Mistakes God's Made

I spent a lot of years wondering why God would ever make me this way. Surely, it was some sort of mistake. For so long, when I looked around my life, I couldn't understand why it was the way it was. I suspected I was probably meant for so much more, and yet, here I was: so much less. I harbored a small bitterness in my soul, but just a small one. I mean, how do you really fault someone?

It was just a mistake.

The more I grew, the older I got, the more I spent time talking to others more faithful than myself, the more I understood that even though it felt like a mistake that I was made this way, it probably wasn't so much God's mistake. After all, this is a fallen world. There are some broken things here that just don't make sense. And as much as He knit me together in my mother's womb, to some degree, He was working with worn threads to begin with. That's what sin does. That's what fallenness does. So I stopped wondering why God would ever make me this way. I confess that I am made of broken things. That's not His fault.

Or His error.

But surrounded by the faithful, I was always told that God would transform these broken things. He'd make them whole again. All it took was a little prayer and faithfulness from me, and God would come and restore me to His original design. He would take away these broken things and reveal my truest self. And so, for awhile, I did just that. In prayer and faithfulness, in great agony at times, desperate and exhausted and in my best spiritual teenager angst, I prayed for God to change the very foundation of who I was. I know You didn't make me this way, Lord, I prayed. So change me. And some beautiful and unmistakably holy things started to happen in me. But the fundamentals of who I was, all the broken things about myself, remained. I couldn't understand how this could happen. How could a good and gracious God, in the face of my faithful, angsty prayers, keep me this way?

It must be a mistake.

Of course, as these things go, the longer I lingered in my discontent with the tension between the beautiful and holy things God was doing in me and the sheer and utter brokenness on which I felt my entire life was established, the more I understood that these things needed each other. My brokenness, of course, needed the holy things; that's what I'd been praying for all along. But these holy things needed my brokenness. Without my background, without my story, without all the little things it's so easy to hate about myself, it's impossible to love and appreciate all the little things of God. So I started to understand how God could keep me this way. I confess that only in the midst of my brokenness is the holiness His. It's not His fault.

Or His error.

As time continued to press on, as I became more comfortable in my own skin and more understanding of my own brokenness, something still sort of haunted me. There was this incredible disconnect between everything that God was doing in me and everything that I was doing in myself. Between who I was becoming and who I had been. I wasn't sure how to close the gap. I wasn't sure how to bridge the divide between brokenness and holiness. Then suddenly, I knew. I didn't have to. For the Son of Man had come for such a time as this, and He had already bridged that gap. Between my brokenness and my holiness stretched the beams of the Cross. It's hard to fathom, really. At just this moment when I was feeling both my dignity and my depravity so intensely, it's hard to fathom that God would save me. 

It's surely some sort of mistake.

I mean, God doesn't just save sinners. He saves righteous, faithful people, and I was feeling particularly neither at the time. I was so far from righteous. So far, so often, from faithful. The tension I was feeling between the dirt on my feet and the blood on His hands was just the most incredible.... It's indescribable. I was nothing worth saving. But then, I suppose, if I was anything worth saving, someone would have done it long before Jesus did. It wouldn't have taken a Savior, merely a friend. So I started to fathom the unfathomable - something so simple as a Savior. I confess that I need Him. Every. Single. Drop. of His blood. It's His incredible grace.

Not His error.

Which brings me to a place such as this, a place where I'm still trying to figure this whole God thing out. It's a place where I'm reconciling this God who didn't make me this way but certainly kept me this way and saved me anyway, despite my unrighteousness. For all the mistakes I thought He made along the way, each one has been proven wisdom, not folly. Each one has been proven true, not error. Each one has been shown to be incredible, and I am incredulous. But I'm coming to the place, finally, where I understand, through all of this and so much more, just how deeply God loves me. Me! Broken, angsty, unrighteous me. And I can only shake my head. 

It must be some mistake....

Forever

I mentioned on Friday, in some ramblings, really, that this world is just using you. If that slipped right by you or if you read it but could not fathom it, consider these words of Jesus;

A slave doesn't live in the home forever, but a son does. (John 8:35)

I'm telling you - that's exactly your relationship with the world. 

This world allows you to be here. It takes advantage of your labor. It takes advantage of your good will. It takes advantage of everything you have to offer it, but it offers you nothing in return. You don't even get to stay here. 

You spend your whole life building up this place, creating a little space that feels like it's just for you, decorating the world around you to your content, investing in your little corner of it all. And tomorrow, you die. Just like that. The world kicks you out of itself. It invites death and decay to settle into the very space you've set aside for yourself. All of a sudden, this little place you once called "home" starts slipping away from you. 

Because you never really belonged here. Because you never really had a place. 

Think about it. All the money you accumulate here will one day be just enough to bury you. Someone else will move into the house you built (or bought). The car you drive will be passed on for pennies on the dollar until such a time as it, too, becomes good for nothing and lands on a junk pile somewhere to rust. All the status, all the titles, all the reputation you made for yourself won't fit on a tombstone. It will state merely your name, the year you were born, the year that you died, and one tiny little dash that will represent all that you did here. 

A nobody. Nothing. A simple slave to this world, entitled not even to a good story. 

But here's the cool thing. At least, I think it's cool. This world isn't all there is. At the very same moment this world reduces you back to merely a name, God Himself speaks that name in welcome. You groan when you see those few little letters etched across your tombstone, but you weep with tender joy when you hear them spoken by the living God. 

At the very same moment your money buries you, you walk on streets paved with gold. As someone else moves into the house you built (or bought), you move into a mansion you neither built nor could ever buy. As that old jalopy begins to rust, your worn-out body is being restored. 

This world is looking at your worn-out, lifeless, used-up body at the very same moment you finally start to dance. 

Because it's true - you were just a slave here. This world didn't desire a relationship with you; it took ownership of you. It never intended to give you everything; it wouldn't even really give you anything. It never set aside a shred of inheritance for you. This world knew what it would one day do with you, where it would bury your bones. And it never for one second gave you space to think about the One who knit those bones together in  your mother's womb and what He might one day do with you. 

It would never let you dream of being more than a slave. 

But we were made for more than this. We weren't made for this temporary place. God breathed the very breath of forever into each one of us, and that's what we were made for. Eternity. No matter how hard you try, you just can't get that here. You can't get that from this world. Slaves don't get forever. Only sons do. (And daughters, of course.)

Which means the question you have to be asking yourself is not who owns you, but who loves you. Not where you belong, but to whom you belong. To put it another way, the question is really this: Who's your Daddy? Who makes you more than a slave? Who makes you wholly a son? Who offers you the very forever that was breathed into your spirit? 

Is your life merely a dash or is it a story? Who do you want saying your name?

I'll say it again, in case you've somehow missed this: this world is just using you. You're nothing more than a slave here, and that's all you'll ever be. One day, all of this will fade away and you with it. 

But take heart. In the very same breath that this world is using you, the Lord your God is loving you. You're nothing less than His precious child, a son or daughter of the One True King. And He's said Himself that that alone gets you something. Something called...forever. 

Eternity.

Greater

Truth be told, there's a whole list of potential topics for this blog sitting in front of me this morning. And I'm struggling to write about any of them at the present moment. Because...my heart aches. 

We're just not getting it right. 

I don't know what we're supposed to do about love. We've got it so twisted in our heads, in our families, in our communities. It's so broken in our world. We've all trying to get this world to give us what we need, and it can't. This world is finite. The more you take from it, the less there is for someone else. So we're all just taking, taking, taking from one another. If I want this world to celebrate me, it has to turn its back on you. If I want this world to cater to me, you're stuck with leftovers. 

I think about what Jesus told His disciples. If you want to be first, you have to be last. If you want to be the greatest, you have to be the least. And in Luke 22, He says something even more interesting - that it's up to us to make others the greatest. 

It's not just about making ourselves least; it's about esteeming others, inspiring others, building them up to be the greatest. And not just the greatest them that they can be, but the actual greatest - the best there is to offer in the world.

We're not doing this. We suck at doing this.

It's why our world is in the state it is in. We've created this entity called "the world" and we're all using it to try to make ourselves greater, even the greatest, because no one else is doing that for us. No one else is celebrating me, so I need the world to celebrate me. No one else is validating me, so I need the world to validate me. No one else is inspiring me to be more, so I need this world to convince me it's possible. 

No one is holding the door open for me, so I need "the world" to open its doors to me. 

That's the way we're thinking now. It's heart-breaking. This world? This world isn't anything. "The world" isn't anything at all. You can't get this world to celebrate you, no matter how hard you try. Maybe you're today's headline, but you're tomorrow's puppy training paper. You can't get this world to validate you. It's empty. It's meaningless. Think about all the trophies "this world" has given you over the years. As you age, do they matter? Are you holding onto that 1991 Little League Class Champions plaque as your defining characteristic? Or as anything at all? Can this world say anything meaningful about you? Can it?

Of course not. And what makes it so meaningless is that there's no relationship here. This world...this world is a tool that you're using and you know in your heart that when this world celebrates you, it's you celebrating you. When this world validates you, it's mere self-talk. When this world inspires you to be more, it's really just your own hope echoing through this hollow place in your soul. 

And as much as you think you're using this world, there comes a point when you understand this world...is just using you. It's using you for its chaos. It's using you for its own ego. It doesn't care about you. 

That's why what Jesus says is so crucial. You need an actual person to build you up. You need someone who knows you to celebrate you. That puts some skin on it, and it's real. You need someone who knows you to validate you. Then you know it's truth and not all smoke and mirrors. You need someone who knows you to inspire you. They're looking right at you; of course they know what you're capable of. 

We need to be the kind of people who do this for one another. We have to put some skin in this world and start acting like we live here. Together. We have to get to know one another, to look each other in the eye. We have to celebrate each other, rejoice in all the beautiful and good things that God has created in us. We have to validate each other, speak truth into each other's lives. We have to encourage and inspire one another. We have to start making each other not just better, but greater. 

We have to. 

Love somebody today. Really, truly love them. Love them enough to make them greater. 

The Case of the Missing Manna

Solomon, the great and wise king of Israel, does what his father, David, did not do: he builds a Temple for the Lord. In 1 Kings 8, the Lord comes to His Temple. 

But something is missing.

Check this out: Then Solomon assembled the respected leaders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, and the leaders of the Israelite families. They came to King Solomon in Jerusalem to take the ark of the Lord's promise from the City of David (that is, Zion). ...They brought the ark...to the temple. ...There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a promise to the Israelites after they left Egypt. (vv. 1-2, 4, 9)

It seems that by the time Israel finally builds a permanent dwelling for God, they have, they think, only His law left.

You might be thinking: well, yeah. The ark contained the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them. What's so wrong about that? 

Is that all the ark contained?

In Exodus 16, the Lord commands Moses to preserve some of the manna that the wilderness wanderers have been surviving off of. Two quarts of it, to be exact. And the latter parts of chapter 16 tell us that Aaron took the measure of manna, put it in a jar, and put the manna with the tablets of the covenant law, so that it might be preserved. (v. 34)

Now, we know that manna had a way of disappearing. It covered the ground every morning and disintegrated with the dew as the sun rose. Anything kept until morning was covered by worms and disgrace. But manna on the sixth day lasted through the seventh, and I'm going to guess that manna in a jar as commanded by the Lord would last quite longer than that. 

Still, when the people finally settle into the Promised Land enough to give the ark a permanent home, this manna seems to have gone missing. There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets....

What happened to it?

I'm going to guess: "probably nothing." I don't recall reading any Scripture where the manna is removed from the tablets of the covenant law. I don't see anything that tells me the Philistines destroyed it when the ark was in their possession. When the ark almost falls on its journey back to Israel and is barely saved, I don't read anything about it being tipped enough that the manna fell out and the jar shattered. 

I think Israel just forgot. 

Like we're prone to do.

I think Israel forgot, through the grind of days, through the grueling journeys, through the all-out battles, that there was more to God than merely the law. I think they forgot that their relationship with Him was about more than the do's and the don't's. I think they forgot that their story was one of more than merely their faithfulness or unfaithfulness. See, the manna was meant to be a reminder of God's faithfulness. 

And they forgot anyway. 

We do the same thing. When our faith is tested, when life is tough, when times are hard and we are looking for a way to get back to "the basics" of God, we always seem to come back to law. To do's and don't's. To blessings and curses. To yeses and nos. If you asked most of us what God is all about, we would tell you maybe relationship, but based on rules. We would spout off the Ten Commandments and the rules for righteous living. 

We would neglect to mention the manna.

But see, the manna is the thing. We've got this so twisted in our heads. The more we think about God, the more we try to get down to the fundamentals of faith, the more we somehow come to this conclusion that it's all about our faithfulness or unfaithfulness. It's all about how well we keep the covenant commands. It's all about how well we're doing God. 

But God's story has never been about us. It's always been about Him. It's always been about His faithfulness, even in our unfaithfulness. It's about how He fulfills covenant promises. That's what the manna means. 

When we think there's just the law in that box, we think it's up to us to keep the law. Like it's somehow become our promise to God. 

We don't make the promises; God does.

That's what the manna is for. It's to remind us that it's not our promise; it's God. It's not our covenant; it's His. It's not up to us alone to choose faithfulness or unfaithfulness; God has chosen faithfulness. He keeps choosing it. He's proven it. It's right there in the jar, lest we forget.

It's right there next to the law, lest we forget that it's not really our law. It's God's.

And He's keeping it. 

The Law in the Land

One of the troubles of today's church is that it's full of Pharisees - people who wash the outside of the cup, who increase the burden of the people, who worry more about ritual than relationship, more about law than love.

Most of us, to one degree or another, are guilty of this.

We look at the world around us, and we think, If only this world would subscribe to the ideas of God. If only they would understand His ways and live by His laws, this world would be a better place. So we spend our ministries, and our lives, trying to get a world that doesn't know God to live as He desires. 

We spend most of our time trying to teach this world where the lines are drawn between sin and faithfulness. We teach them the difference between cleanliness and uncleanliness. We lecture this world about what God likes and dislikes.

It's not so different, really, from living in the times of Jesus. There were all these Pharisees running around, the guys largely in charge (and large and in charge) of the synagogues. They knew all the rules. They knew the lines between sin and faithfulness. They had clean and unclean down to a science. They could recite from memory what God likes and dislikes. And the people were looking at them and wondering how there could ever be a way. How they were ever supposed to get all this right. 

And did getting it right mean becoming a prude? Did getting it right mean becoming like a Pharisee? 

It wasn't an enticing proposition. Nobody - nobody who wasn't already a Pharisee - was looking to God to make them holier-than-thou. What they were really longing for was a way to be holy. 

For all their talk, that's not what the Pharisees offered. 

Are we, the church, so different today? We are the people running around, "in charge" of the church. We know all the rules. We know the lines between sin and faithfulness. We have clean and unclean down to a science. We can recite from memory what God likes and dislikes. And the people are looking at us and wondering if this is it. Does getting it right mean living like us? 

It's not an enticing proposition. We have to stop trying to make this world holier-than-thou and invite it to become holy in the presence of God.

It's like we think we're the gatekeepers or something, but that job is already taken. Jesus is the Gatekeeper. It's like we think we're the teachers, but that job is taken, too. Jesus is the Teacher. It's like we think we're supposed to teach people all the rules, but these people have enough rules. What they need is grace. 

We're not supposed to be teaching the lines between sin and faithfulness; we're supposed to teach repentance and redemption. We're not at the front of the class; we're at the foot of the Cross. We aren't supposed to be teaching the difference between clean and unclean; we're supposed to be leading the procession to Living Water. We're not supposed to be teaching this world what God likes and dislikes.

We're supposed to be telling them how deeply God loves them.

Are we doing that? 

What would it look like if we were?