What Is Free Anyway?

The Book of Exodus begins with Israel, God's people enslaved in Egypt. Their numbers had grown and the king of Egypt feared there could be an uprising; his plan was to reduce them to a more "manageable" sum. He issued an order for Israelite sons to be killed at birth; but God desired not only for His people to continue to grow, but to grow as His free people. So many had been born into slavery, though. How, exactly, does one who has never known freedom now live? To many, freedom could have been a scary proposition. What do we do next? Where do we go? Will everyone honor our freedom? They owned nothing, they had been separated from their homeland (a homeland they never really knew); some had been separated from their families. They would be called "free," but free to do what? What is "free" anyway?

God would not abandon them. He chose a leader, He gave them provisions for their journey, He declared the direction in which they were to move, and He told them exactly what they were free to do and how they were to live. He answered those questions for His people, Israel, and He answers those questions for those He frees today. 

When I was growing up in a religious home, attending church and a Christian school, I was hearing the gospel on the regular. I was answering altar calls on the regular as well. If anyone here wants to know Jesus as their Savior today... And so it would go, and I would raise my hand, walk forward, do whatever it took to "receive Jesus." He never came. Or so I thought. The truth is, He showed up every time; but I'd open my hands eager to receive the magic, the feeling, the washing of the Spirit, the breath of God, and when I looked down at my empty hands and stepped into the same old dirty, condemned world in which I resided, I figured He was a no-show. It was like the people of Israel, murmuring in the desert: their freedom did not look like anything they would have imagined.

God has not abandoned us any more than He abandoned Israel. He gave us freedom perfectly and answers all our questions as to how to walk in it. He gave us a Leader, a Teacher, Jesus, His Word in the flesh. He has also given us His Holy Spirit to dwell in us, change us, and help us obey. God has given us all we need to live life in the imitation of Christ. He has pointed us in the direction we are to walk. And He has, in Scripture, spelled out for us the things from which He has freed us and the things which we are free to now do: freedom from sin and its penalty, freedom to be holy as we follow the example of Christ and allow His Holy Spirit to change us, freedom to humbly serve others, freedom to receive God's grace and enter His presence as His righteous children, freedom to know His perfect will and receive the inheritance He has promised-- just to name a few. He has provided all we need to get the most out of the freedom He has given. He has carved this path on which we are to walk if we are to be truly free. It's a path that many times doesn't feel like we think it should; it doesn't always manifest itself the way we in Western culture have come to understand freedom. But it is freedom in the truest sense of the word-- purchased, given, expounded, and preserved by a God who answers the question, What is free anyway?

(Photo courtesy LuAnn Martin)

Has Shame Got You Drawing Your Water at Noon?

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. ~ Iain Thomas

John's account of The Woman at the Well (John 4:1-42) moves me. Jesus encounters a lone woman; John tells us she is drawing water at noon, a job usually done in the cooler hours of the day, and usually done in the company of several women. Many have explained this was because the woman was something of a social pariah: she'd had five husbands and currently had a paramour. Nothing like a "loose woman" to get tongues wagging. Was it fear of being looked down upon that brought her to the well at such an odd hour? Look at the conversation between this woman and Jesus:

Jesus: Give Me a drink.

Woman: How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

Let's stop there for a moment. This woman was no shrinking violet; she comes right at Jesus: What do You think You are doing? (paraphrase mine) The Jews and Samaritans had plenty of bad blood between them; whatever civil interactions took place between them were strictly business. They didn't exchange idle chit-chat about the weather and they didn't do each other favors. 

Jesus: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. 

Woman: Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?

Now she gets personal: Who do You think You are? (paraphrase mine) This woman is bold, sassy-- not like someone easily humiliated into exile. But she misunderstands: the Water He offers is not a reprieve from hard labor, but a remedy for our greatest burden, sin.

Allow me to take this rabbit trail for a moment. Westminster Shorter Catechism declares, Sin is any want of (lack of) conformity unto, or transgression of the Law of God. In other words, if you've not followed God commands, if you have deliberately disobeyed them, you have sinned. In this tete-a-tete by the well, Jesus exposed this woman's lifestyle; but I want to caution you: this is not the sin that condemned this woman to hell. This woman, like all of us, was on the road to hell from the day she was conceived; we all inherit Adam's sin nature, we all, as human beings, have sin imparted to us, and we have all sinned, even as very small children. We have a tendency to label some sins as small, insignificant; we think of certain sins as being "the big ones," and as a result, deem some people more in need of forgiveness than others. That, my friends, is a lie, and it works its evil against those who think they're "okay," and against those who fail to share the gospel with others just because the people they meet aren't beating their wives or lying strung out in a gutter somewhere. WE. ALL. NEED. JESUS.

Back to this woman's sin... and shame. We often think of shame as something that causes us to feel beaten down, fearful, and we often assume that is the way shame will manifest itself in others; but shame's greatest weapon is disintegration, the prevention of relationship (with Jesus and with others) -- by any means necessary. Though this woman did not join the others in their assembly at the well, she didn't skulk about, eyes lowered either. This woman was hard; she had no qualms about questioning Jesus' words or conduct. When Jesus exposed her lifestyle, she didn't fall to pieces or search for excuses; she came right back at Him, changing the subject and using His prophetic insight as grounds for a religious debate. Her "hiding" was in plain sight, a disguise, a tough exterior designed to repel the judgment (or perceived judgment) of those around her, a brusque facade that alienated those who attempted to get close or call her out on her choices, even for her own good. Perhaps her desire to avoid her neighbors was more the result of pride, doubling down to avoid feeling "less than." Perhaps she told herself those women were all hypocrites anyway. Perhaps she believed it was better to destroy relationships and torpedo happiness for herself rather than wait until someone did it for her -- or to her. Perhaps you have felt the same way and done the same things. I have.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. ~ Galatians 5:22-23

The presence of the Holy Spirit in us produces the fruit we need to defeat shame. Shame can't stand up against the love of God for us. Who can be filled with joy and controlled by shame? Shalom, peace -- nothing missing, nothing broken -- assures us that shame is a liar: we are not broken in Christ.  Longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness-- these are not the result of fearing relationships, misjudging others, or avoiding truth. Gentleness is the very antithesis of shame: gentleness toward ourselves because of who God says we are, and gentleness toward others because of who God says we are. That's not a typo. When others hurt us, when others knowingly or unknowingly pull those triggers that send us back to a place of condemnation, we believe we are new in Christ; we stand on the truth of His word. We can love on, forgive, and be gentle toward others because the only One we are here to please is our Heavenly Father, because the only One whose opinion of us matters is our Heavenly Father. And self-control? We don't have to lash out, or race to defend our past lives, or eat our feelings, or starve our feelings, or drink to excess-- we don't have to punish others and we don't have to punish ourselves because, well, Jesus, and the Living Water, the Holy Spirit. Shame crumbles in the light; the lies we tell ourselves as shame begins to overtake us-- that we are not enough, that others are not enough --those lies cannot stand against the truth. Jesus is Truth, Jesus is Light; He has conquered shame and overcome the world that we might never again be conformed to it or hardened by it.