Reaching for the Ugly

It started with a statement, something I took as an accusation.  A simple phrase and defenses were awoken.  A return was uttered and escalation ensued.  With justification as the primary goal, brick by brick words were laid and cemented in carelessness by myself until empathy was an afterthought.  Compassion evaporated under the shadow of the wall I had constructed, a wall that barred communication, blocked effective listening, wounding my spouse, and ushering a darkness into the atmosphere of my home that was palpable.  Late for work, this was the aura I left behind for my bride to manage our home and children in; a state of discord, dysfunction, and disunion.  I later learned that my actions had ramifications throughout the day for six people besides myself as small ones acted out, older ones displayed rebellious actions and words, and a mother was forced to lay aside her own hurts to reign in the myriad of divergent disobediences bubbling forth.  When presented the opportunity, instead of reaching for love, I had reached for the ugly and the consequences sent tremors throughout the foundation of my entire home. 

An ongoing struggle I wrestle with, and I believe many wrestle with, is the knowledge that our actions impact far beyond just our own person, far beyond ourselves.  "No man is an island", seems a sensible statement but is not truly something I believe as I often attempt to walk through this life troubling as few people as possible.  I will readily move to aid others but it is difficult for me to receive it.  I don't want to impose the needs of my life into others'.  Consequently I have, and I would say many have, developed a sense of their own thoughts and actions being somewhat disconnected from the thoughts and actions of others.  In this, there is a lack of consequence for what you or I choose to do if the intent is truly innocent in our own thinking and we perceive it to only "affect me".  The problem in this thinking is

1.)  it is completely self-focused and creates a disconnect between you and everyone around you and

2.)  it is completely false as we all impact and are affected by each other whether we realize it or not

Of a particularly foolish line of thought is the notion that I should somehow have any portion of a disconnect from or should somehow fail to affect those I am supposed to be closest to - those in my own home.  Yet I have repeatedly erred on this front.  With regard to my bride above, I was correcting an inaccuracy, a perceived wrong.  Further, I was willing to justify myself and lay forth a case of evidence that needed to be heard.  None of this should have had any negative effect on anyone.  The only intent was to logically lay forth argument that needed to be heard and to reach the enevitable conclusion:  that she was wrong and I was correct.  Love or Ugly?

I was wrong.  I was wrong in attitudes let alone in action.  I have since apologized to my bride and her beautiful heart has forgiven me, but not before I realized something.  Hypothetically what if the tables were turned?  What if she had been completely wrong and knew it and I were completely right and she knew it as well.  And in this what if she still were to insist in the validity of her points and the correct-ness of her views.  (Those who know my bride know this is the antithesis of her character).  Would I still reach for love by swallowing that pride and seeking reconciliation over justification, by pursuing harmony over legitimacy? Or would I reach for the ugly and stand fast until she realized the absolute error of her ways?  

How many of us do this in the home?  At work?  In the Church?

How many of us are willing to overlook the slights, the misbehavior of others, the mistreatment of others to reach for love when it is so much easier and, in many cases, justified to reach for something more in line with what that individual deserves.  Very often this is, at the very minimum, a piece of our mind.  At the very least we simply ignore them, politely nod or speak to them but have little to do with them.  But are we ever willing to lay ourselves down for them?  Are we willing to lay ourselves down for someone else even if it requires us to lay down our pride?  Or is our pride the line we refuse to cross - "I'll go this far God, but don't ask me to humiliate myself!"

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Colossians 3:12-13 NLT

The Holy One of the Heavens, the embodiment of the spoken Word who resides in majesty beyond description poured himself into a frail human body becoming God in a fully human form subject to our wounds, our temptations, even our discomforts.  This being of magnificence beyond comprehension was then subject to the entirety of hell's fury and punishment for my misdeeds, for yours, for the misdeeds of the thief, the murderer, the pedophile, the liar, the cruel and the wicked.  The mold has already been broken for humiliation.  He beckons, "I've endured it all.  I've carried the weight, now follow."

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle, meek, and humble, lowly in heart, and you will find rest, relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet for your souls.

Matthew 11:28-29 AMP

It never matters whether you or the other individual is in the right or the wrong.  When you have opportunity to reach for love and humility or to justify always choose the former, anything else is simply reaching for the ugly.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.


Philippians 2:3-4 NIV

The Hollow and the Holy

Ageless and imposing they stand - magnificent in their grandeur.  They are the cathedrals, the hallowed monuments of men designed to elicit awe towards the celestial.  Upward their columns climb vast heights, vaulting impressive distances.  Glass artistry designed to transport the worshipper to the divine regularly penetrates imposing stone and masonry superstructure creating pockets of welcome illumination and color in otherwise immense and daunting sanctuaries.  Sculpted forms of angels, saints, men, and demons adorn as silent guardians, some climbing atop columns and transepts, others marking reliquaries or the resting places of those long deceased.  Each of these structures required generations to envision, formulate and construct.  Inestimable expense was brought to bear in the realization of each "House of God".  And yet, each of them is a shell, a hollow building that, by themselves, is no more sanctified or holy than a stable, a school or a market stall.   

These works of men were designed to bring to bear the presence of heaven on earth, but in many of them a true heavenly presence is found lacking as those within fail to realize we each carry God's Kingdom with us when we embrace our Lord and Savior and his Holy Spirit indwells each of us.   Many of those who make such proclamations have not fully embraced the calling to "be holy as I am holy".  Few are truly willing to follow their Savior into the mire of sin-laden humanity, willing to expose themselves to the desperation of searching and yearning hearts starving for significance, worth, and purpose.   Fading from their remembrance is the fact that they too, were once embroiled, helpless, and set on a path of aimless destruction. 

Comfortable in our modern-day sanctuaries, many are content to witness God's working through the hands and feet of others.  Some are moved to the necessary act of sowing funds into those works, but Jesus' words were never a calling to permit acts of financial support to substitute for the laying down of one's own life for others.  We are each of us called to these words by our Savior and Master:

^"Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it."
Mark 8:34-35 NLT

And what does this "taking up your cross" look like?  Is it being burdened down and weighted with additional holy commands and platitudes?  Is it continual self-chastisement and a down-trodden demeanor?  Are these the paradoxical expectations of the author of a book that is permeated with exhortations to walk in joy and love - a book where many are commanded to "fear not" and to "be glad"? 

"This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear."
1 John 3:16-17 MSG

Without God's love we are empty, our actions are empty.  We become hollow - we become the cathedral's shell.  We are each fearfully and wonderfully made, but without the substantive indwelling of God's love in our hearts and the resultant actions it produces (faith without works is dead) we are the embodiment of sanctuaries built to house the holy but echoing its vacant emptiness.  We become nothing more than tombs, pleasant to behold on the outward yet decaying from within from a lack of holy substance.  Jesus encountered many in this same state as he walked this plane.  His description of them?  "Whitewashed sepulchres" (Matthew 23:27). 

"But that was addressed to bigoted self-righteous religious leaders".  No, it was addressed to men who, like many of us, had all of the pedigree of a spiritual upbringing, circulated well in many social circles, and very many of them had the spiritual well-being of their culture impressed upon them.  Yet, they failed to notice the lowly, the hurting, those ground under the wheels of society, those barred from their circle by either economic, social, or racial walls.  They failed to give second glance to "the least of these", convinced that there were others who would care for them, there were institutions and ministries who would tend their needs.

How many sit in our modern sanctuaries in a similar state - content to display the outward but unwilling to transform the internal.  Unwilling to engage "the least of these" among us within our church, beyond its walls to our homes and work, beyond our borders to the world?  There is sterility in rote obedience in putting funds in an offering plate or teaching Sunday school, but God never did want or need our sacrifices or our money.  He desires that we support our churches and vital ministries but more than this, he desires our hearts that we should put footsteps to knowledge and hands to convictions as we take up our crosses and follow. 

In this, the church is filled with love's holy purpose and empowered to transform the world around it.  Oppression is lifted from those under demonic weight and and worth is instilled such that we begin to see the value in each other and ourselves that the Creator has placed within.  Walking out this "love one for another", each of us transitions from the hollow to the holy.

Seasons

A chill wind is blowing.  Tendrils of cold tug at layers bringing realization that heavier clothing is desired.  Deep into this winter I survey a barren landscape bereft of foliage, greenery, or color.  Needled trees offer only a dark contrast to the browns and greys of fields and lawns.  The hardened ground is uneven and unpleasant to walk upon with gnarled soil pushing back at soft soles with knots and rocks forcing many to seek the round-about paths of pavement and concrete.  Snow, a welcome reflective blanket of illumination and a source children's wonderment, has rarely fallen to blanket this beige landscape these months past.

I am weary.  I am weary of this season, this winter, this continuance.  But this is simply the external response to a deeper weariness.  There is a winter upon my mind and heart that brings weight to the soul.  I do not suffer the anxieties of Seasonal Affective Disorder as I spend a great part of each of my days traversing between buildings and experiencing the outdoors of my work.  Nor would I label this "depression" as I daily find new joys in my bride, my children, and my Father.  Rather, I find my personal weariness extends from a heightening frustration endured in finding the balance of laying down one's life and picking up our cross as instructed by our Savior and simultaneously finding such actions brings one into the arena of actively engaging in a war against hellish forces for others' well-being, lives, and even souls while others pass by with indifference.  Too often such is the fate of the wounded, the fatherless, the downtrodden.

I am currently aware of two young men being ravaged by the enemy of our souls, attacked in every manner; in their sense of self-worth, moral compasses and in the directional pull of others.  With one attempting to end their life only weeks ago, I desire to mentor these young men, to speak words of life and truth into their lives and yet I am one piece of the puzzle, limited in the effort and frustrated at the lack of supportive groundswell around both of them - a groundswell of love, affirmation, valuation, and movement towards them and their families by the redeemed as these families are in the fight of their lives for these young mens' very lives and eternal futures.

At home, a six year old girl is far too wise for her years and very astute, despite often play-acting the child.  She is beginning to reconcile a conclusive reality that her birth mother may have parental rights permanently terminated in a matter of weeks.  This child's heart is torn between fears of varying natures; a fear of returning to a home which has previously known violence, a fear of being permanently removed from that home and losing birth parents, a fear of losing relationship and contact with beloved siblings, even a fear of retaliatory harm towards us.  The resultant internalization of emotions as she seeks to protect everyone displays itself in tantrums, bathroom accidents, and misbehaviors of varying types and severity.  Her four-year old brother often follows suit, having less emotional attatchment to his birth parents and suffering greater loss in the severing of relationship with previous foster parents as the upheaval in his life often comes to a head in frequent disobedience, lying, and other misbehaviors.  Firm words and discipline are paired with love and affirmation resulting in a chaotic storm of tears as small ones seek to find their identity while always bracing themselves for anticipated blows of emotional and physical abandonment.

Weary.  This posting is not an endeavor to impart wisdom or mirth but rather a snapshot of winter winds howling through a storm in process.  Some will say "where is your God in these times, these storms of your life?"  As always, He is my ever-present comfort and source, never failing me or faltering as he leads me.  Never was a path around the difficulties promised but a companionship through them was covenanted.  And this is but a season. 

A truth even those living in the most desolate of regions on this sphere comprehend is simply this: change comes through the seasons.  We have seasons in our marriages, seasons in our families, even seasons in our faith.  Our lives are the culminations of seasons; snapshots of beauty, pain, triumph and even defeat but ulitmately when we lay our lives down in service to our Lord, and the snapshots are taken for His glory, then the portfolio takes on meaning and we inexplicably find we have something of worth within us where we previously doubted ourselves, doubted others, and even doubted Him. 

The winds are still blowing cold, both outside and inwardly, but I know that warm breezes kissed with gentle fragrances are gathering on the horrizon of the near future.  I also know the inward exhortation to "Weary not in doing good" is daily moving me, not only towards a brighter future, but towards a return on the effort that is beyond my limited scope of reasoning to reconcile as hearts and minds of this sphere are transformed eternally for Him.

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven"
Ecclesiates 3:1 AMP

"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."
Galatians 6:9  ESV

Milestones

The turn of the calendar has me pensively pondering a great many things.  Chief among them is simply "where did it all go"?  I scarce remember celebrating a winter birthday when I was next celebrating a spring wedding anniversary.  Before long I was unpacking summer clothing.  I've little recollection of those brief months of heat as adoption, fund raising, and a visit to foreign lands swept my family through the calendar.  And hardly did I return from a dark continent to turn and find small brown faces in my own home looking to me for security and a father's love.  The last few months have furiously marched forward, carrying our chaotic and sometimes messy love and heartache in tow as we seek to heal small hearts.  Before I knew it, the holidays were upon us.  Just recently I found myself hauling bag after bag of discarded and torn wrapping paper and boxes to the trash as children played with new gifts from loved ones. 

Each of these partitioned cycles seems ever to burn away more rapidly than the one previous and I am, once again, thrust forward into another year of promise filled with uncertainty, plans, hopes, and aspirations for myself, my bride, and our children.  But in the disorientation of the loss of one year and the rapid entry of a another, one can feel lost without bearing - uncertain as to next steps.  Before me is the great "promised land" of my life, yet at times, the direction or the sheer magnitude of the horizon is daunting.  It is here that I am reminded of Abraham as he sojourned towards God's promises for his family and the generations to come.  Next to his unshakable faith, one of the most poignant things about Abraham that stands out in my mind is that he never forgot where he came from and where he was going.  He was a builder of milestones.

Throughout the book of Genesis we read that Abraham built altars for various reasons.  Some altars were built where he received a word of promise from God.  Some were built where he sought the Lord out.  Some were built where he simply wished to praise Him.  Some were built as tokens of remembrance.  All were milestones.  All marked a time, an event, a critical point of contact between the divine and the terrestrial in which God was present and He moved.  One was even built where God tested his faith by instructing Abraham to offer his only son - a picture of events yet to happen. 

These altars/milestones were not points that Abraham stopped and ceased moving forward at.  He did not take up permanent residence next to the location where God spoke a promise to him or moved in a certain manner to bless him.  Rather, each of them was a marker, a point of reflection.  Further, each of them pointed to where he was headed.  Each of us has probably heard the saying that if you want to know where a man is going, simply look where he has been - this was no more true than with Abraham and he had the markers to prove it.  So do you.

I've been inundated with top ten lists of 2012 and frankly I was hesitant to venture down this path - but for me, I need to remember some of the altars/milestones of 2012.  The following are highlights and teachable moments from my own writings and experiences that are intended for my reflection.  They are my altars, for my benefit, my stones of note.  If they bless others, I am happy for this, but if they simply act to cause me to reset, refocus, pause and be thankful then they have achieved the intended purpose.  These are my top ten of 2012.

"Every one of us has empty bowls.  They are the unfulfilled notions or dreams that we were certain to be the direction and calling of our lives...Empty bowls are a reminder of blessings stolen, of plans destroyed, of dreams killed...So we stack them, silent reminders of the unfulfilled...God doesn't want us to keep our cupboards filled with our trophies of defeat.  He wants us to let Him show us how to use them for His glory."
- Empty Bowls

"What kind of children are we if we ask for abundant life and provision and then demand that this all powerful and unstoppable God who knows our hearts better than we do, knows our capabilities better than we do, and knows the ways in which we need to grow better than we do - what kind of children are we to say "PLEASE PROVIDE" and then slap His hand away when He does just because it doesn't fit our preconceived notion of what that provision should look like or our timetable?"
-Peace on the Roller Coaster

"Victory doesn't always get a parade.  Wars won don't always get a celebration.  But this does not diminish the true eternal value of the effort nor the necessity of our following after our Father with reckless abandon because we're not living for just this "here and now".
- Silent Parades

"This is the wreckage of realization that most people in our society, even within our churches simply acknowledge Jesus' words as good ideas without acknowledging Him as the Lord who is commanding obedience to follow His example...Our greatest potential and fulfillment is in Him"
-Re-Entry and Wreckage

"To tell children who have recently lost their parents to AIDS 'your problems are momentary but they are producing an eternal glory' is hollow if I cannot carry that back to my life...God's Word requires a paradigm shift when witnessed in action"
- Corduroy and Trust

"When I see the thorns...I am reminded that...If we only love safely, if we only risk little, if we only live sparingly, if we only stay on the 'safe paths', then we will lose the beauty of what God has in store for each of us."
- Beauty in the Thorns

"When we learn to...lay down ourselves for others, learn to love others as Christ loved, we will find our vision sharpened, our horizons expanded, and our perceptions of reality much more clear."
-A Broken View

"Many of us have scars on our hearts.  Many are closed over festering wounds that plague us still...Some have kept us from approaching a risen Savior and Holy God for the shame of what lies beneath.  Jesus understands what it is to to turn heartache to victory, pain to triumph.  Forgiveness is His model for the release of infection, confession His antiseptic for healing."
- Trophy Scars

"When His Word proceeds from our mouths, life is brought forth, hearts are restored, people are met in their lack and their lack is overwhelmed by His provision and love...When our words flow from the abundance of fear, frustration, or anger the sword cuts viciously...creating further damage in accordance with Hell's designs.  In our strength and limitation, we bring destruction,.  in His we bring life."
- Sharpening the Sword

"There are sure to be gifts in the opening and healing of damaged hearts...It is a difficult and challenging road to embark upon and expectations have a way of forcibly changing in the journey but the reward of rescuing hearts and seeing a future brought to life in small eyes where only dull 'survival-ism' previously existed far out-ways the risks"
- Family Tree

May God keep you and richly bless you in 2013.