Obeying when it doesn’t make sense

Obeying when it doesn’t make sense is a struggle for me. Is it for you too?

In chapter 1 of Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God, Timothy Keller writes:

God created us to orbit around him, to center our lives on him. When God says, “Don’t eat, or you’ll die,” what is our first response? “Why?” But God doesn’t explain; if you obeyed God because you understood what he was doing and how it would benefit you, then you’d actually be stationary. You’d be saying, “Okay, it makes sense. I understand why I should obey and shouldn’t eat from that tree; yes, of course.” God would be a means to an end, not an end in himself.
God was saying, “Because you love me, don’t eat from the tree–just because I say so. Just to be in relationship with me. Obey me about the tree, and you will live” (p. 12).

Clearly, God and reason aren’t mutually exclusive. God gave us common sense, after all. Yet, if that’s what we are orbiting around, it becomes our god. And why wouldn’t our jealous God want to strip that away from us for a time?

All of this to say that that’s what I want to be: reasonable… but orbiting around Him rather than reason. What about you?

Photo by Justin Dickey on Unsplash

Made in God’s image: thoughts on sexual harassment- Part 2

Last time, I shared some of my own experience with sexual harassment, including a few of those inner reactions. If you haven’t read part 1, please do so before reading part 2.

Regardless of how others respond to your experience, it still happened.

SO NOW WHAT?

Gain control.
A huge part of the emotional aftermath is due to feeling powerless. I experienced a marked difference in two street harassment encounters. After the first encounter, I didn’t even know if teammates would be on my side. The second encounter ended at the police station. Knowing that the power was indisputably on my side decreased the fear I felt on the street afterwards.

In a case of street harassment, involve people nearby. Responding in some way as soon as possible helps alleviate the painful emotional aftermath. Don’t argue with the offender, but if you are able to, include bystanders.

To be honest, although gaining control is one of the most important factors, I am a lame example. Often, I first respond with denial, doubting the experience is real until it is past, thus hindering my opportunity for an appropriate response. I guess I still struggle because I am still learning.

Even if the incident is already past, take control by setting up precautions for your future self. Being passive means setting yourself up for victimization again.

“If it feels wrong, it probably is,” was some of the best advice I got when I moved to North Africa where some form of harassment was expected every time one left the house. One North African day, a rug vendor wanted to show me more of his wares. He led me to the back of the shop, to a quiet room full of rugs. My gut told me we were too alone, especially when he started making subtle preparations to keep out other customers. I thanked him for showing me his rugs and marched out of the shop, despite his protests.

Don’t be afraid to be angry…
…but also realize that anger is often, if not always, a secondary emotion. There is still something else underneath. Give yourself time to sort out what you’re feeling and as soon as possible, take those emotions–fear, shame, vengeance or whatever else it may be– to God because He’s not afraid of what you’re feeling, even if you are.

Realize that your emotions are part of the process.
You will face a lot of emotions, some of them unexpected. If you don’t face them head on, they will gnaw away at your sense of worth as God’s image bearer.

After harassment incidents, I do a lot of journaling. It helps me honestly examine what I’m feeling. It launches a talk with God and prepares me to talk with a mentor.

I was in a moderately healthy place when a follow-up incident occurred. Twenty-four hours later, I was still in turmoil when I journaled this:

And here I was, wishing I were not. Wishing I had the strength to say, “It is well with my soul” and feeling that anger-turning-shame…
Shame that in my inner longings for approval, I had stumbled across a sickened version of it and should have I already slain that longing? Shame that now I was the one in the spotlight and how did this happen and could it be my fault? But it wasn’t. It isn’t…
And where was Jesus in this picture? He was here, wrapping His arms around me when all I could do was swim through memories of past hurts and wish God would just turn men like this one into piles of ashes. I don’t know it because I felt Him there; I know it because I know it. Today that is enough.
And as for the shame. It has a name now and soon I’ll be ready to confront it rather than live with it.

Run to your Ultimate Protector.
After a recent incident, I was able to gain control of the situation, which ended in the man jumping off at the next bus stop, presumably in an effort to get away. I like to think so, at least.

The next evening, I was praying about an unrelated topic when God said, “You know that man who touched you last night? I was there.” And I knew He was telling the truth. No, He hadn’t smote the offender–not then anyway. But He is the God who sees and will deal with sin in His perfect timing.

(This is not a statement that higher earthly authorities should never be involved. In passing incidents, use discernment. In repeated or ongoing incidents, those higher earthly authorities should definitely be involved! Read Romans 13.)

Find out who you really are.
Ask yourself: “Who am I in the eyes of God?” If you don’t strip away your pretenses before a loving and perfect Father, you most certainly will feel the additional pain as you face a world of opinions about the incident.

After a particularly frustrating day of feeling unprotected by someone I thought should have protected me, I cried out to God in the middle of that shame and heartache. “Just tell me what to do!” I wailed.

And He said, “You are my child.” He offered no solution to the events, but spoke to the bigger problem. I had lost grip on my intrinsic worth and instead was clinging to the lie that I wasn’t worth protecting. But He reminded me that I belonged to Him and that was enough.

Find someone who will hear without judgment.
Find someone who will listen to your muddled thoughts and feelings and hear what’s behind all of that. If you don’t take it somewhere, it will come out, often in unexpected and uncontrolled settings.

Make sure it is someone with whom you can be completely honest about the situation. (Note that multiple debriefings could be helpful as your emotional waves ebb and flow.) Don’t lie about your role if you had one; that doesn’t make the offender innocent. Admitting the whole truth will help you get to the root of your shame.

Allow for repentance.
Is the offender truly sorry and truly repentant? I’m not talking about an “I’m sorry” to please authorities, but a humble apology and a true life change. Forgive. Don’t hold on to it. You will probably have to do this many times. But do it. Don’t let his or her power hover over you when you can be free.

However, there is no biblical basis that forgiveness looks like trust. Trust must be earned, not offered indiscriminately. If you have been sexually harassed by this person, in most cases, it’s okay to stay away or make them stay away from you, even if you have forgiven.

Let God be Lord of your sexuality.
You are a sexual being. God created you that way. And remember, He said “very good.” But in my experience as a single (especially in a culture where women are particularly vulnerable), sexuality feels more like a burden than a blessing. Something I need to hide and control rather than a gift to express.

There was a moment after many of the aforementioned incidents that I felt the invitation to surrender my sexuality and I saw the outstretched arms of Jesus, glad to embrace me. There was instant relief when I thought of Him piloting my sexuality. I felt safe. Like that part of me was no longer my enemy.

This has not been a once-and-done surrender, but no longer do I fight the enemy alone in this area of my life.

In surrender, there is freedom. Surrendering your sexuality might feel restrictive, but true freedom is being restricted in certain areas to enjoy fullness in others. Rather than being a slave, it is being a child of God and living in the fullness of that relationship. As a child, you give up the right to govern your own life or “call the shots.” Yet, the richness of sonship is so much better than living in the “freedom” of going your own way and finding you are a slave after all.

CONCLUSION

I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about this topic. I write from my limited experience. I don’t respond well each time. Sometimes, it’s hard to forgive. Sometimes, I’m still surprised by the spectrum of emotions an incident will elicit– all of the way from pleasure to disgust.

Yet, I can cling to the truth that I am “very good” and when someone tries to diminish that value in the form of sexual harassment, it is not okay with me because it’s not okay with God.

May you cling to that truth as well. God made you in His image. That heavy load of shame you’ve been carrying? That isn’t yours to carry anymore. Unpack it, hurt through it, but ultimately leave at the feet of the One who has already carried it for you. And He did because you, His child, are worth that much.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Made in God’s image: thoughts on sexual harassment- Part 1

I hesitate to approach this topic because I have so much to learn. Yet, my silence isn’t much use to anyone. So, I’m lunging forward, hoping that victims of sexual harassment will grasp the power of knowing that harassment cannot touch their intrinsic worth.

MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them… And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:27&31a)

God made man and woman–He made you— in His image. And He called you “very good.” Although “very good” included the human body, God wasn’t just talking about the shape of your nose or how pleasing your figure might be.

At a deeper level, God’s image on your being–the rational, moral, and spiritual–is what gives you beauty and worth. You are “very good” because you were created in God’s image. It’s integral; you cannot be separated from it.

But you can choose not to believe it.

When someone’s value as an image bearer is undercut, there is pain. It’s the sort of pain that no amount of “I must have done something to deserve this” can take away. We can bury it, but we can’t really hide it. And after a while, we start to believe that we are no longer worthy of God’s image.

Today, the discussion focuses on sexual abuse, a much more intricate and painful topic. But sometimes in our haste to address the big issues, we skim over the lingering pain of those who have been harassed but not abused.

“Harassment is normal,” we think. Indeed, we have normalized harassment to the degree that we don’t bother addressing it. Even as a victim, this was my approach… until recently.

IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT OKAY?

Harassment is common, not normal, and the more we normalize it, the more we give the message that it’s acceptable to harass and to be harassed.

During my first experience with harassment, I thought I was overreacting because everyone else ignored it. So, after a few fumbled attempts at addressing it, I accepted it as par for the course in my work environment.

Only recently have I been able to say, “This is not okay.” Why not? Because someone is trying to cheapen the image of God in me. God’s image is being objectified for the sake of someone’s pleasure or lust for power.

Clearly, harassment isn’t something we should dwell on; but, until we find healing, we will dwell on it, like it or not. By “dwell,” I don’t mean in conscious thought only; much of our “dwelling” can happen in the subconscious realm. My first incident was set aside and rarely thought of. Yet, inside of me there was a simultaneous shrinking from and hunger for the positive attention of men.

MY EXPERIENCE

I didn’t know how much my first experience with sexual harassment had affected me until another incident occurred. Suddenly, I was dealing with the emotional aftermath of two incidents instead of one.

But the emotions didn’t come from the incidents themselves as much as from the shame that wound its way through the memories.

It is my fault. Someone implied that I had been too friendly, too familiar.
I have to get over it. It wasn’t a big deal. Nobody else thought I was worth standing up for. Nobody seemed to think he should get into trouble. I tried to ignore it, but week after week of the same issue left my defenses ragged. (Sometimes I felt like I could just give in.)
Maybe I haven’t forgiven. Surely, if I just forgave, all of the pain and shame would vanish.

Along with sexual harassment, there is often a sense of pleasure that comes with being noticed and desirable. That sense of pleasure is God-given (read Song of Solomon!), but in cases of sexual harassment, it typically serves to deepen the shame. We think to be a “real” victim, we must never feel anything except disgust.

Sexual harassment attacks a vulnerable spot; therefore calling the pain to light also calls our vulnerability to light. So we hide behind masks of disgust, anger, or indifference, to name a few.

The offender is not the only victimizer. Many of us have also experienced a level of rejection from those looking on. “Get over it,” is a common sentiment from those who acknowledge what happened but don’t believe in the emotional aftermath. And there are always people who are skeptical, downplay the incident, or even defend the offender.

Regardless of how others respond to your experience, it still happened.

Next week, I’ll share a few ways to respond during and after an incident. In the meantime, I would be glad to hear your advice and wisdom as well. 🙂 See you next time.

Photo by Shoeib Abolhassani on Unsplash

Stop and wonder

Psalm 23 is one of those familiar Psalms that I tend to glaze over because I know it by heart. I don’t stop and see or wonder at the depths. However, recently, I got stuck on verse 6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”

I pictured myself following God and goodness and mercy trailing along behind like an obedient but somewhat distracted dog. (Note: “mercy” as it appears here actually means “steadfast, unfailing, and unconditional love.”)

But “follow” is a much stronger word than “trailing.” It connotes pursuing relentlessly, running after, or tracking. In short, God’s goodness and steadfast love aren’t going to let us go. Not today or any day.

“All the days of my life,” David writes with unwavering confidence in God’s attributes. He had his days in lockdown too, hiding in caves, fearing for his life. Outside of lockdown, he had marriage problems, disobedient children, years of war, etc. Yet, he says that he knows God’s goodness and steadfast love are in those days too.

My roommate and I recently read Unseen by Sara Hagerty. Chapter 6 is titled, “Invitation to Wonder: Training Our Eyes to See God’s Beauty.”

“… [I]t’s harder… to see God’s beauty,” Hagerty writes. “… in the thousands of minutes in the middle of my days that don’t seem worthy of photographing or scrapbooking or sharing with others. He tells us in His Word that His glory is ever available, and it’s tucked inside every day. Every single one” (p. 107).

All the days of my life.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.
“Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (as quoted in Unseen p. 112)

God’s wonder–His goodness and steadfast love–are in each of our days. “Our flitting eyes… need to be trained to see them. They need to be trained to see the face of Jesus” (p. 118).

Stop and see.

Stop and wonder.

Photo by David McLenachan on Unsplash

We esteemed Him not

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Isaiah 53:3

We esteemed Him not.

This phrase has stuck with me this Easter season. I prefer to focus on Jesus’ victory over sin and death. Christ is risen! But this declaration that we esteemed Him not—

What does it mean? As I dug deeper, I noticed that this rejection is passive rather than active–apathetic rather than hateful.

At least hatred acknowledges a person or a deed. Apathy goes beyond; apathy doesn’t even care.

Apathy. For our bleeding Savior. Barnes’ says, “…he was regarded as cut off from man…that he was the most abject and vile of mortals in the estimation of others; so vile as not to be deemed worthy of the treatment due to the lowest of men.”

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Isaiah 53:3

This verse speaks in first person plural of the Jewish nation, but I, for one, can see myself in the “we.”

I am so focused on my risen Lord that I don’t esteem my dying Lord. I grow apathetic to the suffering God on the cross, bearing the weight of sin and shame of mankind. My sin and my shame.

Esteem Him this Easter season. Esteem the dying God and worship the living One.

Photo by Henrique Jacob on Unsplash

Well? What are you thankful for?

Well? What are you thankful for this year?

Thanksgiving is one day that we set aside to be thankful for our blessings.

Of course, we shouldn’t only practice our thanksgiving sitting down to a feast of roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie. We know that. And I hope we practice that. But it doesn’t hurt us to recap a year of thankfulness before every Thanksgiving feast.

I look back on 2019 and see things I wish had not happened, things I wish I had done differently, and things I wish others had done differently.

But even though we bumble through life, getting a few things right and a lot of things wrong, the “High King of Heaven” is always in control. He’s not up there sweating bullets that we will mess up His plan. In fact, He is letting us be part of His plan. Our sin and sorrow are never too big to be turned into a beautiful redemption story in His plan.

As this year closes, I am thankful that after all I have done and faced this year, the Father blesses His child’s prayer:

“Thou and thou only, first in my heart.”

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tow’r:
Raise Thou me heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow’r.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
Attr. Dallan Forgaill, tr. Eleanor Hull

No one understands me!

Do you ever feel misunderstood? Like the big, bad world is judging you by circumstance with no desire to understand your motive?

The truth is, we can never understand each other. Not fully. We have tools, like personality tests, that, on their best days, help us offer grace when we don’t understand each other. Living together helps too. But we just don’t quite get each other. Even those people who confidently nod and give you a smug smile when you do something predictable.

You’re not the only one who feels misunderstood. Ask God about that. He even had His people write about it in the Psalms and later in Romans.

“The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
(Ps. 14:2-3.)

“…as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”
(Romans 3:10-11)

We humans, in our fallen brokenness cannot fully fathom a holy God. So, if anyone is allowed to complain about being misunderstood, it is God.

Because, guess what else. You are understood. By the One who is least understood. He has searched and known you and discerned your thoughts from afar. He is acquainted with all of your ways. You cannot speak without Him knowing exactly what you will say. (Ps. 139:1-4)

You are understood. May that knowledge be too wonderful to wrap your mind around! (Ps. 139:6)

Are you a people-pleaser?- Part 2

Last week, I wrote about my struggle with people-pleasing. And I’m still learning how to deal with this fear of man. (By waiting a week, I was hoping to be so much wiser!)

On my journey, I’m learning how much my thought life affects my everyday life. My thoughts aren’t as private as I think. Jesus was right, of course, when He taught that sin begins on the inside.

I know how critical and dark thoughts can be because I think them all too often. But when others think those thoughts about me, I am panic-stricken. Could I be the object of disdain rather than admiration or affection?

My negative thought patterns subtly place others as the wrong doers and me as the victim. (As if!)

How do I get out of this negative rut? Pep talks? Surrounding myself with positive friends? Hardly.

By asking God to redeem my thought life.

Notice I said “redeem” rather than “distract.” When I catch myself slipping into my “nobody loves me, everybody hates me” rut, I confess and surrender that thought. But rather than leave my mind as a gaping hole (which is impossible for women, by the way), I work to fill that hole with worthy thoughts and praise.

One day, I specifically asked God to help me take every thought captive. While dwelling on a wrong thought, I suddenly jabbed my hip into a doorknob (and Spanish doorknobs are sharp!). In pain, I managed to laugh and thank God for the not-so-gentle reminder. Other days, I, in essence, tell God to go away and leave me alone to think my negative thoughts.

Sometimes, we write off negativity as discernment. But they’re not the same. Negativity eats at your soul. Discernment can see and analyze the negative aspects of a situation without being controlled by them.

When your thought life is redeemed, you can be discerning without being negative. People may still sling unrealistic expectations at you or think mean things about you, but when you don’t dwell on it, it can’t control you.

See, whether or not someone means offense in a comment, you can leave it. You can walk away because when you do, that comment–whether intentional or unintentional–is between that person and God. When you take offense, suddenly the the relationship is much more complicated. Suddenly, the comment is between them and God, you and them, and you and God. And that takes a lot of clarification, repentance, and forgiveness.

But when you re-calibrate your focus– take it off of whoever you are allowing to control you, and place it on God– your world begins to bloom. You can hear advice without letting it dictate each decision. You can hear criticism without being in the depths of despair. You can love those who think little of you, even if their opinion never changes. And you can hear praise without feeling like it is watering the thirsty soil of your starving soul. Affirmation becomes a blessing rather than a necessity.

And you– I should say “we”– can be content in our identity in Christ rather than our identity in the eyes of others.

Are you a people-pleaser?- Part 1

I was sweating under my blanket and it wasn’t because of the leftover summer heat.

How could I have made the situation different? How could I have walked away without leaving a bad taste in their mouths? What should have I done to make them like me?

The night hours ticked away as I fought a bloody battle with my thoughts.

If you haven’t caught on by now: I have an overwhelming fear of man. I want people to love me and delight in me. I want to be the desired friend, the confidant, the one to diffuse tension in a situation.

But that night, my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel the bed shaking along with it. And all because of a negative reaction that felt like a personal attack.

More hours passed before I was able to stop “problem-solving” and surrender. My heart, now guarded by God’s peace, relaxed until I could no longer feel the oppressive beating. And I fell asleep.

Not every wave of people-pleasing is like this for me. Sometimes, I feel invincible to others’ opinions because I’m too tired or too stubborn to bend anymore. Other times, I never surrender and spend days or weeks in agony, enslaved to another’s opinion and trying to think up ways to wriggle myself back into their good graces.

Can you identify? Are you a people-pleaser too?

I don’t have a once-and-done solution for us. Or even five easy steps to follow.

Recently, in talking with a friend, I realized that this area of my life is slowly changing. It may always be a struggle for me, but by God’s grace, it will no longer be my prison.

Next week, I’ll tell you a bit of my ongoing journey. And maybe you can tell me a little of yours too.

His pleasure in forgiveness

I always assumed that God forgave sinners because He had to. Not grudgingly necessarily, but because He needed to uphold His end of the bargain. Jesus, the sinless, took our sin and our shame, and God chose to look on Him and forgive us.

But recently I read the phrase “God’s pleasure in forgiveness.” It made me stop and wonder: Does God really take pleasure in forgiving us?

Can He really be pleased to erase our shame when justice demands that we remain alienated from Him forever?

I am beginning to grasp a level of God’s grace that goes beyond fulfilling an obligation or “just doing His job.” He wants us to be restored to a right relationship with Him. If He didn’t, He would not have provided a Way.

Jesus stands with arms outstretched, beckoning us to step into His perfection.

And I continue to wonder: God finds pleasure in forgiving us. But how much pleasure do we find in repentance?