Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we aught also to love one another.
-1 John 4:10-11
But God commendeth His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
-Romans 5:8
Have you ever thought about how odd the placement of the crucifixion is? In the story of our lives, of the Church, as we know it, the crucifixion stands in the middle of the tale--at least from our perspective. Truthfully, I often think of it as coming at the beginning, for it happened thousands of years before I was born. Compared to other stories of great sacrifice, it's out of place. It would be like Romeo drinking his poison for Juliet at the start of Act One or Gandalf the Grey saving the Fellowship from a Balrogh in the Shire instead of in the Mines of Moriah. It's surprising, but it's not the same. It's not what we'd expect. Usually, we expect the greatest sacrificial acts of love to be made at the end of a relationship that has already proved rewarding. Romeo and Juliet have shared stolen days and nights of true love before he drinks the poison, deciding he cannot live without her. Similarly Gandalf has spent many years among the hobbits and been a close personal friend of many of the members of the Fellowship, traveling with them on their arduous journey and enjoying their companionship and help until the day he must fall with the monster to save them all from certain death.
But that's not how God did it. He did not die to save us when we were most lovable and he had already reaped rewards from His relationship with us and our love for him. He loved us before we loved Him. In fact, He sent us His greatest act of love, the Cross, when we least wanted His love and most needed it.
Surely, this is love, not to give to others what they want, but rather what they need. To love in a way that is necessary rather than in a way that is immediately appreciated and rewarded. Those who love only for immediate reward get only that, as the Bible makes clear. But we are commanded to love as God loved, to anticipate the greatest needs of the people around us and to act accordingly. We may not always be right in our anticipation or our action, but we will be rewarded for our love will be genuine.
Say the name, "Harry Potter" in Christian circles and your bound to get mixed reactions. Some people, such as my sisters, faun over one of their favorite fantasy-series heroes. Other people will break out the garlic and pepper spray to ward off the influence of a witch-boy.
Magic has never held a soft spot in the hearts of Christians, or any followers of God, and for good reason. Whatever the magician's story, Christians explain magic's effects in one of two ways: it's either a sham, a trick with no real power (like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat)...or it's playing with the dark forces of Satan and his demons. In either case, it isn't beneficial and can have some seriously destructive side effects. Following the Biblical commands against magic (Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 18:9-14), Christians have always considered the use or attempted use of magic in our world to be unacceptable. For much of our history, it was considered a crime worthy of death.
Many Christians make no distinction between the practice of magic in the real world and it's practice in fantasy fiction. While they admit that the magic in fantasy stories is no more real than the elves and other fantastical creatures that inhabit them, they insist that the use of magic in these stories is dangerous, for it could encourage readers to seek out magic in the real world, which is very dangerous. One book in particular that has been accused of doing this is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. In it, young Harry Potter comes to learn that he has been gifted with magical powers from birth and he enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for a seven year course in learning to harness these powers--and along the way defeats the evil Lord Voldemort. Since Harry and his friends are said to be studying to become witches and wizards, casting spells, using divination and the like, many Christians are strongly opposed to the series since they believe that reading it will lead directly to children trying to practice real witchcraft on their own.
But just how real is this threat? How much of a similarity and a risk is there really? As an avid reader and writer of fantasy, I felt I had to find out. If I was sinning by writing magic into my fantasy stories, if I was unintentionally leading my readers into the temptation to practice what God has forbidden, then I had to know.
I felt that the only real place to start was by researching witchcraft itself, as it is practiced in the real world. After all, if fantasy magic and witchcraft are very closely related, then the risk is high that reading about one could lead to practicing the other. So, I checked out a book that a Christian had written on the results of her research into the witchcraft religion of Wicca.
What I found was at once somewhat alarming. The book opens with the writer's visit to Salem, Massachusetts to interview self-proclaimed witches and find out what their beliefs are about. The town which was once a stronghold of Puritan orthodoxy, the place where even the condemned hated witchcraft and denounced and scorned it, is now a place seemingly overrun with openly practicing witches. Wicca, the author said, is on the rise, and is believed by some to be one of the fastest growing religious groups in America, though it's very hard to pin down since there are no official Wiccan gatherings and many people slip in and out of its grasp without many of their fellow Wiccans even being aware.
Is Harry Potter and the recent surge in magical fantasy stories responsible for this increase in Wiccan numbers? The quick answer, I found, was no, not directly in any case. By no stretch is Harry Potter about Wicca. While Harry's friends may call themselves witches, they bear no resemblance whatsoever to true witches in our world. Wicca, for one, is a religion. While many of it's adherents play fast and loose with their theology, its basic beliefs can be roughly summarized as follows:
All is one: everything and everyone in the cosmos is interconnected and of equal value. Wiccan belief is pantheistic (god is the world and vise versa), and many Wiccan's have strong environmental leanings.
Humans are divine: Wiccans hold that, since all is one and god is all, that individual humans are gods and goddesses in their own right. As such, they believe that they possess divine powers.
Gods and the goddess: Wiccan belief falls under the banner of neo-Paganism, which revives the worship of ancient pagan gods and goddesses, often significantly modernizing it and lumping the worship of various deities together. Wicca is polytheistic, but its adherents generally worship two main gods: the Horned-God and the Goddess. With the rise of modern feminism, goddess-worship has become a particularly big element in Wicca.
Personal power is unlimited: Wiccans hold that their own power is not limited by God and that they do not need to pray to Him. They have their own resources to fall back on. Wiccan's are generally highly independent, self-reliant, and anti-authoritarian, which explains why their religion's numbers are so difficult to track.
"And harm ye none, do what ye will": Wicca does not lay out a firm moral code and there is, in Wicca, no great distinction between right and wrong. Wiccan's believe that as long as they aren't harming someone (or something--since everything is one), they are free to do whatever they want.
The threefold law: most Wiccan's hold to a form of karma, that whatever anyone does, good or bad, it will return to them three times. For some Wiccan's this fuels a belief in pasivism: for if an enemy nation has done wrong, then surely their karma will catch up with them eventually. While many Wiccan's would agree that there does come a point when we have to intervene, they do not, by and large, agree on where that point falls.
Consciousness can and should be altered through the practice of ritual: one thing that binds all Wiccan's together is their emphasis on ritual and altered states of consciousness in magic rites in order to tap into and utilize the unseen energies of the spiritual realm. All Wiccan's share a strong sense of and belief in the supernatural, and believe that it can be used, through rites, rituals, magic objects, spells, and meditation to alter the shape of the natural world around them.
This, of course, bears no relation to the magic of Harry Potter. In Harry Potter, as in many fantasy stories, magic is a property of the user, which only certain people have access to from birth. It is not the result of them being part of an interconnected pantheistic cosmos where they are divine, nor is it the harnessing of powers in the spiritual realm around them. Harry simply has an innate ability to make a wand do outrageous things when he's holding it and says the right words. Harry Potter also has something Wicca lacks: a strong and well-defined concept of good and evil. While Wicca is indifferent to morality in general, J.K. Rowling's whole series revolves around a classic clash between good and evil. To top it all off, J.K. Rowling's book employs one of six "hedges" (http://www.christianfantasy.net/sdg1.html) an author can use to prevent a reader from confusing the magic in their stories for magic in the real world: the "hedge" that magic in her stories is totally fantastic. Every spell is over the top and absurd, such that no one in their right mind could ever believe that such thing could ever be done in the real world. Thus, there is very little risk that anyone reading Harry Potter will actually turn to Wicca, and interviews with Wiccans have confirmed this. While some of the Wiccans interviewed by the author of this book (Wicca's Charm by Catherine Sanders) reported reading Harry Potter before moving on to serious books about Wicca, most did not cite such fantasy stories as an influence: they read Harry Potter the same way they read more conservative fantasy stories such as The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings.
However, magic in popular culture does seem to be on the rise, and Harry Potter is certainly a part of this phenomenon. In the past generation, a cold empiricism laid hold on much of the culture, Christian and otherwise, resulting in a rise in atheism and agnosticism and disbelief in the supernatural in general. Even many Christians, influenced by this cultural empiricism, refuse to believe in some of the supernatural realities of the Bible such as special creation, miracles, angels, demons, Satan, and even Heaven and Hell. The current generation--as generations often do--is reacting against this. The current generation has a rising fascination and belief in the supernatural, and a desire to experience it not only through fantasy fiction but also through real life. Since many Christian churches are still in the grip of cold empiricism and cast a dubious eye on anything supernatural--whether good or evil--, some seekers feel compelled to look elsewhere for their real-life taste of the spiritual realm. If they cannot get it from God, they will get it from the devil, and they run straight for neo-Paganism and Wicca (to be clear, I should say that Wicca is not Satanism. It's practitioners do not consciously serve Satan or interact with demons: they do not even believe that such things exist. However, in that Wiccans attempt to--and in some cases, actually do--harness spiritual forces that are not of the God of the Bible, and in that all spiritual forces that are not of God are demonic in nature, in this sense Wiccans can be said to be meddling with the demonic realm--though they doubtless do not know it).
What should be our response, as Christians, to this rising need to identify with the supernatural and interact with spiritual forces? We should not forget that God is the greatest "spiritual force" of them all and that the Bible brims from cover to cover with supernatural events. While some Christians have taken the perspective that such happenings are suspended indefinitely, the Bible says nothing to that effect. As Christians, we have access to the supernatural experiences that people of this new generation are seeking. We should take full advantage of that, rather than trying to deny the spiritual side of Christianity so that we won't appear foolish before the waning tides of atheism. Rather than condemning the supernatural wherever we meet it, we should promote our own "magic" (if you will)--for it is superior to what Wicca offers. While what Wicca offers is a demonic deception, in Christ we have the real deal!
This should shape our approach to magic in fiction as well. Fantasy writers, like myself, should not cease to use magic in their stories. How we treat the supernatural is important, in fiction as in reality, and never more so than now. The magic must go on, but it should be used deliberately. Great care should be taken to "hedge" against the possibility of fantasy magic being mistaken for witchcraft. Good and evil must always be distinguished, and each side may be allowed their own magic to draw on--for in the real world, it is so. Great care must be taken in the way the magic and the supernatural is approached in these fantasy stories. While these stories are pure fantasy, reading them should always inspire the reader to--if anything--draw closer to God and look to Him as the source of spiritual strength rather than turning to any other source. In this way, magic in fiction can become more than simply "harmless": it can become a force for good.
I read psychology books recreationally. Okay, well, that's not entirely true. I read them on my own, but not for the sheer pleasure of it. Often, I find things in psychology books, particularly in Christian psychology books, that help me better understand myself, the world around me, and my relationship with God. That's why I read psychology books.
Lately, I've been reading a lot of books by Christian birth-order psychologist Kevin Leman--and probably driving my friends a little crazy by constantly analyzing their birth-order (it works though!). That's a topic for another post, though. Today, I wanted to talk about another concept I found in his books, the concept of the pleaser.
Dr. Leman describes pleasers as people who are oriented toward pleasing others. It's what they do. Pleasers (or people-pleasers) care a lot about what other people think and feel. They're very nice people who like to keep the oceans of life calm and placid for everyone around them, even if that peace for others comes at the expense of peace for the pleaser. Sometimes being a pleaser's not such a bad thing. A mild well-adjusted pleaser is easy to get along with, kind and compassionate, easy-going, and yet able to stand up for him or herself at need. However, being a pleaser can also be a bad thing. It can mean allowing yourself to get stepped on by others for no good reason, perhaps even enabling their destructive behaviors. When the pleaser mixes with perfectionism, its a recipe for disaster. Such a person:
Walks on eggshells to keep everyone happy
Wonders why he/she can't seem to do anything right
Feels insecure, lacking confidence
Avoids confronting others at all costs
Is driven by a list of things he/she "should" or "aught to" do, rather than by love or passion
Feels overpowered by others, especially those close to him/her
Gets little love from others
Feels like running/hiding from life's hassles
Is easily manipulated by guilt
Feigns approval and consent, even when feeling the opposite
Is easily talked into things by whoever last spoke with him/her
Is afraid to try new things and take risks
Is embarrassed to stand up for him/herself or take initiative
Is frequently disrespected
Obviously, every pleaser may not exhibit each of these signs, but even having some of these can be a hindrance to effectiveness and joy in the kingdom of God. Therefore, some pieces of advice for pleasers, drawn in part from Dr. Leman and in part from my own experiences as a pleaser:
Get rid of perfectionism. You are not perfect: only God is. He loves you as you are. Set more realistic goals for yourself and be content with your best, not perfection. Refuse to bite off more than you can chew.
Have compassion on yourself and forgive yourself when you mess up. God forgives you and loves you: do you think you know better than Him? Your guilt is gone. Stop trying to pay for past sins.
Don't compare yourself to others. You aren't them. You're not supposed to be. You are supposed to be no one but yourself, because that is who God made you to be.
Refuse to subject your self-worth to other people's opinions. Your valuation comes from God, who first of all conceived the idea of you in His mind before creation and considered you a worthwhile enough endeavor to include you in His finite Creation. Further, He considered you worth dying for on the Cross. He is the only one who truly knows you, and so His determination of your value is not open to debate or public opinion. People may offer their evaluations on how you did at this or that or how you are in this area of your life, but they have no authority to evaluate your worth as a person. If they do, they are simply wrong. They value you too lowly.
Related to the above: realize that implicit in the command that you love your neighbor as yourself is the command that you love yourself. Believe no criticism except what comes from God, for the sake of building you up: Satan and the world criticize to tear you apart and leave you in ruins.
Before you apologize for anything, make sure it's your fault. When it is, apologize only once. If you are forgiven, move on. If you are not, forgive them for holding a grudge and move on. (I know that this piece will come especially hard for me: it used to be that "I'm sorry" slipped off my tongue as easily as "good morning").
Be willing to take credit for what you do right. You don't have to go fishing for praise, nor should you, but when it comes your way the appropriate response is thank you, not "Oh, really, it was nothing" or "I really should have done thus-and-so instead," or, worst of all "I'm sorry..." You can, of course, give praise to God for allowing you to do whatever it was, and even tell the other person that (which can be good), but He used you to get it done and (if you believe the Bible) He fully intends to reward you for it--and He is right in doing so.
Learn how to say no, especially when people want your help with something. Understand that your gut instinct will always be to say yes, no matter how much you've already taken onto your plate, but that sometimes the most loving thing to do is to refuse to volunteer for a task you cannot hope to complete, so that someone else can do a better job of it.
Remember that you know right and wrong as good as anyone else. When you feel wronged, let the offender know immediately, if possible. There's a difference between turning the other cheek and letting someone unintentionally sin against you for years.
Do not shirk from conflict when it is necessary. Realize that sometimes a storm in someone else's ocean of life is the best thing for them. This is especially true in areas of discipline, correction, and rebuke. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for someone is to slap them in the face when they're acting like a total...well, you know.
Don't be ashamed of being a pleaser. It has its pitfalls, but also its advantages. Realize that, when you aren't trying to live your life under a stormcloud of other people's/your own unfulfilled expectations, you have a greater ability to perceive the needs of others and act on them with compassion than many of the people around you. The ability is only available to you when you're not overwhelmed with guilt, self-deprecation, responsibility, and peer pressure, though--so get out from under these by all means so that you can start actually serving and loving the people around you.
I have had the opportunity to observe firsthand, through my own journals and diaries, how God pursues a heart--as He pursues mine. I was reflecting on this process the other day and saw some common themes, which recurred throughout my life with God. Tonight, as I listened to my friends pray and talk about God, it seemed that these themes applied to their lives as well. I figured I should sit down then and write them out, where they could benefit me and maybe others as well, helping us make sense of day to day pursuit by God. So, here they are. Since all believers are members of the Church, and the Church is feminine in relationship with God (Ephesians 5:25-32), I will use the convention of calling God, the Pursuer, He and the object of His desire She.
(1) First of all, it is a pursuit. There is a Pursuer--a Romancer--and a Quarry--a Beloved. These are the two basic roles of this sort of relationship with God. I would not go so far as to say that every action and reaction of the relationship takes place within this framework--though I suppose it might--nor that the roles do not temporarily reverse. However, by and large, the relationship is best viewed this way: God is the Pursuer, the Romancer. We are His Quarry, His Beloved.
(2) These roles are interdependent. The Romancer pursues the Beloved, romancing her and attempting to win Her heart. This process requires participation from both parties. Both of them have a part to play which cannot be--and I think, shouldn't be--controlled or played by the other party.
(A) The Romancer cannot control the Beloved's reaction to his advances. She is free to reject them or accept them at will, and she must be. For the Pursuer to attempt to arrange it otherwise would be to force Her--and God would never do such a thing to His Beloved.
(B) The same thing goes the other way: the Quarry (the Beloved--though usually when this becomes an issue, She's behaving like a Quarry more than a Beloved) cannot control the actions of the Pursuer. This is usually a much bigger issue in a relationship with God than the Pursuer trying to force the Quarry (since God, being perfect, never does such a thing). The Quarry however (as I can attest, having done this frequently myself) will very often attempt to seize control of the Pursuer's actions. For myself, I can say its a security issue. I get an artificial sense of safety when I have control--or when I feel like I am in control--of my relationship with God. After all, if I am in control nothing I don't like will happen, right? Of course, the only effective way to be in control of this kind of relationship is to try to seize authority over the actions of the Pursuer, to dictate to Him how He can and cannot romance me, to lay down a set of laws and boundaries. This gives me a sense of safety, but it is false, and it strangles off the romance and joy of the relationship. While it is tempting as a Quarry to try to control the actions of the Pursuer, it is ultimately unsatisfying to do so.
(3) This leads me to another theme I've noticed in my life as a Quarry/Beloved. There is a certain cognitive dissonance involved in playing this role with God. On the one hand, there is the Quarry's desire to be in control, to feel safe, to escape. These appear to be instinctive reactions, probably coming from the flesh. Yet on the other hand, there is the Beloved's desire to be loved, to be romanced, to be held, captivated, surprised, and awed. These desires are totally incompatible with each other, but nevertheless they exist simultaneously in me whenever God pursues me. There's a little tug to try to escape or try to get Him to stop it--but at the same time I don't want Him to stop. It feels good, and I want Him to romance me more, and if I run, I do not want to get away: I want Him to catch me. As the Beloved, my greatest hope is that someday He will succeed in capturing my heart so thoroughly that my Quarry tendencies will evaporate and I will be content to remain forever "caught"--eternally His. If I am to take the Bible seriously, with it's talk of Heaven, this desire will someday be granted.
(4) The above conflict within the Beloved can lead to a roller-coaster or yo-yo relationship with God. There will be times when the Beloved feels intensely romanced by God, when She opens her heart to His advances, revels in His love. Then, there are times--often juxtaposed with these other times--when the Quarry will take over, when She will run from the Pursuer or try to dictate His pursuit and wall Her heart off from Him. If at this point the Pursuer were to give up, the relationship would be over. Fortunately, we serve a God Whose patience and persistence are--well--truly divine. He never gives up. While He does allow the Quarry to attempt to escape to the best of Her abilities, He will make it hard for her to do so effectively by hindering her flight and pursuing her. In the end, His limitless endurance and fearless persistence always win. The Quarry becomes disheartened in Her flight and gives up, allowing Herself to fall into His arms. At the same time (or alternately), the Beloved's heart is stirred by the Romancer's pursuit. She remembers the joy of being romanced, and loses the desire to flee, control, or avoid the Pursuer, surrendering Herself to Him. From hearing a number of believers discuss their relationship with God, this kind of dynamic seems to be the norm.
(5) A new thing I'm noticing, still learning, is that the Romancer, God, sees the Beloved as having great inherent value. He sees Her as irreplaceable. He loves Her without regard for her present, past, or future actions. This is, at least in part, motive for His pursuit. Myself, I find this very hard to understand. I do not see this value in myself. When I do see value, I tend to try to place it in what I do, not who I am. God disagrees.
Psalm 45 is generally acknowledged to be, at least in part, a Messianic psalm, foretelling the coming of Christ and His splendor. Verses 6 and 7 read:
"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions."
These verses are quoted in Hebrews 1:8-9 as referring to Christ, and are used to prove that He is superior to angels, for He is worshiped, He reigns, and they serve and minister.
Taken this way, the Psalm is an awesome celebration of Christ in His divine splendor. It begins by praising His appearance and His speech:
"You are the most handsome of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever."
Then it goes on to praise His might, and how He wields it righteously, to defeat evildoers and subdue His enemies in the cause of all that is good:
"In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; let your right hand teach you awesome deeds! Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; the peoples fall under you."
Clearly this is not Christ you want to mess with! This is not the stereotypical image of Christ the meek and mild wouldn't-hurt-a-fly bearded woman--which is totally unbiblical anyway. This Christ is the guy that those money changers in the temple had the misfortune of meeting--and getting whipped by as he chased them out of the temple. This is the Christ who, on the last day, stands on the mount of Armageddon with His robes dipped in the blood of His enemies and at whose feet the world bows, conquered and subjected.
The psalm then talks of His reign, in verse six and seven, which also establish Christ's divinity and His godly reign over the world. But immediately following that, the psalm makes a sudden shift. A new character enters:
"From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you [Christ] glad; daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir."
At the first mention of this queen-consort, I did a double take. I thought this psalm was just about Christ! Where did the pretty lady come from? One might think that she is, like the ivory palaces, just to set off the incredible majesty, power, and worthiness of Christ the King, but she is not a mere passing mention. Most of the rest of the psalm focuses on her alone. Obviously she is someone of importance to Christ. With a start, I realized there was only one person she could be: the Bride of Christ, the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32)! With more of a start, I realized that, as a Christian, I am a member of that Church. I'm in a psalm!!!
Just look at how God describes the Bride! She is a queen (verse 9), she is clothed in gold of Ophir--not just gold, mind you, but imported gold! Exotic stuff--(verse 9), she is a princess (verse 13), she is all glorious--What a strong phrase!--in her chamber (verse 13), she is clothed in robes interwoven with gold (verse 13), and further visits the King, Her Beloved, in many colored robes (verse 14). Wow! She's a knockout! Talk about fashion! Sounds like she owns the industry, and shows them how it's done. Talk about nobility and dignity, royalty...she's got it all.
At this point, I want to ask God if this is some sort of super-Christian He's describing. I certainly don't feel like an all-glorious princess reclining in my richly-colored, gold-embroidered robe surrounded by my retinue. But God isn't describing a super-Christian. The Bride doesn't have it all together, despite her overwhelming beauty. God still has some tips for her (verses 10-12). Still, Christ sees Her as beautiful, ineffably, breathtakingly, captivatingly beautiful. He sees me as beautiful. He sees you as beautiful. To His eyes--which are the only eyes in all the universe that never lie--, you are the all-glorious princess in robes of many-colors intertwined with gold; you are the queen at His right hand in gold of Ophir.
In light of this, the Psalm offers some words of wisdom for the Bride:
"Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father's house, and the King will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people."
I see several different pieces of advise here:
(1) Our identity is not in our origins. Now we are the Bride of Christ, the Beloved of God, unified with Him. Where we come from, what we did, who we were...none of that matters now. Our identity is in our relationship with Him. Nothing else has the right to define us.
(2) God thinks we're hott. Yup. And He totally wants us! I don't know about you, but I find that encouraging in my spiritual life, and life in general. Nothing like the confidence boost you can get from being pursued by a deity (THE Deity) Who thinks you're all that and then some.
(3) Christ is our Lord. We have no other master. He may place other authorities over us, but they are temporary matters. Because Christ is our lover and our Lord, we owe Him our respect, reverence, and obedience. We owe no such obedience to the appetites of our flesh, the whims of the world, or even the well-intended expectation of friends and family. God supersedes all this, and it is to Him we are to bow.
(4) We have something even the wealthiest people in the world don't have. Our love relationship with Christ is something they would give every red cent they own to buy from us--and it's not for sale! We don't have to play the game of keeping up with the Jones'. We have already beaten the Jones', permanently. Our relationship with Christ is something we can never lose, and even if we stand naked in a sewer, it gives us more net worth than Bill Gate and Rockefeller put together...times ten!
Shh! Don't tell anyone! I'm reading a book about the sex life of a forty year old average American housewife and her husband of ten years. Her sex life is special, because for her husband's birthday, she decided to give him the gift of intimacy: that is, to celebrate his birthday, she decided she would give herself to her husband sexually every day for the next year.
Now to be sure, most people would say I have no business reading such a book. It's not explicit (it's not that kind of a sex book), but still, I'm a single guy, a virgin who's probably at least a few years away from any sex at all. Why would I tempt myself with such a book? Well, it turns out its not tempting at all. While the context of the book is this woman's year-long journey of sexual intimacy with her husband, it turns out its not really about sex at all. It's about her relationship with her husband, her life, her heart, and how her decision to give intimacy unconditionally every day impacts all of these. At bottom, it's a story about unconditional acts of love--and that is something very relevant to my life.
If you're familiar with my blog at all, you already know that one of the recurring themes of my life is the connection I see between my relationship with God (what I call, the Great Romance) and the romance and relationship that exists between a man and wife. If not, I just traumatized you--if that lead-in didn't already have you traumatized. Oh, well. If all it takes is a random blog post to upset your world, then you have a very flimsy world and you need to give your version of Atlas a coffee-break, or better yet a pink-slip.
Anyway, a couple of months into her year of daily sex, the wife in this book started to notice some unexpected payoffs of her decision. For starters, her intimacy with her husband in the bedroom was translating to more intimacy (non-sexual intimacy--come on, work with me here) outside the bedroom. Because of her unconditional daily acts of love for her husband, she was receiving acts of unconditional love in return (or at least, noticing them more). Now, when her husband took her out to dinner, listened--I mean really listened--to her after a hard day, or just cuddled with her on the sofa, she didn't have this question in back of her mind: Is he doing this because he loves me, or does he just want to get me in bed tonight? The whole question was removed from the equation: he was going to get her in bed that night regardless, so his acts of love were motivated solely by love and were unconditional as well. This really helped sweeten their marriage.
The other thing she noticed was that having lots of sex with her husband made her feel sexy, beautiful, and more confident about herself and her body. At forty, she's hitting the age of wrinkles, sagging, and gray hairs. Meanwhile, fashion marches on relentlessly and these days keeping up with it with one's looks can really break the bank, between waxing, tanning, the gym, whitening, coloring, etc, etc. There's also plastic surgery, with many women her age taking "spa trips" to Cuba and coming back nipped and tucked, looking ten years younger. The woman in the book admitted that she was tempted to make such a trip herself. It's not like I need a new chin or a new nose, she tells herself, but I could use a little work here and a little there...and it's not like anyone would know. Her husband, however, has been adamant that she not get any work, not for the sake of their budget, but for the sake of her beauty. He tells her she's beautiful just the way she is and he doesn't want her to change anything. Besides, what would her actions be telling her middle-school daughter, whom their trying to raise to know that beauty is from the inside out, against the grain of a superficial world.
For the record, I agree with her husband. I would frankly be horrified if any of the women I knew tried to get plastic surgery or if, one day, my someday-future wife did the same. Ladies, you are beautiful just the way God made you. Barring extraneous circumstances--such as horrifically mutilating car accidents--I would shoot you just for thinking of defacing one of His masterpieces by trying to change yourself into something you're not, whether in appearance, body, or personality, character, and calling (okay, I wouldn't really shoot you, but I would be very put out). Let me be clear about this: you are beautiful just as He has made you, just as you are, and your beauty is unique--and owes much of its great value to its uniqueness. Sure, I could name some women who's beauty appears exceptional (though appearances are often deceptive). I'm sure you could as well. Whoever or whatever ideal your thinking of now, you are more beautiful than she is--though likely you do not realize it (which I think makes you more beautiful still). If she were to try to fit into your skin, under your hair, behind your eyes, with your mind, or into your clothes, she would not be able to pull it off, and if you were to trade bodies, faces, hair, eyes, or personality with her it would be defacing to your own beauty--like drawing a mustache and glasses on the Mona Lisa. And of course, any woman who realizes this about her own unique beauty and the beauty of those around her and lives accordingly...her beauty is the greatest of all--and all the world of waxing, coloring, styling, fashion, plastic surgery, dieting and exercise will not allow even the most glamorous woman to eclipse her, or even parallel her.
Climbing down from my soapbox, I can't help but be struck by the way this wife's discoveries apply to my Great Romance with God. What Christ did in giving His life on Cavalry is undoubtedly the greatest unconditional act of love in the whole universe. He did that while each one of us was dead set on running away from Him headlong into sin and Hell. He knew very well that the majority of us would not choose to turn around, and that even those of us who did would need some help just getting to that point. He didn't exactly have a great payoff, and certainly not a guaranteeing one. He did it anyway. His love is unconditional. And if the Cross weren't enough to prove it, He continues to give me little expressions of His unconditional love every single day. I do nothing for it, and if I never gave Him anything in return, He would love me still. There is an indescribable security in that for me. When God shows me favor, when the Bible talks about His love, I don't have to cringe waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't have to worry about what God wants in return and whether or not I'll be able to provide. All He wants is my heart, and He's going to give me daily (hourly, or minutely...or nanosecondly) acts of love whether He gets it or not. He is as relentless as He is faithful. So, I don't have to worry about driving Him away or being unable to satisfy Him. There's freedom in that security, freedom from pressure to perform. Whereas before my thinking place an impossible burden on me to fulfill my "duties" to God, knowing that He'll love me anyway, even if I push Him away, give me the freedom to really love Him. Because He loves me unconditional, I can give Him little unconditional acts of love myself--simply because I want to and not because I think it will obligate Him to bless me.
This applies to the body-image thing, too. Spiritual "body image" is a big issue for me. I know I've been guilty of looking around at other Christians and thinking: wow, doesn't their faith look great! I wish I had their prayer life/discipline/passion/skill in evangelism/reading plan. Maybe then I could be really pleasing to God. I've contemplated the spiritual equivalent of plastic surgery. What if I changed my routine drastically so I could do this spiritual thing? What if I joined this radical movement? Or perhaps less radically: what if I incorporated this little change? Nobody would notice, but maybe it would make my life more attractive to God. Of course, if "nobody would notice," is it really worth it? If the change is so slight as to pass unnoticed, it probably isn't an important change, certainly nothing worth agonizing over and nothing that could actually make God or anyone love me any more. God's unconditional love smashes this whole issue, though. God loves me just the way I am. To Him, I am incredibly and irreplaceably beautiful as a son of God, as the Bride of Christ (more on this soon)--and if He were as snarky as I, He might threaten to shoot me for even considering trying to be something I'm not: something other than what He's made me and is making me into.
The inspiration for this post comes from a song we sang at NavNight tonight. I'd never heard it before, and I don't remember much of it, only that one line of the song makes the claim to God that, essentially, "Here I am, offering what only I can offer you." What is being offered isn't specified, though. That set me thinking: what is it that I have that only I can offer God. I have always known He wants something of me, He has some interest to be met. I've never understood why He doesn't just go someplace else for whatever it is: I mean, there has to be a source out there that's less difficult to live with than I am. But He doesn't. He sticks with me, and that makes sense if He's after something only I can offer Him.
But what is that? Everything in the world, everything in the universe, and everyone rightfully belongs to God. If He wanted a great evangelist, He has Billy Graham and many others like him. They could satisfy such a need much better than I could. If He wanted a great student of His Word, He has whole armies of men and women in seminaries who study it night and day. If He wanted the biggest and strongest, He has teams of Olympic athletes. If He wanted the best writers, He has every author, journalist, essayist, and blogger on the planet to choose from, and there are a great many, I'm sure, who outshine me in every way. If He wanted righteousness, some outward standard of moral purity, He has churches filled to bursting with such people, whose outward goodness surpasses my own. In any of these cases, there is no need for Him to turn to me--as I am nowhere near the top of the list in any of these qualifications. If these things satisfy Him, He will find meager satisfaction in me, if He finds any at all.
But God is not interested in me for my personal qualifications. The Bible makes it clear that these things are not a factor in His choosing and calling (1 Corinthians 1:26). They do not play a role in His persistent love. Even in their total absence, He does not abandon me. He does not lose interest. He is after something more.
But what can I offer Him? I could offer Him money--of which I have little--but He owns every speck of gold on the planet (and off the planet for that matter). If it suited Him, He could snap His fingers and make a million tons more. He doesn't even need the stuff anyway, not really. It's not like they have vending machines in Heaven and God's all out of quarters.
I could offer Him my labor, my blood, sweat, and tears. But what could I accomplish with my labor, next to Him? In six days, I could write a persuasive essay or maybe (big maybe here) build a piece of furniture. In six days, God created the universe, including all language and marvels of engineering that put any common little nightstand to everlasting shame. If God doesn't need my help doing anything. If He wanted to just accomplish some result, He wouldn't talk to me about it. He'd do it Himself and have it done before I even knew about it.
I could offer Him my good works, my righteous deeds, caring for others, spreading the gospel, and defending the faith. But God is not impressed with any of these things. He was here as the man Jesus the Christ, and while here He clearly outperformed me in terms of any righteous deed. His good works fulfilled the highest laws ever given (His own). His righteousness was without flaw or compare. He cared for others in ways I cannot even begin to comprehend and ultimately gave His life for those who hated Him, but needed His salvation. He invented the gospel and the faith, and if either needed protecting or spreading, He could quite easily do the work Himself, much better than I could. He is God after all. God needs no one to run His errands and deliver His messages: He is omnipresent and omnipotent to accomplish these tasks and deliver any messages Himself. He further needs no one to defend Him on any field--whether scholarly or warlike. Any challenger to His sovereignty can no more threaten Him than a speck of dust can threaten a man. He does not need us to fight His battles for Him: He's perfectly capable of handling them Himself.
Please understand, I'm not saying that any of these are bad things to do. I don't think that at all! They are all very good. It is good to give generously, to work diligently, and to pursue righteousness. But I do not think that these things are the reason why God not only gives us the time of day, but seems very much fixated on us. We have something He wants, which only we can give Him.
I would say that this something is love, but it is much more than that--or at least, more than that statement sounds on its own. There are nearly 7 billion people in this world who could all love God. Many are much better at it than I am. And if love were all He were after, my not make a race of fawning little creatures who would never rebel or turn away from God. They may not have the capacity for free will, but they could at least do a better job at trying to give God warm feelings. True love, though, isn't a feeling, it's a choice. That's the nature of it, I think. Love is a choice, not a feeling. It's a choice, not an action or a result--though, being a choice, it tends to create both as byproducts. Love is a choice, an individual choice, moment by moment, minute by minute, day by day, to invest of yourself and give your heart to something or someone. No one else can make that choice for you. You must give your heart away yourself. I must give my heart away myself. My heart is the one thing in all this universe that no one can ever offer but me, that no one can take without my permission, that no one can receive without my giving. My heart is the one thing that I can truly offer to God. It's the thing He's really interested in.
It's a realization that changes things for me. All my life, I've been driven so hard by perfectionism. Lately things have come to a head. I know that perfectionism is an unhealthy way to live. I know that my constant failure to live up to my own impossible expectations has burdened me with tons of unnecessary guilt and shame, crippling my real potential and making me susceptible to the whims of others: anyone who knows how to make me feel guilty by pointing out my failure to perfectly preform can control me. It's slow suicide, really. I've been working for a long time now, trying to dismantle it in my life. Yet here, in my spiritual life, it has retained much of its influence. Even dethroned, it has been a constant source of trouble and dismay to me. I keep trying to find a way to please God, to give Him what He wants. He has made it clear that perfect performance isn't His aim, so I have searched for His true aim these past weeks. Maybe all He wants is for me to do this thing right, or that thing? Nothing seems to fit though. At least until now. At last, I can give up the search and the striving to perfectly fulfill some grocery list of spiritual demands. God isn't really after any of those things. They're just byproducts. He's after my heart, and when I give it to Him, He's completely satisfied.
My heart, as I believe I've said before here, is affected sometimes by certain songs. They speak to me of my relationship with God, and of His love for me. In pursuing my heart, God takes full advantage of this "weakness."
Some of these songs you're probably already familiar with. One in particular, "More" by Matthew West, I've already mentioned in this blog.
This song is, as it's introduced in the video, a love song from God to us. It speaks to me particularly well because I love a lot of the things mentioned in the song (mountains, oceans, etc), and it addresses some of the lies I hold onto, such as believing that I'm beneath God's notice or too messed up and chaotic for Him to want to be around, especially when I'm at my worst and need Him most. It reminds me of how God's pursuit of my heart is persistent and comes through really in every single detail of Creation around me. It is not an accident that I was made in a world that has snow and trees, mountains and streams, and that I happen to love those things: God set that up on purpose. His pursuit extends even into the little details. While I'm not claiming divine inspiration for Matthew West's song, it was God ultimately who allowed him to create it, and it was God who arranged for me to hear it. It's God who gave me the time to write this post, the inclination to do it, and through it is reminding me minute by minute of His unfailing love.
There are other hymns I might mention, but there's a whole other class of songs I want to address now: love songs. "More" is a love song explicitly written to be of God pursuing us, but other love songs speak to my relationship with God. They don't often fit exactly. Love between a man and a woman is, I believe, meant to be an allegory of the love between God and His saints, but the allegory isn't perfect--especially since nothing we do as humans turns out perfect. Still, God has used a lot of these songs in winning my heart, and I'd like to share them with you.
You'll notice that pretty much all of these songs are by Taylor Swift. So, I confess, I am a Taylor Swift fan--and unashamed to rock out to girly country love songs. They're good songs, in my opinion, and she's a very talented singer and performer in my opinion, but a big factor in my appreciation is that I started listening to Taylor Swift songs at about the same time as I started to understand the connection between my relationship with God and love songs.
The first song is "I'm Only Me When I'm with You" by Taylor Swift.
I actually heard the phrase I'm the only me when I'm with you a year or two before I discovered this song. I immediately applied it to my identity in Christ. As a Christian, my old life, with sin and all its trappings, is not who I am any longer. It's not who I want to be. It's not who I will be. It's not who I am in the core of my being. I may still sin (I do, a lot actually), but when I do, I'm living a lie, because the new me, the real one, is in relationship with Christ. It is through that relationship that I derive my identity, and everything that makes me me flows out of it. This song takes it a little further and says some things that also describe my relationship with God. It's true that I "don't wanna fly" if God's "still on the ground." I don't want to go anywhere or into anything if He's not with me--not just because I need Him to have my back, but also because I live to please Him. That's not to say I always do a good job of that. Like the song says, "you drive me crazy half the time." God and I have our share of drama, but we have our moments--great moments like the one the song opens with--and their sweetness (and the sweetness of making up after and getting through drama) makes up for any negatives.
This brings me to the next song, which deals with a typical case of drama. It's "You Belong with Me" by Taylor Swift.
The song reverses the typical "gender roles" I see in see reflecting my relationship with God. The story of the song is about a girl, who is just perfect for this guy, witnessing the destructive spiral of his relationship with a girl who isn't any good for him, whom he loves only for superficial reasons, and calling out to him: "you belong with me!" I feel like God is in the position of that girl when ever I start flirting with temptation. I go after other things, idols of my heart. I pretend that they are as good and satisfying as God, better in fact. But it's a lie. The appeal of sin is merely superficial, and the power of idols is nothing but a sham. All this time, God patiently stands by, arms outstretched, reminding me that He is the one I belong with, that He is the one who can really fulfill the desires of my heart.
Sadly, I don't always listen. I am very stubborn, and am known to try to hold out against Him for days. That brings me to "The Other Side of the Door" by Taylor Swift.
This song sounds incredibly selfish, but I confess that when I first heard it I couldn't help immediately thinking that it perfectly fits my relationship with God and how our fights typically resolve. I will get upset about something, or afraid, or ashamed, or whatever. I will try to walk out because in the heat of everything, I just want out. I want to bury whatever God has uncovered. Whatever the flaw is, it seems easier to bury it than deal with it, or let God deal with it. Of course, He won't let me do that--He won't allow it to remain and just keep coming up again and causing more damage to me. So, I'll try to shut Him out. But, like the girl in the song, what I'm not telling myself is that really I wish God would keep "stand outside my window throwing pebbles screaming, 'I'm in love with you!'" My heart is persuaded of some lie, and I will hold onto it as long as I can...but I really do need to let it go. I need a God who is persistent enough to overcome my resistance. I need Him to keep pursuing, no matter what I say to Him, so that His truth will win out over the lie and I can be whole again. At times like this, "me and my stupid pride" are my own worst enemies, and for my sake (and the sake of His glory), I need Him to "chase after me."
In the end, God's love always wins out. Who can resist God?
In the end, who wants to resist a God like this?
So, in the end, I surrender. My walls of resistance crumble and I am vulnerable before God once more. At that time, I feel terribly vulnerable. I realize I've sinned, and I am afraid He will punish me--forgetting that my sins were punished at Calvary. I am tempted to run away again, to hide in shame and guilt in order to avoid upsetting and disappointing God. But, in Christ, He sees me differently, as "Innocent" (by Taylor Swift--do you like how I worked that in?).
This song is good to speaking to the forgiveness of God, for me, because it does not pretend that the sin and the frustration and guilt do not exist. It starts by acknowledging them. Then, it makes a distinction, an important distinction that I often forget: "Who you are is not where you've been" and "Who you are is not what you did." Who I am, is, from the first song, my identity in Christ. It's not whatever horrible things I've done. In Christ, I'm "still an innocent." I'm "still growing up," but Christ does not see me as a bundle of hopeless flaws. My "string of lights" is "still bright" to Him! He gently reminds me that my sins are taken away, the guilt is paid for, and that I am still an innocent in His eyes--and that, though I may have "lost my balance on a tightrope, it's never too late to get it back!" My God is a God of second chances!
So, let me wrap up with one of my favorites. It is how things usually end up. God, in His love, has uncovered the flaw I didn't even know was there--or did know and wanted to keep hidden from everyone. He has insisted it be dealt with, and He's overcome my resistance to doing so. He's overcome my shame and guilt with His wonderfully persistent love. At long last, we together confront the issue He has found, and because of His greatness, love, and power, it is undone. God is victorious: He has won out over sin, and He has once again won my heart. The victory celebration is mutual, a moment to remember, as in "Long Live" by Taylor Swift.
Whenever I hear this song, and whenever we celebrate some little victory, my mind goes to anticipation of the ultimate victory celebration we will have in Heaven. When "we will be remembered" and "all the pretenders" will be defeated and "all the walls we've crashed through" will only glorify God more. We will rein together, Christ and His Bride. "All the kingdom's lights will shine" just for us, and I'll be able to look back on this life and tell Him, "I had the time of my life fighting dragons with You!" Long Live my Lord, my Love, my God!
