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| tonight at journey we talked about PSaul's conversion (thanks, tyler, for that crafty way of getting around the "what name do i use?" issue). lots of great discussion, but it left me with a few parting, interwoven, thoughts.
First, as 21st century Americans, we typically value Psaul for his contributions in building the church. a great contribution it is! he built what we now function from... i'm a psaul fan, so the following comments are in no way a slander to psaul's glorious work for God.
But God didn't love Paul because of what Paul did for God. God loved Paul because God is love. God loved Paul for the man he was and for the man he was to become.
In our task-driven, workaholic culture, i think we walk a dangerous line of valuing people because of what they can do for us. one of my professors often said we tend to make the people around us either scenery or machinery. we use them to make ourselves look better or to make us more functional. But God doesn't do that. He doesn't see his children only as a means to carrying out what is going on in his mind. He loves us for who we are before he loves us for what we can do.
i work at a place that does outsource recruiting and hiring. basically, we find good people for jobs. God does not work at RTi. God does not look through our resume of activity and decide which of my experiences will be most beneficial for the position he has open for changing the world. he doesn't see that i have a bit of church-work experience that would fit well for what he's looking for. God doesn't dig around and find something useful for him. as jim said, God was quite brilliant in having Paul as his man for forming the church. but i think it's bigger than that. God didn't see Paul as the perfect candidate. God created the perfect candidate in Paul.
which brings me to another thought... God loved paul because God created him. and (*important nugget of personal information: i do not typically veer closely to the edge of pre-destination. I believe God gave us the power to love him by giving us the gift of free will and choice. so what i'm about to say has large implications knowing where i began...)
when we consider the idea of "God's plan for your life" and "God's will" i think we often only think of our usefulness to God. where can i serve, what can i DO for God. we forget that God is creating us and renewing us to be his children. that his plan for us began long before we conceptualized His plan. if you were to ask Saul pre-damascus trip, i'm sure he would have told us that he was following God's will for his life. but after an encounter with jesus, that understanding of God's will changed. God's will didn't... Psaul's understanding of it did.
i'm sure there's more to this, but this is a good ending spot. perhaps more another time?
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| being sick has a way of making you humble.
not just in the head-in-the-toilet-begging-for-mercy kind of humility. and not just in the humility that comes with lying on the bathroom floor. the real kind. the "don't think of yourselves more highly than you ought" Philippians kind of humility.
because when you're sick, you realize how much you don't matter to the large scheme of things. events that seemed as if they necessitated your presence go off seamlessly. parties that you would have enjoyed provide an equally high level of fun for those involved even without your being there to enjoy them. as the theme song of the wonder years puts it, "life goes on."
which, i believe, is exactly why people get sick.
still not connecting?
well, let's think about why someone gets sick. something (virus, bacteria, something) invades your body and some point in your body is too weak to defend itself, it can't keep up the defense. well, why was the body weak? it either has a natural affinity for being weak, or it was weakened by something else. overuse, stress, tiredness, whatever may have you. you do something to yourself that makes your body weak to disease.
and why do you do that body-weakening something to yourself? why is the overuse, stress, tiredness or whatever may have you part of your life?
i'm going to venture out and say it's because you're believing the lie that "you have to." you have to be this stressed, this tired, or things won't get done.
and so, when you're sick, and things still end up as they ought to be, it has a way of bringing you to your knees. and not just on the bathroom floor.
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| "Set yourselves apart for a holy life. Live a holy life, because I am GOD, your God." -Leviticus 20:7
Today was a triumphant day. I was reading this verse out of The Message (or, the Old-Guy-Trying-To-Sound-Cool-Person's-Bible, as some of my friends refer it) and the way Eugene put "live" in italics caught my eye. Hmmmm. So you know what i did? That's right. I went to the original Hebrew. 2 Points for Michele using her edumacation.
You know what i found? Eugene was right. It's not "be holy" (as i'm sure other scriptures are), but it's "live holy". My "above the line" translation was "and you will make yourselves holy... and you will live holy-ily because I am your God, Adonai."
So, this brings a little struggle... what's the difference from being holy and living holy? And, i just have to say it, there are a few connotations that comes with the "be holy" that i don't particularly love. In our most recent American context, it's had to do a lot more with what movies i watch and what products (that i would need to show ID for) that i consume. To me, there's got to be something more to holiness than that, though i think those things can/will/have lead to some disasterous consequences that God does not like. But if we limit holiness to what i consume or watch, than where is God in that? Any hoo-haa off the street can decide that they're going to stop smoking and watch only the crazy christian channel, but is that what composes faith?
I am a firm believer that faith means something. It is evidenced. If it had no implication for my life, then why bother? So i know that there are places in my life that when you stop and examine them, one should be able to say, "she's this way because of her faith in Jesus."
My question is this: what are those areas? Where are the places that are most critical that Jesus have an impact on?
Maybe it's the simplistic "all of them." Maybe i shouldn't want to throw one thing out to go after another, and instead i should just keep adding to the places that Jesus has ruined my life (in the good but hard way). Part of me wants to say "holiness isn't just this... that's not what faith means! because if it is, then we miss this whole other area over here..." but then i get to looking at the "over here" and forget that holiness affects areas much larger than just that. I'm trading one narrow view for another.
Why must we decide if it's personal holiness over social holiness? What i put in my mouth or what comes out of my heart? Maybe it's, as kristy says, "a little from column A and a little from column B."
Maybe that's why "live holy" grabbed me. It's not just a state of being, which in my paralyzing fear makes me not want to do anything because i might suddenly become unholy (in my mind i think of germaphobes who won't leave their house because they might get sick... but in staying couped up they expose themselves to their own germs and thus get sick on their own filth). Instead, it's approaching each area of life itself in a way that says, "God is Here." As I move about, as I live, there is a sense of God invading it. It's not just staying where it's safe, where i can keep my holiness. It's moving and living with a sense of God's presence- and because God is there, well, you'd better watch your step. You'd better not do what you know He doesn't like (in this chapter's example it's have sex with the wrong people, such as your mother, or a donkey).
3 cheers for a 3-year education having a little practical use.
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| "When you sacrifice a peace-offering to God, do it as you've been
taught so it is acceptable. Eat it on the day you sacrifice it and the
day following. Whatever is left until the third day is to be burned up.
If it is eaten on the third day it is polluted meat and not acceptable.
Whoever eats it will be held responsible because he has violated what
is holy to God. That person will be cut off from his people...
"When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, don't eat
its fruit for 3 years; consider it inedible. By the fourth year its
fruit is holy, an offering of praise to God. Beginning in the fifth
year you can eat its fruit; you'll have richer harvests this way. I am
God, your God." (Leviticus 19:5-8, 23-25)
kristy planted a few strawberry plants (bushes? i keep calling them
that and she yells at me. i'm not sure what they are or will be), and
i'm extremely jealous. i wanted to plant a few in my new mini-garden,
but jj won't let me. you can't eat the strawberries until at least the
second year and he keeps talking like he wants a new project house
(this one is running out of projects, believe it or not). i also do not
know if i'd be able to not pick the almost-ripe looking berries of this
year rather than toss them away as you're supposed to for a good
strawberry tree-flower-bush-plant.
maybe that's why these particular laws in leviticus (in a whole string
of interesting laws... expect more from this chapter!) jumped out at
me. first God says you have to eat meat in 2 days (the only time you'd
get meat is from offering), and then he says you have to wait basically
5 years for fruit after you plant it!
Why does God care when you eat something? i understand (a little bit) his whole section on what to eat, but when? Why would that matter?
my hebrew professor has been talking to us lately about OT Law; many
Christians say "that's law, we're free in Christ, we have no need for
law!"but he reminds us that while we're not constrained to the law, it
is still scripture and therefore useful for teaching, rebuking,
instructing, all that jazz that paul says in 2 Timothy (btw, when he
said that, he was referring to the law and prophets! not to the letters
he was currently writing... hmmm....). so i've been enjoying my quest
through the OT looking for spiritual significance, bringing me closer
to what Jesus was all about, since he was the fulfillment of this very
law and not means to get rid of it. lecture over.
so what do meat days and berry years have to do with God?
i've been falling in love with Galatians 5 lately. the fruit of the
spirit (huh! it all comes around to food!). i've been thinking about
how i don't always live it. and that paul says you can't turn it on and
off... you either operate by the spirit or by the flesh- the sinful
nature- the part of you that only seeks to satisfy the self and not God
or others.
I think that God gave His food-timing laws (eat meat in a hurry, wait
on the berries) to help us. Think about it. There were no such things
as refridgerators, or even ICE, back then. so, you eat some meat, leave
it out for 48 hours and, in the middle of the desert they were
wondering, i'm going to guess that the meat would have some friendly
visitors, mainly in the form of maggots and bugs. probably not good for
the system. but, i can imagine (though i only currently eat chickens),
that when you only get meat once a year, having to throw any of it away
would be quite difficult. i once read a book about at girl whose mom
made her eat a ham even thought it was full of maggots because they had
nothing else to eat.
what if God made a law of something because he knew our flesh couldn't
resist it on our own? our tummies and our taste buds that make our
mouths water over that ooey-gooey chocolate brownie are too much for
us, so we need told that we're not allowed to eat such things when they
can cause disease and we can die- and pass it around to the rest of our
family and town.
and then there's the berries. wait 3 years? God, i might explode if i
have to wait 3 years to enjoy the goodness of a strawberry. on my own
accord, i can't resist. so, God made a law. don't eat it. why? because
it will be a much better berry- and you'll have many more of them- if
you wait a few more years. things will be better if you can hold out
and enjoy them after they come to fruition (ah, another food word).
sounds kinda like another lecture i've heard (and given), about things in their proper time and context *ahem, sex.*
i'm starting to think that God really had it together when he gave us
Leviticus. He knew what we just couldn't handle. He knows that on my
own, i have zero self-control. so he made a rule. little kids have no
natural volition to brush their teeth, so parents have to make a rule-
brush before bed. someday they'll brush because they desire to give
people around them the smell of fresh breath. and because they like to
be able to chew. they won't do it because they have to, they'll do it
because it is good.
i'm pretty sure it's biblical. Galatians 3:23-4:7.
so here's where i see beauty... the law leads us to the spirit. we
don't know how to walk in the spirit, so we're directed to by the law.
but it's not about the law. it's about living a life of love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
sometimes we just have to be told how to do that. | | |
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