New

“You make me new, you are making me new.” —Beautiful Things, Gungor

 

This photo is of an area in Santa Barbara that was destroyed by the Tea Fire in November 2008.  For months the smell of fire lingered, piles of rubble remained, and ash was everywhere.  But slowly, the mess was cleaned up, houses were rebuilt, and right in the middle of the yucky, ashey ground, small, beautiful little plants began to emerge.  God took what was devastating and made it into something different, new. Beauty from ashes.

Jesus makes us new.  And this is not necessarily some overnight, instant, o my goodness, everything is different, kind of new.  We are becoming new.  It’s a process.  Christ is making us new.  What a beautiful thing!

In Galatians, Paul is concluding his letter by saying:

“As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died. It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” (Gal. 6:14-16).

Transformation.  Becoming new.  Paul was talking to a group of people who were really concerned about circumcision, thinking that was the outward symbol of true transformation.  What are some modern day symbols that we may focus on?

This idea of being made new by Christ comes up many times throughout the New Testament.  2 Corinthians 5 talks about new bodies in the resurrection. Paul continues talking about how we are God’s Ambassadors, saying,

“Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.¹⁵ He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. ¹⁶ So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! ¹⁷ This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:14-17).

Christ died so we can put away our old lives, the lives we don’t want to be living…and He gave us new life.  In this new life, it is no longer about ourselves.  It’s not all about me, my goals, my wants, my things, my way…we now have the freedom to live for Christ!

I pray that you will press into our Savior and pursue this new, beautiful, freeing life.

Love, Mycah

 

 

Lent Reflection, Day 14: Lift

“If you would lift me up, you must be on higher ground.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

No doubt, my having a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old in the house is a significant contributor to my current mind associations with the term “lift.” Namely, this:

(Be honest now–I can blame this one on my kids…so what’s your excuse? ;-))

When we talk about lifting today, it’s largely a functional term–we tell someone to lift because we need to carry something, or talk about how much we lift so that we can brag about our huge biceps.  Really, it’s only in Christian-ese that we understand “lift” as meaning something more: as a sign of honor, or prize, or significance.  In the church, we frequently sing about “lifting up on high” or “lift up our hands” as another way to say that we are giving that lifted thing honor and reverence in our lives; or that we want other people to notice what we honor, lifting our lives up as sacrifice.  Jesus said of himself in the gospel of John: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” and the book of James says that we too should “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

Maybe that kind of language is more familiar to some of you than others.  But whether you are a card-carrying Christian or not, you can still see remnants of this concept–of “lifting” and “honoring” as being associated–in just our every day actions.  For example, when a sports team wins a trophy, the first thing they do is lift it up and dance around beneath it, honoring their victory.  Or when someone gives a testimony, s/he lifts a hand and swears that what sh/e is saying is true, giving honor to one’s integrity.  We still lift up the things that are important to us, from foam fingers at sporting events to our children in order to make them laugh.  Raising things up high still means something, even if we don’t articulate it in the same way the church does.

Now, I’m going to take some license with this one (give a girl a break–“lift” isn’t the easiest word to write a blog about!) and re-define what we are talking about in terms of lifting or raising above ourselves to allowing something to be above us.  In other words, there are things that we intentionally honor in our lives by raising them up, and then there are things that take a place of honor above us in our lives because we submit, or bow down, to them.

The major difference between the two acts is this: to lift up means that you are conscious of what you wish to honor.  It is an active role–and intentional display of what you value.  And while bowing down can also function as a conscious act (for example, submitting to circumstances that one can not change), it can also be an unconscious act.  For example, consistently submitting or bowing down to worry, or to “keeping up with the Jone’s”, or to circumstances that one CAN change (how’s that weight loss resolution from January coming along?).  And these things that we put over our heads by lowering ourselves in front of them are holding places of honor and influence over our lives, even though we haven’t consciously put them there.  Which means that these things, if left unexamined, will exert control over our decisions, our actions, and our futures without us really having much of a say.

Perhaps the only reason that I am lingering on this is because I think that we should be aware of that which takes an honored position in our lives.  I think that we should be conscious of both what we are lifting up for others to see as well as what we are bowing down to in submission.

I think this both of individuals as well as of communities.  If a stranger were to look at your life, what would you want them to see you lifting up and honoring?  Justice, compassion, strength?  Your children, your job, your marriage?  You’re worry, your hurt, your addiction?  Communities are held by the same measure–just look at the church.  The gospel we cling to is the gospel of full life over the cold emptiness of death…but is that commitment to the fullness, and justice, and compassion that Jesus displayed on the cross lifted high above us in a place of prominence for others to notice first?  (According to George Barna, trusted pollster of Christians and head of The Barna Group, the answer is ‘no.’)  And if not, well then, what is?

Everyone honors something, whether it is intentional or not.  Everyone makes their decisions based on some reason, some value, some perception.  So what is yours?  What have you placed higher than you, that it might lift you up?

 

Live

What would it like to live as if the Kingdom IS here on earth, now?

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-29.

So let’s start it out, what does it mean to “Love God” ?  One of the first things Jesus did in his time on earth was to call his disciples.  He was walking around by a big ole body of water, the Sea of Galilee.  He saw these two brothers (Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrews).  They were regular guys, fisherman.  Really nothing special.  Jesus said, “Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.  What?!  Would you do that?  I can’t be sure I would.  First, let’s be clear that these brothers know nothing about Jesus, so he’s essentially a complete stranger.  They did not even hesitate, “at once they left”… wow!  Then, they left their nets, their jobs, their lives as they knew it.  I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t exactly just leave everything I have, a comfortable life, in an instant like these two brothers did.  Then the followed him.  They didn’t know where he was leading.  But they followed.

Loving others includes the people we want to love, and those we don’t.  Really loving them.  Listening.  Being filled with patience and joy.  Being humble.  Acting in extraordinary ways for the sake of others, not so we look good, and so people think we are awesome or something.  But, loving others because God loved us first, evidenced throughout scriptures.  I talked about love two days ago, and if you see similarities, it is because we are to live a life of love.  

Love God.  Love Others. 

What if we, as Christians, were really and truly know for being abnormally loving, peaceful, joyful, and courageous people?  How transforming and radical would that be!

I pray you press into the Lord and be transformed by the workings of the Holy Spirit.  Our Father, we want to recapture the beauty of Your Kingdom and be Your light.  We want to live for you Jesus.

 

Lent Reflections, Day 8: Evil

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our [human] race can fall about the devils.  One is to disbelieve in their existence.  The other is to believe, and to feel and excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”  C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

One of the reasons why C. S. Lewis’ quotation above strikes me is because it highlights the two ways that I am most comfortable (if I can even say such a thing) approaching evil: either make a joke out of it, or put on my doomsday voice (if I even have such a thing) and warn of the lurking corners of darkness that the everyday human avoids out of ignorance or apathy.

The truth is, evil is very difficult for me to consider with any sustained amount of concentration.  Maybe part of that is because the classification of what is evil and what isn’t evil has been so hard fought and wrestled over–in politics, between religions, amongst cultures–that labeling something as evil is equivalent to picking a fight.  And, in case you haven’t heard it in my tone as of yet, I’m one with little patience for social bickering.

Maybe another reason why I find evil so hard to consider is because evil can have a subjective-kind-of-nature to it.  For example, a bottle of wine can be a part of a nice evening with friends for some, whereas, for the recovering alcoholic, it can feel more like a portal into a world of chaos and shame.  A bottle of wine can be evil, but isn’t always.  Or let’s take it one step further, when sometimes the same thing can be declared evil for two different and opposite reasons.  For example, taxes.  Those who want them paid are robbing the entrepreneur of the rewards of hard work and perseverance, whereas those who don’t want them paid are selfish and cold hearted, uncaring of the “least of these” in society.  (Insert easy “but we all knew taxes were evil” joke here.)

Or maybe the reason I find evil so difficult to consider is because I just don’t want to.

I don’t want to consider how evil may be closer to me than I initially imagine, and I don’t want to consider how powerless evil can make me feel.  I don’t want to consider how evil can permeate distant actions, especially if those “distant actions” are my own actions far away from another global citizen.  I don’t want to consider the life lost, the dreams extinguished, the survival inadequate.  I want to think that evil is powerless if I am dedicated to goodness.

But that’s not true either.

People who are dedicated to goodness still experience evil.  Sometimes, people who are dedicated to goodness are still complicit in evil–the photo above is a picture of wealthy, high rise hotels, devoid of windows so that guests will not see the slums across the street.  Evil is like cancer–it crosses every generation, all socio-economic boundaries, all races and cultures.  We can do our best to try and avoid it, but at the end of the day, evil goes where evil wants.  And that’s why I hate it.  I hate evil’s autonomy, it’s imperviousness, and it’s destruction.

And so, what else can I say?  Evil is there.  And to ignore it or to dwell on it won’t change it’s existence and won’t stop it’s coming.  Maybe it appears differently for some people instead of others.  Maybe it’s obvious, like genocide.  Or maybe it’s subtle, like the quiet thought in the silence of solitude.  But it’s there.  And it’s here. With us.

I will say this one last thing–I do think that we can be free of evil.  On a large scale, that’s why I’m a Christian (a perfect kingdom with no tears and all that).  But on a small scale, I think that evil relishes in the loss of full life.  And in the times where evil has been the most obvious–the Holocaust, Rwanda, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and so on–it was allowed to persist until people were united in contributing to the full life of other people they most often did not know.  What I am saying is that it’s not enough to just do no harm–we have heard story after story in Germany of those who “did no harm” but also “did no good.”  If we are to keep evil from having the last word, then I am convinced that we need to intend and conform our actions to the principle of sharing the fullness life with every human.  Maybe that’s a simple hug or a listening ear, maybe it’s giving someone you want to keep to make your own life full, maybe it’s a full blown revolution.  But, whatever it is, I believe we each need to be a part of it, all the time.  Fullness of life doesn’t just happen on it’s own.

I think that’s why Jesus said that lust was just as bad as adultery, and anger was just as wicked as murder, because thoughts centered around lust and anger do not contribute to the full life of the other, even though the thoughts themselves “do no harm.”  They objectify, de-humanize, and distance one person from another so that the other person isn’t a person made in the image of God (just like you and me), but just an object for our consumption, for our satisfaction, for our service, for our ridicule.  And perhaps that is, at the root of it, just simple evil.  Just plain and simple, devastating evil.

Where do you see and experience evil?  And what are the ways that you can contribute to the fullness of life, be it for those you love or those who nobody loves?