Once, I was mistaken for Ned Flanders (the ultra-Christian), not in person, but in my writing.
Ned and I are pals, actually! Ned and I are in the same group because we aren’t allowed to expel anyone (I.e., those who aren’t cool enough) from the Jesus club. And that’s a good thing, in hindsight, because what if they wouldn’t accept me?
There is a large STOP sign directly in front of her face. She tries to look around the sign and peek behind the large octagon shape at the people standing in a line behind this sign. “Can we speak…?” she asks. The words are not heard. She is met with authority. The sign doesn’t listen. It only speaks.
And what do we do when the church expects us to be Martha? What do we do when we set aside everything of value in our lives and sit at the Teacher’s feet, and He is calling us to walk a new path, not to follow the footprints that tradition carved into the sand from thousands of past traveler’s feet?
What happens when God calls a woman in your church on an adventure outside the boundaries of how you expected her to serve in YOUR programs and initiatives?
What then, women and men in leadership, whom she longs to bow the knee before and to serve with love.
Will you open the door, church leaders, both men and women, who are both officially and unofficially recognized as such in the church? Will you listen to her enthusiasm with an openness to be convicted by Holy Spirit? What if your church programs aren’t ALL perfectly aligned with the heart of God for this season?
If what they say is outside the current scope of your existing programs and activities but you sense the breath of God, too, blowing your congregation in this new direction, then friend . . .
Are you WILLING to open another door, to encourage others to follow her, if your spirit also testifies within as she speaks what Holy Spirit has been whispering, as you (1) listen and (2) have an open mind to the new thing God may be doing in our midst?
Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination!
Innocent, simple faith that believes what God says is real and that expects Him to do what He says He will do – that’s the mark of a mature believer, not complicated doctrine and fancy arguments.
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
1 Every man and woman inside the church has a tendency toward legalism as defined here. Let’s rid our hearts and our churches of it, friends. What is God whispering to your heart? If you are not currently connected with a church, please rebuke us. We need you, too. Let’s soar together, brothers, sisters, and new friends!
You read this stuff because I am full of interesting, unusual advice! Today will not disappoint as I share my top four tips for eating less sugar! (Two tips today, two tips NEXT TIME.)
1. My top tip is perhaps the most controversial, and I will never admit to having said this if you tell someone else that this was my idea.
Liar!
(Confidentially – Shh… Here’s my top tip for eating less sugar.) Wait – A bit of context first – The only part of your body that LOVES sugar, if we’re honest, is our taste buds, and it turns out that most of our sense of taste is related to smell. So – Here’s the tip: (Try this when no one is looking.) Close your eyes, inhale deeply as you lean over that dessert you MUST have, and PRETEND to chew and enjoy it, but really you are just smelling it and looking like a cow chewing it’s cud to onlookers!
Benefit: You get (almost) all the enjoyment of the experience of eating it without poisoning your body!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
2. Downscale your addictive personality.
Our church has been reaching out to our city’s homeless population, and it is AMAZING how much sugar most of these people who have kicked their drug addictions mainline (Can you mainline sugar?) Whatever.
But let’s face it, mainlining sugar is a LOT healthier than mainlining crystal meth!
Since the reality is that we, too, are just nicely dressed balls of addiction, chasing the wrong desires, let’s learn from them!
Let’s downscale our addictions!
For example, I met a lady last week who stopped smoking and then gained thirty pounds. But stuffing our faces with food is MUCH better than stuffing our faces with cancer sticks! In my case, I am more addicted to sugar than I am to processed chips. So I TRY to eat chips instead of sugar.
Once we’re addicted to chips, it’s easier to wean ourselves off that addiction than a more challenging addiction.
Our addictions have been downscaled!
It’s easier to eat fewer chips than it is to mainline a bit less crystal meth!
Get the pattern? While we’re at it, downscaling our addictions, let’s upscale our Levels of Happiness! Oh, and as we set aside that third ice cream cone, we may find that the ensuing brokenness we experience (Let’s be honest), ushers us closer into the realm of the spiritual as we set aside our addictions and finally ask Him to fill the void.
(And that’s pretty cool, actually.)
. . . we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.
As the song below sings, “There’s an ache in my heart,” consider offering your emotional brokenness to Jesus instead of numbing the pain with the fruit of addiction again, which will only bite us later. Holy Spirit, would You fill the ache in our hearts with Your presence, Your love, more and more, we pray.
Putting lots of chickens into a cage, cutting off their beaks, and letting them defecate on each other for their entire caged lives because we prefer our chicken sandwich to cost $1.99 instead of $2.56 has, at times, been my church culture.
This financial choice is a particular “church culture”, not “Kingdom living”.
Kingdom living says:
Good people are good to their animals; the “good-hearted” bad people kick and abuse them.
And so we dig deeper into our pockets, where it hurts, and place more coins on the counter for our lunch. OR heaven forbid, we eat a few more vegetables instead of another chicken sandwich because it’s cheaper than another piece of chicken, considering the actual cost of paying for cage-free birds.
This example is an aspect of a church culture (a common behavior) that I experienced many years ago, which I find frustrating.
Some of the very wise, and my heart goes out to you, dear friend, say, “That is not a healthy place,” and do not return to church. I do not blame you. I believe God does not blame you . . .
. . . though He is still pursuing you, dear friend.
Keep looking.
There are safe places to rest. But it might take a bit of seeking. And God will be (Sneakily!1) healing you as you seek a safe group of Jesus-seeking people to belong to. Who you started as won’t be the same person as who you end up as, which is half the joy of the process, actually.
And there will still be annoying parts of church culture to correct, no matter where you call home.
Been disgusted by Christian culture, or church culture, lately? I have too. Jesus was, too. His harshest comments were for the leaders of His church.
Ouch.
May our rears be sore from the spanking that Jesus gives us because it is better to have a sore rear than for our entire selves to be oozing pus from our unhealed diseases – the diseases of pride, love of money, prestige- that we are too proud to ask Jesus to heal.
However, within the mess and the brokenness of Christian culture, in pockets of beauty, is the joy of Christ’s message, called Kingdom living.
Thank you, Lord, for loving the mess that is your church, the mess that is me. Thank you that even here, in the charred remains of my heart, there lies an ember of love that you can fan into flame. Do your good work, dear Jesus. We pray to help us become Kingdom people, not merely robots of Christian culture.
Help those rightly offended by Christian culture to find a home in You, and with other broken people that You also (of course) love, we pray.
And friend, as you grow, learn, talk, and ask God (heaven forbid) for His perspective that is a BIT higher than ours, may you get a bit happier, too, as clearly proven HERE!
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
1Oh. And a caveat about this approach is that you must be prepared for… clearing throat… you may be WRONG about ONE of the ideas you hold so dearly. For example, I am listening to a course on Food Ethics, and they are messing with my dogma. That’s when you MAY need some humility, BUT that is a later lesson, and I haven’t found any need to grow in that discipline yet.
I should explain, and give MY point of view so you can empathize with me.
Or maybe I should ask God for forgiveness for being a cultural horror, but it’s easier to convince you to feel sorry for me so that I can feel justified. Let’s go with the latter option today because I don’t have much time, and getting to a place of feeling bad about stuff I did wrong takes some time and effort.
First of all, we need some context.
It all started many years earlier when I also won (Do you notice a theme here – of me being a WINNER?) a push-up contest against someone much stronger and fitter than me, my older brother.
The following is what happened:
My brother was the kind of guy who ate chips and hot dogs at every meal and was usually found on the couch, vegging out and watching TV. Then he moved out, and the next time I saw him -Wow! – He got fit!
The problem was that my self-esteem couldn’t easily handle this transition.
I have ALWAYS been the SUPER FIT one in the family (Proof HERE). “I MUST still be fitter than my couch potato brother!” I assumed.
“Yeah, you’re a little bit more fit than you were before you moved out,” I humbly admitted to my older brother. “But OF COURSE I’m STILL a LOT fitter than YOU!” My reality began to keel off-center when he challenged me to a push-up contest.
“HA!” I said with fake confidence, “OF COURSE!”
We settled on a tasty treat for a prize the OTHER sibling would pay for.
He bought me the prize because I WON (!) the push-up contest.
I want to end this Newsletter here, but my Editor (meanie) says I HAVE to finish this story for “Context” – whatever that means. So the next day, my brother shoveled sand and helped with other demanding physical labor around the house. (I couldn’t get out of bed for three days. My editor says I HAVE to put that part in there. But I don’t see how that statement is even relevant to the story!)
Anyway, how do we BECOME physically stronger than we ACTUALLY ARE? That’s easy! We fake it!
To soar through life, like I do, look down your nose at other people, and assume that you MUST BE better than them!
Then you’ll become a WINNER like me!
We may have to pay a bit in the next few days because we cannot get out of bed, but THINK OF THE GLORY that you will overshadow your brother and other rivals with!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Wait – The Point of this Newsletter doesn’t sit PERFECTLY with me today. Those who are more spiritually mature than I (and there AREN’T many of those!) mention something about sitting down and finding our TRUE identity as a child of God so that we are not hurting ourselves emotionally, physically or spiritually by trying to appear superior to who we are.
I keep forgetting stuff like that.
And once we really GET that stuff, then it’s okay EVEN to admit to being a loser! And the good news is that, thankfully, being a loser does not define us, either!
All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! . . .He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do . . .
Want to get happy? The following is my interpretation of the philosophically based “Four Levels of Happiness.” We will then compare the original version of these Four Levels to my interpretation later in this Newsletter.
Restoring Life 