Shadow of a Doubt

The burden of proof for most things is "Beyond a shadow of a doubt."  But what does that even mean?

We know it means that there is no shred of doubt left in the mind, that the person is absolutely convinced, that there's no wiggle room.  Have you considered, though, what the phrase literally means?

Not just beyond doubt, not just absolutely convinced, not just without wiggle room - but without the further option of such.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt is a place where when light casts a darkness on the facts or the situation, there's not even a chance the darkness can fall on your mind.  That's a tough standard.  We don't even live beyond a shadow of a doubt...when it comes to the shadow of the cross.

Most of us have faith, reasonable faith or radical faith, that tells us most of the time that there's no room for doubt.  We are absolutely convinced (right now).  There is no wiggle room.  God is God.  

Or is He?

When all of a sudden, life casts a shadow, the darkness still hits us.  We find ourselves in this place where, with unanswered questions and uncomforted hearts, we still sort of wonder if God is really out there.  If He exists.  If He loves us.  If this Jesus means anything.  Then we are not beyond a shadow of a doubt but rather, firmly in it.

That's why I think the wording of Psalm 23 is so poignant.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

I've heard a lot of sermons over the years and Bible classes trying to figure out what the valley of the shadow of death is.  Many metaphors, expositions on the phrase.  They all twist and turn it into something that sounds almost reasonable, almost comprehensible to us, but they still leave us wanting.  I don't think it's that hard.

The valley of the shadow of death is that low place in your life where you know death can't hurt you, but its shadow falls over you and the darkness raises some questions, or at least some anxieties.  It is there, the Psalmist says, that the rod and the staff of God comfort us.  In that place where we are overcome again not by death - for we know death has no power over us - but by the darkness and the shadow of death, which still has its questions in those dark moments, God's rod - His loving discipline - and His staff - the tool of our Good Shepherd - comforts us.  He leads us and loves us like any good Father and Shepherd would even when we're there in the shadows where we suddenly realize we're not beyond a doubt.

Even if consciously, we think we should be.

Sometimes, we think faith has to be absolute.  In a dream world, maybe, but in the place where we live, most of us are somewhere between doubt and beyond its shadow.  We're somewhere in the place where darkness can still reach us in this moment or that, and we have to keep our eyes on the way the light shines.  It can be discouraging if you're one of those people who thinks belief is all or nothing, faith is yes or no.  But I'm not so convinced that the shadows are a bad place to be.

I think, instead, they're an awesome place for God to be.  In the shadows, leading and loving.

In Dependence

Today is America's Independence Day, and I certainly stand by my thoughts last year this time: Boom Boom How...Can You Compare?  This year, especially, as I'm set to partake this evening in a spectacular fireworks celebration over the lake in honor of a good man, and of course, America's freedom.

But I'm also thinking today about that freedom and independence and how I don't want either.  I've had them; they don't work.  Not by themselves.

Freedom, we say, is the ability to do whatever you want.  It is the open option to pursue your heart, to follow your dreams, to live your life as you'd deem fit.  Freedom is an open door; all you have to do is walk through it.

The problem with this freedom is that we walk through one open door and find another open door and then another and then another and then another until we're walking right into all of these things that seem open to us and we don't know where we're going or why or what's behind the door, necessarily, or what we'd hope to get out of it.  We're doing what we can because we can and we're saying that's free, but is it really?  Haven't so many of us become a slave to freedom?

I have, more than once.  It seems that the more I want to redefine my life, the more I want to declare my freedom, the more I want to show that I am not bound by the obstacles or burdens or confines of life as I have known it, the more I find that I am doing things just because they seem to scream freedom, just because they are contrary, just because I can.  After awhile, I realize it's been a long time since I've done anything I've truly wanted to do and wonder how long I've been chasing this freedom only to find that I am anything but free.

Independence is our idea that we don't have to check with anyone else.  We don't have to ask permission.  We can do what we want when we want and it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks about it.

The problem with independence is that we do what we want when we want and whatever we please as we so please until we look up one day and discover that we're doing everything alone.  We're all by ourselves.  We're disconnected and apart from everything because we thought we could and now, we're part of nothing and that doesn't satisfy the spirit.

It leaves us hollow, lonely.  It leaves us abandoned, dejected.  I've been there.  I've been in that place where nobody can tell me what to do; I'm doing it anyway.  Then I look around and discover that I took this journey and nobody came with me and the whole world moved on without me and now where am I?  Lord only knows, but I don't like it here.  I don't like being apart from things.  There's no independence if you're working only for yourself.  It's arrogance.  It's pride.  It's ego.  It's selfishness. 

On their surface, freedom and independence seem like wonderful things.  But, at least for my heart, I'm longing for more.

And I find more in dependence.  In leaning on the One who created me and who guides me, the One who loves me and redeems me.  In acting upon His grace and His mercy, going at His call, following in His direction, living in His love.

You've heard it said there is freedom in Christ, and that is true.  The freedom in Christ is not just an open door; in freedom, Christ opens doors.  He spreads before you the life-giving, beautiful, good options before you and shows you what it is you can do, what it is you can be - without burden, without guilt, without conflict in your spirit about what it is.  God gives you the freedom to go, and that truly is free.

In dependence, you are free to go as God sends you.  You don't have to ask permission.  You don't have to clear your plans.  On your own, on the way your heart responds to the God who calls you, you go.  Independently in dependence.  When you go in dependence on God, you don't wind up alone.  Ever.  You're not by yourself, not left behind, not apart from things but a very big part of what God is doing here.  It's not arrogance; it's servitude.  Not pride, humility.  Not ego, but the lack thereof.  Not selfishness, but selflessness.  It's something awesome.

As we celebrate today our freedom and independence, consider what those words really mean to your life.  Are you a slave to freedom or do you hunger for freedom in Christ?  Are you independent or living in dependence?  Let me tell you, I've had the former and they were nothing but strife.  The latter...that's life.

Unbecoming

It's not one of my favorite words, mostly because it's always used in a critical, corrective context by someone who thinks they know what's best for you.  The word is: unbecoming.

You've heard it, I'm sure.  If you are a young woman (or an old woman), you probably heard this a lot growing up.  Maybe not in the younger generations, but at least my age and older, certain things were "unbecoming of a lady."  Which matters a whole lot when you're six years old and becoming or unbecoming a lady are the furthest things on your mind.  Sometimes, the high standards get dropped and things just become unbecoming of you, whatever you happen to be.  Or whatever someone thinks you so happen to be.  It's a lot less pressure than being a lady, but I still don't like it.

At least, I didn't.

I resented being told that things were unbecoming of me.  The word just sounds so biting, so prim and proper, so stick-up-the-hind-end, like we should all be so worried about the kinds of things ladies do and don't do, about the images people project and don't project.  About who you should be and shouldn't be.  About who you could be and couldn't be.

Forget what you want to be.  And whether or not the person who thinks it's unbecoming of you has any earthly idea what is becoming of you.

Did you realize that becoming is the counterpart?  Did you realize that whatever is unbecoming of you is the opposite of what is becoming of you?  It never occurred to me until the other night in the midst of an exhausted, extended prayer.

Now, my opinion of the word is changing.  A little.

I love the idea that someone would look at my life and figure out what's becoming of me.  I love that they would take the time to realize that something I did or said or whatever was un-becoming of me, that it was undoing the work of my becoming.  That it was a hindrance to my development, my growth, my maturity.  I love that they would be willing to mention it to me, as biting as the word might so often seem.  That they would call me to a higher standard and refuse to let me cave into unbecoming...when there is so much that I am becoming.

There is, of course, a fine line here.  It is dangerous to assume you know what someone is becoming, what they should be, what they ought to be.  Not every little girl grows up to be a lady; not every little boy becomes a gentleman.  Of all of the things people thought I could or should or ought to be in my life, I can think of less than a handful that I also wanted to be....and less than that that I truly should have been.

I am designed to be only one thing - God's precious daughter.  That entails a lot of things.  Discipline, devotion, service, love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, worship, createdness, giftedness, calling, integrity.  The list goes on and on.  But at its heart, it boils down to this: I am His daughter.  It was all I was created to be.  And you know what?

I hope someone tells me when I'm unbecoming of that.

I hope someone tells me when I stray and start undoing the good work He's doing in me.  I hope someone tells me when I'm being an idiot, when I'm being a jerk, when I'm being ungrateful, when I'm being unfocused.  I hope someone tells me when I'm focused more on what I think I want to be than the only thing I've ever been called as, and I hope they tell me in that moment how unbecoming it is of me to do so when my heart and my life should reflect my becoming God's precious daughter.  I hope they're a little biting about it.  Honest words can hurt.  But I hope someone tells me.

Because that's what I'm about - I am, everyday, becoming God's daughter.  Learning to live as His beloved child.  Learning to embrace all that this entails.  Trying to figure it all out while becoming something.  I love the accountability that someone would hold me to that.

But just that.  Nothing more and nothing less.  Because there are a lot of things over the years that people thought I should or shouldn't be, that I could or couldn't be, that I wanted or didn't want to be, and for the most part, we've all been wrong.

I was never going to be a lady.

Seeds

I grew up thinking seeds didn't work.

Yes, seeds.  The little tiny life-holding compartments of rebirth and new growth that you stick in the dirt and wait on something green to pop up.  I figured the ones you bought in the store were special, that they did something different to those seeds.  Because mine weren't working.

I spent a great deal of my time picking apart those little helicopter seed pods from the maple tree in my front yard.  And with a pencil, I'd go around poking the little green seeds into the ground, waiting for signs of new trees to appear.  For years, I planted helicopter seeds.  Probably nine or ten years, to be sure.  And not a single new tree grew.  Not a single stem.  Not a single new leaf.  Nothing.

Not that long ago, I was sitting on the porch showing my niece and nephew how to take apart the helicopter and find the seed, and I found myself both smiling and a little sad as I relayed to them the lie that if they planted the seed, a new tree would grow.  I knew it was a lie; I'd been trying my whole life and couldn't figure it out.  Then in that way that adults do around children, I looked up at my mother like the kids couldn't hear me and admitted that those darned seeds never grew for me.

"I picked so many of those new little plants out of my yard," my mother said.  "I couldn't figure out where they were all coming from."

WHAT?!

All these years, all those seeds, all those hopes....and it was my mother who thwarted my efforts?  Hmph.

Jesus warned about such things.  Sort of.  He warned about the hope we have in seeds, cautioned about what to look for when planting.  Some seed, he says, falls by the road and is trampled.  Some is eaten by the birds.  Some falls on rocky soil and withers away as soon as it sprouts.  Some falls among the thorns and is choked out.  And some falls on good soil and sprouts... (Luke 8)

...only to be plucked by the mother.

I kid.  Sort of.

As I was mowing the yard a week or so ago, I came across the sprout of a maple tree in my backyard, the product of a fallen helicopter seed that had taken root in my soil without my deliberate planting.  I smiled, then I laughed out loud, because here was my tree.  This is what I'd hoped my whole life to see.

It got me thinking about the other things I've planted in my life, the other seeds I've sown.  It's easy to give up after awhile, to think that these seeds don't work.  That there's something special done to the commercial seeds, the ones you get retail, the little bits of truth that come from the store (or in this case, the church).  But the truth is that you're growing things, too.  Whatever you're planting is sprouting, whether you see it growing or not.

Maybe it does fall by the side of the road and someone tramples it or snatches it away before it makes much of a difference.  That's ok; it was still there, at least for a short while.  Maybe it does fall on rocky soil and wither away before it takes firm root.  That's ok, too.  It was still there, at least for a short while.  Maybe it sprouts up amid thorns and is crowded out.  That's ok.  It was still there, at least for a short while.

Maybe your mother comes and pulls it up by its teeny tiny roots and crushes both its chances and your hopes.  That's ok, too.  For awhile, it grew.  And who knows what it was doing while it was growing.

Whether the seeds you're planting last or don't last, it makes a difference that they are growing now.  Germinating.  Under the soil or just above the surface, growing or stagnating.  Because someone is noticing them.  My mother noticed every single one of those baby maple trees, like them or not.  People see what you do, like it or not.  They're watching.  You're planting seeds.  And they're growing somewhere, they're growing something.

Now that I've seen the fragile leaves of a little maple sprout, I smile when I tell my niece and nephew about the seeds.  And I think about the ones I'm planting.

Disciple

Every time I read through the Gospels, I find myself wondering which disciple I would be.  At certain moments, I laugh, because it's pretty clear.

I would be Andrew, bold proclaimer of seemingly useless information.  As John 6 records the story of the feeding of the five thousand, it begins with Philip saying they don't have enough money in the savings account to buy enough bread to feed everyone on the hill.  Then Andrew pipes up.  "A boy who has five loaves of barley bread and two small fish is here." (9)

Oh, precious Andrew.  It's the kind of thing I often find myself saying.  "Here's this similar, but completely different or some, but not enough, of the thing of which we are seeking."  I laugh at myself now when I catch myself continuing, "But that doesn't really help us much..." because I can't help but think about Andrew.  Who knows how much it really could help?

It's pretty clear.

I would be Philip, sober assessor of current capabilities.  In the aforementioned story, it is Philip who says the disciples don't have near enough money to buy bread for the five thousand.  That's me.  I am pretty frugal, but beyond that, money savvy.  I'd be looking at the checkbook and thinking, nope.  Not near enough.  Even if we...nope.  There's not a way to stretch this.  This amount of food would bankrupt us.  Beyond bankrupt us.  And then what would we do with the next group of people that needs to eat - which may be us - or the next person who needs a little something here or there.  Nope.  No way.

Oh, precious Philip.  If only you understood the way Jesus' seemingly-obvious questions set up the seemingly-impossible.

It's pretty clear.

I would be Peter, absolute insister of one thing or another.  Peter steals a spot outside the trial of Jesus, sitting around the fire with the townspeople and some soldiers.  Three times, he insists he doesn't even know Jesus, that Jesus isn't his kind of guy.  In another verse, we see Jesus giving Peter another chance and three times, Peter declares that Jesus is Christ.  Whatever he believes, either in fear or in faith, he puts his foot down and stands on it.  That's the kind of thing I would do (and do) - I get these things in my head that I believe and I don't move from them.  Or if it seems like one thing might really serve me well, I am not above sometimes standing firm on something that could be me out of trouble here or there.  But whatever it is, don't argue with me because I only become that much more insistent.

Oh, precious Peter.  On your firmness, Christ will build His church.

It's pretty clear.

I would be John.  Throughout his gospel, John refers to himself not as "me" but as "the one whom Jesus loves."  I would be so enamored.  I would be so blown away by the love of God that I couldn't help explain myself by the love of my Lord.  

I would be Matthew, feeling wholly out of place among these seemingly holier guys, knowing where I've come from and how I used to be and what I used to know.  Knowing that everyone's looking at me and trying to see the traces of my past life.  Trying to figure out what this Jesus wants with me.

I would be Bartholomew.  I would be James.  I would be the other James.  I would be Jude.  I would be Simon.  I would be the kind of person who walks around with Jesus, who listens to Him, who follows Him, who defends Him, but who you never really hear that much more about.  I would be the kind of person who would be there, but you'd never really know why and I might let my story just fade away into the grander thing.

I would be Thomas; I would doubt.

I would be Judas.  You have no idea what cheap things in my life I have been willing to betray Jesus for.  Haven't we all?

I think about the disciples a lot and I wonder which one I would be.  Then I think about the way that each of them played in the story, how each man was different and how God used each of them anyway.  How the most incredible things seemed to happen around and through and because of these men, and it's pretty clear. That's the kind of disciple I'd be.

That's the kind of disciple I am.  Just a girl, following God, hanging around and going on this journey and waiting to figure out how God is going to use even my story for His.  How God is going to transform this into something glorious, all that I am and all that I am not.

Oh, precious Aidan.  If only you knew what God is really up to....