Although an inside look can be overwhelming (and indeed must be if the core direction of our life is to really shift), still there must be more to it than a journey into darkness.  We are children of light.  Even in the midst of darkness, we know where we’re headed…

Spiritual depth frees us to be spontaneous in the midst of sadness.  It enables us to press on in our involvement with people even when we stagger from blows of severe disappointment.  A mature relationship with Christ is reflected in the capacity to hear whispers of assurance when discouragement is oppressive.  And even when we’re mishandling frustration by retreating into an angry pout, mature depth won’t let us escape the convicting awareness that we’re designed to love, even in this situation.

Inside Out, pgs 201-202

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/227/

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/228/

“Entering into the deep pain of our souls in order to see how subtly but stubbornly we keep our distance from one another in an effort to protect ourselves from that pain is an approach to understanding relational sin that is not widely considered…

We’ve been called into relationship with God so we may relate more deeply with others…

When openness to Scripture, to the whispering of God’s Spirit, and to honest feedback from fellow Christians leads to an awareness of relational sin, then, and only then, is deep repentance possible…

It requires that we spot some of the specific ways we protect ourself as we communicate with our mate, interact at a committee meeting, or socialize after church, and that we change those ways of relating because we want to move toward others regardless of personal risk.

Once we understand the concept of relational sin, we repent by radically shifting our motivation and direction from self-preservation to trust on the basis of the belief that Christ has given and is preserving our life.  The fruit of repentance is a changed style of relating that replaces self-protective maneuvering with loving involvement. 

In Hosea 14:1-3 [which we just went over a couple of weeks ago in small group – ack!], God tells us exactly how to repent:

‘Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God.  Your sins have been your downfall!  Take words with you and return to the LORD.  Say to him:

‘Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.  Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses.  We will never again say ‘our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.’

‘Return to the LORD your God’

Every effort to change must involve at its core a shift in direction away from dependence on one’s own resources for life to dependence on God…The Christian’s call is to relationship, to loving, non-defensive involvement with others…

‘Take words with you’

The more thorough our awareness of sin, the more complete our repentance.  Because we’ll never see ourself exactly as we are until Heaven, the prayer that God cleanse us from secret faults is always appropriate.  But it must never be an excuse for not exploring our problem with sin.

‘Forgive all our sins’

Repentance is a turning away from sin that’s made possible by God’s willingness to forgive us…We will genuinely love only as we deal with the sin in our heart…

‘Receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips’

So many of our efforts to change have a hidden but definite agenda…True repentance, on the other hand, is energized by the hope of knowing and worshipping God more richly…We will be driven to true worship only as we give up on all earthly hopes of finding life (which requires that we face our disappointments in every relationship), and grow in our understanding that there is life in Christ and nowhere else.

‘Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses’

Israel was threatened with national collapse…a pact with Assyria to protect them combined with their own military efforts might win the day…

When the essential well-being of my soul is attacked, I must not protect myself, even though an effort to preserve myself from destruction seems like the right thing to do. 

To do so leads to death.

Christ could not have contradicted natural wisdom more completely when He taught that life is found by making no effort to keep it.

Israel turned to Assyria and war-horses for her national survival. 

We resort to self-protective maneuvering in our patterns of relating to ensure our personal survival. 

Repentance requires a sincere admission that whatever we’re depending on for life will let us down.

Assyria cannot save us.

Self-protection is futile.

We will therefore shift our direction away from depending on our own resources to vulnerably trusting God.  If He fails to come through, then we’ll be destroyed.  That is the recognition that leads to change.

‘We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made’

This is the core of repentance.  Thirsty people are invited to come to Christ.  But because we’re not only thirsty but also foolishly rebellious, we grab our shovels and run into the wilderness to dig our own water supply.  We’re determined, with all the intensity of someone struggling to survive, to maintain control over our own welfare.

Trust does not come easily to fallen people.

But it must come. 

And its development requires a clear and decisive break with self-sufficiency.  Doing so will seem like suicide, but it is the path to life.

‘Whoever loses his life for me will save it.’ (Luke 9:24)

‘In You the fatherless find compassion’

Fatherless children are unprotected, vulnerable to the point of helplessness.  Repentance leads us into an experience of our disappointment and aloneness that crushes us with a pain that cannot be relieved.  But when we trust God in our helplessness enough to move toward other people simply because that is God’s will for us, then the reality of His compassion slowly begins to enter our soul.  As we walk a path that seems to lead toward death, a sense of life quietly grows within us.

When repentance moves us from self-protection to obedient trust, then God moves in changing power. 

He heals our waywardness (Hosea 14:4) so our compulsive desire to sin no longer masters us. 

He deepens our roots (vs 5), creating a new stability. 

He grants us splendor and an appealing fragrance (vs 6); our life becomes attractive. 

People dwell in our shade (vs 7), suggesting that others are blessed by our strength. 

We learn that our fruitfulness comes from God (vs 8), and our heart worships Him with gratitude and love.”

Inside Out, pgs 194-200

I have already commented on the inadequacy of trying to promote change by focusing only on obvious sin.  The struggle to endure pain and run the race without getting tangled up in sin is real work.  Moral discipline is required.

But more is involved.  The grime has been so imbedded in the carpet that a simple vacuuming will not do the job.  Working diligently to straighten up our actions without understanding either what it means to deeply repent or what it is that needs to be scrubbed away by repentance will make us more smug than penetrating.  We’ll pressure others to do right rather than draw them to want to do right…

We must find some way to work on the sin in our heart: that demanding spirit, that commitment to finding the happiness now that only Heaven will bring, that style of relating designed to protect us from the awful truth that we don’t have what we so desperately want…

We must repent of sin in the heart…

Inside Out, pge. 194, 195

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/230/

“We will, of course, be flawless – one day.  No hint of perverted desire, no sleepless nights when our minds race mercilessly from one worry to another, no fear of becoming close to people that’s fueled by memories of earlier hurt.  All of that is ahead of us, in Heaven. 

But for now, struggles continue. 

Through personal experience, I’m aware that digging about in our life to find relational pain and self-protective sin is difficult business.  And unlike the miner whose spade work is rewarded by the glistening of precious metal, it seems the more we dig, the more mud we uncover..

The logical response to the mud we uncover seems to be to cover it up again, or to find some way to rinse it clean.  To stand there, making no effort to move away from the pain, seems utterly unreasonable…To make no effort to clean up the mess and to live without self-protection is terrifying.  It feels like the route to death…

The present power of the gospel lies not in its ability to generate an internal warmth that overcomes every experience of disappointment and struggle.  If that’s its claim, then I’m ashamed of the gospel.

But if its claim is that dead people can live, that people who haven’t the slightest hope of eternal happiness can live in Paradise forever, that a way has been made for sinners who deserve to suffer at the hands of a wrathful God to be declared righteous and therefore fit for relationship with God, then, with Paul, I am not ashamed.

The gospel’s power today lies in its resources to help us overcome a demanding spirit and to replace it with trust as we await the full revelation of its power, the day when sinful people will enter Heaven as loving worshipers of God, when further sin will be unthinkable and pain will be unknown.”

Inside Out, pg. 189, 190, 191, 192

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/231/

“Many elements combine to promote real change…The more deeply we enter our disappointment, the more thoroughly we can face our sin…

Feeling disappointment has another advantage.  It frees us to genuinely appreciate our parents, spouses, children, and friends for all the kindness they’ve extended to us and the qualities they display…

When we look clearly at how another has failed us, it can free us of our demand that they love us well…

We have all been sinned against.  We all sin.  You have failed to love me as you should and I have failed to love you.  Your failure to love me is painful, sometimes profoundly disappointing.  But the Lord’s love for me is perfect.  Although His love does not remove the sting of your failure, it gives me all I need to stand as a whole person, capable of loving you regardless of the threat of your further failure.

And that is my responsibility, to love you.  My love for you (not yours for me) determines in large measure my experience of joy and my sense of intactness.  I can love because I am loved perfectly and fully by God. 

And my love for you matters.  It can draw you to Christ, it gives my life power and value in His plan, it brings glory to God.  And, as I falteringly learn to love you without self-protection, I edge toward the longed-for reality of abundant living.

The struggle to live in disappointing relationships will continue until Heaven.  But the good news of the gospel is that there’s a solution to the real problem.  The sin of self-protection can be dealt with now…”

Inside Out, pg. 186-188

More soon.  This stuff is too rich. 

Mortals make elaborate plans,

    but God has the last word.

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/233/

“To call self-protection the problem right at the moment when the pain is most severe is not easy.  But it must be done.  When relieving pain becomes our priority, then we have left the path of pursuing God. 

The experience of pain has the power to either harden us in our self-protective style or to drive us to deeper trust in God.  It can enable us to see clearly how our relational style accommodates our commitment to stay safe rather than to freely love others. 

Self-protection and love are opposites.  Since love is the ultimate virtue, self-protection is the ultimate problem.” 

Inside Out, pg. 184

My friend was honest today about something vulnerable.  It helped me remember how vulnerability begets vulnerability.

My heart sank this afternoon, thinking about how the previous blog post would come across as complaining about my sweet boys.  Love always protects.  I wanted to point out my own pride and fear and hurt.  But I can do that without hurting my children.  Forgive me?  Because the truth is my heart is so filled with love for them I can hardly stand it. 

And shame on me if I talk about self-protection and not be vulnerable and share my own. 

The funny thing is, I just showed you some of it.  Trying to be tough or funny or stand-offish.  Or seeking perfection in myself or others.  Or doing things to please people rather than pleasing Him.

I read The Parable of the Lost Son this morning.  It never fails to move me.  Here’s The Message version. 

Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’

“So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.

After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.


“That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.


 “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’


“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.


“All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’


 “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’


 “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’”

I’m so like the Younger Brother.

I’m so like the Elder Brother.

I want to just want You, Father.

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/234/

It’s been a morning of stories already.

Caleb is 4 today.  So we had a morning of making nerf-gun-shaped pancakes and opening a few presents.  But all of that pushed us back to get out the door by 7:30. 

So right after I posted a sweet, adorable picture on Facebook to celebrate my youngest (because I figured that was the best way to get out the door on time), I asked him to please brush his teeth.

This adorable, sweet youngest proceeded to throw himself onto the floor and wail about how he can’t do it.

We talked, I told him I could help him finish but he needed to start himself, and other patient, loving things.  (I didn’t want to blow the whole amazing-mama-pancake-thing on something as small as teeth brushing.)

Finally, since time was running out and he was being disobedient, I started counting.  He got up dutifully and started brushing.  But the fussing continued.  I rolled my eyes as I finished getting ready until I heard what he was saying:

“I just need to go slowly, Mama.  I just need to go slowly.”

I was humbled.

But, true to form, we were right back at it in the car.  We talked about the day and when Caleb’s school was mentioned he goes,

“Yeah, and I’m the boss.”

Caden almost immediately got angry and started crying (he’s like me and cries when he’s frustrated).  I made him tell me what he was feeling.  He was so distraught that Caleb thought he was the boss.  I don’t even think Caden was wanting to be the boss; he was just upset at the idea that Caleb thought he was.

So I asked, “Do you really think Caleb thinks he’s the boss of everything?”

No.

“Do you think he just wants to show us when we’re at his school what he’s learned and what he knows?”

Yes.

Alright, then.

And, finally, I haven’t told you about a couple who has been coming to my second Fall Avoidance class.  They are wonderful.  He’s been a political science professor at WSU for 53 years.  (And you would love his wife.  Every time he donates to politics, she makes him match the amount to charity.  She is a gem.)  He still works full-time at 83 and, according to his wife, has won pretty much every award he can win there.

But he struggles in my class. 

If he looks at the sign telling him what walking exercise to do, he isn’t sure how to start.  So I will show him.  He will then do something similar but not exactly what I’m looking for.  So usually what I end up doing is modeling the exercise right beside him, but slightly to the front so he can see. 

He regularly says self-deprecating things like, “I’m a slow learner.”   Or “I’m a little dense.”

Now do you really think this cerebral professor is a slow learner?

Finally today I said, “You are not a slow learner.  You are just not a kinesthetic learner.  You know many things but in your 53 years of teaching, you haven’t been forced to make your brain and your limbs connect.  So it will take some time to let those neurons connect what I’m asking you to do in your head to what I want you to do with your limbs.”

I remember feeling the same way my first time in counseling.  The main goal for a good Christian counselor is to take things a lot of us know in our head…and transfer them to our heart. 

It’s what Jesus meant when He asked us to clean the inside of the cup, not just the outside. 

We can do this, Church. 

We have to do this.  There is a watching world waiting to see us take what we know and live it out from the center of our souls. 

They can smell disunity.  The already completely understand pride and self-protection and digging broken cisterns that don’t satisfy (Jer. 2:13).

They want to see us love.  Each other, most of all.  We can only fake it for so long.  We have to love from the center of who we are.  If we find that we’re not, we have to be honest with Him about why.  And pour out our bitterness and complaints and deep, deep wounds to Him so He can replace them with His love, forgiveness, mercy and freedom.

Beauty for ashes.

Every time.

https://www.intentionalkingdomliving.com/236/