Laced With Grace

My husband and I had a nice bike ride last night in the cool windy air around the farms and countryside near our home. At first glance, I would have thought the farm country to be rather flat, dull and uninteresting. But, as my out of shape worn out legs began to pump harder, I began to realize there were lots of little hills in this idyllic quiet country scene. Every time I felt the breeze in my hair and the wheels spun faster and faster with no effort on my part, I imagined how challenging this little hill would be upon my return trip. Each downhill meant another uphill sooner or later. My quads burned as I climbed the lackadaisical rolling hills panting, huffing and puffing all the way up.

There are times when I look at my faith walk and see it the same way I see our quiet countrside. Not much going on here, except a few manure piles and long stretches of uninteresting landscape far into the distance of my vision. And then, I feel shocked to find those almost imperceptible hills to be so incredibly challenging. Life looks pretty simple from far away, but when we get up close into the nitty gritty dailiness of it all, we see that there are lots of challenges we face continually.

I always thought that the Christian life was a little like a mountain climb. As I reached one plateau of spiritual growth, I expected to continue to climb upwards to the next high place with God. I hadn’t really anticipated that it was more like our Wisconsin rolling hills. The top of a hill means traveling down into the valley of tomorrow, the normalcy of everyday life and then looking ahead to the next hill to climb. Most of the time, they don’t look like big inclines, but every little hill is building up strength and muscles of faith so that the next challenge won’t be as difficult.

Maybe if I could fly up high and look down over the landscape of my life, I would see the winding road I’ve traveled and realize that it’s been more ups than downs and that each climb brought me to a higher place with God so that I could serve Him better when I descending back into the valleys of life. And on those days when it feels like I’m sailing with the wind flying through my hair, I can enjoy it even though I know it’s not meant to last forever. It’s all part of the path I’m on with hills and valleys, victories and weaknesses.

Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Psalm 43:3

God is with me in the mountain top days and in the exhausting labor filled mountain climbing days too.  He is guiding and leading and preparing the path ahead so I can move forward whether its up or down in faith.

Sometimes when I look at other people’s interactions with their family and loved ones, I want to just shake my head. When a son is abused and neglected by his father, he still calls dad his hero. Or when a wife catches her husband in an affair, she stays in the marriage, standing by his side and loving him no matter what. It’s the girl whose boyfriend beats her that always surprises me the most. Why do these people remain so faithful to the people they love, even though their loved ones don’t. How do you love the unlovable? How do you stay clean when you spend time with those who are dirty?
We may never be able to understand or answer the above questions but what can help is a right understanding of God. He chooses to love the unlovable. He chose to spend time with the dirty to demonstrate what being clean looks like. He took on our shame and made it his glory. One of my favorite passages in all of scripture is Zechariah 3:1-6

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “the Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel, the angel said to those who were standing before him, “take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See I have taken away your sin and I will put rich garments on you.” Then I said, “Put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him while the angel of the Lord stood by.

I can almost hear the Lord saying to Satan, “Now where is your accusation?” What was once dirty, I have made clean. What was once unworthy, I have made worthy. This is what Jesus Christ does with us day after day after day. He lives to intercede for us on our behalf so that God the Father is able to look at us in spite of our sin.
As my husband and I were discussing this the other day, I reminded him how loyal he remained to his dad despite all of his dad’s failings as a father and husband. He commented that no matter what mistakes his dad had made, his love for his father remained stronger. It surprised me how amazingly strong love can be; how it can cover over offenses and how it colors the way we view those we love.

And it made me realize how God’s love for us sees the best in us, looks beyond our failures and tenderly seeks for who we really were meant to be. What amazing love!

I live in the state that has the highest amount of alcohol consumed per capita than any other state.  Way to go – we’re number one…right (hear my sarcasm please).  The problems that inevitably follow this status also plague our state.   Accidents, children following in the way of their parents at an early age, broken families, abuse, neglect, etc. 

As I’ve been pondering the solution to this in the recent months, I’ve watched two PBS specials that shed some light on solutions that have been pursued in the past.  Have any of you watched the show on prohibition?  I’ve only watched a little bit of it because sometimes it’s just too depressing.  Some good Christian ladies started off with a mission of curbing alcoholism and its effects through teetotalling and eventually outlawing liquor altogether.  But, unfortunately, their mission was an ultimate failure.  Why?

The reason is deeper than controlled substances and their effect upon our bodies.  Because this whole conversation isn’t really about drinking alcohol, anyway.  It’s about how the law effects our hearts.

Romans 8 comes to mind when I think about this:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

As it turns out, laws don’t actually change people.  They sometimes cause the opposite effect:  creating a desire to break laws.  I think we need to keep this in mind when we are tempted to create more laws for ourselves in order to tame our behaviors.  Laws don’t change hearts.  And this is the root problem.

Only God can change a heart.  Only through the power of the Holy Spirit alive in us, can we see true transformations in our lives.  I can see why people thought that eliminating booze from society would create a better world, but it doesn’t help the fact that our hearts are dead from sin.

There was another PBS special on recently about the revivals in the last 1800′s in America.  Wow-what a difference!  People gathering in the tents to hear charismatic preachers and turning their lives over to Christ.  Lives changes dramatically and all those unhealthy behaviors started to fade away.  It’s amazing to hear a non-Christian talk about how these revivals made a distinct impact on society.  Drinking was down, people realized the importance of working hard, their morals changes and their lives changed.  This was because of internal changes made by Jesus Christ, not any external laws.

I’m thinking about Lent this year and what I want to do so that I’ll focus more on Jesus and less on this world.  But, I realize that creating rules and laws for myself won’t change who I am on the inside.  So, I want to make sure that at the heart of my Lent rituals is more time with Jesus, more time sitting in His presence allowing Him to change me from the inside out.