Letting You In

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Elizabeth

Why is it so difficult to allow people to come in close?

I enjoy having friends, of course, but I still want to keep everyone at just a bit of distance.

Even my husband and my children. I will let them in closer than any others, but there is still a part of myself that I hold in reserve.

You too?

Why do we do this? Why is it so hard to be completely vulnerable with anyone?

Fear, I think, is the most simple answer.

We know how ugly our hearts can be. For myself, I know the arrogance and rage that can live inside and I want people to still like me.

We want everyone else to think well of us, so we let them in enough to show that we are human, but not far enough in to let them see how very human we really are.

We don’t want to see the shock and revulsion on their faces were they to hear the thoughts that go through our minds. We want others to like us.

It is often even hard to let God in.

Logically, I know that He already sees the deepest, most ugly bits of me, but I still have the desire to make everything look pretty before I show it to Him. You see, I want God to like me too.

Not just love me. Like me.

Love seems to be a choice, a way of treating someone. Liking, though, seems more enjoyable.

Love is what I do even when it is hard. Liking is what comes naturally when I enjoy spending time with someone.

Yet God went to extraordinary lengths to be with us. He tells us that He wants to sit with us over meals, that He sings over us and He wants to wipe away our tears. He calls us friends.

Such amazing grace this is.

If only I could believe it completely, I would have no trouble at all in letting others in.

God, help my unbelief.

Art credit: Three Crosses sketch by Rembrandt

Works and Grace

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Elizabeth

His thoughts and wisdom come from years of walking steadily towards God.

This father of mine who has read the Bible through every year for years upon years, who yet still is searching and seeking, discovering new depths in this Word that he loves.

We walk through the woods, sunlight blazing through the red and yellow leaves, the sounds of fall in the leaves at our feet. In spurts, in between the happy screams of children running up and down hills, he speaks to me of his latest wonderings.

He wonders about the difference between the writings of Paul and words of Jesus.

“What if…” he feels his way forward. “What if we didn’t have Paul’s letters? What if all we had were the gospels, the words of Jesus? Jesus speaks much more of actions, of behavior, of thoughts and emotions. He almost never speaks of grace.”

He’s right. Jesus doesn’t dwell much on the beauties of grace. His business seems to be with the practical, with the fruit that a life of a disciple should bear.

Only those who do the Father’s commands will enter the Kingdom.

By your words you will be acquitted or condemned.

When asked, What must I do to be saved?, His answer is simple: Keep the commandments.

It is enough to bring despair, if that were the only way to be saved. Obedience for salvation? This is not gospel. This is not good news.

Yet when someone comes to Him for healing, Jesus tells them that it is their own faith that has saved them.

What does it mean, this faith that is a saving faith? What kind of a faith will save us?

Perhaps a clue comes from the times that Jesus tells us, Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life.

Perhaps it does all come down to whether or not we truly believe Jesus. If we truly believe that His way is best, that He is who He says He is and therefore knows what in this crazy upside down world He’s talking about, then we will obey Him.

Not perfectly and not all the time (Which is where Paul’s grace seems to come in. Which is where Jesus’ statements like it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God…but with God all things are possible seem to bring in grace), but if you really believe then you will allow your heart to be changed.

Sometimes it is dramatic and fast, like Paul. Other times it comes slowly and painfully, small choice by small choice, like the disciples.

It does seem, at times, that there is an apparent contradiction between works and grace in the New Testament.

It also seems, though, that while we can never be good enough to earn our way in, and while it is only by the blood of Christ that we are able to come near to God at all, at the same time, once we have decided that He is truth then our lives should reflect that truth.

A life that is given up to the Lordship of Christ should bear fruit.

We do not try to obey so that we can be loved, but rather the love of Jesus allows us a beginning of the ability to obey, however imperfectly.

The grace brings about the works.

I am still learning, however, and welcome your own wisdom. What would happen if we only had the gospels and not the letters of Paul? How are grace and works reconciled, and should we put a greater emphasis on works?

We Eat One Another Alive

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Elizabeth

Why do we eat one another alive?

It happens all the time. Just look at what happens any time a Christian leader is found out or, worse, confesses. Just look at what happens whenever a Christian public figure says something that is outside of our comfort zone. Just look at what happens so many times when someone in our own churches does or says something we don’t agree with.

We talk, we rant, we fill up the air with our words. And our words are not of grace.

It is too easy to speak harshly within the anonymous confines of the internet. We forget at times that those on the receiving end of our arrows are as beloved as we are.

Why do we do it?

Fear, perhaps.

We fear that others will think poorly of us or of our faith if we do not speak out quickly and harshly against whatever was wrong. We fear that we will be viewed as the same if we speak words of love instead of words of condemnation.

We fear, perhaps, that we are the same deep down inside, and we do not want anyone to know the truth.

Yet the irony of it all is that the very One we are trying to defend is the same One who shared meals, shared life with those who made the most public of mistakes.

The irony is that the Bible is crammed full of one another verses…and not one of them mentions devouring one another.

Show kindness and mercy to one another.
Love one another.
Outdo one another in showing honor.
Welcome one another.
Bear with one another.
Be kind to one another.
Forgive one another.

These are just the beginning.

Jesus said that people would know that we follow Him by our love. Too often love is not what we show to the world. I confess that perhaps I would not think very highly of Jesus if all that I knew of Him was what I read on the blogs and Facebook pages of His followers.

May God help us.

May the God of love and grace teach us how to get rid of our motto of We eat one another alive.

May He instead change our hearts to adopt the motto of We never leave a fallen comrade behind.

Art Credits: Lion photo by Juliane Riedl; Christ and Samaritan Woman painting by Henryk Siemiradzki

Tolerance or Love?

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Elizabeth

Listen to them argue. Watch as each shakes her head and smiles condescendingly while the other is speaking passionately about what she thinks is right. It often seems that surface level respect doesn’t go very far. Those who support each group seem to vilify the other, speaking out ugly words of disrespect and hate. There will always be someone with whom we disagree, someone we are vehemently sure is wrong.

What do we do with this? What do we do when we disagree, both with those we call brother and sister and with those who do not believe? We are exhorted by our leaders and our culture to be tolerant to those around us. Everywhere we turn we are pleaded with to show tolerance to anyone who is different, anyone who thinks or behaves differently than we do.

And what does that tolerance look like? We are told by our world that we are to stay open-minded, that we are to live and let live, that we should not put up any claim to truth. We are told by the world surrounding us that we can disagree with anyone we want, can believe anything we like, as long as we keep it to ourselves.

This is what our world says. But what about us? Is this what we who are Christ followers are called to be? Tolerant? Is this really all that we can manage, all that we can aspire to do? Tolerance is easy. It doesn’t require anything of either party. It relieves us of all responsibility. It costs us nothing. Tolerance shrugs its shoulders and walks away, leaving you to your own devices. Tolerance doesn’t care.

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” ~ Matthew 22.39

Love is much harder. Love costs our comfort and our time. Love affirms the reality of the other person, culture and way of life. Love takes the trouble to get to know the other person and find out what makes them beautiful. Love wants what is best for that person or culture.

It was love that brought the world to oppose an apartheid regime in South Africa, not tolerance. It was love that lead Martin Luther King to pursue civil rights, not tolerance. It was love that drove William Wilberforce to lead the British parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade, not tolerance.

It was love that sent Jesus to the cross on our behalf, not tolerance.

We live our lives in contact with people who are different. We are surrounded by those who look, dream, think, and believe differently than we. We therefore must pray for strength to choose the harder way. If we are to be Jesus to those around us, if we are to make a difference for Him in this world, we must have the strength to choose love rather than tolerance.

“Love must confront Tolerance and insist, as it has always done, on a better way.” ~ Tim Keller in Generous Justice

Why is love so much harder than tolerance? Why does it require more from us? Part of the reason is that love is asks us to be discerning. Love sometimes asks us to work toward change yet sometimes asks us to see the gray in others rather than viewing the world in black and white alone. It is difficult to see in gray. Life gets harder when you see things from other points of view. Straight lines get hijacked and carry you off to the unknown. Solid perspectives grow a little blurry and you begin to take a softer view of those you disagree with.

The more we meet people who were raised differently and the more we read authors from other places and times and faith traditions, the more we begin to catch a glimpse of how much our view of God, of the Bible, of the world around us is colored by our own place and time and faith tradition.

Just as with every place and time and faith tradition, there is truth to be found and there is misunderstanding. Tolerance allows us to be lazy, to choose what we believe and let others walk on their own path. Love requires that we listen, that we look at those before us with wisdom. As we take the time to know another and love them, we begin to realize that there is something even more important than figuring out what is right and what is wrong.

No human here on earth is my enemy. We who claim the name of Christ are all trying to love Jesus and obey God’s words. Rather than those who disagree with us being the enemy, being one who is deliberately misinterpreting God’s words, being one who picks and chooses what they will believe, those who see things in a different light are mostly just trying their best to follow Jesus.

Just like we are.

Perhaps they are interpreting Scripture incorrectly, but perhaps we are the ones who are wrong. Grace. It is easy to receive and devilishly difficult to dole out freely. We spend so much time either being determined to get it right at the expense of our relationships or trying so hard to tolerate the differences around us that we quit looking at the person with whom we differ. Yet when we look closely and intently we can see the gray shades of Jesus in the face of the person before us.

And then it is easier to love.

Edited from the archives

Hope Changes

Posted on June 13, 2014 by Elizabeth

Hope.

It changes nothing. It changes everything.

How do you endure? When everything around you is falling apart, when all that you love on this earth fails you, how do you keep going?

It happens to all of us. At some point in our lives, whether early in life or late, we sit in stunned silence while our world crumbles.

What do we do? What do we do when we or one we love is living in the middle of unimaginable pain? What is it that keeps us going, that lets us perservere?

Hope.

It changes nothing. It changes everything.

Hope doesn’t heal the sick or take away the pain. It doesn’t fill the stomach or bring your loved one back.

It changes nothing.

Hope gives you a glory-full vision of the end of your story. It gives you a glimpse of the beauty, the joy, the perfection that is promised.

It changes everything.

When you know the end of the story, when you know that Christ wins and that we will be with Him forever, it gives us the power to bear anything. Anything. When you can see the end of fear, the end of despair, the end of pain, when you can see the adventure, the rest, the wholeness that waits for you, you are sustained in the now because you know that this, too, shall pass.

So hope. Hope in what is promised. Hope in what God has promised through the power of the resurrected Christ.

For you who have just received that 3 a.m. phone call, you who walk dazed from your doctor’s office, you who saw your child drift away, you who wish desperately for a child, you who sit weeping in a corner, who think that you will always be alone and unloved, for all of you who live in darkness and doubt…

there is hope. Beautiful, glorious, resurrection hope. So breathe deep of this hope. Let it fill you up with peace and joy so that you are able to endure all things. For He who is our hope is coming.

It is promised. It shall be so.

Art credit: last photograph by R.K. Sewell Photography (photographybysewell.webs.com)

To Interpret with Love

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Elizabeth

I have written recently about the difficulty of agreeing on Biblical interpretation. It is easy to draw lines in the sand and difficult to discern between what is cultural and what is truth that transcends place and time. It is easy to vilify those with whom we disagree and difficult to extend the grace of believing that they, too, are doing their best to follow Christ.

The ease of which I find myself speaking in terms of “us” and “them” while speaking of how we interpret the Bible forces me to search more deeply into how I see the Bible.

Do I view the Bible as a way to live my own life or do I look into its pages to search out ways of making me right and them wrong? Of even more eternal import, do I place the Bible as an idol above God? Do I view the Bible or Jesus as the Word of God?

It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is myth (but of course myth specially chosen by God from among countless myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read with attention to the whole nature and purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons. ~ C.S. Lewis in a letter to a lady

When it does become necessary to know how to interpret a certain passage (only, as Lewis said, for my own spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity), to know whether it was only written to one particular culture or whether it should be obeyed in all times and places, I am learning that love should be my standard. It seems obvious when you think about what Jesus mandated as the most important of all the commands, but it is a standard for interpretation that I had never thought about before. Love is to be the standard for deciding which passages are cultural and which are universal.

Paul says in Romans that whatever commandment there may be, it can be summed up in the rule “love your neighbor as yourself”. He is, of course, writing of the Greek word agape when speaking of love. Agape is a selfless, sacrificial, unconditional sort of love. It is the kind of love that seeks out the best for others before it seeks for the good of itself. I think what Paul means, what Jesus means by “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” is that if we are truly living out God’s kind of love for others, we will always be led to do the right thing.

Even Jesus seems to apply the same principle to the Jewish Scriptures when He heals on the Sabbath or picks and eats grain on the Sabbath. Rather than defending Himself by saying that He is not technically breaking the Sabbath, in each case He argues that sometimes violating the letter of the law is necessary in order to act in love and fulfill the spirit of the law instead.

I have a lot more praying and studying to do about this, but this idea feels incredibly freeing. Rather than having to be a Bible scholar and know the ancient languages by heart, I can apply this standard of agape love and let God’s Spirit lead me to the best answer of whether a passage is cultural or for always. Paul speaks of slaves obeying their masters, but agape love demands their freedom. Paul’s rules about hair length and head coverings were good in his time and place, but they have no current relation to loving God or our neighbors.

We have been set free from the Law. We no longer live under the supervision of the Law but under grace. “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” Paul speaks to this many times, saying that we are not to use our freedom to indulge our own selfish impulses but that we are to use our freedom to serve each other in love. Love, agape love, is to be our standard, our way of deciding what is right and what is wrong, both in our deeds and in God’s Word.

After all, as we see in the story of the judgement in Matthew 25, Christ knows us by our actions as we serve the outcasts, the hungry, the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned.

But Jesus provides no list of beliefs at all. People are judged not on what they believe but on how they have loved. ~ Kathleen Norris in Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

Unable to Turn

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Elizabeth

I am caught in this world and cannot seem to escape it.

I cling to the security of our money, not wanting to give up our extra even to help one who is hurting. I cling to my anger, not wanting to give it up even for the sake of my child’s heart. I cling to my idea of success, not wanting to give up the possibility of my daughters’ successes in the world even for the sake of their love for God and neighbor.

I am helpless, mired, enmeshed and enslaved. I cannot even turn away from sin on my own. I am incapable of seeing my sin for what it is.

I am like Peter in the courtyard, having just betrayed the One he saw raising the dead and being transfigured, having sworn and cursed that he did not know Him. Peter, too, was unable to turn, unable to grieve over his betrayal, until…

Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him…And he went outside and wept bitterly. ~ Luke 22.60-62

Peter not turn first, Jesus did. When Peter was right in the middle of his sin, when he would have preferred to look anywhere else other than at Jesus, Jesus turned and looked at Peter.

I cannot turn from my sin unless Jesus turns to me first. I can, perhaps, feel frustrated at my inability to obey, but this is not the kind of sorrow that bears any kind of lasting fruit. This is only a kind of twisted pride. What I cannot do is to understand my own helplessness and the depths of my sin.

If I have any repentance at all, any true turning of my heart to God, it is only by the grace of God turning to me first.

Sorrow over our sinful condition is…God’s attribute above all. Sorrow over sin does not finally belong to us humans; we ourselves are not capable of it. ~ Martin Luther

Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.

Art credits: St. Peter’s Denial by Rembrandt; Peter Denying Christ by Daniel Tivart; Church of Santo Sepolcro in Milan Italy

Temptation

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Elizabeth

Temptation.

It swirls around me like a hurricane

sending my intentions spinning into the blackened sky.

I hear the voice of God

I hear Him tell me what is good

Why can I not obey?

My consistency is that I fail to listen

My constant is that I continue to fall.

The ugly truth?

I don’t believe God.

I don’t believe Him when He tells me what is best.

If I believed, I would obey.

If I trusted in God’s goodness, His love, I would always do what He asks.

I would choose love instead of anger.

I would choose compassion rather than bitterness.

I would forgive instead of clinging to my grudge.

I would assume the best rather than enjoying my irritation.

I would think of others and forget about myself.

How can I obey,

how can I root out this ugliness that is deep inside my heart?

I cannot listen when I will not trust.

And yet I remember.

God is mercy and God is grace.

He changes hearts and He captures our gaze.

He is faithful if we ask;

His wisdom He delights to give.

Christ stayed in the wilderness

He faced down our sin

He trusted in God

Trusted God’s love and goodness

Christ conquered to make me a conqueror.

Grace.

It captures my heart and teaches me to trust

changing my nature so that I am now able to believe what God says

And obey.

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The Dangerous Grace of Lent

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Elizabeth

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I am only beginning to explore this journey that is Lent. This season was not a part of my faith tradition growing up, but it seems to be growing more popular among evangelicals these days.

This long season of Lent is not a frivolous sort of giving up as it appeared to a fairly oblivious teenage self (fasting from M&M’s anyone?) but a giving up for the purpose of giving away. It is a period of self-denial in order to become more unified with the Spirit of Christ.

It is a difficult thing to be unified with Jesus. Gazing into the eyes of Christ for too long has frightening consequences. When you stare at the cross, you find yourself looking at your own death, at your sin and its just consequence. You come face to face with all of the spiritual deformities that are in your own soul and find yourself tempted to turn away from the harsh reflection.

When you gaze at Christ crucified for these forty days that are Lent, you are pulled close to the grace and forgiveness of your death finished for you. But it is a dangerous grace. This grace is one that does not leave you unfinished. It is a grace that purges and renews.

The purpose of Lent is to awaken in you a sense of your own sin, your guilt for your sin, and your sorrow over your sin. The purpose of Lent is to awaken “the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins. To (awaken) or to motivate the works of love and the work for justice that one does out of the gratitude for the forgiveness of one’s sins.” (Edna Hong in Bread and Wine)

This grace can only be approached at the end of Lent. It is a long journey, these forty days. It is a necessary journey, one that fights the apathy and smugness of this world in which we often find it easy to spot deformities in the souls of others and find it also easy to turn away from the crippled places of our own souls.

Yet we do not travel this path of Lent alone. God’s Spirit Himself travels with us, maneuvering us down this steep path that ends at the foot of the cross. As we stand at the foot of the cross, stripped of our illusions about ourselves, we gaze at the battered and broken body of the One who came to rescue us. This body of Jesus that is our grace. This grace that brings fire. This fire that purges and cleanses and does not consume but instead resurrects us into a new self.

It is beautiful, this amazing and dangerous grace.

When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie
My grace all sufficient shall be your supply.
The flame shall not hurt you, my only design
Your dross to consume and your gold to refine.
~ How Firm a Foundation

Credit to Edna Hong and Walter Wangerin in Bread and Wine for many of the ideas in this post.

Our Purpose

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Elizabeth

It is a question as old as humanity: Why are we on earth and what are we supposed to do while we are here?

Even the ancients spent time on this. The Bible tells us from the very beginning in Genesis about many who searched for and discovered their purposes: Jabal discovered how to raise livestock, Jubal developed different types of music, Tubal-Cain mastered metalworking.

These ancients figured out what to do while here on earth, but what about us? What is our role? Many answers can be found by gazing into the moment we were created.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…”

We have a dual role, we humans. A dual purpose, given to us by God Himself. Let us make. We are created, a part of God’s creation. In our image. We are God’s unique counterpart, His representatives here on earth.

Being made in God’s image brings with it certain responsibilities. The second part of Genesis 1.26 says that God decided we were to rule, to have dominion over, all living creatures.

David echoes this in Psalm 8 when he says that God crowned us with honor and made us rulers of all that God created.

This has, unfortunately, been used too often as an excuse to plunder the earth and destroy it. Instead, “as God’s image bearers…we are to be wise stewards of the earth, caring for it and protecting it in a way that reflects and embodies God’s rule over his creation.” ~ Resounding Truth by Jeremy Begbie

As God’s representatives, His image bearers, we also are to spread the knowledge of God and His love to the rest of the world. We are to work to speed up God’s future goal for creation, to bring healing, restoration, hope and peace to the world around us.

Israel was supposed to be a picture of this. Israel was called to be God’s people, accomplishing God’s purposes for humanity in and for the world. They had experienced God’s rescuing power and love and were intended to be His way of giving that love to the rest of the world.

Does that sound familiar, as though it were, perhaps, something we are supposed to do? I wonder what would have happened if Israel had obeyed. What would our world look like if they had acted as God’s representatives? This is a painful question because Israel’s purposes were but a shadow of our own.

What would our world look like if we were truly acting as God’s representative? What would our neighborhood, our community look like if we were caring for and protecting our world, if we were sharing God’s rescuing love with the people around us? Different?

Things have gone wrong and many live in alienation from one another and in purposeless and destructive living. We should want to be different. We should be reflecting the image of God to the piece of creation in which He has placed us.

Our second role from that moment of creation is our very creatureliness. “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…”

We are created by God. Along with the trees, mountains, birds and sun, we ARE God’s creation. We humans, however, have a unique role that was given to us on behalf of all of creation. A role that only we can fulfill.

We are (as far as we know!) the only creatures who can love God in return. We are the only part of creation who can give voice to the wordless praise of all creation.

In the human being, creation finds a conscious answering voice, a mortal from the dust of the earth who can know and respond to God’s love as a creature, love God in return, and as a part of this response, voice creation’s praise. ~ Resounding Truth by Jeremy Begbie

This is a beautiful picture and a beautiful role. What grace that God entrusted this to us! And yet what tragedy that our role as worshiper in creation has twisted into worshiper of creation. Including worshiper of self. Just as we have twisted our role as God’s representative, we have twisted our role of offering worship on behalf of all creation.

However. (What a beautiful word is however!) God gave us grace through Christ.

Jesus. Man. God. A man who gave complete and un-distracted praise to God. A man who perfectly acted out God’s wise rule in the world.

He is creation’s worship to God ~ perfect praise from us to God, creation’s perfect voice. He is the image of God to us ~ perfect representation of God, being a wise steward of the earth He brought healing, restoration, hope and peace from God to earth.

Jesus helped and healed many people, like this. He made blind people see. He made deaf people hear. He made lame people walk. Jesus was making the sad things come untrue. He was mending God’s broken world. ~ Jesus Storybook Bible

The most exciting part of this news about Jesus? We are invited to join Him. What joy and grace! What a gift! By reflecting God’s image to the world around us, to the tiny piece of creation (human and non-human) in which God has placed us, we are voicing the praise of creation back to God.

What a beautiful circle. What beautiful purpose.

Art Credits: photo of bird in hand by SP Veres; Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Johannes Vermeer

reworked and much edited from the archives

it’s a little funny to me that this blog is old enough to have archives

Why is it so difficult to allow people to come in close?

I enjoy having friends, of course, but I still want to keep everyone at just a bit of distance.

Even my husband and my children. I will let them in closer than any others, but there is still a part of myself that I hold in reserve.

You too?

Why do we do this? Why is it so hard to be completely vulnerable with anyone?

Fear, I think, is the most simple answer.

We know how ugly our hearts can be. For myself, I know the arrogance and rage that can live inside and I want people to still like me.

We want everyone else to think well of us, so we let them in enough to show that we are human, but not far enough in to let them see how very human we really are.

We don’t want to see the shock and revulsion on their faces were they to hear the thoughts that go through our minds. We want others to like us.

It is often even hard to let God in.

Logically, I know that He already sees the deepest, most ugly bits of me, but I still have the desire to make everything look pretty before I show it to Him. You see, I want God to like me too.

Not just love me. Like me.

Love seems to be a choice, a way of treating someone. Liking, though, seems more enjoyable.

Love is what I do even when it is hard. Liking is what comes naturally when I enjoy spending time with someone.

Yet God went to extraordinary lengths to be with us. He tells us that He wants to sit with us over meals, that He sings over us and He wants to wipe away our tears. He calls us friends.

Such amazing grace this is.

If only I could believe it completely, I would have no trouble at all in letting others in.

God, help my unbelief.

His thoughts and wisdom come from years of walking steadily towards God.

This father of mine who has read the Bible through every year for years upon years, who yet still is searching and seeking, discovering new depths in this Word that he loves.

We walk through the woods, sunlight blazing through the red and yellow leaves, the sounds of fall in the leaves at our feet. In spurts, in between the happy screams of children running up and down hills, he speaks to me of his latest wonderings.

He wonders about the difference between the writings of Paul and words of Jesus.

“What if…” he feels his way forward. “What if we didn’t have Paul’s letters? What if all we had were the gospels, the words of Jesus? Jesus speaks much more of actions, of behavior, of thoughts and emotions. He almost never speaks of grace.”

He’s right. Jesus doesn’t dwell much on the beauties of grace. His business seems to be with the practical, with the fruit that a life of a disciple should bear.

Only those who do the Father’s commands will enter the Kingdom.

By your words you will be acquitted or condemned.

When asked, What must I do to be saved?, His answer is simple: Keep the commandments.

It is enough to bring despair, if that were the only way to be saved. Obedience for salvation? This is not gospel. This is not good news.

Yet when someone comes to Him for healing, Jesus tells them that it is their own faith that has saved them.

What does it mean, this faith that is a saving faith? What kind of a faith will save us?

Perhaps a clue comes from the times that Jesus tells us, Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life.

Perhaps it does all come down to whether or not we truly believe Jesus. If we truly believe that His way is best, that He is who He says He is and therefore knows what in this crazy upside down world He’s talking about, then we will obey Him.

Sometimes it is dramatic and fast, like Paul. Other times it comes slowly and painfully, small choice by small choice, like the disciples.

It does seem, at times, that there is an apparent contradiction between works and grace in the New Testament.

It also seems, though, that while we can never be good enough to earn our way in, and while it is only by the blood of Christ that we are able to come near to God at all, at the same time, once we have decided that He is truth then our lives should reflect that truth.

A life that is given up to the Lordship of Christ should bear fruit.

We do not try to obey so that we can be loved, but rather the love of Jesus allows us a beginning of the ability to obey, however imperfectly.

The grace brings about the works.

I am still learning, however, and welcome your own wisdom. What would happen if we only had the gospels and not the letters of Paul? How are grace and works reconciled, and should we put a greater emphasis on works?

Why do we eat one another alive?

We talk, we rant, we fill up the air with our words. And our words are not of grace.

It is too easy to speak harshly within the anonymous confines of the internet. We forget at times that those on the receiving end of our arrows are as beloved as we are.

Why do we do it?

Fear, perhaps.

We fear that others will think poorly of us or of our faith if we do not speak out quickly and harshly against whatever was wrong. We fear that we will be viewed as the same if we speak words of love instead of words of condemnation.

We fear, perhaps, that we are the same deep down inside, and we do not want anyone to know the truth.

Yet the irony of it all is that the very One we are trying to defend is the same One who shared meals, shared life with those who made the most public of mistakes.

The irony is that the Bible is crammed full of one another verses…and not one of them mentions devouring one another.

Show kindness and mercy to one another. Love one another. Outdo one another in showing honor. Welcome one another. Bear with one another. Be kind to one another. Forgive one another.

These are just the beginning.

Jesus said that people would know that we follow Him by our love. Too often love is not what we show to the world. I confess that perhaps I would not think very highly of Jesus if all that I knew of Him was what I read on the blogs and Facebook pages of His followers.

May God help us.

May the God of love and grace teach us how to get rid of our motto of We eat one another alive.

May He instead change our hearts to adopt the motto of We never leave a fallen comrade behind.

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” ~ Matthew 22.39

Love is much harder. Love costs our comfort and our time. Love affirms the reality of the other person, culture and way of life. Love takes the trouble to get to know the other person and find out what makes them beautiful. Love wants what is best for that person or culture.

It was love that sent Jesus to the cross on our behalf, not tolerance.

“Love must confront Tolerance and insist, as it has always done, on a better way.” ~ Tim Keller in Generous Justice

The more we meet people who were raised differently and the more we read authors from other places and times and faith traditions, the more we begin to catch a glimpse of how much our view of God, of the Bible, of the world around us is colored by our own place and time and faith tradition.

Just like we are.

And then it is easier to love.

Hope.

It changes nothing. It changes everything.

How do you endure? When everything around you is falling apart, when all that you love on this earth fails you, how do you keep going?

It happens to all of us. At some point in our lives, whether early in life or late, we sit in stunned silence while our world crumbles.

What do we do? What do we do when we or one we love is living in the middle of unimaginable pain? What is it that keeps us going, that lets us perservere?

Hope.

It changes nothing. It changes everything.

Hope doesn’t heal the sick or take away the pain. It doesn’t fill the stomach or bring your loved one back.

It changes nothing.

Hope gives you a glory-full vision of the end of your story. It gives you a glimpse of the beauty, the joy, the perfection that is promised.

It changes everything.

So hope. Hope in what is promised. Hope in what God has promised through the power of the resurrected Christ.

there is hope. Beautiful, glorious, resurrection hope. So breathe deep of this hope. Let it fill you up with peace and joy so that you are able to endure all things. For He who is our hope is coming.

It is promised. It shall be so.

The ease of which I find myself speaking in terms of “us” and “them” while speaking of how we interpret the Bible forces me to search more deeply into how I see the Bible.

Do I view the Bible as a way to live my own life or do I look into its pages to search out ways of making me right and them wrong? Of even more eternal import, do I place the Bible as an idol above God? Do I view the Bible or Jesus as the Word of God?

After all, as we see in the story of the judgement in Matthew 25, Christ knows us by our actions as we serve the outcasts, the hungry, the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned.

But Jesus provides no list of beliefs at all. People are judged not on what they believe but on how they have loved. ~ Kathleen Norris in Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

I am caught in this world and cannot seem to escape it.

Show kindness and mercy to one another.
Love one another.
Outdo one another in showing honor.
Welcome one another.
Bear with one another.
Be kind to one another.
Forgive one another.