is a Facebook friend of sinners" or "Jesus is an acquaintance/colleague of sinners." That's safe, manageable, and distant.

But, Jesus is a friend of sinners. He gets in deeper. Stays longer. Asks more meaningful questions. Gives more meaningful heart-answers. He wants to be all the friend that we need, and more of a friend than we would safely choose.

Though he knows the depths of our hearts- knows the corruption, knows the deceit, knows the brokenness, knows the pain- he is unashamed and unafraid to invite us to be his friend. We would never fully entrust ourselves to someone who only knew part of us, but we can freely entrust ourselves to One who knows us fully and wants to have dinner with us anyway.

So Jesus doesn't walk into anyone's home hiding his face in shame. He is not concerned about the way his actions are perceived. Jesus freely, willingly, joyfully, hopefully, comes to us with his heart-felt invitation to more-than-Facebook-friendship, but to a life of heart transforming relationship that our hearts long for.

What Freedom Looks Like: Welcome

“I can do what I want! It is a free country!”

Maybe you are like me and you have said those words before. Most of the time I said it on the playground at school when someone told me I couldn’t get on “their” swing they were saving or in my classroom when my teacher told me to do something I didn’t want to do. (What I said to the teacher was almost always courageously to myself)

We love freedom and think that we are fully free. But what does freedom look like? Are we fully free? If so, what does that look like?

A person who has been unfree (enslaved) all of their life doesn’t understand what freedom is. They have just seen freedom from the outside.

In the second chapter of Galatians, Paul describes what his freedom looked like. Freedom from the slavery of being captive to the whims of “influential people” and free to impartially welcome people into relationship no matter Who they are or where they come from. Free, like Jesus, to be a friend of sinners.

Jesus is inviting us to understand his freedom from the inside. He is inviting us from a life of serving our sin and trying (with all of our might) to minimize sin through following all the rules to a life where sin isn’t our master, but we master our sin through the power of the Spirit living- powerfully- in us.

Join us Sunday evening as we walk through these things together, following a kind Master whose heart is fully free.

Interdependence

Prayerfully consider something with me: consider having someone over.

We see the COVID numbers going up again and it looks like the time in which we have to shelter-in-place is extending. All of us are weary of thinking about the virus, being vigilant to wear a mask and wash our hands, and wondering when we might get to some sort of "normal."

I am feeling it now as much as I ever have.

Though we want to listen to their counsel, we didn't pause meeting together solely because our governors mandated it. The real reason is because we are following Jesus and trusting in his command to "love [our] neighbors as ourselves." At the end of all of this, what will matter is how our lives answered the question: "did we express how we treasure Jesus by trusting his wisdom and loving those around us?"

With that being said, following the guidelines of the authorities the Lord has put in place to govern us, there is room to gather in small groups-in person.

So, for our Sunday-night gathering (and for any day of the week gathering) prayerfully consider meeting in small groups. Start slow. Be wise.

There is faith-filled caution. You can act in faith and still not choose to meet in person with others. No one will think less of you in whatever you choose to do. None of us has ever had to live through times like these before. We are all novices and all growing through it.

We were made in God's image to be in relationship with others. We need each other. We were made for soul-enriching, heart-shaping, gospel-saturated community created and sustained by the Spirit of God. On this July 4th, we celebrate not only our freedom to be independent from unjust tyranny, but the freedom in interdependence in relationship with one another.

Prayerfully consider inviting someone over. In all that you do, do it in love. In all that you do, do it in confidence in the heart of our God who wants to draw you more and more into relationship with himself.

You are the Beloved.

Astonished

In his book, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson tells a story about a defining moment in his life- the first time he met a man on death row. Henry was about the same age as Bryan at the time (early 20's) and was sentenced to death...a death that lingered in front of him though he did not know when it would come.

As a representative of the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, Bryan came to meet Henry for one reason: to give him the simple message that he would not die in the next year.

Henry's response was one of great relief. Henry didn't see his wife or children for a time because he didn't want them to come to visit when he had an execution date- he was fearful and ashamed to see them in that way. Bryan's simple message freed Henry from the shame he was carrying.

As Bryan tells the story in his book, it says he was "astonished" that Henry responded in the way he did. The message meant something. The message changed Henry. The message gave Henry hope because he was affected by the words.

When we hear "good news" it affects us. For Henry, he knew he had more time and he could live some sort of life again.The hope he found was a relief from the burden of unknowing that he lived with day to day. We live off of good news. We need good news to speak to the deepest places of burden and hopelessness that we feel, or hide from ourselves.

It is because of the value of good news ('the gospel") that we can understand why Paul was astonished in another way: because the Galatians had deserted both the message and the One whom the message was about so quickly. Paul quickly challenged the Galatians to remember and return to the simple message that they had once embraced, but had abandoned to their own loss.

The message matters. The message is worth fighting for. The message is worth loving for. The message gives hope to those who know their own need. The message points clearly to the One we need the most.

Paul was astonished because the Galatians weren't astonished and he wanted to point them back to their heart's true home in Jesus.

How do we need to hear the good news again? Why have we wandered away, deserting him who called us? What is is about "the gospel" that changes everything for us?

The Kingdom of God in the Kingdom of CHOP

“…it is possible to unknowingly participate in the Kingdom of God before acknowledging the value of its Source: the King”- Jeff Christopherson

I am writing to you because I need to. This is as much for me to process what I have seen in the last few days as much as it is to share with you. There is much to grieve in hat has happened in our cities over the last 2-3 weeks and there is much that gives us hope.

In our city, COVID is taking a back burner to CHOP. CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) has been the subject of a lot of national conversation and local confusion. There is a lot being said right now- much of it inaccurate and driven by differing agendas- but there is one indisputable fact for those of us in Seattle who are followers of Jesus: we are to be peacemakers where we live. That includes CHOP.

That truth led me to go to the Capitol Hill area of our city and be present to pray and to observe. I was very unwilling at first, but compelled by Jesus’ heart for the people of our city. His kind of love always seeks understanding and only his heart of love will ever compel us to act on the understanding.

With the bright, freshly painted graffiti covering (and re-covering) every concrete wall in the area, it is easy to know when you have entered into the Protest area. Tents lived in by the protestors cover the ground usually empty except for a small group of people living homeless. Discussions are happening all over the grounds and it has a festival-like atmosphere. But, there are printed and painted signs stating “Remember why we are here” to remind the protestors that they have a purpose, a message to communicate to those who are listening.

In order to deescalate a tense situation, the police left the area a few days ago and left it to the protestors on the other side of the barricade. Since that time, the people of what was called CHAZ -and is now called CHOP- claimed victory. They call it de-colonization of Seattle…the beginning of a greater movement. Since that day, people are living their lives at Cal Anderson park and the adjacent streets, creating art and writing poetry that communicates their message. Though we can all agree that the lives of people of color are valuable, that is not the only message loudly and forcefully proclaimed.

I will let my pictures share more clearly than I can, but I want to communicate what I saw. What I saw is a deep, put-your-life-on-the-line desire for what can only be called “revolution.” Revolution is more than reform, it is tearing down what is old and destructive (in their perception) and rebuilding something in its place. The colorful language does not water their message down. CHOP wants to communicate that black lives are unique and valuable and also that the capitalist system needs to be undercut and, at least metaphorically, burned down.

Even though our city is tech-oriented and strives to be the leader in a new era of capitalism, there are still influential groups of people who think it should all go. All of it. Now.

When the Lord told Jeremiah to write a letter to exiles in Babylon and for them to seek the “peace” of the city, he meant a city as confused and corrupt and rebellious as our own. The God of Peace, our God who makes peace, wants his people to love the people of our city by creating truthful, substantive peace.

It is this “peace” (wholeness, fullness, “rightness”) that our neighbors in CHOP believe they are working towards. In my second visit last night, my friend Adam and I got to speak with a couple- AR and JN- from Oregon who drove 4 plus hours to protest in solidarity with CHOP. They and their children are living in tents over the next couple of days, ready to take rubber bullets to the chest if they need to. I asked AR what drove him there (other than his Subaru)…what drives him to all of the protests he takes his family to. AR said that he hates the “world system” that oppresses people and he wants to take a stand. He wants to teach his kids what matters. We got to talk to AR and JN for around 2 hours on the grass in CHOP, hearing their story. All the while, we are listening for connection points to the gospel. (We did get to share about Jesus with them, briefly, but as soon as we started it was obvious they didn’t want to hear anything different than what they already believe, nor really discuss it.)

What I noticed about AR and JN- who are very clearly not believers and who are very openly following a mindset that is unquestionably anti-Christ- is that they, being made in God’s image, have a longing to see the world be “right.” They would fight for the world to be “right.” Though I asked him what that meant, he couldn’t explain it, but he would know it when he saw it. He wanted to make it happen by putting his body on the frontlines of issues he sees as “unjust” wherever that might be in the country. He sacrifices greatly for his cause because he wants to pass on what matters to him to the next generation so they will join in the revolution.

He and Jen are what Jeff Christopherson describes as “kingdom seekers”: those who do not have faith in Jesus, but seem to be (very imperfectly) seeking the Kingdom that Jesus is bringing. They want the beauty of a loving and just world, just without a Loving and Just King to rule their hearts. Of course there is no transformed Kingdom without the Transforming King shaping the hearts of his people, but the “kingdom seeker” still reflect the image of God in such a way that they want to create a new society. Unfortunately, it is not by the power of the Spirit, but by the power of a selfish will and an “I’m on the right side of history, why aren’t you” mentality.

That is what I love (and fear) about the people of our city: that people are passionate for a purpose. They feel that the world isn’t right and want to do something about it, even if they are (knowingly or unknowingly) throwing more fuel on the fire of personal prejudice and other injustices. Though there is so much to grieve, there is also so many ways to hope!

What if the passion the people of CHOP have for justice would be transformed and remade? What if they surrendered to Jesus as king of their lives so they could be a part of the eternal movement that is dependent on God’s Spirit and not the fervor of Marxist ideology?

What if the Spirit called AR to faith in Jesus and AR didn’t spend his life any longer looking for rubber bullets to take on, but would treasure his King enough to put his life on the line among an unreached people group…and his kid’s faith would grow too?

Would you pray for the people of our city? Would you pray that Jesus’ Church would seek real peace among our people? Would you pray that we would have a prophetic voice among our not-yet-believing neighbors that is both truth-filled and full of grace like Jesus himself is?

Celebrating the Marriage of Ashlyn and Colin: A Beautifully Different Love

This is the message that I (gave) at the wedding ceremony of Colin and Ashlyn Smith, Saturday June 20, 2020:

Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

You came because this a day where we celebrate love, specifically the love God has given to Colin and Ashlyn for each other.

What you see in them (even imperfectly) is a beautifully different kind of love.

Love in Real Life: (Live a life of love)

This passage is what God is saying to Colin and Ashlyn today. This is what God is saying to us today. Live a life of love. Love should be the defining motivation of our lives. That is a beautiful sentiment, but it gets real when laundry has to be done or we are pressured to turn in a project that is over due or that talkative friend of ours wants to come over and unload his day on us.

Jesus’ invitation is to live a lifestyle of love. That includes getting laundry done and being hospitable to chatty friends. Love is only real if it is strong enough to be real in the gritty and mundane.

Did you know the purpose of marriage, the meaning of marriage written into the DNA of the marital relationship is more than companionship, more than spending our lives with our best friend, more than romantic love, and more than creating a new family? All of those are beautiful things that God dreamed up for us, but the main purpose of marriage is to picture love. To describe love with our way of life. The purpose of marriage is a dramatization of love lived out in the real life of laundry and bills and unexpected trips to the grocery store to pick up diapers.

Living a life of love means that love defines everything we do in life. It also means that your marriage and our lives paint a picture of love for the world around us that longs to know what real love is.

How We Talk about Love: “as Christ loved us”

The kind of love described here is beautifully different than we expect. We expect greeting card sentimentality, but we find that what we get strong and enduring love. The “love” described here is “more” than we expect and “deeper” than is comfortable.

Everyone we meet will probably have a different definition of love. Love is the feeling we felt after the latest blockbuster movie we got to watch. We use the word love for our favorite foods and our favorite restaurants, and the newest app. We also use it to describe marriage, but we know they mean different things.

The type of love described here is beautifully different than we expect…and defined by the life of Jesus Christ.

We walk in love AS Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. In the same way. Or better still, we live a life of love with the very same love a Jesus loved us with. To understand his love we must start to understand ourselves as he knows us.

Let’s start with the “us” because we know us better than anyone. He died for us…he gave himself up for us. There is a hard truth in this.

Maybe your first thought is like mine was: the thought of deserving love. We talk about people “deserving” love. Our friend “deserves” a fairy tale romance. She worked hard and sacrificed, she deserves love in her life now. We talk about deserving love, but almost no one feels deserving of love. Love that really loves us as we are, where we are, in our strengths and our failures.

Every person in the world was uniquely made in God’ image and is deserving of the dignity that comes from that, but somehow we all feel like we do not deserve love…especially not this full, deep, pervasive love.

We feel that for a reason…hundreds of reasons in fact. We know our own failures. We feel our own guilt. More than that, we know we are bent toward failure. Though we try to push it down and explain it away, it lingers.

Here is the truth, we don’t deserve love.

The bible says that every person fails people, fails themselves, but most importantly fails God. We reject God with our heart and actions. This is called sin. It is the reality of every heart and it is the reason we feel guilty..because we are guilty.

Because to this, the Bible says we are “dead in our trespasses and sins.” Dead. Not just imperfect, but dead…disconnected from the God we were made to relate to…the one our heart longs for…No matter where we look for it, we don’t have the spiritual life we know we are want because we are not connected to the source of that spiritual life.

We cannot try to deny the truth of who we are and pretend we have it all together. As long as we work to think of ourselves as good enough to deserve love we will miss the love Jesus offers.

The hope is that we can embrace that hard truth.

We can embrace the truth because that isn’t the end of the story.

Love Defined: Jesus Gave Himself Up For Us
Though everyone has their own perspective of what love is. This passage says that Jesus defines it for us. This passage points to Jesus’ love as fully, unquestioningly expressed when he submitted himself to the 1st century roman death penalty: a cross

He doesn’t give us a cold, dictionary definition alone: he demonstrates love. His life and his words painted a picture of what full love really is.

Notice, this says something revolutionary about the deepest form of love: as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This is MORE love. This is full love.

Jesus died on a Roman cross to reveal the extent of his love. To show that a person who loves joyfully gives of herself or himself even to the point of giving away all they have. This is the heart of love.

It says he gave himself up FOR US. For people who do not deserve love. For people who have earned nothing but rejection. Jesus received the death we deserve in order to give us the life he deserves. Jesus expressed his love through his death by taking our place, taking on our guilt and punishment, and taking it on himself so we don’t have to bear that burden.

Even when we are unlovable…he moves to us to show his love.

This is no merely sentimental love. It is a full love. It is a passionate love. And it is a welcoming love. A “I’m going to stick by you no matter what “ love.

This is not a love that seeks selfish goals, but seeks to do what is best for another.

This is the kind of love that never fails even when someone fails us.

This is a forgiving love. The kind of love that willfully chooses not to hold someone’s sin against them.

This is not a blind love that pretends that the other person is perfect, but longs to see the one they love grow in their faults….and works to support them.

This is the kind of love that is not a duty-filled “I was told to love you” kind of love, but a free, full, “I wouldn’t do anything else but give myself for you” kind of love

This is there kind of love that wants the best for the one they love, at any cost.

This is the kind of love that chases out fear and the selfish desire to always have it our way, which creates trust in the one who is loved.

This is the love that Jesus expressed for us at the cross…and the kind he expresses now.

Jesus love makes those who haven’t earned it, haven’t done it all right, welcomed as if they had. He makes an alienated outsider into a beloved child.

We do not deserve love, but Jesus love is so strong he gives it to those who don’t deserve it and will freely receive it.

In a similar way that you are entrusting your lives to each other today, God is inviting all of us to entrust ourselves to him. To receive a love too big for us…and that is a free gift.

Colin and Ashlyn:
Love is anything but safe. Comforting, yes. But not safe. Giving your heart away to someone is never safe. Entrusting yourself to another always makes us vulnerable.

In his book, the Four Loves C.S. Lewis says:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

You two are expressing love today that is willing to trust, willing to be vulnerable, willing to give yourself for the other freely and joyfully.

Your statement of love that you are expressing today is “living a life of love” in a similar way to how Jesus demonstrates his love to us.

Your commitment today and your married relationship that starts today are a living picture, a meaningful message, of the kind of love that Jesus extends to all of us. Your life will demonstrate the heart of Jesus.

Love is different than we expect and more than we are comfortable with.

It is a beautiful and different love because it is Jesus’ love.

The Root

very once in a while as I look in our small backyard I notice a green, snake-like vine that is forcing itself between the slates of our fence. If I am not vigilant, it will slowly, but violently push through into our yard. Then, I have to deal with it because this particular vine is a wild blackberry vine...it brings its thorns with it as it invades our space.

So I walk to the fence, cut it, and throw it back where it came from. "Done!" I proclaim and walk away confidently.

Then two weeks later, two vines start coming through the slats in our fence. Each as determined and damaging as the first. After I cut them and cry "done!" I go back to our house a little less confident that it really is done.

Then two weeks later, the familiar vine creeps through our fence again, unaware and disobeying my decree that it as "done."

The truth is, though I cut the branch with skill and precision, I wasn't paying attention to what causes the vine to grow. When I looked over the fence to what I could not see I was awakened to the reality that the problem is much deeper that I thought. The vine was connect to a quietly swirling mass of vines. That mass of vines was protecting itself and growing quickly in many directions...affecting all of the other plants and fences around it.

And somewhere, deep within the dense mass of thorny blackberry vines, is the the part where the plant gets it nutrients: its root. On my toes, looking over my fence, I cannot see the root. It is buried. It is deep. It is protected. It would be painful- exposing even- to get to the source of my vine problem.

Frankly, it is easier just to cut the vines back every couple of weeks. So, at this moment, the vine exists and grows on the other side of a fence I can't see through. Easily looked over until it bothers me a little.

So it is with prejudice and injustice when we deny the root of the problem.

The root is not systemic as many would have us believe. That is a vine coming from the root, but not the root itself. Reshape the system, undercut the institutions that are built on prejudice or have prejudice intertwined within its DNA and it will seem to die. But, slowly, while we sleep it will come back and form new systems and new institutions. Burn it down and it will rebuild right on the other side of our fence.

The root is something that few want to look at. It is deeper than is comfortable for us and we protect the root from exposure. The root of all prejudice and injustice is our own desire to justify ourselves by putting down another. "I am not perfect, but at least I am not as bad as________________." To justify ourselves we have to create a picture of ourselves in our mind that is better than someone else: prejudice. Pre-judging someone by what they look like, what they sound like, what they act like and then declaring them "not as good" as ourselves.

Or another way to say it...to get to the heart of it all...is to say this is sin. The pride that overwhelms us and controls us so that we will do whatever we can to protect our fragile selves, even demean someone else.

If the root of pride is not uprooted, then the proverbial vines will still creep through our proverbial fences.

The pride of prejudice (and injustice that follows) will only ever be ended when the root is uprooted. That is painful, but that is what Jesus died to do for us. He uproots our pride to plant a new kind of heart. A heart free from self-promotion at someone else’s expense. A heart free to love another with joy even to the point of sacrifice. A heart that is free to create new systems and institutions that will cause people to flourish.

Lament

Lament: Crucifying a Piece of Our Own Heart

Watching the video timeline of what happened in the Powderhorn area in Minneapolis last week, I was stunned silent. There are few times in my life that I have felt that way, but watching how the last few minutes of George Floyd’s life played out, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t process it. Should I be mad? Should I be tearful? I couldn’t express anything. I just sat there in silence, unaware that my mouth was open.

Like so many others, I tried to hold on to the idea that this man’s life ended in a demeaning and unjust way on May 25, 2020. George Floyd should not have been killed. The world shouldn’t have to hear another story like Mr. Floyd’s. The world should never have to carry the weight of this kind of injustice.

Not only is this kind of injustice is real. It is also common.

It is the kind of common and pervasive that I, honestly, do not want to deal with. This kind of injustice has affected the African American community uniquely and to a degree that no community should have to bear.

Mere Activism is Never (Deep) Enough

The only way to deal with systematic and personal injustice is to go deeper than we are willing to go on our own…not merely social action. There is something deeper within us all. Along with the real loss of a man who was crafted purposefully in God’s image (which is grievous enough) what we find in the hidden places of our hearts should cause us to lament.

Living in the Soviet Union during the reign of Joseph Stalin, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn lived as a citizen and an outspoken critic of the country and system he lived in. His conviction eventually led him to incarceration in one of the Soviet’s infamous gulags. Solzhenitsyn was a man who looked into the face of real evil and injustice and wrestled with the underlying causes. Responding to questions about where evil comes from in his book, The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn wrote words that are so true that we may not want to hear them:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

It is simple to say evil comes from “out there” or “in those people.” Too simple and too safe. It takes courage to say the evil in society starts with the evil in me. That courage is a gift from God. (2 Timothy 2:25)

There is a lot I Don’t Understand, but Something I Do

I am a white man sitting in a predominately anglo area of Seattle. My life experience is not the same at all of those who are protesting the injustice. It makes me angry, but not in the same way and with the same depth as those who now come to expect that kind of treatment. Though I want to fully understand, I honestly don’t.

But, I do understand me. I do understand how easy it is for me to look down on another person because they are different than me. A specific ethnicity or culture do not make a big difference to me. I am color blind in the way that I can be self-righteous towards people. (Please read that again…that’s not a complement to myself)

Because my understanding of my bentness towards looking down on others and using my “power” to abuse others (let’s call that “self-righteousness” like Jesus does), I recognize that I am not alone in that. It isn’t a trait limited to a political persuasion or ethnicity, it is a human problem. As many have said before me, It is the default mode of every human heart and works out in many insidious and sinful ways.

Sin is the root of the reason why we would rather sacrifice someone for our own good rather than giving ourselves- joyfully- for one another. For the sin of racism (both personal and systemic) to be destroyed so must that piece of our hearts that fuels it.

”Repent” is a Reconciling Word
The lament will also lead us to repent. We need to repent of our self-righteousness. We need to let the God who knows our hearts, expose the secrets of our hearts. This is true, not so we will hang our heads in guilt and shame, but that we might re-formed (really “re-created”) towards sacrificing for our neighbors rather than sacrificing them for our wants.

We don’t want to hear the answers. God’s answer will painfully rend our hearts. Being exposed will shine light on that piece of our hearts that we want to hide. It will challenge the perception of “goodness” that we long for for ourselves- our pride in having it together- and humble us.

A lamenting heart that sees the injustice it can create is by far more freeing and transformative than a token gesture on social media.

If I sound self-righteous in my tone, please forgive me. I am self-righteous. Jesus is saving me from my own desire to look down on others so I feel better about myself. That is why I write this. I need to repent. I want to lament my own sin…taking out the plank in my own eye so I can be free to lovingly, humbly, and boldly help my brother with his.

Repentance Means Saying “Maybe Its Me”

I want our first action to be to ask "Could I really be part of the problem?" That's hard because it is exposing. I'm grieving that exposure myself right now because I know how easy it is for me to look at flaws in others to make myself feel better. No one really wants to see what is really in their heart. But, systemic racism will only end through people answering "yes" to the question above and also finding hope that Jesus transforms a selfish heart into a self-less heart like His own.

If you have read this far would you lament with me? Lament the real injustices and the root causes of it: no one is righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10)

It doesn’t have to be loud and overt. It shouldn’t be public or put on. Just let the Spirit of God work in our hearts to help us to grieve what he grieves, hate what he abhors, and (at the same time) live out the times of refreshing he promised. (Acts 3:20)

There will be a time when we will not have curfews every night and there won’t be as many protest posters carried on our streets, but the deep, heart issues will remain. Let’s grieve them then, too.

Lament for a Purpose

Lament in order to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Lament in order that the world might see (and experience) the freedom that comes through repentance and faith in Jesus.

In order that the God whose image every human being bears might be known and treasured. Treasured as the One who allowed his own loving heart to be rent on an unjust cross to pay our penalty for our injustices. (Romans 6:23)

Please lament with me. Grieve with me what God’s Spirit grieves. Pray with me for a broken heart over sin. Not just “their” sin, but our own sin. That is the beginning of severing the root of racism.

"I Did it [His] Way"

In 1974, Frank Sinatra stood in front of a large crowd in Madison Square Garden and told his loyal fans that they were about to "do the national anthem, but you needn't rise." After just a few notes played and two words sung ("And now...") the crowd cheered at a song they recognized. Not "O Say Can You see," but these words:

And now the end is near and so I face the final curtain
My friend I'll say it clear, I'll state my case of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full, I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.

The "national anthem." One we sing with fanfare and patriotic gusto. The other we live with (almost) unchecked resolve. "I am going to live my way" is the heart's cry for many and might be the greatest unquestioned mission statement of most of those who call themselves "Americans."

Jesus sees something different, though. He sees something different than we do about our desire to live it our way. He sees into our own lostness that comes from "doing it our way." Matthew says:

Matthew 9:36: ”When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

In the crowds of individual people who he walked among who were each (though not American) doing it their way, he looked past the pride and bravado and saw weariness and scatteredness. Jesus still looks at all of the crowds and (with compassion) sees how our self-guidance leads us to places we wouldn't go if we knew where we were really going...and knew what we were losing by not following Jesus' way.

Jesus' invitation to us is to his abundant life, but that abundant life never comes from living merely our own way...following our own course. Abundant life comes from turning our backs on our own selfish ways and following the One who welcomes us into his life...to being with the One who knows where the "life that's full" really is.