Downright Daring Life

I can love my life?

Do you know people that actually live this way?  I don't know many and I think that is a huge problem.  We all have to "do" something with our lives each day, so why is it that so few of us make it what we love and what makes us feel alive?

I think the problem is two fold: 1. We don't really know what we'd love to do.  We haven't taken the time, invested the energy, and felt that it was possible to actually do this.  2.  We, for some weird and wrong reason, feel that we are not supposed to love what we do.  We've got this "I'm not supposed to be happy with my life" belief going on.

Let's start with #2.  We are to suffer for Christ, which means we are to be willing to be ostracised, put down, even endure persecution for His name.  It does not mean that we are to suffer by not living out our design.  God wired us with very specific talents, passions and gifts and it pleases Him when we made full use of them.  When we are, we will be doing what we love and what feels life giving.

Give yourself the gift of living the life God designed for you and meant for you to enjoy.

#1. Life takes up all our time.  The tasks of the day, the needs of others we care for all push caring for and becoming ourselves to the bottom of the list.   So, by placing our own personal growth at the bottom we are actually ensuring that we will never be truly adequate for the tasks of the day and the needs of others.  When you strive to be the best you that you can be, everything in your life will be affected positively by it.

Give yourself the gift of the time to become all God designed for you to be so others will enjoy it to.

I have a great book for you to help you figure this out.  It is a secular, funny, inspiring and really easy to read delight.  It is called The Lazy Way to Success, by Fred Gratzon.  One other resource:  It is the web site I've been working on.  It is designed to help you become and live and do what you love.

You can, you are designed to, and you are able to be and do what you love.

I like rubber chickens

Okay, I know that's strange but I do like rubber chickens.  God made chickens, someone else made them rubber and there you have it.   I also like being able to laugh and find joy in just being alive with Christ.

For my birthday last year my oldest daughter sent me  a chicken that screams when squeezed.  It is a God-awful sound, drives the dogs insane and is wonderful.  What is more wonderful is being free in Christ.

I wasn't always able to laugh like this.  I didn't have the freedom of heart and wounds that I do now.  Through the years, as I have walked with Christ, I have found healing, peace, and the ability to not take myself so seriously.  I have learned to joy and delight in the smallest of things and celebrate each day.

As I have found life in Christ, I have found freedom to dance with my daughter in the cereal isle when a great song came on.  How could we not?  How can we not laugh and sing, joy and praise, delight and wonder when we know Christ?  The ability to do so does not mean the lack of appropriate feelings in times of hardship or pain but, for me, it is newer in my life and I have found that I love to laugh and it is a sound I hear come forth daily as I live my life with Christ.

Oh, that is not me in the picture, that is a friend of my daughter's.  She likes rubber chickens too.

A verb becoming

There is an HBO series called "Big Love" that I got hooked on last season.  Thankfully, it is off the air right now.  It was about a polygamist family; one husband, three wives and lots of kids and all the soap opera drama of interpersonal stuff and keeping the whole thing hidden.  I found it absolutely fascinating, but what I did not see was a lot of love in their big lives.

Don't remember where I found the picture above, but this makes more sense to me.  It is about expanding our range, not our dependents.  It is a verb becoming something more.  It is a movement out from our selves toward what is best for others. "Love Big."  Ponder that phrase a minute.  What comes to mind?   

If we were to "love big" what would it look like in our specific lives, and family, and work, and friendships, and, and...?  Wouldn't they look totally different?

"Love Big." When I think of my doing it, what I feel is my own limitations.  I have the capacity to love only to a finite degree and even then I could have some subconscious motivation for loving that is far less than altruistic.  But I do have the resource for more.

God IS love and He is infinite so, logic says that He has infinite love at His fingertips.  Now, Christ is in us and that means that His capacity to love through us is also infinite.  So, if I think of love as flowing through me then it is a river that never runs dry.  Here is the possibilty for us to actually be able to love as Christ loves - BIG.

When our spouse, our kids, our work, the jerk that cuts us off in traffic, don't love us let alone treat us lovingly we still are able to love them big time if we are close to the Lord.  At any moment we can either react with anger or contempt or with wisdom and love depending on which source we draw from.  Draw from ourselves and those limitations are right there waiting, draw from God and unbelievable love is right there for us.

So the point here must be Christ.  He loves big and when we are walking through our days with Him we can do the same.  And to love big is joyful, exciting, creative, surprising and wonderful just as He is.  Let the Lord love you big today and then pass it on.

Does the Christian Life Work?

Our lives aren't working, or at least that is what I am finding that Christians are saying.  A couple of weeks of research into what Christians are searching for on the web have shown that what we are seeking are answers, solutions, help with our lives.  We also want depth with Christ but we are busy, stressed, fighting fires on all fronts and we are too tired to pursue Christ too. 

We thought being a Christian would make our lives work out.  We thought it would mean that we'd have meaning and purpose, our marriages would be sweet, our kids just the same and our day to day life filled with joy and praise.  Didn't He promise life abundant?  He did.  He doesn't lie, so that means that it - abundant life - is out there waiting for us.  We just need some direction and focus.

How?  How do I make my Christian life work?  That is the question I kept finding asked and, so, I am writing a web site to help with just that.  I absolutely believe that there is more than we are living; there is more joy, more balance, more passion and purpose and intimacy with Christ available.  Can I convey the hows and whys and what nexts on a web site?  I don't know, but I'm sure going to try. 

If we start to slow our lives down, start to balance our days and weeks, stop the franctic pace of our lives and relationships and stop letting life happen to us then we can start to refocus on how and why we are.  Our lives CAN make sense the can WORK.  I'd love some feedback, suggestions, constructive criticisms and requests for specific answers, and on the site there is a contact form for that. http://www.make-my-christian-life-work.com/  Maybe we can all focus together on making our lives become what Christ has meant them to be. 

Me, me, me, me, me

"Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" Daniel is appalled and alarmed thinking about how God was going to deal with Nebuchadnezzar's failure to recognize that he was not God almighty.  He begs him to change but self-love is a powerful drug and Neb is completely addicted to himself.  One year later he forgets the warning and relapses. God is going to bring an intervention.

While the words of his own imaginary greatness were still in his mouth, the truly great One speaks and tells him that all will be removed from him down to his very sanity "until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes."  The great, powerful, majestic (in his mind) king is reduced to one who can oversee nothing, driven from mankind and eats grass like cattle.

The addiction we have to ourselves is a form of insanity and the Lord loves us enough to free us.  The means He used for Neb were extreme but perfect for him - it worked.  When the king raised his eyes toward heaven his reason returned to him and he blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever.  He says, "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride."

Personally, I would prefer to go to the Lord and ask Him to show me areas of pride and to save me from them rather than go so far into the addiction that He has to intervene.  I think the bottom line is a constant state of knowing that I'm not God, He is, and cultivating my love for Him rather than myself.

When He is the One that I praise, when He is the One I adore, when He is the One I serve then the rest of life takes on its appropriate importance and place.  My focus will be off of me and the drug of self-love will no longer be a temptation.  Of course, we'll still have to go to meetings every Sunday to stay sober.

No meat for me, please

So, Daniel and his buddies have been taken captive by old Nebuchadnezzar.  The king thinks that they'd make swell personal servants and so has them entered into Neb's school for handsome, intelligent slaves of the king of Babylon.  Now these guys are offered a life that the other Israeli captives will never see.  They will live in the palace, be instructed in the most advanced knowledge of the day, never be hungry or without a home.  All they have to do is eat the very best the kingdom has to offer.  What, not hungry?

We have a problem.  The food they are offered, while haute cuisine for the day, is forbidden by God.  Since they are captives and lucky to be alive one would think they would just eat and be grateful, but not our guys.  They have already commited themselves to God, His ways, His laws, His commands.  Their handler is not pleased when Daniel asks to be given just fruits, vegies, and grains.  He could lose his life if Daniel and the boys don't turn out well.  Daniel asks for 10 days of eating just what the Lord commands and after that he would submit. God grants them favor and they are given their 10 days.  At the end they are fatter and healthier than the boys that ate what was forbidden. Go figure.

So, what was the big deal over food? Food was not the issue, whom they would serve was.  Not too long after, these 3 friends of Daniel are told to worship a golden statute which our man Neb made or be thrown into a super hot furnace.  Since they have already made up their minds to only worship the living God, worshiping metal, no matter how shiny, is not an option.  And they tell the king that God can save them but even if He doesn't they won't worship anyone but Him.  They are thrown into the furnace but not only do they not die or even smell like smoke, they are met there by an other worldly man.  The king is forced to admit that they are "servants of the Most High God" and that is greater than him or his gods.

It is in making up our minds ahead of time on who we are, why we are and whom we serve that makes future decisions easy.  Neb could certainly kill their bodies for their civil disobedience but he could not effect their eternal life with God.  They would not trade their life with Him for a nice, juicy steak, or a bent knee.  Their life was already given to God and so, every other choice was made already.

There is no spoon

Even feel like you are in the Matrix?  In the Matrix Neo thinks that his job, his friends, his life are all real, tangible entities.  He finds out later that it was all a dream world.  None of it mattered in the big scheme of things.  What was true was that he was held captive, deceived into pursuing what was not real and kept from really living his life.  Sound familar? 

I'm working on a project about making our Christian life work.  There are a lot of categories under that heading: spiritual, personal, financial, recreational, relationship, career, etc.  Now, if the project were just about those categories, I could write a lot of things about creating a spiffy life for oneself, but in a life centered on Christ, everything changes.  The reality is Christ, pursuit of the things of life here rather than life in Christ is the illusion.  Like Neo we are held captive, deceived into desiring what is not real or eternal. Observe commercials and advertising for the next week.  What we are enticed to covet is not real life but a fantasy construct. 

As I work on my project I am called back to center where truth resides.  The categories of our lives must revolve around Him or they are pointless.  Our careers, finances, personal growth, relationships, everything must be based on Truth Himself or we drift through a life of illusion striving for that which will not last and wondering why life feels unsatisfying.

Pursuing a "spoon" that does not exist will make your life pointless, impotent and worthless and ensure continued captivity to a world system and way of thinking that is not truth.  Neo finds that his whole "life" was just a fantasy but finds truth and freedom and what is real.  He is set free and joins the battle for the freedom of those still held captive.  I don't want to live a dream, so remind me, please that there is no spoon and I will do the same for you and we can tell others about  the reality of Christ and set them free.

Partnership of hearts

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you."  So says the Lord twice to the exiles in the book of Ezekial.  The people have gone into exile "for their heart continually went after their idols" but the Lord has not abandoned them.  He promises them restoration.  This verse is very familiar to me but as I read through this book again after many years I saw this: "...make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!"  I'm not sure how I missed this the first time but it has stood out now.   

In 11:19 and in 36:26 He says that He will transform their hearts and spirit.  In 18:31 He says that they are to transform their own hearts and spirits.  God goes before and after and in the middle is our responsibility.   

The context of the book is, "I shall bring their conduct down on their heads."  But the context is also, "they will know that I am the Lord."  That phrase is repeated over and over throughout the book.  As He calls them to account on their idolatrous ways they will know that He is God.  As He cleanses them of their rebellion they will know that He is God.  As He restores and heals them they will know that He is the Lord.  As He shows them compassion, mercy, love and His power, they will know that HE is LORD.

At times I forget that He is God.  That He is Lord.  My heart turns to other things.  I don't think of them as idols, I don't believe at those times that I am abandoning God to go after idols, but I absolutely am.  Anything I place above or before Him is an idol. Everything I fear or love more than Him is idolatry.  As I read through Ezekial, I see how my sin breaks God's heart and I grieve.  I realize how much I have become part of a culture that cares little for Him.  I see that I daily live as god of my own life while still proclaiming to follow Him.  I need to make for myself a new heart and a new spirit knowing that He goes before me and after and that my responsibility lies in the moment by moment decision to "know that I am the LORD."

 

Value and a good fight

Okay, I'm back.  It was a long and stressful week and I needed a couple of days to rest.  Mom went from almost dying to her insurance wanting to kick her out of the hospital only three days out of critical care.  She was just taking her first bites of solid food (which she couldn't hold down), she was still in severe pain, she couldn't get up and walk by herself, lives alone and is almost 77.  I was astonished and furious that they wanted to throw her out when she was clearly not able to care for herself.  I was not going to let that happen.

There are things in life that are just wrong and we can't let them go unchallenged.  Now my frail, old mother is not going to change the world anytime soon, but that does not mean that her life is without value.  Our Lord died specifically for her.  She bears the image of God and the value He placed on her is the life of His own Son.  And He placed that value not on her alone.  The unborn and the dying, the poor and the rich, young and old, we all have value in His eyes.  We are all worth fighting for.

Our country has become so apathetic, so inwardly focused, so comfort oriented that we are losing sight of our worth.  Mom and I have had our struggles but as I allowed myself to see her not as mom but as child of God, her value as an eternal woman transcended my temporal issues with her.  As I prayed quietly with her in the ICU, it felt timeless and holy.  Christ was present and His perspective became mine.  It was about Him, not me, not my being displaced from my work or husband, not my lack of sleep, not what I wanted but what He valued.  And, so, I had to fight a battle that I knew He would for a child He loves.

There is the old adage, "all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."  Who fights for you or for whom do you fight?  What is your battle and what struggles do you see?  I fought with a doctor, hospital and insurance company and won.  Mom went to a rehab center and has been there five days.  She is slowly getting better.  She was worth fighting for.  You and I are worth fighting for and so is everyone with whom we lock eyes today.  Do you know how precious you are?  Do you see others as precious as well?  Will you fight for them, can we fight for you?

Which world, Mom

I am waiting for news of whether or not my mother will survive her surgery today.  Right now it does not look good.  There are so many emotions present and my mind is travelling through the years with her looking for a place to land. So many memories.

Our relationships with our moms, even as grown women, continue to effect our lives today.  Whether mom was wonderful or awful, close or not there, affirming or tearing down she has affected our core. 

My sister calls to tell me that mom is now on a respirator and she will call with news, good or bad whenever it happens.  So I wait.  And I pray.  I ask God to forgive me for the times I was not there for her and could have been.  I give over bits of unforgiveness and pain.  I think of her and what life must have been from her perspective.  I grief for her and her losses.  And I am comforted to know that should she die, she will be free.  I wonder what she will look like free of her own core hurts, free of her aging body, and regrets and pains.  I try to imagine her with Christ whole and joyful and knowing His love fully.  And then I imagine each of us seeing one another in the next life. I believe we will rejoice together and celebrate our lives with Christ, no longer mother and daughter but sisters in our Lord. 

And, so I wait to hear in which world I will see her again.