“Moral Decay” and Christian Alarmism

I’ve always been a little confused about what the phrase “evangelical” means, but never more so than during an election season.

It seems like every pollster and pundit has an idea about who is getting the “evangelical” vote, who is pandering to “evangelicals,” and who is more in touch with their “evangelical” base.

As a Christian deeply interested in politics, it’s always amusing and often confusing to listen to what the “evangelicals” are apparently saying and doing.

From transgender bathroom bills to the upcoming presidential election, there seems to be one reoccurring trend that Christians across denominational lines are embracing: panic.

Everything is lost, the apocalypse is upon us, and all our leaders are going to hell.

For the less extreme, it sounds more like this: crying “moral decay,” pronouncing God’s judgement upon a sinful nation, bemoaning the declining Christian influence in America.

But it all boils down to this: panic. We’re freaking out, and while our solutions are varied, our alarmism is not.

So what do we do with our mutual doomsday-prophesying?

We try to fix it all. We try and pass all the moral legislation we can sneak under the noses of our sinful leaders. We use every resource at our disposal to squash out the outwards signs of “moral decay.” We’re running around with a couple buckets, trying to stop leaks from every room of the house.

But here’s the truth: it isn’t working.

We know the God that gives life and we’re selling band-aids at the morgue.

We keep trying to patchwork holiness together in sinful people, instead of counting on Jesus to transform their hearts.

When are we going to wrap our heads around the fact that the world is going to act worldly?

No, everything is not getting worse. It’s always been sinful and broken and lost. There is nothing new under the sun, after all.

When we spend all our time criticizing the world for being the broken place we already know it to be, we forfeit the precious time we have to tell it about the one who can heal it, the one who is constantly in the beautiful process of redeeming it.

We are supposed to be about the work of bringing heaven to earth and being His hands and feet so His will can be done, but instead we’re bickering about which color to paint our rotting house. We can’t give it life, only He can.

Is this a reason to give up on politics? No. It’s a reason to pick our battles wisely.

I’m not saying there aren’t some battles worth fighting, I’m saying that maybe they aren’t even battles at all.

Maybe it’s time to lay down the weapons.

Jesus was all about bring change to His culture and questioning the power of the ruling government. But He did it in all of the weirdest ways. He hung out with the broken and the sinful, He didn’t wage a war against them. His model was one less glamorous than pundits arguing on TV and much less efficient than starting an online petition. He loved people and He gave them life. And then those people told other people. And they loved each other. Honestly, they hung out with each other. They kept loving and eating and talking and living together. And it happened over and over again for thousands of years. And it’s the only thing that has ever truly changed the world – people who love Jesus loving other people.

We keep telling a sinful world to stop sinning, but instead of telling them about the one who can free them from the bondage of their sin, we’re trying to ban as much of it as we can.

Am I advocating for a world with no laws against immoral behavior? (Nice try, I was a debater in college and I can smell your skepticism from a mile away.)

No. I’m advocating for political platforms to take a backseat to loving Jesus and loving people. I’m all about just legislation and good political involvement, but I’m sick and tired of us thinking it can truly change people. And I’m sick and tired of us acting surprised when a broken world is broken again and unsaved people keep on sinning.

We worship an omniscient and omnipotent God, but we act baffled when earthly solutions fail again and again.

We’ve bought into the lie that talking the loudest means we’ll be heard, that having the most powerful people on our side will give us influence, that “taking back our country” will be for His glory.

Our Jesus never launched an effective marketing campaign. He ignored crowds to talk to children and He warned people not to follow Him if they wanted an easy life.

Maybe it’s time we stopped fighting “culture wars” and started following the example of the God who became man – loving God and loving people, over and over and over again.

 

 

 

What “It’s a Relationship, Not a Religion” Gets Wrong

Religion gets a pretty bad rap today.

The funny thing is that the people that seem most likely to criticize and condemn the very idea of “religion” are…Christians.

“Jesus hates religion.” – Popular Youtube spoken word video

“Religion makes you proud of you; Jesus makes you proud of him.” –Pastor speaking at my school this semester

“Religion will send more people to Hell than liquor.” – A (hilarious in more ways than one) statement made on Facebook today

Or my personal favorite –
“It’s a relationship, not a religion.”

It’s a nice thought, initially. It’s catchy, short, and it distances the speaker from any unsavory connotations the listener might have about “religion.”

It’s reached the level of ubiquity that allows people to say it without any real explanation of what it means.

There’s just one problem – it’s not true.

It’s not true in the sense that it’s not life-giving, God-glorifying or Jesus-following.

Here’s why:

 

1. It’s a false choice.

Does following Jesus mean having a relationship with Him or does it mean being a part of a religion? Both.

A relationship with Jesus includes relationships with others, especially relationship with others in the church.

He’s commanded us to be in relationship with one another, but it goes even deeper than that. In Ephesians 2, Paul says this to an increasingly diverse group of believers:

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (verses 19-22).

There is something stronger about this explanation of the church. It’s not just about being in relationships with each other and with God. It’s about being “fellow citizens” of a common household. There’s something, dare I say, institutional about it. (Scary word for some.)

Institutional literally means “organized,” “established,” or “expressed in the form of foundations.”

In Exodus 19, when God spoke to Moses about his newly freed people, He said to him: “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (verses 5-6)

Since the beginning of God’s grand master plan to redeem the world, he’s been calling His people to be His people.

There’s something organized and established about that.

Yes, there is “neither Jew nor Gentile” because of Christ, but this picture of God relating to people and calling them to community applies today.

Instead of being “God’s people” because of ethnicity, there is common identity found in Christ – the church.

“It’s a relationship, not a religion” makes it sound like your faith is either one or the other – based in religion or based in a relationship. Instead, God called his people to be a part of both – a relationship with Him and with each other that expressed itself in the form of “His people”: a community, a household, a holy temple for the Lord.

 

2. It misunderstands what “religion” means.

I think if I took the sermons I’ve heard that condemn “religion” and replaced every mention of it with “legalism,” they would make a lot more sense.

We seem to associate “religion” with works-based salvation or with the kind of moralizing, legalistic Christian culture we are always so desperate to distant ourselves from.

That’s not what religion means.

Religion comes from the Latin word religare which means “to bind” or “to tie.”

This concept – of being bound to one another, accountable to one another, responsible for one another – is beautifully biblical.

Condemn empty religion and meaningless tradition all you want.

Rant and rage against legalism and moralizing Christian culture.

But don’t call out religion. It’s the lifeblood of a Christian community, the temple for our Lord, and the binding of us to each other.

 

3. It’s a reflection of our individualist culture.

Jesus really only cares about me and my relationship with Him.

My faith is personal, none of anyone’s business.

In 1 Peter 2, Peter’s language to the church sounds familiar:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (verses 9-10)

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

Just like in Exodus, Peter is telling the church: you are not your own. You are a people, plural.

The tremendous mercy of God’s plan for humanity isn’t just about eternity, it’s about the right-now gift of becoming a people.

“It’s a relationship, not a religion,” is singular: relationship. One relationship.

Yes, there is only one person that saves you, but He doesn’t save you for one relationship, He saves you to become a people.

Our culture is so individualistic we’ve learned to scorn collective identities, but the early church’s culture was so communal that they understood the power of becoming a people.

They understood the grace being given to them: the grace of being given a home, a community, and an identity.

 

4. It sanitizes the all-encompassing, self-denying, radically life-swallowing call to follow Christ.  

“Relationship” is part of it, that’s for sure. But we often equate it with our human relationships – a give-and-take bond where both parties are equal. Our relationship with Christ (as uncomfortable as it may initially sound) is totally unbalanced. We surrender all our desires and dreams to His will, we devote ourselves to His glory, and we spend our lives proclaiming His name. It’s what we were made to do and it’s when we’re most fulfilled. But it’s not an “equal” relationship. It’s a servanthood.

 

/ / /

Church leaders keep asking – “Why do so many young people leave the church?”
Maybe it’s because we’ve sold them too small a view of church. We’ve turned our churches into coffee shops and acted surprised when they started going to Starbucks on Sundays instead.

We water down the power of “You are the people of God” so it doesn’t freak anyone out and then scratch our heads when entire generations stop seeing the point in coming to church.

If everything is about my personal relationship with God, why go to church? So I stay home and listen to a sermon podcast and some Hillsong. And pretty soon that seems unnecessary too.

When we preach the message of “It’s a relationship, not a religion!” we’re telling generations of people that church is superfluous, not live-giving.

We need to preach the true message of the Church – that we are a community, a body, a people.

It’s being a people that keeps you coming back, accountable, learning and growing and becoming more like Him.

“It’s a relationship, not a religion” is catchy, but it fundamentally misrepresents the Christian faith. It is a religion – in fact, it’s the only true one.

 

 

 

When We Fight

Yet again, my school is embroiled in another raging controversy.

I won’t take the time to hash out the whole thing here, since reports of what occurred have been pretty well publicized. The gist is this: the president of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell, Jr., made some inappropriate and insensitive comments about gun control, terrorism, and Muslims at a campus-wide event recently. While I think the discussions that are happening on and off campus about what he said are incredibly important, I think there’s one thing critics have gotten horribly wrong. Don’t misunderstand: I’ve been pretty vocal about my criticisms of what Falwell said. I think he (hopefully unintentionally) said violent things about Muslims and spoke carelessly and flippantly about the death of people made in the image of God. However, I think if there’s anything critics of Liberty and Falwell have wrong, it’s comments like this:

“I have no idea what or who you people follow, but it sure as hell isn’t Christ.”

“I think most of them don’t really believe what the Word of God says.”

“They no longer seem to care whether or not they are emulating or honoring Jesus, just capitalizing on his name recognition.” (This one’s from this blog.)

I wholeheartedly agree that Falwell’s statements (and the applause some students followed them with) were heartbreaking. I think they deserve to be criticized and condemned. I think he should apologize and students should ask him to.

But the response to this controversy has caused an ugly trend to rear its head once again. Instead of criticizing someone’s actions or words, questioning their justifications, or debating their theology, a popular method for calling out Christians has become questioning their salvation. If they don’t go that far, many at least claim that the person or institution in question must not be trying at all to follow Christ.

Nothing comes out of these kinds of attacks. Claiming someone isn’t a follower of Christ is not an effective way to dialogue about these issues or cause change within the Christian community. Instead of using Scripture to support your position, when people jump straight to these kinds of call-outs, they immediately shut down the conversation. They divide groups of people into the “real” and “fake” Christians and make everyone less likely to find solutions to problems or learn from each other.

More than this ineffectiveness, resorting to questioning someone’s salvation is just wrong. No one but God can know that person’s heart. Many criticisms of Falwell and the students that supported him painted them as evil villains who must be lying about their faith. I can’t speak for Falwell or the entire student body, but the students I’ve spoken to have been overwhelmingly willing to thoughtfully and lovingly reevaluate their support. Not all of them have drastically changed their minds, but their responses have proven that they aren’t motivated by mindless hate; they’re earnestly attempting to love as Christ loved us, and sometimes they disagree about how to do that.

There’s obviously a time and place for thoughtfully considering the fruit of someone’s faith and the way they live out what they believe (especially when it comes to putting people in positions of spiritual authority). But that’s not what’s happening here. This is not about churches dealing with sin in their congregations (1 Corinthians 5) or Christians discerning false prophets (Matthew 7). It’s about learning how to have dialogue with fellow Christians who disagree about how to best follow Christ. It’s about criticizing a leader in the Christian community in a way that actually produces change and mutual understanding. It’s about recognizing that in the course of centuries of time and millions of people, there are going to be differences in the way Christians live out our faiths in a complicated, messy world. We need to learn to disagree with each other without resorting to simply asserting that someone is not saved and consequently shutting down any possible discussion.

There’s only one issue that determines someone’s salvation. And we should hold on tightly to that one thing we have in common (Jesus!) in order to speak truth and life into each other, even when that means criticizing what we think is wrong.

 

The Courage it Takes to Feel

It seems like there’s a new tragedy every day.

Terrorist attacks, shootings, bombings, wars.

Turn on the TV at any moment and another act of violence and hatred is flashing across the screen.

It’s easy to become so desensitized to the violence that you either consume the information without a thought or you stop keeping up entirely.

I was recently stuck in an airport all day, waiting for a flight that kept getting grounded. As I sat in an empty gate, I noticed that the row of TVs across from me were displaying news of another shooting. I watched dozens of people stroll past the news – businesspeople in suits, frazzled women clutching diaper bags, and fellow half-awake college students. Each would lift their heads when they saw the words “Breaking News” stream across the screens. And then each would pause, shake their heads, and keep walking. They were too familiar with the tragedy. Too numb to the violence. They were tired of feeling the collective pain of a world full of destruction.

I understand where they’re coming from. I’ve responded the same way far too often. I’ve stopped for a mere moment, heart thumping in my chest, tears gathering in my eyes. And then I’ve moved on. I’ve been faced with the choice to feel the pain or move on – and I’ve moved on. I’ve seen too many war films, news stories, and cop shows to be shocked by violence. I’ve become too accustomed to a world of terrorist attacks and bombings to be saddened each and every time. I’m numb and apathetic.

People can blame this attitude on a number of things: mass media, the “information glut,” violent TV shows, the coverage of mass murderers and serial killers.
And as much as I’m likely to agree with many of these criticisms, fixing those problems is hard. Fighting against a constant stream of media coverage is difficult for anyone wanting to stay informed. Fixing my generation’s obsession with convenience and easy access information is going to be a lot harder than criticizing it.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned I can do, it’s this: fight to feel.

It’s a fight because it’s easier to stay numb.

It’s radical and brave and important to feel.

Stop in a crowded airport in front of a news report and weep for more lives senselessly taken.

Hear reports of war and human trafficking and shootings, and let your sorrow come out. Feel it. Let it be known. Let it take hold of your heart for just that moment.

Let yourself feel the depth of your own sense that this is wrong.

Sometimes you’ll be exhausted, but that exhaustion will you remind you that this is not how things are supposed to be. It’ll remind you that this is not your home.

It will force you to go to the only source of strength you have left. And when He fills you up, you’ll be stronger and more passionate than ever. You’ll be ready to do something.

You’ll be ready to fight injustice and care for the wounded and pray more passionately and honestly for the whole world.

You’ll be ready to answer His call to action, wherever it might be; because you’ll feel the pain reverberating around the world and you will be desperate to tell them of the love He has shown you.

“Guard you heart,” you might say. Yes, guard it. Guard it from apathy and indifference and the numbness that will take you over. Guard it from the voices that say it’s too hard to feel, it’s too tiring to keep caring so much.

Do the hard thing.

Do the hard thing of responding to each act of violence and injustice by feeling it.

Don’t let it take you over. Don’t let it drive you into a pit.

But if you are truly feeling it – feeling the pain of others and of this broken and fallen world – you will be filled with more than sorrow; you will be filled with hope. If you feel the pain of today and recognize that you were made for a tomorrow free from it, you will do more than mourn today – you will rejoice for tomorrow. You will fight for today and tell others about the tomorrow He has promised. You will feel – both pain and joy; sorrow and love.

When Your Church Doesn’t Feel Like Home

“I don’t know why they don’t like me.”

I wrote those words six years ago, in the notebook normally reserved for my sermon notes.

I wrote them in the church bathroom, where I’d spent the last 45 minutes hiding from the youth group I was terrified of attending.

I wrote them after finally ignoring my parents’ command to go “make friends.”

I wrote them after giving up.

_____________________________________________________

I’d spent my whole life in church.

The felt board was as familiar as the schoolroom chalkboard.

My family volunteered in the nursery, went to the summer afternoon barbeques, and racked up the Awana badges.

So I was excited to enter the magical realm of the “youth group.” I was just as excited for all-nighters and after-proms as I was for the spiritual maturity I assumed would be instantaneously granted to myself and my friends.

What a harsh collision was the reality.

I wasn’t accustomed to feeling more accepted at my large public high school than my church.

I watched my former friends either slowly beat down their parents’ resistance and stay home; or join one of the cliques that dotted the hip youth group basement.

 

The most piercing memory of that time was the conference my parents made me attend my sophomore year of high school. Sounds like a good idea – forced bonding over sleeping bags in church offices and emotional worship sessions. Instead, I felt the sting of rejection in the place I most desperately wanted to feel at home. I remember my former best friend saying of a late night session – “Maybe…maybe you shouldn’t go with us.” I pushed my sleeping bag further and further from the cozy circles high school girls love creating.

But the tears that ended that weekend were not hurt or angry. They were joyful.

In the midst of the exclusion and pain, He found me.

I began a relationship with Christ that weekend. In spite of the pain this church was causing me, He fought for my heart. As much as I resisted, as much as the rejection of my peers fueled my insecurity and anger, He fought harder still.

His love overcomes even the sin His children commit against each other.

My senior year, I moved to a church with a very different youth group. This one was well loved. By its pastor, by its high schoolers, and by its church.

But my pain had made me cynical. I loved my God, but I was wary of His bride. My faith had spent its youngest and most vulnerable years growing alone. Like everything else in my life, I aspired to self-sufficiency.

So I avoided this new youth group. And I guarded my heart from this church.

It took the relentless love of a group of people that had experienced His relentless love to break through my defenses.

I learned the love of a church that is striving to reflect His love – imperfectly, messily, but relentlessly.

And I’ve learned a lot about the way the church can wound and heal people.

But more than any of the laundry list of lessons I’ll probably write about over the course of my life, I’ve learned these two things.

1. He works through our imperfect attempts to make disciples.

I was reconciled to my Creator in the midst of a situation that was anything but conducive to it. He did more than work in spite of my circumstances. He used them.

I found a love for His bride that was not the feel-good butterflies of someone who’s never been hurt. It wasn’t honeymoon phase love. He built up in me a fierce love for His children. He let me experience the pain of being the outcast so I would fight for the forgotten ones. I got angry at the high school girls who ignored me and then he showed me the depth of their insecurity and heartbreak. He met me in a barren place so that I would know how to fight for His people anywhere.

He showed me that even in imperfect and messy attempts to follow Him, He was faithful.

I wish I could go to that girl in a bathroom stall and tell her – He is working in this. Just wait. You are going to be amazed.

2. I have a responsibility. And so do you.

It was easy to blame that church for everything it did to me. It was easy to get bitter and angry and isolate myself. It was easy to label that first church “bad” and the second one “good.”

But now that I go to a church that I love and that loves me, I have realized: we have a responsibility.

I don’t feel excluded anymore, so I have a responsibility to include.

I am no longer lonely, so I have a responsibility to be a friend.

I’ve been loved, so I have a responsibility to love.

I definitely don’t have many answers. I don’t know how to “fix” the fact that churches sometimes drive more people away than they draw in. I don’t know how to deal with the multitude of disputes churches have with each other or within themselves. I haven’t scratched the surface of denominational conflicts. I know so very little, but this I do know: I am not a passive bystander. I have a responsibility to make my church the kind of place that heals, not hurts.

I wish I could go back to those high school girls that tormented me and tell them: You have an incredible opportunity. You can say one word that will light up that girl in the bathroom’s face. You can include. You can build up. You can love. But you have more than an opportunity. You have a responsibility – whether you realize it or not.

You that have found a home in this church have a responsibility to continue making it a home – to cultivate it into a place that heals the wounded and befriends the forgotten.

 

My prayer is as much for the girls texting in the youth group basement as it is for the girls hiding in the bathroom stalls: that we would experience His love so overwhelmingly that we would seek to love each other as He does.

Offering Failure

As usual, my momma knew exactly what to say.

“Sometimes your offerings are your successes, and sometimes your offerings are your failures.”

I had written a blog post I was proud of. I had passionately written about the importance of fully experiencing both the pain and the joy of giving up my best for His best.

And then I had the worst weekend I could possibly have.

I failed.

Utterly, completely, and totally failed.

I had written the post in response to a fender bender, and then I ended up in a five-car pile-up.

I spent more time last weekend crying than in the whole rest of this semester combined. I cried in a stairwell, in a bathroom, barefoot in the freezing rain.

I felt like after finally grappling with this idea that some failure would be a necessary part of choosing His best over mine, He just rained down all the failure I could take.

I felt abandoned. I felt like I had trusted Him with my failures and then He went and turned a little rain storm into a hurricane. I felt betrayed. I wanted to take back every word I had written.

I was learning to be okay with my failures! I was working through this! And you just had to go and make it even worse than I ever thought it could get!

It doesn’t matter that this train wreck of a failure was not nearly as catastrophic as it seemed when I was still right in the middle of it. Failing at one debate tournament has zero implications for the rest of my life.

It still rocked me to my core. It felt like I was just starting to feel okay with the failure I was experiencing and then – smack – He hit me with the hardest blow yet.

It played out like that classic Sunday school version of the Old Testament – God was just the overgrown kid with a magnifying glass, gleefully killing off ants.

It felt like I had trusted Him with my failure only to have him betray me.

But the voice of reason came in the drive-through line at Cookout, intercepting my current medication for this fiasco: fries and a milkshake.

“Sometimes your offerings are your successes, and sometimes your offerings are your failures.”

I hadn’t thought about it like that.

I’d tried to learn to value some earthly failure as a necessary part of choosing His best. But I hadn’t considered how my failure could be an offering.

But maybe I need to start thinking of it like that. When I choose His best over mine, I’m offering those defeats up to Him – not because He deserves defeat, but because He deserves my everything. I am giving Him what is most difficult for me to give – my failure.

I don’t want to experience it. If I experience it, I certainly don’t want to acknowledge it. And if I have to deal with it, my initial response is to bitterly wallow.

When I give Him my failures, I’m giving up my “right” to stay snuggled up in my pit of misery.

This weekend, that looked like getting up off the floor and moving on.

It looked like going to the last day of a debate tournament I embarrassingly failed at and smiling at my friends, encouraging my teammates, and reclaiming joy.

In Hebrews 13:15 it says “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.” I read that today, still fresh off the knife-to-the-stomach pain of this weekend, and thought – “aw, that’s nice.”

Then I read the verses before it – “And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.  For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:12-14)

Sometimes your greatest offerings are your failures.

This passage is all about failure. It’s about dealing with shame, embarrassment, and disgrace. But not for nothing. Because we are not looking to build our reputations on this earth. We are “looking for the city that is to come.” Then it goes on to say – “let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.” We are offering to Him our praise in the midst of our earthly failures. We are offering to Him our willingness to endure earthly disgrace for His sake. We are offering to Him everything we have, even when it feels like nothing.

Sometimes giving everything you have means giving Him every mistake, every failure, every bad decision. Sometimes it also means failing at your dreams so you can follow His.

Sometimes what looks like utter failure to the world is an eternal victory. And praising Him in the midst of it is an offering.

Joyously Unqualified

You’d think I would be thrilled.

Getting to do something I love, being tasked with the opportunity to write more, to practice what I want to do with the rest of my life, to impact people’s lives the way I want to.

But I was terrified.

I’ve learned that I love writing.

But I learned that by doing it on my own computer, in the comfort of a dim student-worker-corner of a quiet office. I learned that by posting blogs on a site that no one but the two people that have to love me can see.

I learned to write in an environment where I felt free to vent, free to pose questions, try new things, and generally contemplate things without a ton of commitment to particular positions or opinions.

But now I was being asked to write a series of devotionals for real people that would probably actually read them and a deep sense of inferiority and insecurity came flooding in.

I literally spent an hour sitting in front of my computer, with a Bible open next to me, a set of translations opened on a series of tabs, and…a blank page.
I even had a Starbucks!

Nothing.

I couldn’t bring myself to start writing, because it just felt so….presumptuous.

It’s a word I use in my head a lot, actually.

When I’m feeling insecure, there isn’t a whole lot that doesn’t feel presumptuous.  Sitting down, eating a piece of pizza, admitting that I have an opinion…

Insecurity does an awfully good job of somehow simultaneously convincing me I have absolutely no value, while also making everything about…me.

In this case, it felt like this – Who am I? Who am I to be writing this? Who am I to think I have something to say? Who am I to think I’m smart enough, spiritual enough, or eloquent enough to be writing this?

It was more than feeling inferior and insecure, though.

I was feeling a distinct brand of inferior – I was feeling unqualified.

I don’t have the knowledge, the experience, or the talent to be doing what I was asked to do.

And the funny thing is, unlike those times I didn’t think I had the value of a sea cucumber, I was right.

I was completely without the knowledge or experience to be writing anything about God or His Word. I still am. I am completely unqualified to offer my meager attempts at fitting some tiny part of my God into cramped and insufficient words. And yet He calls me to do it. He calls me to offer the little that I have, because it is His. He calls me to offer up my best attempt, give it my best shot, and trust Him in the all the places I continually fall short.

He asks me to be bold in declaring His truth, with a humble heart that knows my words will always fail to capture it fully and the love that He has given me.

So I’m learning to do that. I’m learning that my confidence is not in my ability to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) but in a God that created words and thoughts and put a love of writing in my heart. I’m learning that my humility comes not from doubting my ability or my calling, but in knowing that neither of those are products of my own will. I’m learning that the only reason I can show His love to others is because He showed it to me.

I’m learning how unqualified I am with every project I take on and with every skill I learn I don’t have. But unlike that day with an empty Starbucks cup and an empty page, I’m learning to be joyous in the face of my insufficiency and to take delight in the fact that my God uses even the broken and seemingly untalented. In fact, it’s those He uses the best.

I found my life when I laid it down

 

I’ve been humming Hillsong’s “Touch the Sky” non-stop for the past few days and it’s been continually on repeat on my Spotify. It’s a beautiful song, but it only grabbed my heart when I first heard that second line clearly from the radio – “I found my life when I laid it down.”

I know what this means now.

I found my life when I laid it down.

I reached a point in my life where I had been “saved” for a few years, but I clearly didn’t know what that meant. I was still living for myself. I was chasing empty pursuits, gasping for air, drinking from wells that dried up before I was satisfied.

Then one day, I was delivered from ambition.

Ambition.

It sounds like a good word. It can even be good.

They called me ambitious, determined, motivated.

They called me “driven.”

But I was driven to death.

 

It was always a temporary high.

Relying on my own strength, my own smarts, my own ability to climb higher and higher.

The highs were addictive, but the lows were absolutely crushing.

Those heights only seem dazzling when you’re gaining momentum on the ascent.

They appear within reach.

They look dazzling. Glittering. Fulfilling.

But one of two thing would always happen –

– I’d fall short. Tumbling down the mountain, the glitter did little more than glitter ever does – make a mess and end up sticking in all the wrong places.

– Or I’d actually reach the height. And it inevitably fell short of expectation. It was never enough. It was never as spectacular, as magnificent, or as satisfying as imagined. The glitter wore off as easily as glitter always does – scrapped off by the harsh edge of reality.

 

I bought the world and sold my heart.

I was willing to give up chunks of myself, piece by piece, to become the kind of person I thought had it all.

After feeding me lies of inferiority and insecurity, the world sold me dreams of intelligence and calloused cleverness.

I was willing to trade every part of me that didn’t fit the mold I was being peddled.

I discarded kindness, creativity, and emotion.

I willingly bartered my relationships and tender heart for a tough skin and a sharp tongue.

I slowly gave away my freedom for its illusion.

I was willing to spend recklessly for what I was told I wanted.

And yet the weights were never balanced.

And then I learned what it truly meant that He traded heaven for me.

With indescribable, undeserved mercy He bought me back.

After years of trading myself away at far too high a cost, He paid it all.

 

I really did find my life when I laid it down.

When I gave up control of my own life, when I ceased the endless transactions, when I finally surrendered to the one that could afford to buy me back, I found my life.

I recently began my new internship with the Student Ministries of my home church.  I’ve only been at my new internship for a week now, but I’m already reveling in how this adventure is representative of that truth.

I found my life.

I found myself when I stopped searching for myself, and instead searched for my Creator.

When I am steadfast in my desire to know Him, I find that I know myself better.

I am so different now.

I’m discovering new passions daily.

I’m living Life more alive than I’ve ever been.

I’m reveling in how far He’s brought me. In how much He’s changed me. In how much better His plan is than mine.

I am freer than I ever was when I was desperately vying for control.

I’m more myself than I ever was when I was picking and choosing the parts I wanted to keep and those I wanted to give away.

Instead, I gave Him everything.

I laid my life down when I gave it all to Him, and He set me free to find it.

This week has been so short, but it’s been so full of emotion.

Bursting with the feeling that I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.

Experiencing His love that flows over into tears of joy.

Waking up thrilled to discover what I’ll learn and going to bed exhausted in the best way possible.

Learning what living Life fully truly means.

On one hand, I know that this feeling will fade, and that getting hyped up by events and people and things is short-term joy. But on the other hand, I don’t think that’s what this is. These particular events will end, these people may not always be close by, and these things will rust and fade. But the joy of being where He has planned for me to be, doing the work He’s given me to do, and becoming more like Him – that is unfading.

Student, Teacher, Lover, Follower, Child

Something about feeling like my family has left me to be a family on their own halfway across the country has triggered a bit of an identity crisis in me.

I’m working at the church I (mostly) grew up in, but as the girl that was comfortable sitting squarely in the role of daughter of my parents, being here without them is weirdly disorienting.

I’m used to my identity being in relation to them.

I am “Deb’s daughter.”

 I am an Air Force brat.

I’m still both of those things, but they feel farther away than they ever have been.

I know I am other things and I always have been, but the centrality of those identities is only just now starting to change.

Or rather, it first changed six years ago, when a terribly insecure, intelligent, desperate little girl became a child of God.

But my identity as my parent’s daughter was still pretty important.

And then it changed a little when I went off to college. Suddenly those identities were a little more a part of my past than they were going to be a part of my future.

And then, last summer, I surrendered myself more fully to my Lord than I ever had before, and those identities began to pale in comparison to the one that gave me freedom and Life.

But only now am I starting to wonder- who am I? The only thing I know for sure is that I am a child of God. And it is my greatest hope and prayer for that identity to always be central, primary, and all-encompassing in my life.

But as a college student with only one year hanging over her head before real-life adulthood seems to sink in, I’m starting to wonder – what else? What else am I? In what special ways has my Father made me? What secondary identities do I have – the ones that will make me a little different from everyone else, but that will never be more important than the one that makes me one child of many?

So I started today to try and answer that question. Who am I?

I am a child of God.

I am still “Deb’s daughter” – strong and smart and equally willing to have a good laugh or a long cry. Afraid of few things, but trusting my God to come through for even those. Creative and kind and always checking for earrings before walking out the door. Taught to be a good friend, a lover of people, and a listening ear.

I am still an Air Force brat – strengthened by countless First Days at Schools, new friends, and brown cardboard boxes. Taught by my father to be assertive, confident, a leader. Shown what speaking the truth in love means, even when I disagreed.

I am an older sister – the teacher, tormenter, and best friend. Fiercely protective with a soft spot for her tears. Forgetfully setting expectations and unexpectedly teaching lessons.

I am a student. Of History and His Story. Of books and essays and articles that always come secondary to the Word my Father gave me. Of His Life. Of His Love. Of His Heart.

I am a lover of words. Spoken, written, the ones that carved mountains and filled oceans and breathed Life.

I am a friend desperate to learn how to listen and keep my mouth shut.

I am a girl attempting to unlearn the lessons of a world intent on instilling in me a sense of inferiority and doubt.

I am a child learning how to turn down the offers of those selling cheap substitutes, drugs that will numb my insecurity and fear.

I am a follower of Jesus, learning to desire nothing but to glorify Him.

And often failing.

But I am also a child of Mercy, constantly drinking in His grace, never to go thirsty again.

I am a heart desperately searching for His.

I am a child of God.

The Best Teacher: Unlearning Jealousy and Competition

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man… It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.”

~C.S. Lewis

 

C.S. Lewis’ work on pride in Mere Christianity is one of my favorite bits of written word I’ve ever been so blessed to encounter.

It highlights the way pride and insecurity are but symptoms of the same disease – self-centeredness. It’s the ultimate manifestation of my sinful nature – focusing on myself is what prompts me to commit any number of sins. It’s what makes me insecure when I don’t measure up, and what makes me proud when I exceed expectations. My focus is always on myself.

And lately I’ve been noticing another symptom of this disease – jealousy. It sounds petty and childish – like a kindergartener pouting when her friend gets a better bike or a teenager obsessing over her BFF’s newer iPhone model. But it’s not always that obvious. It’s easy to slap the label “jealousy” on those situations; it’s harder when I feel a tinge of dissatisfaction creeping up in my heart when I hear about someone else’s great opportunity or scroll through their carefree Instagram life. It’s not even that I consciously think, “I wish I had what they have,” or “I’m jealous of them.” What they have just becomes a reminder of what I don’t. And suddenly what I don’t have becomes so much more important than what I do.

I’m learning that there’s power in naming things for what they are. When I admit to myself that what I’m doing is being jealous, it reminds me to go the One who gives me the power to stop.

It seems intuitive that someone else’s success doesn’t diminish mine.

But for some reason, it feels like it does.

I think C.S. Lewis nailed it one the head: it’s competition. When I view all of life as a constant competition, then someone else’s success actually does diminish mine.

They might end up with more points than me.

I’ve had to start working my way out of my competition-obsessed culture that has fed me the lie that at the end of my life, my gravestone will read, “Kaitlyn finished in 143^rd place.” (Not if I can help it! I can do better than 143rd.)

My jealousy stems from a self-centeredness that can’t stand to have it be about someone else and that views everything as a point to win.

My jealousy and the competition that fosters it are both part and parcel of that same disease. My self-centeredness is jealous when the spotlight is on someone else, and my competitiveness is willing to steal points from anyone that gets in the way of my big win.

My instinct is to brush away that little twinge of jealousy when someone else gets to do something I love or has something that I want. It only lasts a couple minutes, and it doesn’t seem like it’s harming anyone. But if there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that figuring out the why to whatever I’m feeling is the best choice I can make. There’s always a root to the feeling and a reason for the hurt; and my God is merciful enough to let me work through it all. He is gracious enough to illuminate some of those whys and guide me to His truth.

He reminds me that the only thing of value I can ever do is know Him and make Him known and glorified, and there is no competition in that pursuit.

He reminds me that I am living this life with His children, whom He loves.

I’m still learning to respond to others’ achievements with joy and love, the way my God does; rather than with comparison and jealousy, the way the world taught me to.

It’s a lot to unlearn, but my God is a gracious and loving Teacher. The best ever, in fact.