From a Long Way Off
I don’t have all the answers as to why some of us are so slow to change, or why the changes seem to ebb and flow, or why the old shadows circle back to us again and again. But I read these words by the great C.S. Lewis and I’m comforted that God knows what we don’t. We, of the plank-filled eyes, and the loose lips filled with trite sayings, and the unaddressed self-loathing that leads us to condemn, and of the dim imaginations that can’t fathom a Love so freely given – we don’t know half of what we think we do. But God sees us all from a long way off, and His eyes are ones of love.
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We Have a Power Problem
Christian, we’ve got a power problem. We don’t understand it, we have a toxic relationship with it, we are lazy in stewarding it, we misuse it, we hoard it, we give it away recklessly, we’re repulsed by it and simultaneously obsessed with it.
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The Duggars & The God of Our Understanding
No wonder so many of us are wounded and limping, unable to gain traction in our spiritual journeys. With an over-valuing of speculative theology that ascribes God characteristics which keep God distant – immutability, omniscience, omnipotence, impassibility, and the like, it’s no wonder we are running ourselves ragged with our performative religion to please this God-Above-Us. When we perform our religion, it allows us to stay in control. We speak of grace out of one side of our mouth, and sneakily work to earn God’s approval out of the other.
But when we discover what incarnation means – the vulnerability of exposure, the intimacy, the depth of Divine understanding that comes from God-With-Us – we realize how sad, unnecessary, and paltry are our performances. When the curtain is pulled back and we stare into reality – which is that God defines reality and God’s-Being-As-Love is that definition – it all comes to a screeching halt.
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The Beauty of Ruining Everything
When I watched Will Smith assault Chris Rock at the Oscars, and when I heard him say he desires more than anything to be a vessel of love only moments later, I didn’t think he was a hypocrite. I didn’t judge him to be a lunatic. I didn’t want him cancelled or excommunicated from the tribe of humanity.
What I thought was this: Ah, yes. His false-self just ruined everything. Now he’s positioned to receive love.
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Ravi Zacharias: How Male Entitlement Hurts Men Too
Sexual entitlement sneaks in an extra-nefarious outcome because the entitled person is slowly divested of his full humanity. Instead of enjoying self-giving love, he opts for selfish and demanding playacting. In an excruciating twist of irony, the entitled becomes less dignified as he shrinks to the size of his impulses. He becomes limited to an empty version of what was intended to be voluminous, leaving him painfully isolated and hopelessly dissatisfied.
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Priests. Not Princesses.
We’re meant for scrapping it out as frontline priests, hands in the soil alongside the peasants. If this message disappoints you, take heart -- because our blood-bought identities may not be glamorous, sisters, but they are glorious.
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They Were Watching: What Our Teens Learned from the Kavanaugh Debacle
What if we allowed every person to be fully human? What if, instead of demanding their heads on the platter of our outrage, we moved toward healing instead? What the Kavanaugh debacle taught our kids.
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