When I Don't Like Someone

So all last week I talked about dying to self, crawling on the altar, giving up our self-righteousness, and all things feel good. (or maybe not) It all started with a woman in our class saying there were people she didn't like, and she was fine with it. Some folks were stunned that she would say that in a church class, but honestly, where better to say things like that? If we cannot be honest about our sin in church, where can we be honest?

Really, I hate the culture of the church that says, "If you are not great, wonderful, highly favored, blessed, or fantastic, then you are failing, and I cannot believe you had the audacity to walk in the doors of this church and contaminate it with that attitude." Seriously. I hate that. It ostracizes people. It makes them put on the false holiness thing I've been talking about. Church is supposed to be a hospital for the sick, not a social club for the feel-better-than-you. Church is the exact place we should be able to go and say, "Hey, I'm struggling. This person has offended me and hurt me, and I just cannot let it go...but I want to."

And that is the real issue. I think God knows as humans we are going to get offended, get mad, and be tempted to get bitter, and honestly, I think there are some things we have a right to be mad about.

A few months ago I talked with a woman who had endured horrible forms of abuse from an uncle. She had told me about this a few years ago, and we had talked several times about it. She had talked about the acts, the physical pain, the nightmares. She had always talked in a very calm, matter of fact manner. Until this particular phone call, and this time when she called, she was livid. She unleashed on him, her parents who suspected, other family members who suspected. I won't give you the details of what she said she would do to the "son of a bleeeeeep" if he were still alive, but I can assure you, he would be less manly. When had finished unleashing, she said, "You probably think I'm a horrible human being and a lousy Christian because I'm supposed to forgive him so I can be forgiven, and I'm not supposed to use that kind of language. Isn't that what you are supposed to say as a pastor."

I told her first of all, I don't use the Bible to beat people into submission (which is why she talked to me in the first place). Second of all, I think son of a bleep might be a bit kind. Third, I asked a simple question. "Do you plan to stay angry?" I could almost hear her blink through the phone. Finally, she asked, "What?" I repeated my question. "Do you plan to stay angry? See anger is a normal emotion in the grieving process, and Lord knows you have a lot to grieve, so I think the anger is really a sign you are healing. The question, though, is whether you plan to stay here or not. Because part of healing is moving past the anger instead of letting it become the leash that son of a bleep still controls you with."

And that is the real question. Do you plan to stay here, or are you just passing through?

I grew up in a family that lived in offense. Seriously. I think our address was something like,
#1 And Don't You Forget It Lane
Hold a Grudge, (State of) Offense

I saw what being mad all the time did, and while I would love to tell you my choice not to live in offense is all about wanting to be righteous, it isn't. A bit part of my choice is not wanting the consequences of being mad all the time.

Being offended all the time destroys relationships. It destroys marriages. It destroys relationships with family members. It destroys relationships with neighbors. Even some wars all boil down to someone got offended by someone else. Want to see the consequence of someone choosing to be offended? It's called the Holocaust. Why in the world would I want to live in that kind of destructive mindset? Why would I want to teach my children to live in that mindset and curse them to live with broken lives and broken relationships? I am a better mom than that. I choose to be a better person than that.

So what do I do?

1. On a regular basis, I ask the Lord to show me anyone I have a grudge, bitterness, or offense toward.
2. I confess in a real sentence my sin. "Lord, I have not forgiven this person, and I am wrong." Something huge and mysterious happens in our spirits when we actually use the words "I am wrong."
3. I ask forgiveness.
4. I ask to be purified of this bitterness, anger, or offense (1 John 1:9).
5. I ask the Lord to give me His heart for that person and to enable me to love that person like He does.
6. I ask the Lord to help me see the person's strengths, not just what drives me nuts.
7. Sometimes I just flat have to confess I'm struggling and need God to put His love for them in my heart.
8. I ask how I can practically express love to them. Amazing how acting with love nurtures the feeling of love.
9. I pray for that person as I would hope for my very closest friend to pray for me.

And when that person continues to grate on my nerves, because sometimes they do, I remind myself that I choose to love that person, and sometimes at that very moment I am having the nails-on-chalkboard reaction, I'll start to pray, "Lord, help me love them. Help me to see them like you do. Is there something causing this grating behavior that I need to pray about for them? How can I be their friend? Father, I choose to like them. Not just love them, but like them. I choose this. I need your help, but I choose this."

It just occurred to me as I was finishing that last sentence that what I pray can be summed up in one sentence:
Lord, change my heart toward that person.

There you go. Change me.

So often we pray for God to change the other person, to move the other person, to move us so we don't have to deal with the other person. Sometimes He says yes to those, but I have found almost always He says no to those prayers. But the prayer He always says "yes" to is, "Lord, change me that I may love and like more."

Yes, Lord. Change me.

Shalom, y'all.

Being on the Altar--What it Really Means

"Being on the altar" means I choose to sacrifice my rights (like I have any), my opinions, my will, my dreams, my expectations...anything that I hold onto, think, believe, want...so I can become more like Him. I hate this process less and less because I see the fruits of it, but I won't paint Bull Nettle and call it a daisy. This is hard stuff at times. Sometimes I get angry. Sometimes I grieve. Sometimes I pray honestly, "I hate this. I HATE THIS! BUT, don't let me off this altar until we are done." That is the honest description of being on the altar.

Paul talks about it in Romans 7.

²¹ I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Now, I've heard a lot of folks say this means when Paul has died and entered heaven, he will be delivered. Well, yeah, but this is also for here and now. Christ didn't just come so we could live the abundant life after we are dead. Kind of weird when you write that out, huh? Jesus came so we can have abundant life in Him--become like Him since He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)--now. And as much as we may hate the reality, the way to abundant life in Christ in dying to ourselves, and we do that one the altar.

Yesterday I posted about dying to self, and in Pam's comment, she said, "When you die to self...you will be more alive than you ever thought possible!!!" She is so completely right! But it isn't easy. Actually, I don't think you can die to yourself until you spend time on the altar.

But again, I am using theological words that are so wondrously Christian-ese, and that really doesn't help when you are trying to live it. So what does being on the altar in real life look like?

I have to tell you, as I write this, I am trying so hard to think of vague examples, and the Lord keeps saying, "Tell them what your living right now," and I don't want to. I don't want to talk about anything going on in my world right now. I don't want to talk about feeling overwhelmed with the demands on my time. I don't want to talk about the new and exciting emotions a recent situation dredged up. I don't want to talk about the emotions of any of it actually. Like AT ALL. The truth is I like my walls. I like not being vulnerable. I like my being on my side of the computer screen and you being on yours.

But, that isn't my strength as a writer. My strength isn't giving you head knowledge. My strength is writing from my heart, even when my heart feels...incredibly fragile. Even when I'm afraid someone will try to fix something and say something hurtful or someone will tell me how I need to be..."muchier".

So I have two options. I can either dig in my heels and refuse to lower the walls, or I can crawl on the altar, probably have a good cry, and let God use me as He wants because that is what the altar does.

The altar is where the offering that is really nothing special becomes the open door for God to invade earth.

It is the place where we face our deepest fears and place our deepest desires knowing the very thing we put on the altar may become only ash before our very eyes, where we choose to become ash if that is what glorifies God.

You see what we fear more than anything is to be nothing. What we fear is to be inconsequential, and when God sacrifices our comfort, our dreams, our desires to accomplish something in someone else' life or in a family legacy or in a company or a country, we can feel very inconsequential because why are they more important than we are? Jesus was sacrificed that way. And I don't think any of us would call Jesus inconsequential. I think we would call Him invaluable.

The truth is when we allow God to make us nothing to ourselves, we become invaluable to Him.

And I write that to you as someone who told God today that being on the altar is hard, and I am weary. It is exhausting, and it hurts, but it also beautiful and amazing. The intimacy with God is amazing, and seeing Him work in lives because you make yourself available is humbling in the most beautiful of ways.

So when the heavy moments come that feel bigger than me, I pray simply that He would give me strength to stay on the altar. I pray for Him to tolerate my whining and screaming because I'm going to whine and scream. I do it less and less, but the thing about being broken unto the Lord is that He takes you to a place where you break and all you have to hold you up is Him. And, yes, there is some complaining that happens there. But if that place is met with faith in God's character, there is also rejoicing, beauty, and gratitude. There is an incredible feeling of privilege that He chose you to know Him as you do. As Pam said, when you die, you feel more alive than you could ever imagine. It's crazy, but true.

And remember, when you do crawl up on that altar, you are not alone. When it gets hard, reach out your hand. I'm probably right beside you. More than that, you will find Him right with you in ways you never imagined.

Praying for you...

May God be your shalom.

"Dying to Self"--What it Really Means

One of my issues with "spiritual" writing is the fact it is so often written on such a "spiritual level" that it doesn't hold much real world, right where I'm living, value. In other words, it's kind of useless after you walk out the church doors. I really don't want to be that kind of writer or teacher, so I want to take a post to explain a couple of concepts and give you real life application.

I use the phrases "on the altar" and "die to self" pretty often. They are great theological phrases, but unless you really know what they mean or look like, you won't know how to apply these life-changing (even legacy changing) concepts. Today, I want to talk about what it means to "die to self".

Dying to myself means I stop thinking about me all the time, how I want things, what I think is true, what I like, how I think something should look, how I think someone should act, how I think I should spend my time. It means I stop thinking like me and start thinking like Jesus. Let me give you a few real life examples.

Last week I had another conversation with an "older" mom about her broken relationships with her grown daughter. This is incredibly common. In fact, I've had these conversations with a lot of moms. Almost all of them tell me about the daughter's messy house, spending habits, how she has let herself go, and over-packed schedules. All of them say, "I raised her better than that," and all of them assure me their daughters are fully aware of how Mom feels. Honestly, the broken relationship is all because the daughter isn't making the effort. Well, I wouldn't make the effort either. From the outside, it is so obvious to me that Mom is so busy being offended because the daughter is not like her or how she thinks things should be that Mom is the problem. Mom's self-right(eousness) is crushing the relationship. And I asked Mom a simple question, "What does all that have to do with eternity?" Well, nothing, but that isn't the point. The point is those daughters know better. No. Actually, the point is whether they know Christ. If Mom wants to fix the relationship, she has to get on the altar and die to expectations that aren't met and aren't going to be met. She has to die to her own pride because she is ashamed that her daughter isn't living up to a standard Mom has. Mom has to die to her "right as mom" to use shame to discipline a grown woman. She has to die to how she sees herself in the relationship. It is a hard dying, but dying to self means those moms can put down the weight of trying to make those daughters something they aren't and love them for who they are. And, by the way, it is a lot easier to receive God as a heavenly Father when a person isn't having to heal from pain inflicted by an earthly parent.

Now, I need to clarify here. I have never told these moms, and don't expect to tell any of these moms, that the daughter is all right. However, God will hold us accountable for our own behavior, and if we are manipulating, shaming, demeaning, or controlling to make someone what we think they should be, that is not God, and any damage done by our actions will be on ours hands.

The other thing I tell these moms is that "getting it right" doesn't guarantee they will get the result they want. We cannot control another person's response or reaction. We can only act in such a way as to make the door to relationship the most appealing it can be.

Another example of dying to self I love actually came from a dear friend of mine.

He told me at the first of the year he decided this was the year he was making a change. He was tired of being in a lousy marriage. He was tired of being unhappy. He was tired of his wife not respecting him. He was tired of not being treating like a husband deserves to be treated, and he was reaching an age where he knew he had to make hard choices if he ever planned to be happy, and he did. He told me he finally had the marriage he wanted, and it wasn't because he traded in his wife of 20+ years for a new model. It's because he finally died.

He said he grew up in a home where his mom scrubbed the house every week. Dinner was on the table when his dad got home. When my friend went to school, his mom always sent him off with a cooked breakfast. Sunday dinner was always a mini-feast around the perfectly set table. She always decorated for holidays inside the house and out.

He didn't have to tell me. I already knew. I know his wife, and his wife does not do that. His wife works 40 hours a week, makes it to their kids' school activities, and grabs take out on the run probably four times a week and probably grabbed pizza on the way home from church so they could eat it on the couch watching sports.

"I resented that about her. How she didn't take care of me. How she didn't keep my house clean. How she didn't make our family special."

This is what I can also tell you about his wife. She adores him. She budgets like crazy so they can afford a lawn company to do the yard so my friend doesn't have that to do on weekends but can rest. She puts aside money every month so they can take a nice family vacation and so she and her husband can have a few weekends alone a year. She has turned down promotions because they would require travel and extra hours, and she won't do that. She may not look like June Cleaver, but she is totally focused on her family. So what was the problem?

All he could see were his ideas of what a wife should be and how she didn't meet them. What changed? "God took me to the whipping shed and gave me an attitude adjustment." Turns out his whipping shed and my altar look a lot alike. He said he stopped focusing on what he expected a wife to be and thought about what he really wanted. He quit looking at what wasn't important and started realizing he had what was important. Food is food, whether it comes from a restaurant or three hours over a hot stove. The house wasn't spotless, but the kids feel loved. She wasn't making him breakfast, but she was making plans for time just for them, and that made for some special memories. They didn't talk around the table every night, but she listened to kids in the car on the way to this lesson or that game. He died to what he expected, to the rights he thought he had, to the bitterness he had for the way she wasn't fulfilling some "ideal wife" dream, and he learned to live in Christ and see a woman who adores him, loves her kids, works within the confines of a different culture than his mom to make a strong family, and juggles everything well. He looked at me with a big smile and said, "I have never been more in love in my whole life, and I have never been happier in my whole life. I think people at work are getting tired of me talking about how happy I am actually."

That is what dying will do.

Dying to self may include things like:
...getting up 30 minutes earlier to read your Bible and pray even though you like sleeping in.
...reading a story to your son or daughter instead of watching a TV show.
...giving your husband some time to work in the workshop or garage instead of expecting him to listen to the playground drama
...listening to your wife tell about the day with the kids...and being the bad cop because you are dad and you have a special kind of weight in the house
...going to see someone in the hospital or nursing home instead of going shopping, sitting at home, or having overpriced coffee
...making a meal for a family with a sick member
...coaching a kids' sport team instead of sitting in your recliner
...letting the kids paint or do crafts instead of being all consumed by a clean house
...putting the plans away and focusing on someone who needs your company whether that be a spouse, a child, a friend, or someone who needs a friend
...using a Saturday to help a widow, older person, or limited ability person with yard or house work

Dying to self isn't always complicated, but it is usually hard for the simple reason we like our comfort zone, we think we have a right to what makes us happy, and we want things our way. Except, Jesus came to serve and die for others, and when we profess to be Christians, we profess that His way is the right way and we choose to live according to His standards. The only way to do that is to live in Him and die to us.

Being the Self-Right(eous) Sacrifice So I Can Receive The Lord's Righteousness

Foundational facts:
Christ is the sacrifice for our sins so that we may obtain forgiveness for our sins (Ephesians 1:7-8),
live in Him both now and after our physical death (John 3:15 and John 10:10),
and by living a righteous life and dying for us, He is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Jesus was the sacrificial lamb slaughtered on the cross as an offering for our sins.

A lot of folks LOVE this. I personally love this. I think anyone in their right mind who realizes they are a sinner loves this. But there is a crazy thing about offerings people don't love too much:

You can never receive the blessing of an offering sacrificed on the altar of God without offering something of yourself on the altar as well.

Go back and check any of the offerings in the Old Testament. To receive the blessing of the offering that is sacrificed, the person had to offer something on the altar.

Now you may argue that isn't the case with the goats on the Feast of Atonement because the priests presented those and the people didn't. Sort of. The people sacrificed land to the priests. They also gave part of their offerings for the priests to live off of. The people sacrificed something to make the sacrifice possible.

Honestly, this reality isn't popular in today's church culture. People don't like the idea of giving something up to get eternal life. But Paul is very clear in Romans 6

¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

This isn't some high and lofty theological concept. It's as plain and practical as it gets.

"Sin shall not have dominion over you." That is not addressing forgiveness of sins. It is saying quit living like hell.

"Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.  ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." In other words, quit holding onto that self-right(eous) mirage you've built and choose the righteousness of Christ instead.

Now THAT sounds high and lofty theology, so let's talk about how this might look in real life.

Let me give you an example from my book of "Wow. I'm really ugly at times, aren't I?"

A few weeks ago my family started attending RCIA classes. In short, these are introduction to Catholicism classes. I didn't want to go. I honestly saw no reason to go. I'm not Catholic. I'm a Protestant pastor. Why do I need to go to these classes?

First class the priests asks, "Why are you here?" I tried to answer with respect while still being clear that I am not Catholic. "Catholicism has spiritual disciplines Protestantism has lost, and I want to learn about them." Honest answer. The priest talked some, and whatever he said, I took it as, "Glad you finally got a clue."

Notice I didn't say he said that. I said I took it that way. Self-right(eousness) does that. It rewrites and misinterprets as needed so I am the one who is right and the other person is offensive. It is, after all, the only way to be right all the time.

That night when I lay in bed trying to sleep, I tried to pray my way through the emotional mayhem I felt. "God, why do I need to be in that class? I don't even believe like they do. I've researched their beliefs. I don't agree. I'm just going to be a distraction. This really isn't a good thing. Why am I there?"

As loud and clear as you can hear a shofar on Rosh Hashanah, I hard, "You are there to learn to love them. Right now, all you see are Catholics who aren't like you. I want you to see people with hearts that can ache as much as yours has. I want you to see people who seek truth, want answers, and don't understand. I want you to see people who are just like you, and I want you to love them."

I honestly wanted to vomit at that moment. Not because God wanted me to love a Catholic, but because until that moment, I had no idea how prejudice I was. I had no idea how arrogant I was. I had not idea how much mental and emotional distance I kept between the two of us.

I had no idea that I saw "Catholic" and not people.

So you know what I did?

I confessed my prejudice and arrogance. I confessed my lack of love.
I asked the Lord to forgive me.
I asked the Lord to show me anything else that needs to be confessed and forgiven.
And, I mentally pictured myself as I crawled up on that bronze altar, lay down, and said, "Don't let me up until every piece of this stony heart is gone and I love them like You do."

I won't lie. It is hard. We see very differently on some things, but when we see differently, I ask the Lord to show me how they see Him and show me His heart for them.

Here is the thing. My theology may be right, but if my heart isn't, then I'm missing the heart of Jesus. How can I be righteous in Him if my heart toward others is wrong?

So I give up my right to think like I want and sacrifice it. I offer it to God, not because it makes me righteous. Nothing I do will ever make me righteous, but when I am willing to offer up my right to think and feel what I want, then I step into the sacrifice of Christ, take up His mind and His heart...and His righteousness.

The (Un)Burden of Being on the Atlar

In Saturday's post I told you I would share some things I've learned about self-righteousness as I have been camped out on the altar. Probably the biggest thing is I didn't realize the weight of needing to be right. Notice I did not say "the weight of being right". The truth is, the need to be right is crushing. It crushes us mental and stresses us out. It crushes us emotionally and kills relationships. It crushes us spiritually and retards or totally stops any growth in Christ. It crushes us physically as all the stresses take their toll and we experience migraines, muscle tension, high blood pressure, indigestion, and a myriad of other issues. The need to be right is a killer kind of weight.

At the root of self-righteousness is the need to be right. Except there is more to it. It means we also need others to know we are right and to act, think, believe, dress, look accordingly.

Now, we can debate the source of this until Jesus returns, but ultimately there is only one answer, which we will talk about in a bit. For now, let's talk about the weight of self-righteousness.

Self-righteousness is all about self. Seems pretty self-explanatory. Right? Let's really look at this. SELF-right(eousness) means it is all about me and my being right. So my job then is to make everyone see things the way I do. I have to argue a point to the very end, whether that be the end of my time allotment or more likely to the end of the relationship. Sometimes if a person just won't see how smart and enlightened I am, I have to shame or demean someone so they can see how stupid their thinking is. A lot of the time if someone won't see things my way and do things my way so I can stay in my comfort zone, I have to punish them by not speaking or not having anything to do with them until they realize their foolishness and align with what I want...because after all, I'm right. Oh, and I always have to talk first because then everyone knows the right way so no one else will be so foolish as to say the right thing. I always have to have the answer because if I don't, someone might question whether I'm right about other things, and we can't have that. And, if all those things don't work, I can always launch a public campaign, play the victim, and tell my side in such a way as the get the greatest degree of pity so the people I tell realize I am right. But if all that fails, and believe it or not, sometimes people just are determined not to see my superior thinking/opinions/etc., then I will simply show them and leave. No big deal for me because I will simply go somewhere else where people realize I am right. There.

It is indeed a heavy load, but some of us, like me, are forced to bear it.

I would say I hope you are laughing, except really, it isn't funny. Well, if you are watching from the outside as some self-right(eousness) person is throwing their tantrum, they can look funny because really, what adult acts like that? Well, me. Hopefully not to that extent...anymore. But, yeah, I know how this works because I have the crown, t-shirt, AND tie-tack.

So you may be wondering why people don't get it and get over it. Well, it is hard to see why you need to get over it when really, you're just the victim.

See, it's really all about character flaws and suffering rejection.

That is THEIR character flaws and MY suffering rejection.

Don't believe me? I'll show you I'm right.

See, if someone doesn't agree with me, they are rejecting me.
If they don't like my opinion, they a rejecting me.
 If they don't like my color choice for a room, they are rejecting me.
If they don't agree with my idea of modesty, they are rejecting me.
If they don't agree with my opinions on politics or beliefs in faith, they are rejecting me.

It is all personal. It is all about me, and anytime someone else doesn't see that, then they are obviously rejecting ME, not a color on a wall or a festival theme or a shirt style, BUT ME! And any time they reject me, I'm going to get offended, and, folks, offense is a heavy thing to carry.

Have you ever noticed how exhausting it is to be mad all the time? We aren't made to be mad all the time. We are made in God's image. We are made for relationship. We are made to love people and enjoy them. We are not made to find offense and hold onto bitterness. Holding onto those things is fighting the very core of who we are made to be, and that is exhausting.

When you get on the altar and sacrifice your right to always be right, you don't give up the chance to be right, you give up the weight of having to be right. You give up the responsibility of making everyone else right, and those are some heavy burdens. You also get to quit carrying the weights of bitterness and offense.

We think of sacrificing something as what we have to give, and we do give up our rights, but when we sacrifice something, we get so much more. We get Jesus. We get to let Him deal with things. We get to stop being something we aren't (always right) and be something we are...in need of Jesus being right in us.

In Matthew 11, Jesus offers an invitation:

²⁸ Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Let me reword this a bit for you.

Come to Me, all you labor to preserve your self-image because you are afraid people will see you weak, unimportant, or stupid if you don't know everything, and I will give you rest from all those false expectations people put on you and you put on others. Take My expectations upon you and learn what I call right, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest from the burden of false righteousness.

I'll tell you the truth. I never saw this verse this way until this morning when I was writing this, but now I'm copying it and printing it out to put on my wall so I see it and meditate on it everyday.

I hope you come back tomorrow so I can tell you how I've learned to offer my self-righteousness so I can receive His. Until then...

May the Lord grant you the courage to be wrong...and be okay with it.

Shalom y'all!
Jerri