Have you ever tried to love a porcupine?

photo by Amy Fraser

The porcupine uses its quills for defense. The quills lie flat until the porcupine feels threatened. A porcupine cannot shoot its quills, but when a predator approaches, the porcupine will turn its back, raise its quills and lash out at the threat with its tail. A porcupine is not an aggressive animal. It will only attack if it is threatened… but when it does, you better not be too close.

Have you ever met a person like this? Loving them can be very painful. Things may be going along just fine and then, when you least expect it, the person perceives some kind of threat and the ‘quills’ go up and the tail starts swinging. If you’re standing too close, you’re bound to get hurt.

Loving this kind of person can be difficult. Getting close can be frightening. Repeated attacks may even make you want to stay far away. Only an idiot would continue to go back for more… right?

That’s not the way Jesus sees it. Here’s a little bit of his wisdom on the matter:

Matthew 18 21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Matthew 5 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Luke 6 27 "But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Sounds kind of masochistic doesn’t it? How can he expect us to do these hard things? Why would he ask us to live this way? To answer this question, we have to go back to what he has done for us.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He didn’t wait for us to get all straightened out before he loved us, and he wants us to return the favor to others.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It doesn’t seem quite as much to ask now… does it? There are times when we have to love at arms length, so we don’t continue to get wounded… but we can still love. Sometimes loving someone is full of risk, but Jesus didn’t count the cost… why should we?

Faith vs. Belief

Most of the people I know believe in God. There are a few exceptions, but if asked, the majority would say yes, they believe there is a God. For years, I said I ‘believed’, but it didn’t really matter to me. I had no idea what God was like and I honestly didn’t really care. I cried out to him when I was in trouble, but for the most part, beyond that, I didn’t think of him much.

I remember asking him once, if he was real, to please show me. I had some vague general ideas about him, and believed that I was a basically ‘good’ person. I could always find someone who I thought of as ‘worse’ than myself, and I figured if he was going to decide who could get into Heaven and who would be left out, I was a shoe in. I was a severe skeptic when it came to ‘religion’. I believed they were all schemes of man, designed to make money and I didn’t want anything to do with any of it. I supposed there were ‘good’ Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Hindu, Muslims, etc. and the ‘good’ ones would go to Heaven. I never really thought through the problems of what I believed. I never really thought through much of anything… but in my mind, I was a ‘believer’.

Thankfully, God looked past my stubborn arrogance and in spite of me, used every circumstance and his loving kindness to draw me to him. He patiently works in my life to show me his truth instead of my own. He opens my eyes to see his goodness. He shows me how much he loves me and what he has done for us. Until I began to understand this, I was only a ‘believer’ and even the demons believe (Luke 10:17). God wanted to bring me to faith.

There’s a huge difference between faith and belief. Belief is a vague notion surrounded by MY ideas, MY desires and MY needs. Faith is trust… trust that God is wiser than my ideas, knows my desires and will supply all of my needs. Faith in God is much more than believing… it is trusting in him. Belief is something that happens only in my head. Faith happens in my heart. Belief can leave me empty and unchanged. Faith changes my life from the inside out. Lord, build my faith!

Hebrews 4:2
For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Peace in the Madness

A lot has been going on lately… those I love most in the world are suffering and as they suffer, I suffer with them. My heart grieves with them. I find myself weeping at their staggering losses, and while in no way, am I suffering like they are… in a small way, I am right there with them. It’s something that Jesus has done in my heart. Where I used to be able to shut things off and not think about it so much, he has given me a softer heart to pray and grieve right along with these people that I care so much for.

My sister lost her child, my sweet little nephew, in a tragic accident. I have two close friends who have suffered deep and bitter betrayal. One of those friends is struggling with health problems that are overwhelming and she is among many dealing with the hardships of failing health in themselves or their children. One of the sweetest women I know is trusting God through losing control of her body because of MS. Another is watching her sister die of cancer. My children’s grandmother, who was at home and doing great, went in for a lung biopsy and spent the last few days in ICU because the doctor accidentally punctured her lung. My pastor and his wife recently spent the day at Riley in Indianapolis praying for their granddaughter’s life after she had an unexplained seizure. A good friend is recovering from open heart surgery. Many that I love are struggling with job losses or financial trouble. Other friends are separated from their loved ones as they serve our country in foreign lands. These are just the few that come to mind. I could go on and on.

Our household has also been in a kind of stressful season of change. Three of our adult children have moved home in the last six months. One moved back out, but two are still here and while I am always blessed to be near my children, the change in routine and relationships can be very stressful. Joe remarked that we don’t realize how selfish we are until someone else starts wanting or needing to use our ‘stuff’.

Sometimes circumstances and relationships cause difficulties that seem impossible to overcome. My sister is far away, communication has been sporadic and there are times when my natural tendency is to begin to worry about her when I haven’t heard from her. There are people I care about that I have a strained relationship with and no matter how I handle things with them, I tend to feel like I failed in some way. There are others (my children especially) that I get frustrated with because they don’t take our ‘words of wisdom’ to heart and keep heading in a direction that is destructive. Sometimes there is so much pain and heartache around me that I feel helpless.

As these things have been going on, I found myself becoming unsettled. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I think I was starting to feel something like a cross between anxiety and despair. That’s a weird combination, but it’s the only way I can describe what I was feeling yesterday. Things just seem to be spiraling out of control around me and there is nothing I can do to change things and anything I try to do to help seems so inadequate. If I kept focusing on those things and myself, I think I would go crazy.

Thankfully, I have a God who doesn’t want me to live like that. Thankfully I have a God who lives in me and speaks to my heart when I don’t know the answers. Thankfully I have a God who IS the answer. As I get quiet and listen to him instead of my worries and fears, peace returns. He speaks to me and I’ll tell you how he did it this time.

As I lay in bed last night with my mind whirling with all these thoughts, I knew I needed to think about Jesus. I stopped thinking about the problems and just thought about him… about what he’s done… how he has made all things new… all things right… no matter what it may look like around me. I began to thank him… to thank him for who his is and what he’s done. My whole mindset was changed because of him.

Later, I picked up a devotional (My Utmost for His Highest) lying beside my bed and read the one for the last two days. The verse for the first day was “As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me…” (Genesis 24:27). As I read through Chambers’ thoughts on the verse, I knew the Lord was speaking to me. The gist of it was this: God leads us. There is no need for pleading or continual asking of which way to go… what to do. He leads as long as we are willing to follow. The only time we should worry about where we are going is if we are being disobedient. It’s easy to see God in the big things, but he is in every detail. We need to be devoted to God instead of being obsessed with what we are doing or where we are going.

The verse for the second day was “Peter… said to Jesus, ‘But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, ‘…what is that to you? You follow Me’” (John 21:21-22) and here’s my understanding of that with the help of Jesus and Oswald Chambers: God’s plan for others sometimes doesn’t need any help from me. Sometimes I can become a hindrance instead of a help. Sometimes they need to go through things with him and him alone. As long as I am in right relationship with God he will guide me in what to say or do. If I don’t know what to do, maybe I’m supposed to do nothing. I need to trust him to guide me. If he’s not guiding, I need to trust that too.

Do you think God was speaking to me? I’m sure of it. Thank you, Jesus, for bringing peace to my madness… comfort in my sadness… this is our God.

Equations

There are people in my life who view me as the sum total of my weaknesses and failures.

Others will not define me by my mistakes, but will look past those… choosing to see me as I could be or want to be… they’re kind of like Jesus that way.

I will always have both kinds of people in my life, but the real question is: which kind of person do I want to be?



Painting by Monica Stevens. She has 'an abstract painting a day blog' here: http://monicastevens.com/. Check it out!

Ministers of Reconciliation

Last Tuesday, we went to a Pastor’s Conference. They are great because you get to hear a lot of different pastors teach, and they were all good. One of them talked about how we are all ministers of reconciliation. I learned a lot and I know it will help me deal with some areas in my own life where reconciliation hasn’t been so great.

The next morning, as I began to review what I learned, I decided I needed a more exact definition of the word ‘reconcile’. I looked it up in Microsoft Word’s thesauruses and it gave me these synonyms: settle, put right, bring together, square, reunite, resolve, merge, patch up.

Then I went to Google (what did I ever do without a computer?):

Webster’s defined it this way:
1. to restore to friendship or harmony
2. to make consistent or congruous
3. to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant
4. a: to check (a financial account) against another for accuracy b: to account for

Dictionary.com gave me this:
1. to cause (a person) to accept or be resigned to something not desired: He was reconciled to his fate.
2. to win over to friendliness; cause to become amicable: to reconcile hostile persons.
3. to bring into agreement or harmony; make compatible or consistent: to reconcile differing statements; to reconcile accounts.
4. to reconsecrate (a desecrated church, cemetery, etc.).
5. to restore (an excommunicate or penitent) to communion in a church.

Reconcile means to bring together, to restore and make things right, in this context. Next, I asked myself: Am I a minister of reconciliation? Am I willing to do what it takes to be the person who is instrumental in making things right? Sometimes it’s easy… I realize when I’m wrong, admit it to myself and to God and others if I need to, ask for forgiveness, do what I can to make it right and usually it’s a done deal. Sometimes it is more difficult, especially when these efforts don’t seem to work or you don’t even know what you’ve done wrong. If I’ve been hurt it can be even harder. All my messed up feelings and emotions get in the way and my need to be vindicated can keep me stubborn and prideful and then I’m anything but a minister of reconciliation.

What ‘tools’ do we need for reconciliation?

Prayer: I had to put this one in here, because even though I think it’s a given, there may be times that we forget to pray. Not my will but yours Lord… I need to pray it… and mean it.

Forgiveness: This is probably one of the toughest things about reconciliation at times. I need to let go of all the negative feelings that have resulted from my being hurt. I have to remember that I am forgiven and forgive as I have been forgiven.

Humility/Self-Examination: Sometimes it’s hard to admit where I am wrong. What may be even harder is NOT caring about how the other person may be wrong… I can’t change that. I can only be concerned about my part in the whole thing. This can uncover deeper rooted problems in my own heart like pride, bitterness or pain. I have to continually check with God, asking him to show me these things. When I see it, confess it and ask him to help, he will take what he shows me and change it for the better.

Love: The greatest of these is love. Even if I don’t have the ability, Jesus can take my willingness to love and make it into something real. Love covers over all wrongs. I must choose to love.

Grace: I learned, after I became a parent, that I need to give people the benefit of the doubt. I made so many mistakes that hurt my children even though I would never dream of hurting them intentionally. I decided quite a while ago that people are usually just doing the best they can. I can never be sure about their motives or reasons, but I can believe the best. My cousin reminded me of this when she shared something that had been passed on to her. She said “Love believes all things (another translation of I Cor 13). This means that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, if you have 10 possible explanations about why someone does something, and 9 are evil, and one is good, believe the one good thing”. Now that’s good advice. She went on to talk about how we shouldn’t be naïve and allow ourselves to be hurt further, but it’s always good to believe that another’s intentions are somehow good. I’ve found that in most cases they are.

Communication/Trust: At first, I thought if I can’t communicate with someone, for whatever reasons, reconciliation can’t happen. There have been times when it seems like every time I get close to being able to communicate with someone, the circumstances aren’t right. There may be other people around or the timing or occasion makes it very inappropriate. There have been times when I try the direct route and ask, ‘Can we talk?’, and it doesn’t happen. I pray and ask the Lord to help make it happen, and consistently, when I am ready, nothing else is. That’s when I have to wonder if it’s somehow God’s timing. Maybe he is the one keeping me from trying to get to the heart of the matter. Maybe the other person isn’t ready. Maybe he is preparing and making a way, even before I am able to.

How can I communicate with someone if trust isn’t there? There have been times when everything I said was taken wrong or twisted into something I never meant. Then, badly hurt by a person’s judgment and rejection, I am afraid to communicate because of being misunderstood in the past. It’s hard to try to reconcile with someone when you know they may not hear you correctly and you feel like you need a witness to any conversation. Now what? Sometimes it seems hopeless! Here is a verse from 1 Peter that really helps… and this is what I want to try to do. 1 Peter 2:12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors (or anyone!). Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. I know I can trust God through all of it.

Action: I’m finding that if I can’t communicate, action is a great substitute. If I’m willing to ask Jesus ‘What can I do?’, and actually do it, I can’t go wrong. He may put some crazy idea in my head and I have to be ready to do it! Sometimes that crazy 'nice' thing I don't really want to do for someone who has been anything but nice to me can cause everything to work out. I can go ahead and do loving things toward someone even if I can’t communicate with them.

Wait: When I can’t communicate and action doesn’t seem to be making any head way… when I’ve used all these ‘tools’ and nothing seems to happen, what else can I do? Doing all these things may or may not lead to reconciliation between two people, but it will surely leave my heart reconciled to God. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy. Sometimes there is no answer. That’s when I always assume I need to wait, and waiting can be even harder than doing something.

Faith: I believe it will all work out… no matter how long it takes… I believe it will… because I believe in Jesus!

Jesus is the perfect Minister of Reconciliation. He is the one who restores us and brings us into friendship and harmony with God and with each other. He has reconciled our entire selfish, rebellious race of humanity to himself and to the Father. He was willing to do whatever it took to make reconciliation happen. The King of the Universe came down, took on human skin, limitations and vulnerability, giving up his rights and even his life, so that we could be reconciled to him. Even worse, I believe he bore the consequences, sorrow, pain and grief of our sin. He made a way, where there seemed to be no way. He did whatever it took. Oh Lord, make me like you.


Quilt/collage by Ellen Lindner - Adventure Quilter. Check it out at http://www.adventurequilter.com/

The secret

My friend Jonathan Christopher posted this. 'The secret to being a good writer is the willingness and courage to be a bad writer first.' I think he is a good writer, so, in willingness and courage I post my writing so maybe I can be better. If you haven't read any of his stuff, check him out. He will make you laugh until you cry or spew... or maybe just make you cry. Stuff Christians Like is his website and be warned... it is full of satire so if you're easily offended maybe you shouldn't go.

http://stuffchristianslike.net/

It always comes down to love…

As I go through life, seeking God and doing my best to live for him, I learn so much. I always learn the most from the painful experiences Sometimes I get an image in my mind, about how things should go and then reality comes crashing in. When things don’t go the way I expect them to, for whatever reasons, I am usually hurt. I hoped to be accepted and I was rejected, I wished to be a part of something and I am told not to be… and it is painful. Opportunities come, and I am continually passed over, not chosen to participate in any way, and it makes me feel like something is wrong with me and that hurts.

What does it hurt? Some would say it’s my pride. Some would say be humble. This is what I pray about and strive for… humility. Being hurt, whether it’s my pride or just plain being hurt can cause many different reactions: anger, sorrow, grief, self-pity. I know these reactions are not good, and as soon as I realize it, I try to make the decision to turn those negative reactions into something much more constructive, like forgiveness, joy, hope and assurance. As long as I choose the right thing, and I am willing and ask for help, I know Jesus will help me do the rest. Sometimes it is slow and painful, but it’s better than staying in all that junk.

There are other things that go along with these attempts of mine to correct my bad reactions. There is a burning desire to do what I feel God has called me to do that cannot be quenched. If I can’t do it where I thought I was supposed to, I must wait… or see if God has other avenues for me. When he does, that is a great outlet. It helps me deal with much of the frustration and pain. Waiting is hard. There is also the pain that comes from being rejected and misunderstood. It hurts when it is obvious that someone perceives you as a threat when all you want to do is help. It is even harder when you are treated like and told something is wrong with you, but the other person cannot or will not communicate with you to work through any of it.

These are tough things to deal with and when they happen, I have to remember that Jesus always accepts me… I am never rejected by him… and that is where I find peace. I also know that he can make even these tough things into something good.

As I deal with these issues, I learn so much about how I need to treat others. Every word I say, every choice I make, every time I include or exclude someone, it affects them. We all have this insecurity in us from past rejection. The way we are treated or how we treat others either drives a wedge, compounding the negative effects of being rejected, or heals, drawing us closer because of love. I’m beginning to believe that every weakness or fault we perceive in others somehow comes from a lack of love… and only love can help. Love does not reject. Love is unconditional. If we want to treat others well, it always comes down to love.

In a perfect world, a broken heart is always healed.


1 Corinthians 13
Love
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.