An Apology to Time

Dear Time:

I want to confess to you that I have long believed the lie that you are my enemy. I have accused you of stealing, killing, and destroying. I have feared your implacable march and refused to remember that you answer to a good Master. I’ve denied you, blackmailed you, challenged you, and cowered before you. In short, I have treated you as everything except a friend.

I have asked you, Time, for more than you can give. I’ve extorted promises from you, expecting that you can somehow satisfy the longing for eternity that God has set in my heart. You know how very short-sighted I am, though you have borne witness to God’s faithfulness again and again. Each time you’ve pointed to him, I’ve looked to you. Forgive me for loving and fearing you so idolatrously.

You are not a minion, but a servant and friend, faithfully advancing me toward salvation—I’m so much nearer now than when I first believed! You’re bringing me closer to knowing as I am known. Your charge is to deliver me to my eternal dwelling place, where I will finally find the life that is hidden in Christ.

Oh, Time, let’s be friends. I can’t promise that I will never fear you again, that I won’t believe some of the things I hear about you, or that I won’t try to make you bear the weight of glory from time to time. But I am bringing my fears into the light tonight where the perfect love of God is at work, driving them away. So take courage! As I learn to trust your Master more, I will fear (and love) you less.

You understand, I think, that I won’t be with you forever. I know that your days are numbered like the hairs on my head. But I have a feeling that we have some good work yet to do. So let's get started!

Seeking the city that is to come,

Michele

"There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else." C.S Lewis

Some Thoughts on "The Shack"

I tried to read Pilgrim’s Progress before I learned to love Scripture. I made it through a few pages and tossed it aside as irrelevant and just plain uninteresting. The language was laborious, the words seemed scripted, and I found it difficult to believe that Pilgrim/Christian could teach me anything.

But I picked it up again a couple of years ago. I’d recently spent some time in the Valley of Humiliation, and I was beginning to test out my swordsmanship. This time, I was in love with the book almost immediately. Over and over again, the thrill of the story was not in the bare facts of Christian’s victories but in the way that those victories displayed the efficacy of the whole armor of God. Pilgrim’s Progress was in my mind as I read The Shack, since many have noted similarities between the two. In my mind, the similarities end at genre. It’s kind of like comparing William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience with Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections.

Does that mean I didn’t enjoy the book? No. I’ll confess that there were certain little thrills as I read it—the thrill of a new idea or a plausible spin on an old one. Countless times as I read through the book, I thought, “Wow, what a fascinating way to understand the nearness of God!" But these thrills were more like flights of fancy--God on display as we have imagined him rather than as he has revealed himself.

On a literary level, I found the book engaging but not enthralling. Young’s style is effective in that it disappears; the way that he tells the story doesn’t distract from it (nor add to it, particularly). This is a critical skill for a good storyteller, so I will be quick to assert that Young is a gifted writer. But the story never really transported me. It was much more didactic than I expected; after the first 100 pages set the stage, we were knee-deep in thinly veiled theology. Yes, the book is a work of fiction, and that matters. But since God is real and The Shack's portrayal of him is different from what the authoritative source shows, it tends to read more like revisionist history than fiction.

Young is an astute observer of human nature, and his diagnoses of sin and pain are often spot on. Much of Mack’s conversation with the members of the trinity is an attempt to explain why Mack (or other humans) do what they do. Typically, those explanations boil down to grasping for autonomy or some related sin. You won’t catch me disagreeing! But where was the cross in these discussions? I couldn’t find it. And if there’s no cross, there’s no gospel. And if there’s no gospel, there’s no help or healing. If all you can do is give me an accurate diagnosis, I am still sick.

Another thing that should be mentioned is that The Shack will be difficult to stomach if your conscience is particularly sensitive. It reminds me of that old Joan Osborne song, “What if God was one of us? / Just a slob like one of us?” If you can’t listen to that song, don’t try to read the book. Although I trust that Young’s intentions in making God so homely were good (I don’t pretend to know about Osborne’s aims), the result is sobering. Do we now dare to speak so casually and flippantly about God that we involve him in a conversation about "the trots" or imagine him calling humans "idiots"? Do we no longer feel the need to cry out with Isaiah, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”(Is 6:5).

Others have offered more detailed analysis of the theology in The Shack, and I would commend at least these two reviews to you: Tim Challies and Doug Wilson. I will speak here on one overarching issue: the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

It is possible that I’m forgetting something, so realize that I did not read this book looking for examples to prove my case. But I cannot recall a single instance in The Shack where Scripture is referred to in a truly positive light. Scripture is always, more or less, what’s left when God doesn’t actively intervene. At best, it’s the parting gifts that you give the losers of the game show. At worst, it’s not the sword of the spirit but the dagger of religion. Mack’s seminary training is only mentioned to show its futility.

I’ll be honest with you: I’m crying as I write this part. I love God’s Word. Does my life always reflect that? No, it doesn’t. But it breaks my heart to think that someone, somewhere is going to read this book and begin to hold Scripture in contempt. Our hearts are deceitful, and we need no incentive to turn to our own devices.

The disdain for Scripture is the heart of the issue, because out of it grows the questionable theology that fuels the story. There are many points at which Young puts words into the mouth of one of the members of the godhead that directly contradict Scripture. So you find Jesus saying that his life was not meant to be an example to copy (151), though Paul exhorted the Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (I Cor 11:1). You hear God telling Mack that there’s no authority among the members of the trinity (124), which cannot be reconciled with I Cor 15:28, which says that "the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all”? Only if we ignore the clear teachings of Romans 13("For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God") can we buy into the conversation in which Papa calls all hierarchical relationships on earth--including political and marital--“such a waste!”(124). Once, Jesus even tells Mack that the whole trinity is submitted to him (Mack) in the same way they are submitted to one another (147). It’s hard for me to even speculate as to what this means. But, at a minimum, it would mean that God puts the will of man before his own will as an act of deference or respect. Is this the God of Scripture--the God of whom Revelation 4:11 says, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created”? Can we possibly exist in a relationship of mutual submission with the God who upholds our very existence? Can we do so and simultaneously give him glory and worship him in the splendor of holiness? I don’t think we can.

The world of The Shack is a world built for man and not for God’s glory. At one point, while Mack is lying on his back beside Jesus, looking up at the stars, he revels in “the thought that everything was about him…about the human race…that all this was all for us” (115). I could go on. But the contents of The Shack are not what matters. What matters is the truth of Hebrews 4:12, which assures us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” We don’t need God to turn himself into a woman or to temporarily suspend our everyday reality. We don’t need him to do fantastical things. He has done for us all that we need in Christ, told us all that we need in his word, and given us his spirit by which to interpret all these things. So my prayer is not that God would take you or me to the shack, but that he would “Open [our] eyes, that [we] may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps 119:18).

God of Jacob, Love of Esau

I was born in iniquity;
And I tremble before both miserable and mighty men.
How can I stand before your holiness
On the ground that you have made, and made holy?
Esau have I loved;
My gnawing hungers drive me to despise what you have given,
What you have made mine by right of a new birth.
I let go long before you bless me, God of Jacob.

I scorn your redemption, a bowl of stew;
And sing siren songs with the voice of a wretched man;
Enemy or friend? Darkness or light?
I know not what I do.
Yet you shelter me in the day of trouble
And cover me with favor as with a shield.
Like a father, mother, husband—you love me.
Though I yet love what you have hated,
I wear your armor as you train my hands for war.

Because you knit me together, I cannot fall apart.
So I will not look long into the splintering madness of sin,
Though it beckons with all the force of the law,
Blazing, furious, impotent. Proud.
I run to you, my refuge and strength.
You stand, though the earth you made gives way.
When my foot slips, when my heart fails--your steadfast love holds me up;
As it held you up against the splintering shame of the cross,
Which holds all things together.

I cannot drift away, for you are a sure and steadfast anchor.
When my heart condemns me and my enemies seek my life,
You are greater than my heart; you are stronger than my foes.
I will never be alone, because you have put your spirit within me.
I will never be forgotten, because Christ intercedes for me at your throne.
Though I die, you are the resurrection and the life.
So spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer;
And I will hold fast the confession of my hope:
You are faithful and you save to the uttermost,
My God, O God of Jacob.

With Patience

“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8:25).

The last few weeks have taken every opportunity to remind me of who I was—of sin enjoyed, people hurt, and opportunities squandered. Such piercing recognition of depravity in myself—past, present, or future—will inevitably have an effect on my soul. Sometimes it produces joy in the exquisite wonder of my salvation—God showed his love for me in that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me! But at other times, when it strikes in a place where faith has not penetrated, it produces fear and dread. In those moments, the stifling reality of my sin chokes out the mighty rushing wind. Panic rises up and assures me that my redemption will never loosen the choke-hold of sin; salvation will never be something that I can see and feel and enjoy. It tells me that I have a changed legal status but not a changed heart. I cannot see, I do not hope, and I will not wait with patience.

So I cower or I pace. Mostly I pace, turning my restless eyes to the places in my life where my salvation is not fully realized. With eyes fixed on those places and not on God’s perfect love, fear takes root. And the well-founded accusations of my heart begin to wear ruts into the straight paths I was making for my feet. I cannot see, I do not hope, and I will not wait with patience. It’s little surprise that I stumble and fall.

Doubting the efficacy of God’s work of sanctification is dangerous business. For if God’s work of sanctification is stalled somehow, then I must get to work immediately and I should quake with fear over who I am becoming--even this moment. What I cannot see, I dare not hope. I do not have the luxury of patience.

But Scripture says that I am being transformed into the image of Christ; though I’m not who I was, neither am I who I am becoming. For “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” Paul encouraged the Corinthians to cling to their confidence in God’s work in their lives, for only such confidence can purify a conscience from dead works.

So what can I do with my heavy heart tonight in light of the Gospel? I can certainly work harder. That’s what I want to do. I want to make a long list of actions I can take to undo all the wrong done today; to infuse strength into everything that showed my weakness; to redouble my legalism in every area where I succumbed to license. In essence, I can dust off my dead works. But the author of Hebrews tells me that there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God, and that whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Milton Vincent, in The Gospel Primer, speaks of how this rest of faith affects our day-to-day lives: "I never have to do a moment’s labor to gain or maintain my justified status before God! Freed from the burden of such a task, I now can put my energies into enjoying God, pursuing holiness, and ministering God’s amazing grace to others.”

I’m choosing not to work harder tonight. I’m choosing to do the works of God—namely, to believe in Jesus, whom he sent. I'm tearing up my list, accepting my weakness, and admitting where I abused my liberty. I'm confessing all of these things to God and entering the rest of a pure conscience and a sure hope.

I refuse to turn to futile works tonight and am, instead, thinking of ways that I can channel that energy into enjoying God and ministering his grace. Though I do not see the progress I want to see, I will hope against hope and wait with patience...for tonight.

And with God's help I will wake up tomorrow and call on His new mercies to wait with patient hope again.

Thirty

Reflections on the Eve of Thirty

"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:12-13).

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, “But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me.”
He said, “My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee.”
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.
- Martha Snell Nicholson

My pastor shared this poem with us today as he guided us through the text of Hebrews 12. Somehow the dialogue between the text and the poem and the nearly unconscious discourse of my heart, mind, and senses converged in a fleeting moment of tranquility, such as I have not known in a century of days.

“For the believer in Jesus Christ, time and truth are on our side,” writes C.J. Mahaney. I am keenly aware of each of these integers today, and I see that this text offers the sum. “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Time, in its momentary discipline, and the truth of righteousness, are on my side. Thanks be to God.

Though numbers are bare facts, they still carry with them attributed (almost superstitious) meanings. Some people are emotional when they turn 22; some don’t blink at 50. Tomorrow is my thirtieth birthday.

I am fearful as 30 approaches. The twenties are a grace period, in many ways—a time in which allowances are made for spiritual, intellectual, moral, financial, or emotional flights of fancy. I made such allowances for myself, insisting that I would “one day” be different. I got in the habit of making excuses and pushing the boundaries of "one day" out a little farther. It’s been like feeling your way through a dark room and somehow finding that all the walls have been removed.

I shrink back from superlatives, realizing how often I have invoked them in relation to various trials and sins and circumstances over the years. I will say only that this has been a difficult year, as I’ve begun to realize the consequences of my growing spiritual inattention in the face of the sustained health challenges. It is now clear to me that those trials were expertly fashioned in order to disabuse me of some illusions and particular strains of self-righteousness. This is a strange and hurtful gift which Thou hast given me…

I’ve used the word “despair” to describe what I’m fighting with right now. I know no other word to express the crushing hopelessness that tempts me constantly. As Kierkegaard says in Sickness Unto Death:

I think I am in despair over something earthly and constantly talk about what I am in despair over, and yet I am in despair about the eternal; for the fact that I ascribe such great value to the earthly or, to carry the thought further, that I ascribe to something earthly such great value or that I first transform something earthly into everything earthly, and then ascribe to the earthly such great value, is precisely to despair about the eternal.

What is this thing to which I ascribe such value, which keeps me constantly on the threshold of despair? It has a face and a form, yet it is an essence. It is immanent, and yet it is really a question of eternal consequence. In a word, and simply—it is sin. And it provokes me to despair simply because it reminds me, moment by moment, that I did not and cannot save myself.

The onset of the sickness last year was a unique kind of suffering; it did test the genuineness of my faith and result in praise to God (thanks be to God!). And yet the root of bitterness set in, or sprang up, as I grew inattentive. I learned very quickly that I had sowed the seeds of my hope in several different fields—independence, physical appearance, self-discipline, and the respect and admiration of others, just to name a few (How obvious and yet insidious these things are as they stare back at me from the computer screen!).

After I got sick, many of the trees that had borne good fruit--now deprived of some furtive water source--began to languish. Were my roots this shallow; could an axe or a worm or a fire obliterate them? I felt an unearthly stillness setting into the corners where life and hope (however false) had been before. This new and unfamiliar deadness terrified me; I was not eager to sow new seed, but only to reclaim what was previously mine. I ran, almost blindly, back to the wasteland of my youth. Almost blindly.

The eating disorder first began to whisper in my ear about a dozen years ago, saying, “Thou shalt not surely die”. I came to acknowledge its lies in my twenties and had recently come to believe—in my pride and zeal—that I was no longer susceptible to it. How little did I regard the weakness of my flesh or the haunting beauty of the siren song. That song echoes in my mind all day long now, relentless and sickening and yet nearly irresistible. It haunts me into the night, every night, until the night chases the day. Food and people and circumstances and control seem so enmeshed; the film of panic around me is as thick as a parched tongue or the silence after an alarm. I am so tired.

I let myself fall back into counting calories and was quickly engulfed by the shining blackness. That was nearly a year ago. Oh, how I wish I'd heeded the exhortation of I Peter 5: "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

That insatiable appetite, the human desire for control, consumed the neat lessons I’d learned and turned a ravenous and indiscriminate eye on my faith, hope, and love. I could see myself in an iron cage like the man in Pilgrim’s Progress who mourns, “I am now a man of Despair, and am shut up in it, as in this Iron Cage. I cannot get out; O now I cannot.”

But I am not there.

I’m training myself to be suspicious whenever the word “can” is followed by the word “not.” How often do we wrap up possibility and duty with this neat little phase, as if it had the last word—as if invoking the “can not” settled the matter definitively? How presumptuous are we to assume that we know the limits, either the end or the beginning, of our strength or our faith or our endurance? Are these not fixed by God, whose ways are higher than ours and often inscrutable to us? Has the Scripture not plainly said that we have been given all that we need for life and godliness?

To my disgrace and in my blind despair, I have charged God with unfaithfulness so many times in recent months. I’ve reminded him of my prayers, my study of his word, my faithfulness in seeking and submitting to accountability and in generally positioning myself to receive grace—in short, parading about in my filthy rags. I have believed in my heart that he has not been true to his word or, alternately, that I am not among those whom he has called. Oh, that swelling self-righteousness that distorts and obscures the truth that is brought to bear upon a situation; oh, the Gospel that restores reality and hope in the face of despair.

This depression speaks with an authority that it does not righty possess, claiming to be both defining and determinate. But as Anne Shirley said in Anne of Green Gables, “The sun will go on rising and setting, whether I fail in geometry or not (how absurd and telling it is that this quotation has lived in my head since childhood!). Or, as C.S. Lewis wrote in his auto-biography, “Life is as habit-forming as cocaine.”

Many have spoken truth into my life during these days, offering me the "fig leaf of the Word with which to cover my nakedness." I thank God for this and for them; it reminds me again that he has not abandoned me to my own devices, that his Holy Spirit has sealed me for the day of redemption, that he will complete the work that he began in me. For if while I was an enemy, I was reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that I am reconciled, shall I be saved by his life (Rom 5:10).

In the face of this blessed security, I confess my loathsome and burdensome sin. I have so often shared my struggle with others, simultaneously admitting and denying it, creating a space in which they could make allowances and offer sympathies but never suspect the truth of my defiant fragility. I have confessed it, saying in my heart (Kierkegaard again):

I understand obscurely that it is required of me to let this torment go, that is, to humble myself under it in faith and to accept it as belonging to me—for I would hold it aloof from me, and thereby precisely I hold it fast, although I think that this must mean separating myself from it as far as possible, letting it go as far as is possible for man to do so. But to accept it in faith, that I cannot do, or rather in the last resort I will not do, or here is where my self ends in obscurity.

I want to accept the truth of my unworthiness in faith—not in resignation to my sin, but in simple faith that my sanctification will one day consume that which now consumes me. I am the greatest of sinners with the greatest of Saviors, in whom is found all the righteousness that I seek and more. I want to accept in my trials what Spurgeon learned to accept:

It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.

How much time have I wasted in convincing myself—and others—that my sin struggles are somehow worse that what others face? One of the first things that our trials will tell us is that they are unique and disproportionate. They offer to us a million ways to deduce that I Corinthians 10:13 does not apply to the situation when it says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Or, if it admits that the temptation is measured, it will simply decry the means of escape as unacceptable.

I’m not certain what the means of escape is for me, so I’m leaning on the counsel of my brothers and sisters heavily during these days. Though I believe that the Lord could heal me instantaneously or remove the temptation from me entirely, I know that this is not usually the way he works. Perhaps a foreshortened trial would not have its full effect. Most likely, the means of escape for me will simply be the cumulative effects of deliberate and honest life in fellowship with God and in community with his people. It will involve keeping short accounts with God and others and resisting my flesh in ways I have not yet imagined. It probably looks more like the almost imperceptible movement that starts with rejoicing in suffering and ends in a hope that does not disappoint.

Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” I have awakened recently to find myself engaged in the latter activities—distancing myself from the body of Christ, from the compassion of friends, and from my responsibilities to others. My guilt has been a sort of wild card that I could use either to deny myself the benefits of fellowship or to evade the duties of serving through love. You were called to freedom, Michele. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve others.

I want to, with all diligence, hasten to rebuild; the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do. That will be work enough for my thirtieth year; I will need daily—no, moment-by-moment—infusions of grace to do this. But time and truth and God Almighty through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ, are on my side. This one thing I know: God is for me. And that changes everything else.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (I Peter 1:13-15).

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (II Peter 1:3-8).

Tagged and Tagging: Six Things

Thanks to Georgia for the tag! Let me see if I can come up with six things that you probably didn't know about me.

Number One: Parallel Parking
I failed to learn how to parallel park until I moved to Illinois. In small town West Tennessee, it just didn’t matter; I can only recall one place in a 30 mile radius of my home where the skill might have been useful.

I still remember the day, as I was fighting to line my car up against the curb on Main Street in downtown Wheaton, when a friend pointed out to me that I should not go in head first. What a tremendous, life-changing piece of advice (and not just in relation to cars)! From age 16 to age 27, I parallel parked like this Norwegian girl:



Number Two: Tomewhyit
My sister and I once made up our own language, called “Tomewhyit.” Yes, the name of the language is just an amalgam of four short, rather inconspicuous English words. And it’s a bit of an exaggeration to call it a language; it was more of a code that served to camouflage names when we wanted to talk about other people publicly. Darling, huh? Since most English first names are only one or two syllables in length, we could have just called it “Tome.” My name was Mitochelme Leeto Bentonetme.

Not terribly imaginative or helpful. In fact, Mitochelme noto longtoerme thinksto thisto isto funto atto allto.


Number Three:Pencil Problems
I hold my pencil incorrectly when I write. I honestly thought that I was the only person who did it like this. But if the Internet has taught us anything, it has taught us that we aren’t alone in any of our oddities. Reference the “Don’t Do This” section of the diagram at left for a visual aid. I enjoyed reading about how the author has carpal tonal at 35 as a result of holding her pencil this way. Guess I've got five more good years...

Number Four: Muffin the Tiger
I’ve had only one recurring dream in my lifetime. In this terrifying dream (which haunted me most during daytime hours)our family cat, Muffin, had a split personality. One minute she was our demure little kitty; the next she was a tiger. Problem is that you never knew when she’d…er…split. I would sit at our sliding glass door and gaze wistfully at her for hours.


Number Five: Instant Oatmeal
I think that Peaches & Cream Instant Oatmeal is the ultimate comfort food. If you know someone who works for Quaker foods, tell them that I’ll offer an endorsement anytime. They can use my real name and my picture and interview my family (I'm sure they wouldn't mind). I’d only require a lifetime supply of oatmeal.

Number Six: Rice Krispy Treats
I have ruined Rice Krispy Treats before. I don’t want to talk about it. Neither Erika nor Kellye want to talk about it either.

I tag Kellye, Andrea, Barbie, Katie, Jen, and Joni.
Yes, I tagged only women. Somehow, I think that the dynamic of the meme would change if we brought men along.

An Overdue Update

I remember my first big interview in DC. After months of first wooing and then being courted by the company, I flew in for a full day’s worth of interviews. This wasn’t just any company, though; this was the organization I’d been hoping to work with for four years. So I would have gladly filed my graduate degree to be a file clerk. But as my time on site drew to a close, an interviewer said something to me that I was too naive to appreciate at the time. Actually, it’s not terribly precise to say that I didn’t appreciate her statement; in truth, I was obstinate in my disagreement with it, as those with a freshly minted degree are apt to be.

“Michele, loving a company is not enough for the average person. Most people have to love the work they are doing in order to be really satisfied with the arrangement. I’m not sure you would love being an executive assistant.” I assured her that the job suited me perfectly and that I would thrive. But she knew better, and I didn’t get the job.

Many of you know that I am leaving Crossway soon. Some days, the reality is more bitter than sweet, since I love the company and support its mission with my whole heart. But I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom of the interviewer in DC; my love for Crossway has not, on a daily basis, translated into vocational satisfaction. After nearly a year of praying that the Lord would grant me contentment in my work, I finally began to consider that the stirrings in my heart might be promptings of the Spirit instead of sinful discontent.

The work of publicity has always been a tenuous fit for my personality, which is naturally introverted. I thought I could make it work because I love people and content and am generally adept with each. I tried to use those strengths as a springboard to somehow get me past my weaknesses. But I continued to fall short of my own expectations and to carry with me the uneasy sense that my day-to-day tasks should come more naturally to me than they did.

So when it came time for employee reviews this year, I shared my own observations about my weaknesses in relation to the role and made some recommendations—including internal relocation for me. Publishing is a good place for one who loves to write and is generally gifted in the area of interpersonal communication, so I was initially hopeful that I could remain at Crossway. But the growth area for the company is really in sales and marketing at present, so we came to realize that I would have to look elsewhere.



For the past four months, all of my so-called free time has been consumed with job searching. I’ve been applying and interviewing broadly, and I have been deeply encouraged by the responses and even job offers from business associates. But as my time here draws to a close, the next step is not yet apparent. In light of the uncertainty, I find it calming and quieting for my soul to remember the good purposes of the Lord in bringing me to Wheaton.

Personally and professionally, my work at Crossway has put me in contact with remarkable, godly individuals who have shaped me in critical ways. In fact, I found and joined a church full of such folks through my Crossway connections. I have discovered at Sovereign Grace Church a community that is unlike any other I’ve known. In the past three years, I have learned more about who God is than I did in the previous 27 combined; I have truly tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He has used this job at Crossway to get me where he wanted me, and remembering this fills my heart with gratitude and hope.

God’s hand has been so evident in this process that even when I blackly refuse to trust, I cannot wholly doubt. I know that he is in this—not just that he is infusing what is happening with meaning and purpose—but that he is moving the events himself. In light of my own weakness and confusion, what else but this truth can put my fears to rest? I look to verses like Psalm 4:8, which says, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” I read and remember my responsibility to lie down in faith and God’s promise to provide sleep for me, his beloved. Likewise, I do the hard work of researching, pursuing, and interviewing, and I trust that God provides the job. For he knows what I need, and he delights to give good gifts to his children.

Many of you have been writing and asking for updates, and I often issue a hurried and vague response, thinking that I’ll respond more gracefully when I have news to convey. But God’s work is accomplished both in the granting and in the temporary withholding. I’ve been thinking of Hebrews 11 and how the saints mentioned were commended for their faith in spite of the fact that they did not receive what was promised to them. I’m not saying that God has promised me a lucrative job that suits me perfectly, but I am remembering that he has promised to meet all my needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And this prompts me to testify to God’s faithfulness and my confidence in him now, before I receive what I’ve asked from his hand. For without faith it is impossible to please God.

So I just want to let you know that I am still working and resting and waiting and believing. That may not sound like big news, but it is the work that the Lord has given me for today, and I plan to do it with all of my heart. SDG!

P.S. After I posted this, I spent a large part of my day transferring digital pictures from one computer to another. Sad but true! I found these photos and couldn't resist posting them. The first one, in the black suit, was taken just before I flew to DC for the interview I recounted above. Don't I look all nice and shiny and...green...in my very first suit? The second photo was taken recently as I prepared to fly to California for an interview. Don't the pictures say it all?

Testimony

Growing up in one of the only admittedly non-Christian homes in my area, I quickly learned to associate Christianity with the order and security that my home lacked. Though my heart was, as yet, unresponsive to the Gospel, I affiliated myself with believers and mimicked their external actions. Yet I silently struggled to practice any sort of obedience, since I was fighting my flesh in the flesh, and I felt myself slipping farther and farther into sin—particularly into the sins of anorexia and bulimia. At this point, I had not experienced any heart change and, in fact, had no concept of it.

I spent most of the next ten years walking through and working through various theories of change and philosophies of hope. Each one left me emptier and emptier. I acquired two degrees—a BS in Christian Ethics and an MA in Church-State studies—but I walked away with little that I could use. I was still too consumed by my internal struggle to look outward, even at that which interested me. I was a slave in every way.

Though I professed Christ with my mouth, I did not believe in my heart that God had raised him from the dead or that the power of his Spirit was now available to me. In his mercy, the Lord began to take from me the things that I valued most. First, it was a relationship; then it was my health. In his kindness, he took no more than was necessary. In his astonishing love, he replaced these things with himself. Little by little, my heart softened to the “offense of the cross,” until one day I found that it was offensive no more. It was my only hope. It is my only hope.

For the first time since high school, I began to attend church regularly and to practice the most basic spiritual disciplines—bits of prayer, regular Bible study, tithing. Within a few months of this change in practice, the Lord began to reveal to me that I needed to pursue a fellowship of like-minded believers rather than staying, for the sake of comfort, in a church whose theology differed from mine in significant ways.

The Lord led me, quickly and clearly, to a new fellowship of believers at Sovereign Grace Church. Sovereign Grace Church is affiliated with Sovereign Grace Ministries and can be most easily characterized as charismatic and reformed. I am intimately involved in a small group ministry and participate fully and with great joy in the life of my church. I currently meet with my pastor about once a month and am accountable to several women from my small group and church. It is my desire to live my life increasingly before men that God may receive glory for the work He has done and is doing in me.

The Clause

“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces).

"You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, 'It is hopeless'; you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint" (Isaiah 57:10).

Dear God,

Quite some time ago, a legal transaction took place between us. You adopted me as your daughter, and I confess that I’m still a bit perplexed as to why you did it. But you and I are both well-aware of what happened on that day. There’s no need for me to rehearse it. Let me move on to what has transpired since that time.

I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this to you, but I drafted up a little legal document of my own not too long after the adoption. It’s not even a separate document; it’s really a minor clause, just enough to allow me to set up some healthy boundaries (you remember how my psychiatrist encouraged me to establish these). And in light of what has happened this year, it is glaringly obvious that I need to let you know about the clause.

The clause clearly states that if you remove/withhold 2 or more of the following self-evident needs from me—health, beauty, marriage, or children—then I have the right to full control over my physical body and its care. Since the necessary preconditions have all been established (really, I was even willing to give you some latitude here!), I write to notify you that I will be invoking the terms of the clause. Thus far, I have implemented the following:

#1. In order to most efficiently regain control of my physical body, I’ve re-engaged my eating disorder. Now that my more carnal incentives for “getting better”—like feeling attractive and healthy, having energy, etc—have been removed and my body is in constant pain anyway, I figure that I might as well get some payback. This familiar misery and obsession is much more comfortable to me than the self-denial to which you have called me. I don’t really understand all the talk about walking by the spirit and fighting the flesh, so I’ll just feed the flesh and keep walking.

#2. I’m rethinking this whole “Gospel only” mentality. The truth is that, throughout this past year, I have only gotten sicker—physically and emotionally. So it would seem pretty obvious that this approach is inadequate. I’m quite certain that the time for healing is now, so I’m investigating a few “Gospel-and” strategies. I’ll let you know what I come up with in case you need some help with the next case.

#3. Your Word defines shame as that which fails to bring honor to you. But I would submit to you that shame is much broader than that. Since you have called me, repeatedly, to things that make me look weak, foolish, and inadequate, I have learned that shame has more dimensions than I realized. I mean, what does biblical shame have to say to the critical glances of the females around me when I’m dressed wrong or when my body doesn’t look like it used to or even should at my age? What does it say to the strangers who shift their eyes pityingly when I’m limping and in obvious pain? Believing that these changes are ways that you can be glorified has not made any of them go away. So I’m thinking that perhaps if I use this shame as a prod, it might motivate me to push harder and somehow overcome. Again, I just want to try out some options. I’ll let you know how it goes.

#4. In light of all the work I have to do (see items 1-3), it probably goes without saying that I will have to drop out of a few things. I know that you have called me to love and serve at my church and through some specific relationships, but clearly I need to rethink these things during this time. As you know, I can hardly be expected to care for others if I’m not first caring for myself. I'm sure you appreciate my focus here! Really, it's just good stewardship.

Now, I’ll admit that I never got your signature on the clause. But I’m certain that you will acquiesce when you consider the merits of my case. For you are a kind and compassionate God, and you would never give me more than I could bear! Remember? You promised. While I believe that you will ultimately work things out for my good, it seems as though I need to set an interim plan in place until you get things back on track. I'll keep close watch, though, and render the clause void just as soon as you do.

Respectfully,

Michele

Oh God, help me to look at all the provisions that I make for my flesh and to cry out, "It is hopeless." Help me not to just regroup and plot more evil; oh, bring me to the end of myself. Let me live not in my unbelief but in my faith! God, I write this ridiculous letter to "dig out the word"--to expose the pernicious lies. Let me see my face as it is and not as I imagine it to be. Help me, by your powerful spirit, to cast myself on the cross of Christ; to dwell in my adoption as a son; to hold fast to my sure hope; to have faith that you will not forsake the work of your hands. Help me to rehearse the Gospel when I am tempted and not to move beyond it; help me to see your kindness there and to be moved by it to repentance. Preserve me, oh God of my salvation. I trust in you.

"For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

Getting Back to "Real Life"

The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life (C.S. Lewis).

It has now been almost a year since I was hospitalized. These months of doctors, testing, and sustained physical pain have done little to provide answers. I am grateful to God for the prayers of those who have pleaded on my behalf that my faith would not fail in the face of this pain and uncertainty. By the grace of God and only by the grace of God, it has not. But as I await a new battery of test results and the corresponding array of potential diagnoses, I want to take stock of the past year. I testify to God's steadfast love and good purposes in this way in order that my own faith—and the faith of all who read—might be strengthened for what lies ahead.

Tragedy of any type has a clarifying effect on the mind. Instead of the many, there is the one. Instead of the functional beliefs and assumed priorities are the real ones. I learned so much about myself throughout the last year. Here are a few examples:

I learned that I believe in the Gospel, I cherish it, and I desire to see my life increasingly conformed to it. I was almost shocked to discover this, since I had not been faithfully living in accordance with it—not unless it was convenient (and when is the Gospel really convenient?). My faith felt like a veneer at times, hiding the real me from even my own eyes. Oh, thanks be to God! It is not. It is "by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain" (I Cor. 15:10).

In the face of the consuming uncertainty of the past year, I have tasted what it means to "walk by faith." And though I quickly revert to living by sight—every chance I get—the Lord has mercifully sustained me through the protracted trial. Would I have understood the Psalmist's cry—"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you" (Psalm 73:25)—had the trial abated six months ago? God knows. But I believe with all of my heart that as long as this trial endures, it is serving a necessary purpose in my sanctification.

Living daily with circumstances that provoke this natural man to despair, I am learning to challenge him. I've learned to ask him what's he thinking, and why he's thinking something so absurd! I've learned to—on occasion—laugh at him and to more regularly counter his arguments with Scripture. With greater frequency, I am aware when my thoughts are in opposition to the gospel. And while I don't always turn from those lies immediately, the Spirit is helping me to repent of my unbelief.

The laborious process of leaning into and living through physical pain has revealed to me my own beliefs about comfort. I believed that the world—that God—owed me comfort and health in this life. Being forced to live beyond that assumption in the physical realm, though, I began to see applications in the spiritual. Repenting of my own spiritual laziness, I am learning how to practice spiritual disciplines even without seeing fruit. Recognizing that even my powers of self-assessment are tainted by sin, I'm clinging to the truth that whatever God has commanded is for my good. "You are good and do good; teach me your statutes" (Psalm 119:68).

I don't document these things to say in any sense that I have "arrived" in these areas. But I, instead, offer them as evidence of God's faithfulness. Each area of growth corresponds with an increased awareness of sin and a fresh infusion of grace to turn from it. As Kris Lundgaard wrote in The Enemy Within, "The grace of God in Christ and the law of sin are the two fountains of all your holiness and sin, joy and trouble, refreshment and sorrow. If you are to walk with God and glorify him in this world, you need to master both."

No, my circumstances haven't changed much in the past year, but I have. His grace to me was not in vain, but is instead producing the peaceful fruit of righteousness in me! So when I'm tempted to think of my illness as an interruption in my "real life" I remember these words of comfort and exhortation from Colossians, which radically redefine the idea of "real life":

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (3:1-4).

Forgiveness, Not Understanding (Part 2)

When "I forgive you" waits for “I understand you.”

If you look at the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, you'll notice something interesting about the plea offered by the servant in one case and rejected by him in another.

Be patient with me and I will pay back everything.

The words are exactly the same; in one case, forgiveness is granted; in the other it is refused. We aren’t given details about the circumstances of the two debtors or about their efforts to repay those debts. All we know are the words used with which to cry out for mercy and the responses that those words received. What might this reveal to us about the nature of forgiveness?

I would suggest that, at a minimum, we can see here that forgiveness between men is not extended or withheld simply on the basis of the words exchanged. I say that in spite of the fact that I have suggested very specific ways in which apologies should be proferred! We offer our apologies humbly and thoroughly in order that we might put no stumbling block in another man's path, not in order that we might merit forgiveness.

No, the particular nature of the words spoken was not the determining factor here. What was different in the two cases was the heart of the one of whom forgiveness was asked. Forgiveness, for the Christian, is not so much about understanding the wherefore and why of another person's heart; it's not about assessing his or her motivation or standing before the Lord or even the rectitude of his case. Forgiveness offered is about the work and the words of Christ.

Forgiveness is about the work of Christ in that it is a response of gratitude for the forgiveness received at the cross. And it is about His words, for it takes seriously his statement in Matthew 6, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

It's honestly not that hard to understand the motivation of the wicked servant; which of us hasn't reacted to the "offense of the cross"? Which of us hasn't thrown up his hands in disgust and said, "I want to do this myself." Who hasn't sought an independent righteousness in spite of the free gift of grace? Like the wicked servant, we despise the cross when we withhold the grace of forgiveness.

Oh, but I want to glory in the cross. I want to boast in the forgiveness that it bought me, and I want to allow that forgiveness to overflow into the lives of those around me. I do not have to wait to understand another man's heart; I know that mine was changed once and for all by forgiveness, so I freely give.

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col 3:12-14).

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit" (Psalm 32:1-2).

Forgiveness, Not Understanding (Part 1)

We normally think of "understanding" as a cornerstone of human communication. After all, if we do not understand one another, it may reasonably be asserted that we have not actually communicated. So I’ll grant that understanding is a goal worth pursuing in most interactions. Yet there are circumstances in which understanding—or the pursuit thereof—can interfere with our duties to God and to each other. I’ll suggest two cases in which this is true, subordinating "understanding" to "forgiveness" in each. Here's the first:

When "Please forgive me" means, "Please understand me."

We've all made these types of apologies.

I knew better than to yell at you, I really did. But it was such a long day at work, and by the time I got home I felt like I was going to explode. When you said what you did, it was all over.

Now, this may pass as an apology simply because it recognizes the offense as an offense. But it is, in fact, no sort of apology. An apology starts with naming the sin, but it quickly moves into accepting responsibility and asking forgiveness. The following passage from John Ensor’s The Great Work of the Gospel radically changed the way that I think about forgiveness and apologies. Since reading this, I’ve seen similar formulations in other places, but I always go back to this one. Ensor is speaking here about the way that we ask God for forgiveness, but I think that many of the same principles apply in our horizontal relationships:

Even when we own up to our actual guilt, we usually attempt to shift attention to our woundedness and away from our waywardness…This is a clever way of admitting to guilt while justifying it at the same time. Another way we put the best spin on guilt is to say, “God, forgive me. I didn’t really mean it.” In other words, we meant well. Our hearts were good. This prayer for forgiveness is based on our really not needing it. It’s really a cry to be understood, not forgiven.

Our fundamental need as humans is not to be understood. The Psalmist cries out, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” But his cry is not a cry for an understanding that forestalls forgiveness or renders it obsolete. His cry for understanding is for the understanding that leads to repentance. He continues, “See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24).

For those of us who have sinned and fallen short of the image of God—namely, all of us—forgiveness is our fundamental need. Every one of us could cry out with the Psalmist, "For your name's sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great"(25:11). So when we are tempted to regard ourselves or our behavior in a self-righteous way, we should remember these words from I John 1:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Rather than offering to one another our extravagant explanations and excuses, let us offer up simple confession and repentance. Such honest work betrays a heart in which is "no deceit"--and such a heart is "blessed" (Psalm 32:2).