Grace for Clown Hair

Dear Old Friend,

I'd like to say I have naturally curly hair.  The reality is that I have thin, frizzy, wavy hair which, when exposed to humidity, blows up into clown hair.  Just give me a red bulb nose and some white face paint and I’m set for the children’s party circuit.

As long as you’ve known me I’ve had this hair.  I was born with this hair.  Over the years I have tried many ways to appear as if I had sleek manageable tresses.  I’ve cut my hair so short that there wasn’t enough of it to poof out uncontrollably.  I’ve used endless hair products which promised to tame the frizz.  I’ve tried various electrical gadgets in an attempt to calm the waves. I’ve even ironed my hair! Some of the methods seemed to work, but only temporarily, and by the end of the day my hair has always begun to revert to its natural state.

I’m not sure which branch of the family to blame, but I feel certain that I inherited my unruly locks from one of my ancestors.  I had no say in the matter and, to my knowledge, there isn’t even a hair transplant which could give me a different head of hair; one which I would not have to fight every single day.

It occurs to me that our human nature, which the Apostle Paul refers to as our flesh, is a lot like my hair.  We work hard each day to tame it enough that we will not be too embarrassed in public; but, no matter how hard we try or what programs we follow, certainly by the time we go to bed at night we find that we have reverted to our natural state, to one degree or another.

We not only blame our ancestors for our tendencies, we blame any and everything else: society, culture, our dysfunctional upbringing, our educational system, the Democrats, the Republicans.  But, in reality, while some of those outside influences may compound our problems, the underlying issue remains our default fallen natures.

We have a This-For-That mentality; a sense of entitlement: If I do this I should get that. It is the part of us which craves recognition and power; which doesn’t just want to win; it secretly wants the satisfaction of knowing someone else loses.  It is that thing in us which compares and competes, judges and condemns, uses and discards; that wants credit for earning what we have and despises dependence as weakness while valuing independence as strength.

Conversely, it is also the part of us that fears we don’t measure up and drives us to outrun the feelings of unworthiness; the voice that taunts us, telling us that, whatever we do, it will never be enough. 

This nature is universal. We are born with it and we keep it until we leave this earth.  Biblically speaking it is the reason Paul says in Ephesians 2:5 and Colossians 2:13 that we all are dead in our sins.  No matter what we do, we don’t  get a new nature in this world; we can’t even successfully tame it; we daily try and revert; try and revert.

So, if this is true of the entire human race, what are the implications for Christians; those to whom the Holy Spirit has delivered the counterintuitive good news of our resurrection from the death which was our condition due to our This-For-That natures; What about those of us who have come to love the glorious truth that Jesus Christ came to earth with no sense of entitlement, no craving for recognition or power and took upon himself all of the judgment and condemnation which we deserved; and, through his life, death and resurrection, gave us his perfect record in place of our despicable one? Will we be empowered now to overcome our natures?

Despite the fact that we long with all of our hearts to be able to respond to his incomprehensible gift by rendering perfect obedience in return, we cannot.  Our hair will still frizz and our waves will escape.  We will still crave recognition and power, we will still compare and compete, judge and condemn; we will still fear that we don’t measure up and that nothing we do will ever be enough.  What value, then, is there in being a Christian?

Those who believe in the Grace of Christ have been given a new way of thinking which is the only effective weapon we can use in combat against our flesh. It is the Everything-For-Nothing way of thinking, which comes from outside of us. We cannot conjure it up on our own; it is the Way of the Spirit: The voice of the Holy Spirit testifying of Christ, telling us day by day, minute by minute, that we are forgiven, that we are not condemned, that we are loved, that we cannot and do not have to earn or deserve God’s love, that everything has been done for us, that everything has been paid for in full, that it is finished.

The Spirit's voice of assurance, that Jesus gave us Everything for Nothing, speaks to us in Scripture, in seasons of prayer, in sermons, in the sacraments, in songs of worship and praise, in the grace-filled words of other believers; in community.  

Through the Spirit, we, as believers, are given the privilege of being that voice for each other: that voice which drowns out the cacophony of our natures and encourages us to look to our Savior, rather than at our failures. Changes for the better will only occur in us as we focus on his unconditional love for us and not on ourselves.

We need to be reminded that his mercies are new every morning, because every morning our hair is a mess.

I’m so thankful that you and I keep giving that assurance to each other!

Love Always,

Bonnie

Let's Talk About Being Good

Dear Old Friend,

I've just spent the past nine glorious days primarily playing with my three year old grandson. What a joy! He has such a delightful imagination. He invented games like Mama Tiger and Baby Tiger and Ghost Chasing Lion (and then the reverse). We built many towers with blocks, but the blocks all had to be carried into the closet because we had to hide in there while we constructed our masterpieces.

One of his favorite games of all was Being Bad. The rules of that game varied, but the idea was that at least one of us (usually both) had to "be bad", which consisted mainly of our being generally disagreeable. One of us would (usually  loudly) tell the other to do something and the other would refuse to do it and then would tell the first person to do something. The more pouty and obstinate we were, the more he loved it! 

After a few minutes of trying to "out bad" each other, I would suggest that, perhaps, now we should be good; but, his typical response was, "No, be bad, Grammie!" So, I would briefly comply and then bring up the idea again. He would always vigorously shake his head and say, "No. Just bad."

It occurred to me that, no matter the age, there is just something so tantalizing about being bad. We want to dabble in the forbidden, which seems to sparkle in comparison to the boring "good". The fact of the matter is that Romans 3:12 tells us no one is good, not even one. Our fatal attraction to evil is a part of our very natures.

Verse 11 tells us that no one seeks for God. There is nothing innate which will prompt a desire within us to turn to God. That desire must come from outside; and is prompted solely  by the Spirit of God, calling us to turn from all of the dazzling emptiness and shiny broken promises of this world's order, to the only One who loved the Good and unwaveringly chose it every time, because we could not.

Jesus took all of our badness as his own, and credits us with his goodness; and, as that glorious truth sinks deeply into our souls it becomes the most attractive thing we have encountered in our lives! Its dazzling beauty fills us with continuous wonder, and we can't seem to get our fill. It never grows old or boring. It never ceases to amaze us and to cause us to bow in humble, grateful adoration.

No amount of encouragements to Be Good, or warnings about Being Bad can do that! Only the Holy Spirit telling us, day after day, the good news of what God has done for us through his son has the ability to help us see badness for what it really is, remove the allure, and turn us to the only One who has ever been Good.

I still need to hear that every day!

Love Always,

Bonnie 

Just Grateful

 

Dear Old Friend,

In a way, for me, Easter Week is more like the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one than New Years. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are what everything else in my world revolves around. That sounds so holy of me, doesn’t it? It’s really not.  I recently told another friend that the reason I am so consumed by grace is because I know how utterly hopeless I am without it.  I think you can probably measure the depth of one’s perceived guilt by the degree of his or her desperation for grace. Anyway, that’s true enough for me.

Since my life in retail has kept me from ever being able to spend the actual New Year’s holiday with family outside of my local area, it has been such a blessing for me to spend this special week with my daughter and son-in-law, getting acquainted with my brand new baby grandson and having lots of time to play with my three year old grandson; a Grammie’s dream! I have no proufound thoughts to share this week. It’s just that having this time to reflect has made me grateful.

I’m grateful for this Grace Pilgrimage on which God has led me for about 35 years.  I went from thinking I was so slow that I must be the last person on the planet to grasp the concept of grace, to thinking that Steve Brown was the only other person who saw what I saw in scripture and that maybe we were both crazy; and then he was taken off the radio in my area!  Thankfully, God gave me beacons of grace along the way; pastors whose light shone on my path just long enough to keep me heading in the right direction, and who then moved on.

I’m grateful that God opened the door for a ministry to the teens in my church, and that I was allowed to use scripture as my “curriculum”, which motivated me to study in order to teach what I found.  Those precious kids went on my pilgrimage with me, and I can only hope that I blessed their lives even a fraction as much as I was blessed by every single one of them over the years!

I’m grateful that God kept my own children from being completely driven away from him by my terribly imperfect parenting. I sometimes fear that the only thing I modeled well was a parent’s desperate need for grace in the face of failures; I’m still modeling that and praying that God will use it somehow, even now.

I’m grateful for the precious friends, like you, which God has placed in my life, who know me, warts and all, and who will drop everything to pray for me and encourage me when I am side-tracked by fear and doubt, and for whom I can do the same.

I’m also grateful for the new and growing group of friends I am discovering through social media, who share my same passion for the Good News: That when God said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”, he feels the same way about me, because I am in Christ; and, that when Jesus said “It is Finished” he meant it! What a blessing to not feel alone anymore and to have access to the constant banquet of their new insights and understandings which they excitedly share throughout each day. Such encouragement!

But, most of all, of course, I’m grateful for my Lord and Savior, who saw my hopeless plight, the plight of us all, and came to do everything for us because we could not do anything for ourselves. He became for us our righteousness, holiness and redemption (1 Cor.1:30).  He became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21).  He lifted me out of my 'This for That' world into his economy of 'Everything for Nothing'. He does not demand anything from me in return for his priceless gift; and, because of that, I want to give him every frail and feeble part of me to use as he sees fit.

Hallelujah, what a Savior! Happy Easter!

Love Always,

Bonnie

For the Pure Joy

               

Dear Old Friend,

This past weekend my son took my five year old grandson to a skating rink for the very first time, and let me tag along. 

There was great excitement during the lacing of the skates; then, my son took a turn around the rink by himself, to make sure his body actually remembered what to do before he attempted to take his son with him. My grandson could barely contain himself while waiting for his time to go out on the floor.  

Of course, at age five, he imagined that he would somehow just know what to do, and when he did finally get on the floor it was a shock to discover that, not only did he have no idea how to keep his balance on wheeled feet, it was also hard, death-defying work, even with his father holding onto him; and, within a few minutes he was overwhelmed and ready to give up. 

However, after a brief period of recuperation in the chair next to me he was lured back up on his feet by the promise of a skate-walking trip with his dad, on the indoor/outdoor carpet, to the glass display case which held candy and trinkets. Because he was thinking about where he was going and not what he was doing, he actually did pretty well; and, with his confidence level up, he was willing to give the rink another shot.  He wasn’t out there very long, though, before the announcement was made that it was time to clear the floor for the races.

When the first group of children about my grandson's age lined up to race, my son explained to him what was going on, and suddenly my grandson became terrified.  He stretched out his arm, with his hand waving in protest, and declared with tearful vehemence that he was not going. Both my son and I immediately reassured him that, of course, we didn’t expect him to go out on the floor and race; but he remained convinced that someone was going to try to make him do this, and he watched with great concern as the children zoomed around the rink.  

When the next age group was announced and more children took their places, my grandson again stuck out his hand to ward off anyone who might attempt to force him to do what he knew he could not do.  His fear overwhelmed him and he hid his face in his father’s side.  It took a lot of comforting and explaining before he finally believed that he was safe, and he was able to relax.

That scene kept replaying in my mind this week because I realized that I experience the exact same crippling fear my precious grandson felt, every time I hear a sermon, or read a book, or even when I read a passage of scripture through the lens of Law rather than Gospel, which makes me feel like God is expecting and even requiring me to do something which I know I can’t do. I feel small, vulnerable and like my very life hangs in the balances.  I cry and wave my hand, in what I fear is vain protest, as my heart sinks and I begin to quake.

But, blessedly, God always wraps his arms around me and whispers words of comfort and assurance to me.  Over and over he tells me the story of his son, and how he came to perfectly do for me what I could never do for myself; and how he took the record of all the scrapes and falls from my failed attempts and made them his own. He tells me that, because of Jesus, I never have to be afraid of whether or not I am going to win or lose a race, because I do not have to race.  The race has been won for me.  The pressure is off.  He teIls me until I believe I am safe and I can relax.

Then he tells me that, because of Jesus, I am now free to learn how to run, dance, and even skate, gleefully, without fear of failure or condemnation.  I can do those things for the pure joy of them, as acts of exuberant worship and gratitude for the freedom and love given to me; and I can invite others to join me in the celebration.

Let’s go skating!

Love Always,

Bonnie

Triggers of Terror

 

Dear Old Friend,

This week has been excruciating.  There are certain circumstances which are guaranteed to send me into a full blown death spiral. I’ve come to think of them as my Triggers of Terror.  Those triggers are specifically related to my children, who are now adults, and extend to my grandchildren.  If I perceive my loved ones are in danger, that their health, safety or well-being is under serious attack, I go into panic mode. For years I have considered starting a Mothers of Adult Children support group, because I really need one!  The funny thing is, every time I mention that idea in passing, every mother of adult children within hearing distance nods enthusiastically and tells me they would come, so I know I’m not the only one.

What I mean by “death spiral” is that this panic causes me to frantically plead with God to “fix” whatever is causing the threat, and quickly deteriorates into demanding that he act immediately to make it go away, then slides down the slippery slope to anger and finally into doubting his goodness. I say “finally”, but, sadly, that process isn’t a long one; I arrive at “finally” in short order! I spent a good part of this week at “finally”.

Thankfully, all the while that my “flesh”, as Paul says in scripture, was spiraling, my spirit had its own agenda.  I am blessed to have a couple of friends, like you, who I called and asked to pray; friends I knew would tell me of God’s goodness, sovereignty and grace; friends who “talked me down off the ledge” by reminding me that God, because of Jesus, was not holding my fear against me; friends who promised to have faith for me because I couldn’t.

And I couldn’t. My spirit was willing, but my flesh was ridiculous! No matter how much I told myself that God was in control and loved my family more than I did, and that he knew what was best, I couldn’t tone down the panic.  I kept trying to figure out the right way to combat the circumstances so that I could “help”, but my fear led me first one way and then another in confusion. I wanted to peacefully trust, but the terror had taken on a life of its own.

Over the years, there have been times when my prayers have taken the form of an internal dialogue with God.  I don’t hear an audible voice or anything like that, but there is a knowing that God is speaking truth to me, because suddenly my perspective is changed.  While I was driving to work one morning this week, and I was silently railing to God about how people who wielded power over this troubling situation were trying to impose their will, thinking that they knew what was best when they didn’t, I felt God asking me if I thought that I truly knew what was best in this situation. I humbly acknowledged that I did not.  Then he asked me if I thought that he did, and I said yes.  Then, he told me that I needed to stop trying to impose my own fear and confusion onto the situation, and just step aside and let him handle things, because he was bigger and more powerful than the power wielding people and the circumstances.

I was reminded that, as a young adult, I had never expected or wanted my mother to take the lead in figuring out what I needed to do; that I had shared my concerns with her, but that, ultimately, it had never entered my mind that she was responsible for “fixing” things.  It was during my struggles that I developed my own relationship with God, and learned that he alone was my source of help.  I saw that I needed to allow that process to happen for my children.  I needed to get out of the way, and when I was tempted to try to direct the show, I needed to point to God.

I told God, then, that I could see I had made my children into idols, in the sense that, when troubles arose for them, I put my desire for their peace, comfort and happiness in front of what God intended for them.  God then told me that, while that sounded almost noble, the real truth was that it wasn’t my children that I had made into idols, it was my own need to be perceived as a good mother that I had made into an idol, and that I had to let go of the desire to be the heroic mom who rides in and saves the day.  Those days, if they ever really existed when my children were little (and they never really did), were gone.

Ouch; but, Whew! As I was put in my place, it suddenly became a relief to acknowledge that God was in charge and that, not only did I not have to be, I was not supposed to be, and didn’t need to be. I exhaled.  The existing situation did not change, but my perspective did.

Will I be forever changed and never fall prey to my triggers again? Oh, how I hope and pray that is the case! But, whether or not it is, I know that my fear does not change the fact that God is lovingly and sovereignly in control of my life and the lives of those I love; and, that even if he has to remind me of that truth every single day for the rest of my life, he does not hold my weaknesses against me.

Please keep praying.

Love Always,

Bonnie

What Do I Do? What Do I Do?

Dear Old Friend,

Do you think there are situations where it would actually be wrong to “lead” with grace?  I’ve been pondering lots of questions this week.  If someone has gone off the deep end and done something which people would typically consider to be very bad; something which brought pain to you or harmed those you love; could it be detrimental to jump right in and tell them you forgive them, and talk to them about God’s love, mercy and grace, without first attempting to determine whether they were crushed by what they had done, or merely sorry that they were caught?

Is it possible that, by offering grace to someone who isn’t truly sorry, we might short circuit a necessary process and therefore keep that person from experiencing a need for forgiveness? Should sorrow for one’s actions always be a prerequisite to offering forgiveness?

Was Jesus’ dying request for his Father to forgive his murderers, who were definitely not sorry for what they were yet in the process of doing, meant to be peculiar only to a Savior? Was his admonition, to turn the other cheek when one was struck and to give more to the thief than what was intentionally stolen, just a metaphor to demonstrate the impossibility of reaching that standard? Or was it also a call to love as radically as we have been loved?  

What about loving our enemies in light of the fact that Christ died for us while we were still his unrepentant enemies? Again, is that only Jesus fulfilling on my behalf what I can never do, or is it something his Spirit urges me to imitate, albeit poorly?

Could concern for a perpetrator be construed as demonstrating a lack of concern for the ones who were hurt by his/her actions? Should that be taken into consideration before reaching out? Are there times when we should take sides, and not reach out to “the other side”?

What if I am the one who has been hurt: how far should I be willing to go in loving and forgiving my enemies, or those who have treated me badly?  Do I repeatedly put myself back in harm’s way? Is there a line that can/should be drawn? Do I need to be concerned about the opinion of others as to how I answer that question for myself?

All of these questions have been rolling around in my brain.  They don’t have easy answers.  I am certain that across my life I have erred on all sides of these issues.  What I feel God has said to me, as I wrestled with my thoughts this week, is that I am free to err as I muddle through each and every situation I find myself facing.  I am free to do what I think is best, and free to change my mind about what is best, and free to be confused.  I am assured through it all that I am, thankfully, not the one who is in control of anything, and that the God who is in control, and who loves everyone involved and works for their best through any and all circumstances, is big enough and powerful enough to work all things to his glory, whether it’s through me or in spite of me.  There is, in other words, no way that I can trip God up by doing the wrong thing. He’s got it. He’s got it. He’s got it.

I Thank God that He’s got it!

Love always,

Bonnie

Obedience: His Not Mine

Dear Old Friend,

In your ardent desire to understand the truth in regards to Grace and what God requires of us, you have often brought up the question of obedience: Doesn't God still expect us to obey?

You and I were both raised in a church which stressed the importance of obedience to God’s commands.  We were taught that obedience was a requirement for salvation. We were told that we might not be perfect, but that God expected us to try relentlessly to reach that standard; and, on judgment day, he would determine our fitness for heaven based on our record of obedience. Jesus covered any sins we had committed before we became Christians, but from that point on, we knew God was watching us to see how we measured up. 

In Church and in the Bible classes in our church school, we learned what happened when people didn't obey. When Adam and Eve ate one little piece of fruit they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and could no longer associate personally with God.  We saw that, because people became so disobedient, God decided to destroy everyone but Noah and his family, and start over.  Lot's wife glanced back at her burning home and was turned into a pillar of salt!  

We studied the Children of Israel and saw that, frequently, when they voiced a complaint about their circumstances, God struck them with poisonous snakes or some other dire punishment.  Even Moses, who put up with so much for so long from the Israelites, in the end wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land simply because, instead of speaking to the rock as God directed him, he disobeyed and struck the rock twice, in anger at the rebellious people.  One infraction and God wouldn’t let him go in.

We were raised on Bible stories of disobedient people getting leprosy or being burned up, or where the ground opened up and swallowed them along with their entire families.  Poor Uzzah, who was accompanying the Ark of the Covenant back to its rightful place after it was retrieved from those who had stolen it, reached out to steady the Ark as it teetered precariously on the cart where it was riding, and God struck him dead because he disobeyed the command not to touch the Ark.

The fact that God takes obedience seriously was deeply ingrained in us; and, the moral of the story, implied in all of those lessons, was that if we disobeyed we shouldn’t expect God to cut us any more slack than he did for the people in the stories.

Oh, we were told “the good news” about the verses where God describes himself as being loving, merciful, patient, kind, forgiving, compassionate and long-suffering, but we knew he only felt that way about the “good” people; those who obeyed more than they disobeyed.  But inside we wondered just how much more you had to obey than disobey before you qualified as “good”.

Now, after all these years, I realize that, as bleakly as the picture of God's expectations was painted for us, in reality, it wasn’t painted bleakly enough; and because of that, the good news we got wasn’t really good news, either!

The hard truth is, the reason for all of those stories, beginning with one little piece of fruit, was to demonstrate, through many different circumstances in many different ways, that God’s commands are absolute and immutable.  There is not one smidgeon of mercy incorporated into his demands.  There is no wiggle room.  There are no acceptable excuses.  There are no satisfactory extenuating circumstances which will allow for His looking the other way over even the tiniest act of disobedience.  The Law is the Law and the Law must be obeyed. Period.  For the smallest of infractions, God has the sovereign right to bring down the full wrath of the Law upon the transgressor. 

Scripture clearly says that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow; therefore, what was true of the God of the Old Testament is still true of Him today. He always has and always will require absolute obedience at all times in every way.

In other words, when it comes to the Law, to borrow a line from Yoda in Star Wars, “There is no try.”  You and I, however, were told that we were required to try and that God would look for the sincerity and desire displayed in our efforts, and because of his mercy, etc, he would judge us by those things. That was a terrible lie! 

God could not and would not lower his standard to make up for our deficiencies.  If he could have done that, he would have done it immediately after Adam chewed and swallowed! His laws are unconditional and unchangeable, and every jot and tittle had to remain in force until they were completely fulfilled, by being perfectly obeyed.

The problem was, that not one single human from the line of Adam was ever going to be able to obey God to the required degree.  Because of that fact, only a member of the God-head himself could become a human and meet the requirements; so Christ came and perfectly fulfilled every bit of the Law on our behalf, and took the full wrath of the Law which we deserved.  When we have accepted him as our Savior, all obedience has been accomplished for us.  The life we now live we live by faith in his finished work. 

So, what about us; what about our “obedience”? Our acts of love and worship which we offer in response to the incredible gift which has been freely given to us could never qualify as the obedience which God requires.  We would be lying to ourselves and others if we thought and said that we are “obedient” in any other way than the way in which the New Testament primarily speaks of obedience: as “obeying the truth”, which means to believe in the finished work of Jesus; and then, even the ability to believe is not our own, but is a gift from God!

Of course, the Holy Spirit will draw us to love God and others and call us to demonstrate that love through our actions; and, in our humanity, we will try and fail and try again to do what he prompts us to do; but, our salvation is not dependent, in any sense whatsoever, on whether or how well we do what we are prompted to do.

Our salvation is only and always dependent on the doing and dying of Jesus Christ; his obedience alone, never ours!

WooHoo! I have to go and do a little glory dance after that! God is Good! Amen and Hallelujah, my friend!

Love Always,

Bonnie