I Cannot

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Elizabeth

I hate admitting that I cannot do something. I have experienced quite a few tragedies that occurred because I was unable to swallow that thing inside of me that rises up and prevents me from asking for help.

The one notable exception is raising children. I am all about seeking out advice when it comes to my children (which is its own problem because too much advice leads to indecision which invariably leads to paralysis). This is not by any particular virtue of my own, rather it is because I am completely terrified of irreversibly messing up another human being.

Messing up my own life, however, is fine, because whatever the thing is, I can do it.

Even if I cannot.

This causes a definite problem, however, when it comes to my faith. I want to be able to be good enough, to make myself righteous enough, to climb up the ladder and reach God all on my own.

I would have done well in Babel.

I want to do it myself so that I can then take credit. I want to be proud of my own accomplishments. I want, in short, to seek and worship myself.

God, however, is quite clear. We can never rise up to Him, so He, in His infinite mercy, came down to us.

This is folly and this is scandal. It cannot be understood by our own reason and intelligence. This is offensive. It offends our pride to know that there is nothing for us to do.

God is too high and holy and our sin is too deep and depraved for us to be able to reach God.

Our souls become crippled and cramped by trying to rise to the highest height. The end is despair, or a self-righteousness that leaves room neither for love of God nor for love of others. ~ Emil Brunner

It hurts as a crucifixion always does, but I must crucify myself and admit that I cannot reach God. I cannot be good enough and I cannot make myself righteous.

So God descends to us at Christmas and finishes His descent on Good Friday. What is His goal and where does He end His descent? He ends where we belong. In Hell. Our rightful place is separation from God, which is hell, and God descends down to hell.

Jesus experiences our separation from God and despairs of loneliness from God so that we can be free of it. He descends all the way down so that He can lift us out and reconcile us to God. It is the only way.

If the only way to receive God’s Spirit and nevermore to be separate from Him is to admit that I cannot do it, I will crucify my pride every single day and bow my head to the ground in worship and thanksgiving.

I will confess: I cannot.

Art Credits: Construction of the Tower of Babel painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger; The Three Crosses by Rembrandt

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.

Today

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Elizabeth

Today, our world seems darker.

Today, my heart is heavy and grieving.

Today, I acknowledge my guilt and wrap myself around my shame.

Today, I try to fully take in the magnitude of this beautiful, amazing Love.

On this day, creation mourned and the sun hid itself in grief.

On this day, Jesus chose to stay nailed down, for His heart was full of love.

On this day, Jesus took my guilt into His own body and gave up, for a time, His perfect closeness with God the Father.

On this day, God once for all proved His love for us.

On this day, He proved His Word, that He truly meant it when He said

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

He loves me. He came to rescue me and to make me perfect and holy. He came to conquer death and to make me alive.

On this day, God proved through Jesus that He means to accomplish all of these things.

And yet.

Is He able?

Today, I do not yet know.

I suppose I’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out.

art credit: Sketch by Rembrandt, The Three Crosses

Deepest Need

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Elizabeth

I desperately wanted Kristina to be healed.

I long for the lost wisdom of my Papa.

I dream of a normal life for my friend, Stephanie.

There are so many stories that I, in my limited vision, would change if I had my way. What story would you change?

I am forced to look deeply at myself, however, when I read the story of friends who lowered the paralyzed down to Jesus through a hole. I hear Jesus’ first words.

Your sins are forgiven

I imagine myself as a friend.

Yes, yes. Forgiveness is good. But we cut away that barrier to You for healing. We want you to fix this. We want him to walk!

But this is Jesus. He is answering the deepest need first, and the deepest need is not to be able to walk.

It sometimes feels as though my deepest need is to be relieved of my burden.

Cancer is a heavy burden.

Rejection is a heavy burden.

Death is a heavy burden.

Yet over and over again, God’s best work happens when I am carrying my heaviest burden.

I can see this truth at work in the art that I love.

It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness. Could Beethoven have written that glorious paean of praise in the Ninth Symphony if he had not had to endure the dark closing in of deafness? As I look through his work chronologically, there’s no denying that it deepens and strengthens along with the deafness. Could Milton have seen all that he sees in Paradise Lost if he had not been blind? It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain…Pain is not always creative; received wrongly, it can lead to alcoholism and madness and suicide. Nevertheless, without it we do not grow. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

In the midst of these hard things, Jesus wants to be certain that I am still able to rest in Him. He wants me to know that He has overcome all of these burdens so that even while I am underneath my burden I can have peace.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

The knowledge that I will have trouble is a hard truth. One that I don’t like most of the time.

A large part of me wants to clutch tightly those I love best and protect them. Yet a tiny part of me knows what is truly important.

God’s way of forgiveness and transformation is more important than relief from my heavy burden. I try to trust and let that smaller part of me grow.

I long to be who God intended for me to be. I want to grow. It seems that transformation requires hard things.

Paul, the one who was beaten and imprisoned and shipwrecked and stoned and rejected by many, calls these hard things “light and momentary troubles“.

I can’t do that yet. I cannot open my arms and embrace these burdens.

I can, however, accept them and choose to voice words of gratitude and praise to God for them, even if I don’t truly feel grateful. I can choose to allow these burdens, this pain, to help me grow rather than to drag me down into depression.

I am tempted to try to avoid not only my own suffering but also that of those around me, the suffering of the world.

Instead, I will continue to allow suffering to inspire my art, to trust that God will make all things beautiful.

Instead, I will allow pain to deepen and strengthen my life rather than to destroy it.

Instead, I will pray this grace for those around me as well.

Art credits: my thanks to Eddie Lowen, Pastor at West Side Christian Church in Springfield, Illinois, for his thoughts on this subject; The Palsied Man Let Down through the Roof by James Tissot; Illustration for Milton’s Paradise Lost by Gustave Dore

The Last Temptation

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Elizabeth

This, the Friday before Easter, is a hard day.

I’d much rather jump straight into Easter, to the joy of the earth singing as it once again feels the touch of Jesus’ feet.

Yet you cannot get to the empty tomb without going through the suffering of the cross.

I’ve written a lot about suffering and pain in these pages. I am often tempted to do almost anything to avoid feeling pain.

It recently struck me that perhaps that is what temptation really is: Satan doing everything he can to help you avoid suffering here on earth.

We don’t know about very many of Jesus’ temptations, but God gives us enough glimpse to know that He, like me, desired to avoid pain.

That is what Jesus’ wilderness temptings were: Satan trying to convince Jesus to believe in him and take the easy, pain-free way of becoming king rather than believing God and obeying His pain-filled, cross way of becoming king.

The way that would also rescue His people.

Too often, I believe Satan instead of God.

Yet Satan did not end his tempting of Jesus in the wilderness.

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time. ~ Luke 4

That opportune time?

The Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ last temptation.

The temptation to once again take the comfortable way instead of the suffering way. The temptation to believe in Satan’s hazy seductions rather than in God’s rock-solid promises.

Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will but Yours be done. ~ Luke 22

I bow my head in shame, knowing how often I choose to believe Satan.

Yes, He was God, yet He still struggled as much as we do with this same temptation.

And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. ~ Luke 22

And so we come full circle.

That which began in a garden now ends in a garden because this time the man obeyed.

Jesus obeyed. He chose to believe in God’s promise while knowing the immediate consequences of pain.

My heart wants to weep because I know why He did this.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~ Romans 5

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil. ~ Hebrews 2

Because He loves us and He wants to rescue us, to rescue you, from the power of pain and death.

This. This is why we linger long on this hard day instead of leaping ahead to Sunday. To remind us to believe in God’s promises of the end of death and pain even while knowing of the fleeting death and pain we might face in obedience.

May I end with something I wrote and a video I made with a friend? (if you are viewing this via email/in a reader, click here to view this video)

Pause for a moment and dwell on the hard things so that on Sunday your heart can resonate even more fully with Easter’s joy.

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.

(special thanks to Kati Pessin for putting together the video and to our Pastor for his thoughts on Christ’s temptations)

art credit for the video: music is “Window” by Album Leaf