Messin' Other People Up in our Messedupness

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21

Here's the deal: in our messedupness we are fully capable of permanently messing up countless others. They in turn mess up countless others. That's why we must beg God for for mercy, we must humble ourselves and confess who we are to God and others if necessary, seeking forgivness and transformation. And we must also take steps to work out our salvation with fear and trembling so that others don't encounter evil and destruction when they encounter us.

The snare comes when we are so self-absorbed in our pain that we don't give a rip about the sort of effects our attitudes and behaviors have on others. Our pain dehumanizes us by desensitizing us to the pain of others. We are convinced that we are right and have a right to do what we're doing.

So we open Pandora's box--unleashing profound evil in the life of others. It starts with those closest to us and radiates out. Evil spreads like an aggressive cancer.

Yet let us not forget that life proliferates, too. We are to overcome evil with good.

Therefore it is of utmost importance that we understand that our sins--vices--bad habits of our temperament and blind spots can decidely and sinisterly affect the world in the same way that Adam and Eve's did.

Let us beg God to cleanse us and help us be proliferators of good.

Because like germs, we often spread evil unaware.

A Glimpse of Grace

" . . . it is a gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9).

God in our Lord Jesus Christ initiated salvation. God extended his lovingkindness to us, his enemies. We were hostile to him, not even wanting the gift he offered. If we were in Jerusalem, in the crowd that stood before Pontius Pilate as he asked whether Jesus or Barabbas should be released, you can bet that most of us, knowing what we knew at the time, would've swelled with passion as we screamed, "Barabbas! Barabbas!" And if we stood by at the foot of the cross, hurling insults, or egging on the soldiers who nailed him to the cross, we would've heard him pray for us, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." And we would've called him crazy, saying he was delusional from all the pain. Yet God in his grace--gave us what we don't deserve. God extended his kindness and love and salvation and the eternal and incomprhensible treasure of relationship with us to us. He initiated.

There are people who hate and despise us. They take advantage of us. They could be within the church. So-called brothers and sisters acting as enemies. It could be people within the church acting in spite towards us, gossiping about us, acting in hate not love toward us. It could be an unbelieving coworker. It could be a family member that uses us. Being loving and kind to them when they have done nothing to deserve it, when they don't even acknowledge or appreciate our love and kindness, is grace. Doing unto them what we would have lovingly done to us is grace.

I am not speaking of allowing ourselves to be physically, emotionally, or sexually abused. That is a different matter all together.

But I am saying that we are to extend the same grace to others that God continually extends to us. And it can only be consistently done with the help of the Holy  Spirit. Left to our sinful selves, we hate and despise God and our neighbors.

Born Again. Again.

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. John 14:19-24


God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has made his home with me. I would say that my awakening dates back to June 24th 1988. I was 10 years old. It was then that I told Jesus that I'd follow him. Now I am 32 years old.

 Last night I was thinking about my life as a teenager. Back then I fervently followed Jesus. But there was a time where I fell into sin and was a slave to it. I had to be born again yet again. I don't mean that I somehow fell out of God's favor or that I lost my salvation. But that sin, that which I was a slave to, had to die. Only when it died, was I set free and given new life in that area. What I do mean is that not all parts of me are new. But I am being made new.

Slowly and surely, if we are in Christ, we are being made new. Things in us, habits, dispositions, temperments, sins--they have to die. If God were to excise all the death in us at once it'd be too much, too much for us. We couldn't take the pain. We couldn't learn all those lessons at once. So he does it little by little. One good thing about the wilderness is that in it we discover who we really are. That includes discovering things in us that we never saw previously. Things in us that have to die. We need to be born again, again. Wilderness suffering and difficulties are the fires that force our soul's dross, our soul's impurities, to the surface.

Impurities have been bubbling up in my life recently. Years ago, I wouldn't have had eyes to see them. Back then, I was blind to those impurities that are now surfacing. And to think that back then I thought myself a saint. Ha! God laughs a loving fatherly laugh. How immature and proud I was, and still am. I have to be born again in certain areas today.

Last night God gave me a glimpse of myself, of how much I am not like Jesus. I am painful to look at. And I realize I can do nothing, really nothing to change myself. I have to admit who I am. I have to call it all what it is--sin. That is confession.  I have to repent and trust God to cleanse me from all of my sin (I John 1:9). I need the support from my brothers and sisters in the community to encourage me in my pursuit of Jesus. I have to abide in Jesus (John 15:5). It is God who cleanses me, the home he has come to dwell in.

As I am born again, yet again today, God is making a home for  himself. I pray he can feel more at home in you and in his body the Church, too.

What Forgiveness Looks Like

I've been away for a little over a week. Thank you for your patience.

I spent a week in Durham, North Carolina at Duke Divinity's Center of Reconciliation's Summer Institute. It is truly a holy place. Christians from all over North America and many parts of the world gathered to learn more about the journey of biblical reconciliation. As my friend Carmille and I sat down for lunch on the second day, we met Bishop Johnson, a bishop from northern Uganda. If you're not familiar with that part of the world, that is where Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (around 1996) began kidnapping Ugandan children, taking them out to the bush, training them as soldiers, and then sending them back to kill, rape, and maim their own family members. The children were threatened with death and torture if they did not follow orders.

The bishop asked my friend and I to come and see (as opposed to coming and trying to fix) northern Uganda. He also told us that he and other church leaders told their government that they would forgive the children who had killed their own families. They would welcome the child soldiers back without retaliation. Many of these child soldiers want to return to what is left of their homes and are willing to try and escape from the LRA. However, they fear retaliation. With this promise from bishop Johnson and other church leaders, many child soldiers have escaped the LRA returning to open arms of forgiveness.

I do not think that this forgiveness comes easy, but these brothers and sisters in northern Uganda who are extending forgiveness to the child soldiers after having been ravaged by them display the power of the gospel. They incarnate forgiveness.

I talked to another woman who cares for aids orphans in northern Uganda. She said she prays that not one more child will be kidnapped by Kony's LRA and that no more children or people will be killed. The Lord's Resistance Army is now moving into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Let us pray that God will stop Kony somehow, that he'd be arrested, and that peace and restoration would return in the midst of murder, pain, and violence.

If one part of the body hurts, the rest of us hurt.

For more information about the LRA and the child soldiers (called the invisible children) see this link: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/