Enlightened Eyes

Today was not a bad day-turned-good. This day has been good all along. It's one of my dearest friends' birthdays, which is a reason to be thankful in and of itself. I got to talk to Hannah before I got to work, and she was in a great mood. We traded hellos in four languages - Guten tag! Buenos dias! Bonjour! Hello! - and she showed me her new coloring book, "The Promises of God", which combines the coloring craze with Scripture. We talked about our favorite verses in the book. One of them reminded her of the Bible verse she has been memorizing - Lamentations 3:22-23 - and she recited it (which she was sure she'd never be able to do).

But before any of this happened, I was getting ready for work, and I was thinking about God. As I did, I was hit with a wave of intense LOVE for the Lord. I was drying my hair and started to sing one of my favorite songs these days:

You're a good, good Father
It's Who You are
Who You are
Who You are
And I'm loved by You
It's who I am
It's who I am
It's who I am

So as I was rejoicing in Who He is, I offered up a little prayer:

Lord, would you please show me tangibly today that You love me? I know You do, but can You still show me by allowing this song to play in the car? Will You please send me that little love letter?

I got in my car, tuned the radio to the local Christian station, and I listened, hoping to receive God's little love letter. I kept the radio on in the background as I called Hannah and talked to her during my car ride. I forgot about my prayer, enjoyed my time with her, got to work, and started my day.


Fast forward to 2:46 PM. By this time, the sky has transformed into one of my favorite designs: brilliant, bright blue sky with white puffy clouds. There's a gentle breeze. The day is hot but not humid (thank you Jesus!). The grass and trees are a vibrant green. It's a Friday afternoon, and I'm leaving work. What's not to love? Good moods are easy in moments like those.

I started my car, turned up the radio, and "God's Not Dead" by the Newsboys was just starting. Another song I LOVE (male vocalist, builds to an emotional crescendo, there's no choir but there is that very loud whispery section when the music stops for a second... see a theme?). So I turn up the radio until the back window is vibrating - literally - roll down the windows a bit, put on my sunglasses, and sing/shout along about how my God is not dead and IS surely alive. #TRUTH

The song ends. I'm feeling happy. Traffic is stop-and-go. I check an email (while stopped, people) from a friend. I put the phone down and pay attention to the radio again as traffic starts to move. The DJ is talking about something she read about God meeting us wherever we are. It's a nice discussion.

But I want some music!

I think about turning the station, and then I remember my prayer from this morning. I get lost in thought.

Time to change the station. Well, no, wait. I prayed that God would show me His love today by playing that song for me in the car. If I turn off the radio, I won't get to hear if He does. 

Well, that's okay if the song doesn't get played. It's really not my job to tell God to show me He loves me in a certain way. I should trust Him to show me how He chooses to show me (no guilt trip - just me processing). He already showed He loved me through many good things today, and I love the Newsboys song, so that's a blessing right there. He might not play the song I asked for, and that's okay. 

(Pause)

Well, that's true, and it's also not wrong for me to ask for this specific song. 

(Pause while I consider if I really want to say to Him what I'm thinking. I go for it. Picture me squaring my shoulders, straightening my back, and taking a deep breath.)

So I'm actually going to leave the radio on this station. And God, I am going to wait for you to play the song. I don't want to miss you playing it for me. I believe You will. 

At that moment, God hadn't promised me anything in the literal sense. He had not promised to play that song. I had asked Him to, but He had not promised me He would. And it's a song, for crying out loud. Did I want to stake a claim on that stretch of land in the vastness of knowing God?

Apparently, because I was claiming something.

I was claiming God's goodness.

I was claiming the freedom to ask this of Him.

I was claiming - and therefore believing - that He was going to show up.

For ME.

And while I'm talking about myself, here's something else about me.


Bold prayers like this are not me.

Let me say that again: bold prayers like this, where I tell God what I want and tell Him I am waiting on Him to do it, are NOT. ME. 

A more common "prayer" is much (muchmuchmuchmuch) more like this: 

Well, that's okay if the song doesn't get played. It's really not my job to tell God to show me He loves me in a certain way. I should trust Him to show me how He chooses to show me (starting to feel guilt for disrespecting God by telling Him what to do). He already showed He loved me through many good things today, and I love the Newsboys song, so that's a blessing right there (finger-wagging, starting to scold myself). He might not play the song I asked for, and that's okay. 

So I'm actually going to leave the radio on this station. And God, I am going to wait for you to play the song. I don't want to miss you playing it for me, because I believe You will. And I'm going to hope again that God plays the song. And pray, too, of course, because I need to show God that I am willing to pray bold prayers. Other people pray them, and we are invited and commanded to pray boldly, to pray trusting that God will answer and show up. And I always envy people who can do that. I want to do that, Lord! But on the other hand, I also know I shouldn't limit how You'll move or when You'll act. I'm making a big deal out of a song. This feels silly. Plus maybe He wants to show me in some other way. Who am I to tell You how to communicate with me? It's not for me to tell You what to do. It's for me to ask and wait and accept what You give me and appreciate that. So, radio stays on, and I will wait and see if he answers.

Do you hear the difference? Oh, man, I sure do. How I usually "pray" about these things is with a spirit of wanting something and trying to reason through if it's appropriate to ask for it. It's a prayer intermingled with lots of thinking about what I'm praying and how I'm praying. It's me waiting and hoping He will show up, not waiting and believing He will. It's a low-cost prayer, with nothing much at risk because nothing much is at stake. It's me wondering if it's okay to be that bold. It's me being that girl in the group of wound-up kiddos who are jumping off the side of the pool into the deep end, cannonball style, while I hang back, watching their liberated and jubilant jumping, feeling uncertain about doing it myself, wondering if it's possible for me, thinking that I probably can't. It's me talking mostly to me about what God will do, not me talking completely to God about what God will do.

So today's prayer is different.  I'm standing on a promise about Who God is - a God who answers and says He loves me - without Him ever specifically saying He'll answer me or show me His love in this way. I'm changing my "ifs" to "whens" and I'm changing my "hoping" to "believing." I'm putting some skin in the game. And the skin I've just invested has left a raw, exposed spot that I'd really like to cover up quickly.

It's like a client said to me yesterday as she talked about incorporating God into her therapeutic journey. She said she knows she needs to lean on God more. I replied, "So how can you take that step?"

She answered, "I need to leap."

This prayer was me leaping.


Maybe leaping doesn't look like praying bold prayers for you. Maybe you have no trouble with that (if so, you're my hero). Maybe this isn't even that bold of a prayer for you. But I'm sure you have some area where you tiptoe instead of leap. Whatever your thing is, let me share the Word God is laying on my heart as I type this:

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7).

It's true that sometimes we ask God for specific things, and He doesn't provide them. There are so many reasons for why this might be that it's not worth taking the time to list them.

That God doesn't love us, doesn't care about our desires, and doesn't want to generously bless us is NOT among them.

He DOES love us. He DOES care about our desires. He DOES want to generously bless us.

In this situation, He might not answer with the song I asked to hear. It's not a knock against what God is willing to do for me or the lengths He's willing to go to show me His love for me if it doesn't. It's an unanswered prayer, yes, but unanswered prayers are not evidence of an unloving God, and they don't have to rock my world if I keep my eyes fixed on Him, not His answers.

So His love and goodness are not really the question here. The question is why don't I pray boldly and ask without timidity?

It's related to that whole "spirit of fear" thing. I don't pray boldly because I'm afraid to do so.

Will I be disrespecting God to ask in a bold and specific way for what I want? 

Am I limiting God when I do this? 

Am I being needy, asking for more proof when I've already been given enough?

What if He doesn't answer?

When I struggle to pray for something as little as God demonstrating His love through a specific song on the radio, it's partly that I worry God won't answer and then I'll doubt His love, but it's just as much, if not more so, that I worry I am acting like an entitled child who has to have her own way. That I'm being like those who always need signs and wonders (John 4:48). That I'm bossing Him around or telling Him how to behave. Those feel like big no-nos, so I get afraid, and I get quiet.

But my Father did tell me that "perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). So if I'm afraid, I'm missing that He loves me enough to save me from my horrible, wretched sins, which means He can certainly accept me with my bold, please-show-me prayers.

Here's an example of how I know: as a non-parent, the person in this world I love most parentally is Hannah. When she asks for specific things, I give them, as long as they are good for her. I am not annoyed or put out when she makes specific requests. It never even crosses my mind. And when she says, "Tia, I need you to sign my agenda book for school," I don't say, "Good grief, kid! Don't tell me what you need. I know you need it. I haven't forgotten. I was going to do it anyway, but since you've gone and asked so directly, I'm not going to do it because you need to learn to trust me." That is an irrational, impatient, thin-skinned, unloving, and unpredictable response. And it certainly does not invite trust. It invites fear.

But God is none of those things. And God casts out fear.

God is not irrational; He is the perfect blend of reason and emotion. (Ever notice that Proverbs and Psalms are neighbors?)

He is not impatient; He is slow to anger (Exodus 34:6, Numbers 14:18, Psalm 103:8...).

He is not thin-skinned; He is secure in Himself and unthreatened by our misunderstanding of Him. (Read Job.)

He is not unloving; He is abounding in love (Psalm 86:15).

Though He's not predictable in what He does, He is predictable in Who He is. "God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19).

He is the picture of faithfulness, which makes Him the only worthy object of our faith.

And when she asks me, "Tia, do you love me?"

... and I say, "YES!"

... and she says, "HOW much?"

... and I say, "Big huge gigantic eNORmous much!"

... and she says, "Show me!"

... and I pull a muscle in my back as I stretch my arms as far apart as they will go

... and she smiles

... well, I am definitely not annoyed that she's asking again.

I am caught up in loving her. 

I'll tell her as many times as she wants to be told. I'll tell her even when she doesn't want to be told.

It gives me pleasure to tell her generally AND specifically that I love her. I like to demonstrate it in all kinds of ways. And if she wants me to show in her in a specific way (because when kids ask us to tickle them, watch them play video games, do our hair, take a picture, or listen to something that happened at school, we're being asked to love them), that's wonderful, too.

Why would it be any different with God?

How could it be?

After all, perfect love casts out fear.

When I don't pray boldly because I worry that God will be offended by it, I am forgetting that He loves me perfectly. An honest request - especially for Him to show me He loves me - will never be met with annoyance, impatience, or wrath. He will not respond with disappointment or anger in me. He delights in my belief that it's always always always okay to ask. 

Just stopped in quickly to celebrate and thank the Lord for His provision - today I PAID OFF my heat pump that I had to replace (and hadn't been planning or saving up to do so) when it died in July of 2011. Thankfully, I was able to get a two-years same-as-cash credit card through the company that makes the heat pump (Carrier), which allowed me to make payments without accruing interest instead of coming up with the money all at once. I had to pay it off by August of this year to avoid having the interest rebound on me, and today, I made the last payment!

$5600 of debt gone!!!

Thank you, Lord!!!!!!!

I was doing some thinking a few weeks ago about relationships. How much I value them, how they bring me joy and fulfillment unlike anything else in my life, how they are at the foundation of my work - which is probably a big part of why I love my work so much - and many more thoughts like these.

Maybe for you, the thing that gives you the most joy and fulfillment is your work. Maybe it's your hobbies, your ministry, your marriage, your children, or something else entirely. The point is, I think we all have something like this, something that makes us want more of what it is that that thing gives us or makes us feel. (Those reading this post are probably believers, so I'm excluding for this present part of the conversation our walks with God.)

For me, a deep, healthy, alive relationship makes me want more from it. More time, more conversation, more affirmation, more acceptance, more validation, more approval, more connection, more encouragement, more mutual burden-sharing.... more, more, more.

That's fine, but here's the problem: my relationships cannot provide those things as fully as I hunger for them. And fill in the blank with whatever it is that fulfills YOU; that thing can't give to you as fully as you want it to anymore than my relationships can for me.

Now fast forward to recently, when I got to have one of those conversations that makes me want more - a long, deep, sharing-the-weight-of-things-on-both-of-our-hearts type of talk with a treasured friend. We talked about a relationship that isn't providing everything the friend wants or needs. And I heard myself say this: "Relationships can satisfy, but they can't satiate."

You might think these words are synonyms. They kind of are; we use them interchangeably to mean filled up. But there's a key difference between them: "satiate" means to be satisfied to the full. So we can be satisfied, but we aren't necessarily filled up to the full by the things that satisfy us, even when those things are good things.

Now, let the record show that I don't say this because I like it. I say this because it rings true. In my work with hurting people - heck, in my own quiet little life! - I'm shown all the time that this life brings as much disappointment as it does delight.

With a new job... there is the loss of moving away.

With an apology.... comes the hurt from a damaged relationship.

With childbirth... comes pain.

With marriage.... comes the realization that your spouse isn't Mr./Mrs. Perfect the way the culture taught you they would be.

With home ownership... comes financial burdens and big decisions.

With faith... comes fear.

With hope... comes disappointment.

With joy.... comes heartache.

With life... comes death.

My point in all of this is that, with every good and perfect gift we receive in this world - and, make no mistake, we are blessed with MANY good and perfect gifts from our Father above - we experience a tinge of incompletion. Actually, I think a better word is imperfection. We hunger for perfection, which is why we want our relationships, jobs, marriages, children, finances, etc. to fully satisfy us. To satiate us. To fill us up to the full so that we don't have those nagging empty spaces inside our hearts or minds anymore. To be pleasantly distracted away from all that is unpleasant. That elusive state of perfection where things finally feel complete, no longer lacking. We seek fullness from things, but we are perpetually disappointed because they do not - can not - fill us to the full.

As I think back to God's original design for humanity, Adam and Eve were pretty content, pretty darn satisfied, with what God gave them. But I don't think they were satisfied in those things.... after all, how could they be? To find our satisfaction in our things in to find it outside of God, which is not consistent with His design, which makes it sin. Since there was no sin before the fall, their contentment must have been in God - even more than in each other, can you believe that!?! Adam and Eve's contentment was in the Lord Himself, the Giver of all of those many good things.

Then sin enters into the world, and the extramarital affair with our things begins. We became chronically, disturbingly infatuated with things. We are distracted from God by things. We spend (and therefore waste) far too much time chasing things. We hope for and in things. We cling to things. We mourn over the loss of things, and we jump for joy at the accumulation of things. And, again, things can refer to anything - relationships, people, hobbies, you name it. 

Because God is good, He allowed good things to continue to feel good after the fall. He didn't penalize our sin with denying our ability to find satisfaction in things.. In fact, surprisingly enough, many who don't know Him live satisfied lives.

But I think He allowed, or caused, or whatever word you want to use here, those good things to become laced with dissatisfaction after the fall. The question is why. Why would He allow or intentionally introduce dissatisfaction into things that are still satisfying to some degree? Isn't that unnecessarily punitive or spiteful or vindictive or "Indian giver-ish"of Him? Isn't it enough to be inherently sinful and constantly hounded by our sin?

If God was primarily about punishment, it would make sense that He intentionally sought to diminish our satisfaction "just because." It would make sense that, because we deserve it, He punishes us. But the Lord is not primarily about punishment. Look at all the ways He doesn't smite us when we are disrespectful of His holiness, feel entitled to His endorsement of our choices or provision of our desires, withhold praise, act selfishly, respond with anger, wallow in self-pity, offer conditional surrender, feel critical of His ways, or indulge our pride. Do we get what we deserve? No way! He protects us, pursues us, and even provides for us in the midst of our ugly temper tantrums. He gives us the job we wanted but accused Him of not caring enough about us to provide. He brings the child we bitterly decided He had forgotten we desired. He provides for a pay raise when we confidently announced to Him our awareness that He was planning to make us struggle forever financially in order to teach us a lesson. He sends a friend our way to initiate time with us when we had lost hope that our relational needs were on His radar. He leads into our lives the spouse we had questioned if He thought we were worthy of.

So, um, that'd be a NO. He is NOT about punishment primarily. He's about His glory, and providing good things, and being in restored relationship with His creation.

And if He knows that He is the best good thing He can give His children, but He continues to give us good things that He knows we'll all-too-easily have emotional affairs with, maybe He causes/allows those things to becomes laced with some dissatisfaction so that we are purposefully left a little empty, even when we get the biggest, best helping of them that they have to offer.

Ultimately, I think the point of being left empty, dissatisfied, and learning to find satisfaction in that curious state can be found in the words of Christ in John 10:10. In the NIV, Christ's words read, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." In The Message, Christ's words are put this way - and even more poignantly for the point I'm trying to make -"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

(SIDE NOTE: There was a time where I was fearful of The Message. My heart, trapped as it was in legalism, feared this translation would water down my understanding of the Gospel. How good the Lord is that this is totally not the case! This translation makes me appreciate who the Lord is and how He reigns in a way that makes me want relationship with Him, not in a way that makes me think less of Him or take Him less seriously. So Praise the Lord for that! Now back to my original idea for this post.)

Christ came to give us abundant life. Christ came to give us real life, more and better life than we can dream of. The best life we can dream of, left to our own devices, is a life of abundant things (relationships/work/children/marriage/money/etc.). This is the life we think is real because it's the closest we can come to defining what makes life meaningful.

So while it's hard, embracing that we will be dissatisfied in what satisfied us can help us remember where home is and what life is ultimately about. It's not about an abundance of infatuations with things that are good. It's about remembering that the abundance Christ offers is housed in Himself, the true and living God. HE is life. He came to give us life, which means we wouldn't have one without Him. We'd live, but we would not have LIFE without HIM.

Our relationships/work/marriages/children/hobbies will satisfy us. They will be like a great meal made of your fill-in-the-blank favorite food item. But when you've had your favorite food item, don't you tend to overeat it? And don't you tend to overeat it because you want more? And when you want more, and can't have it, even though what you did get was really good, isn't that just a smidge disappointing? Maybe it's not for you, but it is for me. So letting me experience some satisfaction, but tempering that with dissatisfaction, keeps me coming back to the Lord for my completion, growing in relationship with Him, knowing Him better, giving myself over to Him more and more, and truly accepting that His path is actually the better path that I quickly give lip service to but don't always totally believe. Being dissatisfied in the things that provide satisfaction moves me forward in my relationship with Jesus, making it alive and real and vibrant and the source of all of those things I crave. And - best of all - this relationship actually CAN give me all of that - and more - because it is with the One who is the SOURCE of "real and eternal life," a life that is "more and better" than I can dream of.

And THAT is pretty satisfying.

You know, I started this blog several years ago, and it makes me sad sometimes when I see the number of posts I write each year dwindle. Part of that is explained by the fact that, much of the year, I have a second job that requires some time and energy throughout the week. I work 50-55 hours a week many weeks, and I often feel too drained to take the time to sit down and write out my thoughts here. I have things I want to say, but we all know I'm verbose, so taking the time to get them out is tiring sometimes. That's a bummer because writing this blog is such a good outlet for me, and I miss it when I don't add to it very often.

So far this year, in addition to the part time job, there have been issues at my full time job that have been consuming in many ways. That's about all I can say about that (but let's be real... most of you reading this are close family/friends, and you know what the situation is). It's been an interesting process to say the least. I'm now acting director of our department, which has been an affirming blessing, an adjustment, a frightening change, and a daunting assignment. I'm back today to get myself going again. I'm not setting a goal for how often I'll write, but I do hope to be back often.

In the meantime, here are some things I'm learning about myself these days:

* I wanted to work on being braver this year. Well, be careful what you set goals for, because I've been given opportunities for bravery left, right, behind, before, upside down, rightside up, and every which way. Hmmm... maybe next year the goal should be to work on laughing more? ;)

* I have always said I know what I think right away. I'm realizing I don't always know what I feel right away, which means I am learning to accept that a calm immediate response to crisis or adversity is usually going to be followed up by stronger, different feelings a few hours/days later.

* I have work to do in practicing acceptance in life... accepting that my ideal in a given situation will not always match reality, accepting that there's only so much I'm capable of, accepting that there's a limited amount of "easy" in life, and the rest is naturally going to be hard.... Acceptance is a skill I still need to work on.

* I'm remembering that it's one thing to SAY God's timing is perfect. It's another to truly EMBRACE that God's timing is perfect.

* It's one thing to say I trust God. It's another thing to actually trust God. When He turns me 90 degrees away from path I saw ahead of me - the one that was hugged by meadows on either side, that was flat and straight and easy, that ended at safe, welcoming, and cozy cottage nestled in the woods - toward one that is shrouded by fog, uncomfortably narrow, bordered by cliffs sometimes, seems perpetually dark, and has an unknown endpoint, do I still trust Him? Is He any less good? No. Is He any less kind? No. And do I believe those things, or are those just the answers I know to give? Do I live out of a belief that God is trustworthy, even in the middle of totally chaotic and painful circumstances that don't seem to end? Good question. I'm still working on that level of trust, too.

* I've been reminded of the power of empathizing with and validating others' feelings. It's hard to ask a person to get beyond his or her feelings until those feelings have been heard. We don't have to agree with them or have the same reaction that the other person is having. But by hearing them, letting them have air time and attention, we make the other person feel safe and accepted, and with safety and acceptance, he or she is much more able to figure out how to respond to those feelings in a healthy, God-honoring way. I want that acceptance and validation - do I offer it to others?

* I'm learning, again (you'd have thought I'd gotten this by now), that relationships won't always go my way. They will bless me, boost me, and embolden me, but they will not give me everything I want or need. I have to live with a little dissatisfaction this side of heaven, even in the blessings I hold most dear. That's a hard one. We get a blessing and try to make it manufacture for us lasting contentment. It won't work, but we keep trying over and over.

* I've been learning how to be vulnerable for extended periods of time in my relationships. I've needed to regularly lean on the people I love these past few months, and I'm realizing I still need work with this. Historically, I occupy center stage in a friendship for a a few conversations, and then the situation resolves itself, and the relationship becomes more give-and-take again. Sometimes, I even purposely keep the focus on the other person because it feels like so much work to talk about myself. It's been humbling to have genuinely needed attention a majority of the time in my relationships these past few months with work and personal life burdens. I'm thankful for gracious and kind friends who have generously given me center stage and haven't made me feel like I'm wearing them out.

* I'm learning that, even though I know not to put my trust in other human beings or my work, I still do. I'm realizing how much of a daily task it is to avoid that pitfall. No matter how amazing, kind, good, fulfilling, and safe those other people or the job is, anything but the Lord will still ultimately be unable to provide lasting security. Ugh - this is so hard for me. I'm thankful sanctification is a life-long process... because I think it's going to take me my whole life to figure this out! ;)

* Finally, on a lighter note, I'm learning just how much I am NOT a garage saler. My neighbors are having a garage sale today - literally 50 feet from where I'm sitting. They have nice things, too. Have I set foot in their yard to look at what they're selling? Nope. :)

One of the aspects of my job I love most is the chance to facilitate support groups. This semester  my friend/coworker and I are leading a group on stewarding sexuality. The phrase "stewarding sexuality" might be unfamiliar to you; it was for me until I was able to participate in a small group conversation with Mark Yarhouse, a counselor, researcher, and professor at Regent University. Mark talks about stewarding our sexuality well; if you've gone to church, you know that the issue of stewardship of money is a familiar topic. We're taught that we need to use and save our money in a God-honoring way. The same mentality can be applied to sexuality. We need to use our sexuality - an inherent aspect of our creation - in a way that honors God. However, we tend to put sexuality in a separate box and treat it like it's just ours, that it's exempt from the issue of stewardship. My pastor had a great analogy about this concept in a recent sermon about sexuality. He said, "I love roller coasters, but even so, I wouldn't say to the attendant working at the ride, 'No thanks. I don't need the harness this time.' The harness is meant to help me enjoy the roller coaster well."That's what stewarding sexuality looks like - using it in a God-honoring way so that we can enjoy it well.

That analogy of a harness helping us to enjoy a roller coaster well has really stuck with me. There are lots of areas where I think I try to throw off the harness, believing the lie that life is better without it. In reality, it's reckless to live without it. Instead of fleeing from sin to righteousness, rejecting the harness means I'm fleeing from righteousness to sin. I know the things that tempt me toward my particular sin struggles, and the sad truth is that, sometimes, I embrace them instead of reject them. It's as if I approach the roller coaster of my sin, eye the harness, square my shoulders, decide that I've got a strong enough grip to ride the coaster harness-free, and hop on.

I could opt to secure myself with the healthy restraints of godly thought and behavior. Instead, sometimes I look around inside my mind and see that I've seated myself on a roller coaster that's slowly ascending the lift hill. The wise choice would be to grab for the harness and yank it down over my shoulders as hard and as fast as I can. Instead, sometimes I sit still, riding juuuuuuuuust a bit farther up the hill before lowering the harness into its intended position (which is to protect my safety). Other times, I ignore it completely, thinking I'm either too far gone, the sin will be worth it, or it won't be a big deal this time.

I don't think I'm alone in this. When we feel ourselves on the verge of saying something we shouldn't, doing something we shouldn't, or lingering on a thought we shouldn't... and there's that moment where we pause and debate if we should move ahead with the comment/action/thought... and then we do move ahead with it.... well, we do so because we decide that wanting what we want is reason enough to go get it.

Pastor Rob emphasized the word well in his analogy, and I think that adds something important to the word picture. It reminds me that the reason for the harnesses we have been given is to enjoy our life. We usually shove away the harness because we buy the lie that it limits our joy, but in reality, it enhances it. It offers us hope. It is meant to protect our safety, not sacrifice our contentment. Yes, it does limit our access to some things. This is not because we are not supposed to enjoy those things. It's because those things are best enjoyed in a certain way. I enjoy Doritos; I could eat a bag of them in one sitting, but when I see the empty bag, the enjoyment I had from them quickly fades. I enjoy Disney; I resist the idea of moving to Orlando, however, because I think the distance helps me enjoy my time there well. I enjoy having spending money; having a budget helps me enjoy my spending money well because it's no fun at all when I spend more money than I have.

I want to have as much joy as I can get out of this life. I believe God wants me to have joy, too. Our perspectives about where I can get that joy differ based on what He says in Isaiah 55:8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." His definition of what will hold joy for me is informed by His holy, good, and all-seeing vision. My definition, however, is informed by my short-sighted, self-interested, want-it-right-now attitude. He and I both see how some things make me temporarily happy (which, by the way, is not the same as having joy) - speaking my mind in a blunt way, for example. Only He, though, can see into the future to how I'll feel later on, when I recognize that I sinned and feel like my tongue cast a shadow over that conversation. As a result, He has provided me with the opportunity to harness my tongue, for my safety and for my continued joy.

When I start seeing the harnesses God has provided for me as His attempts to discourage or limit my joy, I think that's an indication that I am fast approaching - or am already on - the roller coaster without the harness. It's a lie, plain and simple, that the harness is incompatible with my joy. On the contrary, the harness is meant to keep my sinful desires from sabotaging the joy God has for me. What a different perspective that is! Here's to remembering that God is for my good, for my growth, and for my godliness. If His harnesses help me get there, I pray He'll help me see them for the beautiful gifts that they are and gratefully, willingly lower them into place.

Today I went to a women's conference at the church I've been attending the last several months. There were some really good thing that were said by the speaker, and a few of them stuck out to me, so I'm sharing the wealth. :)

She talked about the fruit of the Spirit. She reminded us that, in order to reap a fruitful harvest, we have to have a seed. And in order to have a seed, something had to die. You can't get at a seed unless the fruit that carried it was plucked and cut open. Jen (the speaker) said that our producing the fruit of the Spirit requires that we die to self. This makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? I can't grow in self-control unless I deny myself what I want. I can't grow in gentleness unless I squash (with God's help) the part of my personality that can be a bully in pursuit of my own agenda.

Lesson #1 - To produce the fruit of the spirit, I have to die to myself.

Another point she made continued on in the theme of fruit-production. What a breath of fresh air to have a speaker at a women's conference remind the audience that the command to be fruitful and multiply is not just about making babies! As she pointed out, this leaves the single woman, or the childless woman, or the woman not called to have children out in the cold (I was really excited she mentioned the last group as I think Christian women sometimes feel really baffled that a women might be married but choose not to have children). However, that doesn't absolve these women - or the men who can't birth a child - from being fruitful. She reminded us that intentional godliness in any of our key relationships can be a way to be fruitful and multiply.

Lesson #2 - We can be fruitful and multiply when we are intentionally showing Christ in any key relationship.

A third point she made related to the idea of change. Jen challenged us that sometimes people feel entitled to stay the way we are. When someone points out an area of sin, we say, "Well, that's the way I am. Take it or leave it." Jen reminded us that the only person who can't change is God, and when we believe we can't change, we tell a lie to ourselves about God and about us.

Lesson #3 - Change is our greatest hope; that's what the Gospel is about. 

Jen reminded us that we need to rule over and subdue our sin nature. This isn't easy for us; she said, "We don't turn from a sin that we do not hate." Powerful words! If we think back onto sins that we no longer commit, it's because we found a better and greater love. Jen said we spend a lot of time being line-walkers. We see the line of bad behavior, like don't gossip, for example, and we figure out how close we can get to the line without crossing it. That's not us hating our sin. When we ask ourselves how close we can get without crossing the line, there's already a problem. The issue is the motive of our heart. We are commanded to flee from sin. Just running away from sin isn't enough; that's us trying to conquer our sin on our own strength.

Lesson #4 - We need to flee from sin to righteousness.  

Last but not least, Jen reminded us that we often get really focused on ourselves and all the things we can do in our own strength. We see ourselves as the centers of our own little universes, which shows pretty quickly that our attention is on us, not on Him. We don't follow His example to rest. She reminded us that Matthew 11:28 isn't just about physical rest for people who are stressed out; it's a "soul Sabbath" for us that can only be found in Christ. It's saying that there is no more battle against being good enough or smart enough or anything else enough. We aren't taking a soul Sabbath when we think our own lives (or the lives of others who know us) need us or else they will fall apart. This is a lesson that's really good for me to keep in mind due to my "responsibility trigger." I often find myself feeling like I can, or need to, or should, do X, Y, or Z, which is an over-inflated sense of self and distracts me from recognizing that it's God who keeps the world on spinning, not me.

Lesson #5 - On a very regular basis, God invites us to sit still and watch how everything keeps going without us because it is HE who creates and HE who sustains. It's about Him, not us.

I'm always compelled to read the comments sections of articles I read online. I read them for a while until the comments take a turn toward being vitriolic and stomach-turning; people have the courage to say online, behind the anonymity of a computer screen, things that they would seldom say publicly. Anyway, I read a comment today that made me really sad. The poster said, "Religion is like anything else. Take what you want and leave the rest." 

I immediately thought of the verse in Deuteronomy 4:2 that says, "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you." It's a fact that the life God calls us to live is not easy by any means. It's hard, and there is suffering, and there aren't easy answers, and we often do a poor job as believers of representing to the world the Truth and grace of Jesus Christ. 

However, I don't think the answer is to "pick and choose" what parts of the law we follow. If we decide that some parts of God's Word don't apply to us or are archaic, irrelevant, etc., we are deeming ourselves to be a god and, thus, are essentially saying we don't really need God or His wisdom since we're so sure of our own. If He is God, then He is God over all things, not just the parts that we like or are willing to follow. As a counselor, there are few things in life that I'll call "all or nothing," but this is one of them. Either we follow the law, which means following all of it - God's Word, which we are told is Christ incarnate - or we don't. 

So here's a bit of good news: For the parts of the law that are impossible to fulfill, we can take comfort in the words of Christ Himself in Matthew 5:17: "'Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.'" In other words, as one of my pastors recently said, "We live the life of faith with Christ, until we fail... and then we live the life of faith THROUGH Him." 

We won't get it right on our own strength; we will never live righteously enough (or morally enough/good enough/whatever other word you want to use) to honor God on our own. That's why God gave us a Savior: to do for us what we could never do - forgive, cleanse, accept, and redeem us - for ourselves.