Giving thanks

I don’t think my faith has ever been tested quite to the extent that it’s being tested right now. Three days this week—Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday—I literally shook my fists at God. I screamed. I questioned His goodness, His faithfulness. And I yelled, “Enough!” Enough is enough. I could rattle off a dozen “unfair” things in my life right now—miracles I’ve begged for, requests I’ve petitioned Him for—none of which is happening.

But then I remember an important truth You taught me. Eucharisteo. Thankfulness precedes the miracle. Eucharisteo. He broke the bread. And gave thanks. And then sacrificed himself—His willingness to die so that I might live. Not only am I reminded that this life is about more than the here and now, but also sometimes the choice of thanks precedes the miracle. Sometimes the choice of thanks is in the middle of the hardest hour.

We choose to give thanks even before the miracle. We choose the hard thanks. We choose, instead, a life of thankfulness. 

And a life of thankfulness remembers all that I have. An attitude of thankfulness remembers the miracles He has performed when it doesn’t feel like He hears my prayers at all. I short change God when the moment he doesn’t perform, I accuse Him of unfaithfulness; I count the miracle as lost. But the truth is I can attest to a lot of prayers He has answered. Miracles big and small He has performed. And usually, the miracle is when I least expect it or when His timing is better than I could have planned.

My faith is weak, my unbelief, strong, and my view of God, small when I am quick to be angry for all that He hasn’t done. Oh how I lose sight of all that He has done.

Today—my family drove 45 miles, the boys crammed in the third row seats, to help decorate my office and see “my world” in Plainview. Today—the dean of my department, my new colleague and friend came up to the school to say “Hi” and meet my family. Today alone I am reminded of His goodness. Today I am reminded: I am blessed. 

Patience and Discipline: My two least favorite words!

Some of you may know, but I've been trying to eat healthier and exercise for the last eight weeks. I've said goodbye to high-starch foods (breads, grains, wheat, flour, etc.) and most dairy (milk, sour cream, cheese). My motivations for this change are numerous--from health reasons to (let's be honest) my own personal vanity, but the real truth is that it's just something I need to do and have needed to do for a while. The problem, I've found, is that I often approach losing weight with the wrong mentality--and usually, my best motivation is competition (see, e.g., my own attempts in our biggest loser contest last year).

Because of that--and because of a lot of other unhealthy reasons (i.e. I love food), my successes always later end in failure, which is to say, I typically gain back whatever I lost and usually plus some. I feel like I've been in this pattern since I graduated from college in 2007. The reality is I've always had a problem with eating right, but it never affected me because I worked out enough to balance the bad eating habits. Throw in being newly married and working on a PhD, and suddenly my eating habits have unfortunate consequences.

What I've come to learn is this: I don't have a healthy (or godly) approach to how or what I eat. And before you roll your eyes and say God doesn't care what we eat, I recommend that you read the book Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. I stumbled on this book about two weeks into my diet changes--a serendipitous discovery that was, no doubt, God-ordained. Lysa's words were exactly what I needed, at the exact moment I needed them. Read it! It's truly eye-opening.

Anyway--back to what I've learned. The reason diets don't work for me is because they only reinforce my unhealthy approach to food, a system of rewards and punishments. Chips and queso, a reward. Carrot sticks and celery, a punishment. Inevitably, I eat "punishment" food and lose weight. Then satisfied with my changes, I satisfy myself with reward food. It's really a vicious cycle. And at the heart of it is this--I was made with a longing to be satisfied, but food should never be so important to me that it controls my thoughts, longings, or satisfactions.

As silly as it seems to say that food controlled my thoughts, longings, or satisfactions, it's true. It did. I could get a craving for chips and queso or for Whataburger's fries or pizza (or whatever), and I really felt like I had to have it. Whatever it was, it needed to be my lunch or my dinner in the near future--and the craving wouldn't be satisfied until I was full. Or stuffed, rather.

Sadly, I'd started to learn this lesson on self-control last May, but I obviously needed some re-teaching. And this time, I needed to get to the root: What do I really crave? What satisfies me? Is God really sufficient? Does He fulfill me?

It's been a good journey, though not always easy. I was thinking about Hitch today--that scene when he is having the allergic reaction to shellfish, and he starts drinking the Benedryl syrup and yelling for it to start working. Here's the scene:

I think I feel this way sometimes; I especially did at first. I put in the effort, but didn't see the results. And even now, although I've lost 14 pounds, I still have a ways to go to get to my "goal" weight. If I focus on how far I am from where I want to be, then I can easily get discouraged. But, it takes time. More importantly, though, having read Lysa's book, I am learning that it's not really about reaching the goal weight. If I'm not satisfied with Him at Xlbs, then I won't be satisfied with Him at Ylbs, either. I've got to change the root of my desires.

And the thing with change--whether we're talking about swelling from an allergic reaction, fitting into a new size pair of jeans, or practicing healthy (and godly) attitudes toward food--is that change takes time. And time means patience. And patience means discipline.

"'Everything is permissible for me,' but not everything is beneficial... I will not be mastered by anything." (1 Cor 6:12).

Becoming a lioness....who kills spiders!

Right now I am reading the book Lioness Arising by Lisa Bevere, and it's challenging me to rise up as a woman of God and affect change in my world. My personality is not very confrontational, and I tend to be easily intimidated and fearful. But this book is stirring so much in my heart.

I love it when Christian women recognize that we're not subjugated, subordinated, or unequal to men. I once wrote a paper about this in a graduate course--that the Church has long used authority, intimidation, and fear to "quiet" women. But Lisa's book urges us to step out of that place of "quietness." Like the paper I once wrote, she, too, is disappointed in the historical position the church has taken: "I am saddened that the church was not the first to confront gender inequality" (p. 44). Instead, she is calling for women to awaken as lionesses--fierce and capable of changing our world. She writes, "Strength is not to be feared; it is to be embraced. Do not make the mistake of imagining meekness to be weakness. It is tempered strength or might under control" (p. 24).

Although I'm not all that outspoken on most issues, I have long been frustrated to see women put down in the Church, in the home, in the workplace, etc. Maybe it's because I've been around academics for the last 8 years, but I've come to see inequality on so many levels. A professor of mine once joked with me that it's okay to be a Christian feminist; in fact, he said, Jesus was probably more of a feminist than anyone else in the Church since then. And he was right--study scripture, and you'll see that Jesus stood up for women, gave women positions of authority, and did not silence women.

So, reading this book, I've been asking God what it means to be a lioness. I feel a little funny even saying the word... but what does it mean for me to rise up, be fierce and capable, and affect change in my world?

Well, I'm thinking He gave me a trial run yesterday...with a spider. Hal has been out of town this week, and yesterday, I had to kill a big, brown spider in our bathroom. I have a dreadful fear of spiders, and I spent a good 15 minutes in the bathroom, standing there frozen, crying, staring at the spider, and knowing there was no one there to kill it for me.

It's a silly thing, and I know it, but it was no small feat either. I really hate spiders that much. All I could think was, "You've not given me a spirit of fear..." After I had put on Hal's jeans (for some reason, I felt the need for big and baggy?) and his boots (yes, again, about five sizes too big)--and I felt as secure as possible--I whispered, "Daddy, help me" and let out the loudest scream. In seconds, it was over, and I threw off Hal's boots and sat on the edge of our bed. Heart pounding. Crying. And then I laughed at myself for being so ridiculous. I mean, while living in London, I chased the man who mugged me for four blocks before giving up. If that's not bravery (or stupidity?), I don't know what is.

If God is awakening a lioness in me and if He's calling me to be fierce and capable, then what if yesterday was not just about killing a spider? What if the spider means something more?

I have so much to learn about fear and intimidation--two words God has been teaching me about for over a year now, but I open my heart to learn, and I open my ears to listen for His voice: "Awaken Lioness." 

Blessed with good gifts from a good Father

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been thinking about the goodness of God. I realized that in my short discussion of God's attributes from Acts 17:22-31, I did not blog about God's goodness--that God, in his very nature, is good.

A few years ago, on another blog, I wrote a post about Psalm 119:68, which says that God is good, and what He does is good. I love that verse. It reminds me, too, of Jesus' sermon where He says what Dad would give his son a stone if he asked for a slice of bread? And if so, how much greater are the gifts that our Heavenly Daddy wants to give to us? 

This semester, I've experienced such a sweet overflow of goodness and blessing from the Lord. When the scripture says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good," I can now say, "Yup, I have, and I do." For starters, my sister got engaged in January and is getting married at the end of June. Although this event is not my own personal experience, I am still greatly blessed by it. It blesses me to see that she truly has found God's best for her. It's a beautiful picture of God's mercy, and grace, and love--that despite some of life's journeys, at the end of the road is a taste of His goodness, a taste that says, at the end of the day, He is still good.

My brother, too, got engaged this semester, and again, it blesses me so. I have joked about this with friends, but I cried for joy when he got engaged--more so than I cried at my own proposal moment! Maybe it is because he is my big brother and because I know in my heart the leap of faith he's taking--the same leap of faith we all take--when we say, yes, I commit my life to this person. I am so thankful for Megan--she was a picture of God's goodness for my brother, and now, she'll be my sister-in-law. :) That God, in His perfect timing, would put together two strong, complementing couples--Michalea and Jaime, Clinton and Meg--is a beautiful picture of His goodness.

And if you've not heard, I got a job at Wayland in Plainview as an Assistant Professor of English. I officially start this August. I'm not sure that I can adequately articulate how thrilled I am to have this position. It's not just a job for me, which means it's more than just the every-day-good-ole-workings-of-God kind of thing. It's exactly what I want to teach (linguistics, technical communication, research writing, and composition) at exactly the place where I wanted to teach. When I started my PhD at Texas Tech, I knew Tech would never hire me as a professor (they do not hire their own grads), but my heart desired to stay in or near Lubbock. Hal has a great job here, we have an amazing church home (which is not always easy to find!), most of my family is here (or near), and this is home to me. Thankfully--and truly by the grace of God--Hal feels at home here, too. That's not to say that God can't or won't move us elsewhere someday, but to stay in this area was my heart's greatest desire. And because of that, to teach at Wayland, specifically, has been my prayer for three years--long before there was a job opening, long before there was a letter of application submitted, long before an interview took place.

When I was offered the job, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I did a little of both. In life, I feel like things rarely work out the way we hoped. I don't mean that negatively because I do believe God works everything for His good--and there are lots of things in my life that I am so glad they didn't work out. I love the verse that says in his heart, man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his path. Often, that is the reality: life is not always what we plan. We think we want to be somewhere doing something, but then sometimes God changes our path, and we later see it for the good.

But this is not one of those times--that's why I think it's so rare--because this is one of those times where the end worked out exactly as I hoped. And because of that, I can only be in awe of my Heavenly Daddy, in awe that He would give me such a perfect gift, the answer to my prayer three years ago!

Sometimes in the midst of our circumstances, it's hard to remember God's goodness because the circumstance or situation doesn't feel good. In those times, cling to His attribute--that He is good, and what He does is good. And then remember to thank Him when, out of His goodness, He blesses you with good gifts!

God is Judge

I am to my final attribute – it’s hard to believe. This has been an incredible journey of discovering God’s attributes, experience Him in a new way. This season of my life has been about His asking me to have a deeper trust and contentment with Him. It has not been easy, but as I learn to put my expectation in Him, in His attributes, I am satisfied. He really is enough. On Saturday, he said to me: “Just as your trust cannot be conditional to an understanding, so, too, your faith cannot be conditional to my ‘performance.’” 

My trust in Him is based on Him, who He said He is, who He has shown Himself to be. Period. It’s been a fun study for the last few months, and I invite you to read the old posts if you’ve not read attribute #1 - #10 (click the tag “attributes of God” for quick reading). 

The final attribute from Acts from 17:22-31 comes from verse31: “because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” 

#10: God is our Judge

I’ve put off writing this post because this attribute is not only intimidating, but it’s not very positive, either. Who wants to read about God judging the world—even if I do believe it? 

But as I asked God what do  You want me to write, I felt like He laid something much more important on my heart: God is Judge, and as such, it’s not my job, my responsibility, or my right to judge others. I have felt for a long time that Christians are more critical of others (Christians and non-Christians alike) than non-Christians are of anyone. 

My feelings were confirmed while reading a blog post about the judgment homosexuals face by Christians (or other religious groups). Several points that this writer makes are worth repeating:

“The greatest spiritual leaders in history have all preached love for others as the basis for all happiness, and never did they accompany such mandates with a list of unlovable actions or deeds. They never said, love everybody except for the gays. Love everybody except for the homeless. Love everybody except for the drug users. Love everybody except for the gang members, or those covered in ink, or the spouse abusers. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody with the exception of the “trailer trash,” those living in poverty, or the illegal immigrants. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody except for our ex-lovers, our lovers’ ex lovers, or our ex-lovers’ lovers. The mandate was pretty damn clear, wasn’t it?

Love others. Period.”

“I know there are many here who believe that living a homosexual life is a sin.
Okay.
But, what does that have to do with love?

I repeat… what does that have to do with love?

 Come on. Don’t we understand? Don’t we get it? To put our arm around someone who is gay, someone who has an addiction, somebody who lives a different lifestyle, someone who is not what we think they should be… doing that has nothing to do with enabling them or accepting what they do as okay by us. It has nothing to do with encouraging them in their practice of what you or I might feel or believe is wrong vs right.”

He concedes that he's not a Christian, and he ends the blog with this sort of “love others and you'll love yourself” thing, and of course, that’s not where I would take it. But here’s what I would say. He is absolutely right on two accounts: as Christians, we are commanded to love others, period; and two, we are commanded not to judge anyone. 

I’m not sure where we put that “load” upon ourselves, but it should be freeing to know that we don’t have to carry it. It was freeing for me, anyway. It released me from worry about how God would deal with Person A who does x, y, or z – whether we’re talking about homosexuality or clubbing, prostitution or tattoos. I mean, God couldn’t possibly save person A who does x, y, or z, right? How did we, as the Church, get to labeling sins and categorizing them among a hierarchy of deeds? Well, those are “lifestyle” sin, some might argue. Yes, and so is my daily my struggle not to fear man. Is my fear of man more than fear of God any less problematic? Absolutely not. And yet, no one (at least that I know of) is questioning my salvation. 

Jantzen Louder preached a few weeks ago, and at one point in his message, he made the comment that everyone should have at least one friend who is not a Christian. He didn’t mean a passing knowledge of a person who’s not a Christian, but a relationship with a non-Christian. I’m sure this was shocking for some, but for me, it was encouraging to finally hear someone say it from the pulpit. 

However, if you would have asked me 8 years ago if I knew a single non-Christian, my answer would have been “no.” In high school, all my friends were Christians. And in college, I fell into the same group. And that’s why I thank God that I met Jane* my senior year at ASU. Jane and I worked together, and after a week of working together, I knew she was a lesbian, and she knew I was a Christian. At that time, I had no idea how to handle knowing and working with a lesbian (gasp, I know). But God told me this: I love her as much as I love you or anyone else. And I said okay, then I love her, too. After working together for a month, we had this conversation:

Jane: “You know I’m gay, right?”

Me: “Yes, I gathered.”

Jane: “So, now you’ll tell me how wrong it is, right? It’s a sin? And I’m going to hell?”

Me: “No, I don’t think I’m anyone to decide who gets to go to heaven and who has to go to hell.”

Jane: Pausing for a moment, clearly confused. “Well, I know what all the Bible says about homosexuality. I’ve read the verses, not just the Old Testament, but in Romans 1, too.”

Me: “Then, I don’t guess there’s anything you’d need to know.”

Jane: “So… okay then.”

Me: “Okay then.”

Jane and I went on to be friends, and we still keep in touch from time to time. And today, I have lots of people in my life who hold different beliefs than I do. And for some of them, they’re not just people I know in passing; they’re people I love and respect deeply. And, more importantly, I'm not friends with them to save them, convince them, or change them. If you think being friends with non-Christians is about having "projects," you've missed the point. And if you think it's your job to defend or sell Christianity, you've missed the point, again.

I know that I can’t, for one second, pretend that I have all the answers about sin, anyway. My response to Jane is as true today as it was 8 years ago: “I don’t think I’m anyone to decide who gets to go to heaven and who has to go to hell.” 

Here’s the truth: anyone with any understanding how wretched we are in our sin, anyone with an understanding of how amazing His grace is—in short, anyone who “gets” the depravity from which we were saved—should know this: Who am I to judge?  

“A new commandment I give you to, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

*Jane was not her real name.