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Posts Tagged ‘fear’

From Fear to Denial

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Fear is a powerful driver. When we are afraid, we may choose to run… or fight… or stand like a deer in the headlights… or just deny anything is happening at all. If nothing is happening, there is no fear. I see now I have chosen denial all along and it has been like a cloud over my life.

Acts 24:25
As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”

I am a librarian in a small community and I have many responsibilities including service to teens. I try to go to the local high school once or twice a year to talk about good books to read. Just recently, among the books I brought to share with them was a book entitled After by Amy Efaw. This is a disturbing book about a teenage girl who has a baby in her home (alone), wraps the newborn in a black plastic bag, and then discards it in a dumpster. When arrested, she claims she didn’t even know she was pregnant. Before now, I always thought this was absurd.

But, I have discovered this story is not about unwanted teen pregnancy… it’s about denial. The girl was in such denial she could not accept or believe her pregnancy was possible. And of course, once the child was born, the emotional tearing in her spirit was overwhelming. A person in denial will go to extremes even in the face of staggering evidence.

Isn’t this how sin is perpetuated in our lives? Isn’t this how we justify unfaithfulness? Isn’t this how we enter into unhealthy relationships and stay in them? Isn’t this how we drink too much… smoke too much… eat too much? Isn’t this how we rationalize breaking the law? Isn’t this how we put our pain in a box? Isn’t this how we ignore our past and its impact on our actions today? Isn’t this how we get into debt? Isn’t this the seed that births the lie?

Gad, it’s even possible to be in denial about being in denial.

I am not sure where I am going with all this. But I know one thing: I don’t want to live a life of denial anymore. I want the courage to face and walk in truth. I want the freedom that truth can bring to my life. I want self-acceptance.

These are the true roots of joy…. not happiness per se, but joy.

Oh Jesus, as I am on your Way, open my eyes and give me courage.

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Nazarene Sect

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

If we just call it a “sect” or a “faction” or even a “cult,” we can marginalize everyone within that group. These labels already carry negative connotations without anyone needing to know any actual beliefs or doctrines. It’s a technique for categorizing the world and justifying our actions.

Acts 24:5-6
We [Sanhedrin] have found this man [Paul] to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. [Tertullus, the lawyer, speaking against Paul to Felix, the Governor, in Caesarea]

I have always been intrigued by labels. It’s something that humans do automatically. It’s how we “understand” what we are seeing or hearing. We look at an object and our brain identifies it as a chair or an animal or a tree. And then there are the sub-categories like particular designs of chairs or specific animals or breeds or types of trees. We do this with people too. They are categorized by how they look by skin color, body part shapes, hair color or texture, size, etc. People are also sorted by their sex, clothing, their neighborhood, their country, their language, and their incomes. And of course, they are classified by their associations, whether religious or secular.

But how do we understand or embrace something or someone new? How do we recognize it? If that thing or person does not fit into any of the normal designations, then what is it? Who is it?

I always thought the ancient prophets, whose writings and prophecies are peppered throughout the scriptures, were beleaguered with this categorization problem. They were seeing visions of a future they could not know. How would a primitive person describe an airplane, a rocket, or a space ship? How would they describe an atomic explosion? Are we any better at explaining or understanding miracles?

We use our limited understanding, our own frames of reference. We shove the unfamiliar into the closest or most familiar box. If there is no shape we recognize, we give it shape. We name it.

Jesus was outside the box. He was doing and saying things that made no sense to most of the people he encountered. Paul wasn’t much better.

Christianity of today evolved its own norms. It has taken the recorded words of Jesus and scrutinized, categorized, dissected and analyzed them to the extreme. And yet, when folks start pulling at the edges of Christianity, there is no less resistance than there was in Jesus’s day. We are still afraid of being deluded, of believing a lie, of breaking the law.

But God does not need us to “protect” the truth. God knows the heart.

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Gamaliel’s Yoke

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Rabbi’s yoke is the set of interpretations of the law that a rabbi has and passes to his students. Paul was zealous because his teacher taught him to be. How many of us are still operating out of ingrained lessons and prejudices?

Acts 22:3b
“…Under Gamaliel I [Paul] was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you [the crowd in Jerusalem] are today.”

My mother, an immigrant, was fervent about equal rights. When we first arrived in this country (1951), we lived in North Carolina. My father, already over 60, was forced to carry heavy railroad ties alone because the supervisor assumed he wouldn’t want to work with a negro [that’s the polite term]. We moved to Indianapolis within the year. There we lived in the inner city where we experienced a different form of prejudice against us because we were “foreigners.” In the end, although our family was poor and fiscally conservative, we remained socially liberal.

But others are taught from an early age to distrust, fear and even hate. Children are brainwashed to believe the worst and they quickly mouth the name-calling and rants they hear in the home. This learned hatred is particularly vitriolic in the case of skin color, sexuality, and religious practices. In some middle eastern countries, this yoke (set of beliefs) has escalated to the point of sacrificial suicide to kill and destroy “infidels.”

In order to take on a new yoke, one must take off the old one. “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” [Matthew 6:24a]

It is so difficult to let go of something we have believed our whole lives. Instead, the old yoke is perpetuated from one generation to another. We teach our children what we were taught, either directly or indirectly.

But Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. [Matthew 11:30] And yet, some people still try to make the yoke of Jesus heavy and burdensome. They manipulate His yoke to be more like the yoke they have known before.

Jesus’s yoke is like no other yoke. There is freedom. There is love. There is a lightness of being. There is trust. There is hope. There is Spirit.

Paul was thrown to the ground and blinded in order to get his attention. What about us? What must God do to reveal the yoke of Jesus to us? I think I am still trying to wear more than one yoke. Show me, O God, the yokes of my past that weigh me down.

I only want to carry one yoke: the yoke of Christ Jesus.

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Egyptian Terrorist

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Roman commander may have saved Paul from the savage crowd but he still mistook him for an Egyptian terrorist! How could that be? Is it possible the commander saw what he wanted to see and not what was actually there?

Acts 21:38
“Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?” [Commander arresting Paul]

Expectations are powerful and can lead us astray easily.

There was little to no evidence for the commander to suspect Paul to be a terrorist. I doubt Paul looked like an Egyptian, nor was he fighting off the crowd, nor did he have followers who were armed and dangerous. The only evidence was the crowd’s reaction to Paul. The commander may have assumed the situation was political. He could not imagine the riot was about differences in religious views. Or, that it was about who could be “in” and who was “out?” Or, who could be a follower and who could not? Or, who should be circumcised and who should not?

To the traditional Jews, it was bad enough that Paul was preaching/teaching about this Jesus as the Messiah, but now word had spread that Paul had embraced the gentiles and was opening the faith to them. He had crossed a line they could tolerate.

One of my favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye, the father, is faced with constant change as his daughters come of age to marry. The first one challenges the tradition that marriages are arranged and she marries out of love. Tevya begrudgingly complies. His second daughter falls in love with a zealot who is ultimately arrested and sent to Siberia. She decides to follow her love and Tevye, again, allows her to go, but with deep misgivings. But, when the the youngest daughter falls in love with a gentile, it is a line that Tevye cannot and will not cross. She is cast out and “dead to him.” In the end, the Russian pogrom disrupts their entire village. As Tevye’s family members are dispersed and may never see each other again, Tevye relents and speaks a small “God be with you” to his beloved daughter and her gentile husband.

Tevye had expectations. We all do… for our lives and for our children. Sometimes we expect the best and sometimes we expect the worst. Instead, I believe we must be willing to lay aside our expectations. Everyone’s journey is different. We can hope for the best, but we must accept the truth of what is happening in the present as well.

Another set of expectations rise up when we meet people who are different from ourselves. They may be from another country, speak a different language, or just live in a different neighborhood. Their skin may be of a different color. They may practice a different set of religious values or family structure. If we lay down our expectations, we may be surprised by what we discover: a beating heart, a yearning soul, a bright mind.

Keep my heart open today Lord. Help me to seek the heart of others and to see past our differences. Check my spirit when I start thinking that someone might be an “Egyptian terrorist” based on superficial circumstances or appearances.

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Outward Signs vs the Crowd

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , on December 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Jerusalem “elders” asked Paul to go through a purification rite to show “everyone” that he was still following the laws of Moses. But it didn’t work. Paul couldn’t change the crowd’s view of him. Am I just one more of the crowd?

Acts 21:27
When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him,…

It didn’t work in Paul’s time and it doesn’t work much better in our time. This power of the crowd is described several times in scriptures and generally, the outcome is always bad. The crowd that responded to Paul’s presence in the temple dragged him out of the temple, locked the doors, and started beating him to death [vs 27-32]. His “outward sign” was futile.

It only takes one or two folks to stir things up. Just look at the crazy email messages that are sent to hundreds and hundreds of people. The “shocking” and more outrageous ones are the most viral and travel the fastest. Some of these messages live on for years and years. This is a virtual version of crowd. Or how about gossip? It’s another example of crowd behavior. In my daughter’s high school, she has suffered tremendously from gossip about her character that has yet to abate, even after a full year. It is next to impossible to fight character bashing by crowd.

Crowd will not be swayed by outward signs once people have jumped on the bashing bandwagon. The ride is too easy. The encouragement to continue too tempting. The camaraderie too inviting.

I would love to say I have never done this! Unfortunately, I have climbed aboard several crowd bandwagons and done my own good share of complaining, jeering, gossiping, and backbiting. I am thoroughly ashamed and ask God to forgive me.

When Jesus faced the “character-bashers,” he was either silent or he asked pointed questions to reveal their heart motives.

I hear the Spirit ask me, “Do the words you speak carry light and life?” and “Do you know the heart of the one you judge?” and “Why are you repeating what you have heard?”

It’s time. It’s time to step away from the crowd.

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A Restraining Spirit

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , on December 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

That Paul, once he was in a groove, it was tough to get him to listen to anyone else. He was single minded. How often have I allowed my single mindedness to prevent me from hearing sound counsel or trust that “waiting” is part of the plan?

Acts 21:4b-5a
Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. But when our time was up, we left and continued on our way.

When is our struggle to reach a goal simply an attack from enemy lines and when is that struggle the restraining pressure of the Holy Spirit? I’m not sure I always know the difference. This is particularly difficult when the original goal seemed compelled by God in the first place. Did God change? Probably not…

But, isn’t it possible that the methods or the path I am taking to accomplish my goal may have strayed from a better plan?

When Mike and I decided to adopt our teenage daughter, Lily, we felt sure and confident that this was God’s will for both her life and for ours. But as the weeks stretched into months and one obstacle after another kept daunting our efforts, I began to doubt the entire process. Had I missed God? Why would God have this girl languish in an orphanage for two years while we were stumbling over bureaucratic red tape? I went into overdrive: there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Since our agency’s authorization to operate in St. Petersburg was still on hold, I found a Russian lawyer who would handle our adoption privately. This would process would be very tricky and expensive, but I would not be blocked. About two months later, the agency got their paperwork and we decided to continue with them.

Here’s the end of the story: at the court hearing, the new director of the orphanage turned out to be the crux to our successful adoption hearing. He spoke fearlessly before the judge who had been of dead against our adoption. He was our champion. This man had only been the director of Lily’s orphanage for about a month. The previous director was much too political to fight the judge (he was on a trajectory to bigger things). I believe our long wait was necessary to insure all of the pieces were in place, particularly this new director.

So, what is the moral of this story? God is sovereign. If God restrains me, then I must adjust my personal time schedule to God’s timing. This is particularly true when circumstances are completely out of our control.

In my case, it wasn’t the obstacles but my attitude toward the obstacles that was the problem. If God wanted to stop me and the adoption, that could have been easily done. In the same way, God could have stopped Paul from going to Jerusalem. I still think Paul was pushing the process a little because of his nature. But, in the end, God is God. And even if I (or Paul) blow it or force an issue, God is there to pick up the pieces. It’s just easier on everyone if we pay attention along the way.

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How Did I Get Here?

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , on December 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Acts 19:32b
“… Most of the people did not even know why they were there.”

How many times have I looked around and asked myself how I ended up in a particular situation? Sometimes, it’s a crowd thing, to be sure, just being caught up in the synergy of the thing and suddenly, there I am, in the midst of a mass of people who are shouting and carrying signs. I’m not shouting; I’m not carrying a sign. I’ve just realized where I am and I don’t want to be there, but how do I extricate myself?

Some of these things have happened because I didn’t stop to really think. I just went along for the ride not realizing where the ride might lead me. This is usually a type of teen behavior. I should know better.

I remember my first marriage. I was only eighteen and when I accepted that proposal of marriage, never did I realize that I would be caught up in a whirlwind that would not stop. And so, on that fateful day as I walked down the aisle, I knew I was making a mistake. But it was too late and I was not brave enough to be a “runaway bride.”

I remember going up to Toronto when the Toronto Blessing was big news and people were flying in from all over the world to experience this “new wave” of the Spirit. It was all so exciting until I found myself standing on a line with hundred and hundreds of other people waiting for someone to come along and pray for me with the expectation that I would be “slain in the spirit” and fall backward (they also provided catchers). Now, I know that being slain in the spirit can happen, it has happened to me once or twice and I went from upright to flat on the ground, with no catcher, no injuries, and thoroughly blessed. But my Toronto encounter was a conveyor belt and I wondered what I was doing there.

The list of these “where am I” experiences is long. Did someone tell me ahead of time? Did someone try to stop me? Did someone warn me? Unfortunately, I don’t remember that part. I was always too caught up in the moment, in the crowd, in the momentum.

As a parent, I am trying to be that voice of caution or “reality check” for my teenagers. They’re not listening either. Instead, they are calling me a “bubble breaker” who pricks the balloons of excitement and enthusiasm for a project.

But following a momentum without really thinking doesn’t just happen to teenagers. We are all guilty of not looking at all sides of a situation. It can be something as simple as raiding the grocery store for milk, eggs, and bread at the slightest hint that there may be a snowstorm. It can be showing up at a county council meeting to scream about taxes or budget cuts. It can be passing along an email or a blog post that is caustic or crude or downright wrong.

How do we get into these situations? We don’t take time to think… to pray… to consider the consequences of our actions. We lose courage in the face of the crowd, the group voice, the assumptions of righteousness.

Lord, give me a heart of courage this day. Give me sensitivity to your voice, your Spirit. And above all, give me mindfulness.

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