We are surrounded by broken people. And, oh yeah, we don’t always get it right either, do we? The heartache of watching others struggle and go a way you wish they wouldn’t feels like it will rip you apart.
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Some days I feel like a one-string banjo player—I just keep talking about the same thing over and over. But I know that this is what God has equipped me for, and continues to empower through me. My repetition? Your identity in Christ and deepening relationship with Him no matter what the circumstances. Some might question why I keep harping on these things.
Why is your identity in Christ so important? Because most of the stupid choices we make or the things we try to fill our lives with are because we have no idea who we are. We try to make sex our god, using others and letting them use us with no idea of what we are worth outside of physical appearance. We live at the top-level of stress because of a career we believe defines us, all while terrified that we might not have identity without it. Things get really dicey when we retire or lose a job. So many of us are constantly thirsting for acceptance and love, believing if we could just find the right combination of satiation we would be filled up.
Instead, I want to wake people up to who Jesus calls them—beloved, accepted, worthy, known, heard, remembered, complete, lacking nothing, purposeful, forgiven, valued. And all of this is based in who He is, so we can’t mess it up. If you don’t know who you are and have tried to figure it out through all sorts of different means, stop and ask Him right now. He loves to tell His kids how much He adores them.
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When I was in grad school, I had a teacher who taught a class called “Counseling Skills” or something to that effect. I kind of rolled my eyes when I realized I had to take that class, because I had the arrogance to believe I knew how to listen, how to care, and how to communicate compassion already and didn’t need a class to help me. The lesson in humility, though, was not given through the class material itself, but by the professor. This man walked in to talk to a bunch of new students who were all prospective counselors, and approached with such gentleness it stopped me in my illusions of grandeur and made me pay attention.
In thinking back to this kind man, I realize that he taught me how to listen because he actually listened in class. Sure, he taught the lessons, but then he would calmly entertain questions and treat each student with such value and worth that you instantly felt like you mattered—even if your question was really stupid. He never looked like he was trying to come up with an answer while listening, but would take the question with a minute of consideration so he could truly take in everything the person was saying.
I came to find out throughout the semester that this man was dying of cancer. He didn’t tell us, but once in a while when he would have to miss class, the substitute informed us that he would be doing that occasionally when he didn’t feel he could have enough strength to teach. And yet, there was never a demand for respect or honor, but a continued communication of his students’ value as he approached with gentleness. I watched him deteriorate throughout the semester, and attended his funeral the next year after he went to be with Jesus face-to-face. I remember thinking how it must feel for him to be present with the One his soul loved so much, and who had always listened to him.
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What does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God when you don’t want to get back into performance or legalism? That’s a question I’ve been pondering a lot recently. Jesus says to seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness in Matthew 6, but as with so many things in Scripture, we’ve taken this to mean that we have to generate the Kingdom ourselves and our performance is graded to see how well we are seeking.
The context of the verse is in relation to pursuing or being obsessed with provision—food, clothes, etc. Jesus says instead of being fixated on what you might need or think you need, to run after His reality. This isn’t just in heaven, as in Luke 17:20-21, Jesus says the Kingdom of God is already expanding among some of those around Him. And Romans 14:17-18 says that the Kingdom isn’t a bunch of rules about eating and drinking, but rather the realm of the Holy Spirit. And serving Jesus by walking in the kingdom realities was pleasing to God.
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God has been talking to me a lot about fear this year, as you can probably tell if you’ve read any of my blog posts from the last few months. I have realized that we tend to do one of three things with fear:
1. Obsess on it, thinking we are protecting ourselves or preventing something from happening by having control (an illusion) and coming up with all the worst-case scenarios. We sometimes believe that knowledge and information will help, but without any power we are devoid of actually keeping our fears at bay and they control us.
2. Ignore it, believing somehow that if we face it head-on that will bring it into reality. Of course, this is similar to hiding from the monsters under the covers—I might not see them, but it wouldn’t do much in the way of protecting me from anything scary. Denial is just lying to ourselves, believing that we will not have to face anything we fear or anything difficult.
3. Entrust and release it to God, believing that He can free us from it and allow us to walk through anything because of His strength within us. This isn’t an attempt at control or denial, but rather trusting Jesus to be with us and walk with us through whatever the fear is. He actually can free us from the fear, rather than continuing to spin round and round in it.
I was listening to a man several years ago who had just lost his infant daughter in the two weeks after she was born. She had fought for life, barely hanging on for those weeks, and then never left the hospital in her physical body. I attended the funeral with the tiny casket at the front, and, with tears pouring down my face, watched her brothers, mother and father celebrate the brief life of their little girl. Months later, the man was talking to a ministry board and was asked how he was surviving. His answer has stuck with me to this day.
The grieving father said that when he was operating from his soul—his mind, will and emotion—he felt like he was cracking apart. He couldn’t make sense of anything that had happened (least of all why God had allowed it). He couldn’t fix it or force something to happen to change the outcome. And he felt raw, blinding grief that sucked joy away replacing it with anger and deep sadness. He said that in his soul, he couldn’t find what he needed.
Instead, he had to move into his spirit, which was filled with the Holy Spirit. His spirit could acknowledge reality above the physical one, and find comfort in what God spoke to him there. The earthly reality didn’t change, and his grief wasn’t gone. But he was able to move into a deeper part of him that brought peace.
