"Don't be so hard on yourself"

I think I just found the perfect pencil sharpener! This one is portable, retro, and heavy-duty all in one. It creates the long sharp tip I long for in a sharp pencil, and with its built-in grip/guide, it won't just keep chewing your pencil but stops when it's sharp. I'm getting one for our portable homeschool tote so we can finally quit wasting time rounding up shoddy pencil sharpeners that chew up the tips and leave us with loose leads. This sharpener does the job. I'm in love.

http://www.classroomfriendlysupplies.com/products/classroom-friendly-pencil-sharpener

This video clip of my pastor (before his brain tumor was discovered) describes a common response to suffering. Matt is currently undergoing treatment for aggressive brain cancer (see AP news article here for the full story). His life in suffering bears out what he preached week after week before, when all was well. I am amazed to be here watching it firsthand. This guy is legit. May people hear his story and see the beauty of God more clearly as a result.

Christmas quandry

The following is a quote from Robert MacColl Adams (1913-1985) from a letter he wrote in 1982. I thought it was worth some reflection this week.

I have this running quandary about Christmas. I get upset about it, because I feel that we American Christians make too much of it, and too little. Too little of it, because we pile all sorts of other things onto it, including some that have only the feeblest connection with the Event it is supposed to commemorate. If God did become a man, in any real sense, it is the most important thing that ever happened. Surely we, who believe it, could well devote one day a year to uninterrupted
contemplation of the fact, and let Saturnalia fall on the winter solstice, where it belongs.

On the other hand, we make so much of the actual birth, and forget the things that make it more than just the birth of a baby (though even that is, in Walt Whitman's phrase, "miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels"*)--more, even, than the birth of the greatest man who ever lived. We forget the promise to Eve of a descendant who will solve the problem of Evil; the promise to Abraham of one by whom all mankind will be blessed; the promise to Moses of a greater prophet than he, to arise from his people; and the promise to David of a Son who would be his Master. We forget about the eternal Purpose behind it all: it's like telling a story and leaving out the point. Yes, it is true that God gave us His Son, and so maybe we ought also to give gifts--but what, and to whom? It is also true that God gave us Himself, and the only sensible response to that is to give ourselves to Him. There is nothing else that He wants from us, or, if there is something, He can take it. Only I, my ego, my heart, is truly mine to give or to withhold--and is therefore the appropriate gift to Him.

* Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Song of Myself, in Leaves of Grass

competitors...or brothers?

"When we confess our virtues, we are competitors; when we confess our sins, we are brothers." --Karl Barth

A radio caller the other day had struggled to find acceptance in his own community of orthodox Jews and raised this question: "Are people harder on those in their own group than they are on outsiders?"

It's not a bad question. It seems to be a problem in religious communities everywhere: Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Baha'i, Christian, and more. I've experienced it myself, seen it in the news, and listened to the experiences of friends from other faiths. As I mulled it over, however, I began to wonder if the issue wasn't less about faith communities and more about grace vs. works.

Ironically, living under a system where you try to earn salvation or God's favor by keeping the law, doing good, or being morally upright cultivates a judgmental heart. You live through the strain of fighting your nature to resist doing the things you shouldn't and actively do the good things you don't really want to do, and in the end if you're "successful," you become a morally upright person who expects the same from the others in your group. After all, "I was able to do it; you should be, too." Those who fail are seen as spiritually lesser people who just haven't tried hard enough. It may not be overtly stated that way, but within the hearts of the successful do-gooders, the judgment is there, looking down on others in the group with disappointment (at the very least) and self-righteous pride in their own ability to make the cut.

Contrast that with life under a system of grace in which I see myself as I really am--no hiding or sugar-coating to impress the other religious people in my circle--just a person whose nature is to run my life on my own apart from God. I replace Him with a myriad other things I love more and set myself up as the ultimate master of my fate, the decision-maker, the authority over myself--my substitute god. Before the creation of the world, God knew I would exist and choose myself as ultimate, living as if He didn't exist or have any right to my life...and before setting all of it in motion He provided my only way of escape from the damning treadmill of self-effort and self-righteousness: the perfect God-man, Jesus, who laid His life down in my place and bought me at great cost to Himself. When I trust that what He did for me was enough to save me, and that His sacrifice applied to my life changes my standing before God, I am overwhelmed by His grace.

That grace overflows onto the lives of those around me. I'm no longer critical, inwardly judgmental, self-righteous, and expecting others to meet a standard. I am overwhelmed, aware of my unworthiness of such a gift, amazed that He would set His love on me, and overflowing with love for people still on the treadmill.

It is the system of works and self-effort that creates judgment for others in our own group. I have experienced it firsthand with people who say they're trusting God but live in their own strength without any experience of intimate community or the strong freedom that comes from God's grace. This kind of grace from God creates groups of people who love each other deeply, supernaturally, intimately, with no strings attached and no judgment rendered. This is not theory; I have experienced it firsthand, and there is nothing like it. God's gift of grace evaporates self-righteousness and replaces it with love for those struggling with sin...because I see myself as a co-struggler and recipient of undeserved favor. I see others differently and am free to pour love into the lives of those who struggle with me.