There's No Keeping It Under Wraps

Scott and I met at work. Specifically, I was one of his bosses. Years later, when circumstances took a crazy turn and we found ourselves dating, it was, as they say, frowned upon by the management. We attempted to keep things covert. There were those who knew, those who thought they knew, and those who had absolutely no idea. I felt my face flush when we talked on the phone; my expression automatically lightened when he walked into the room. It was tough keeping our feelings for one another under wraps.

Romance is great, but I have been thinking of Abram and Sarai. You may be more familiar with Abraham and Sarah, but when we are first introduced to them, they are Abram and Sarai. Obviously, there was a name change that occurred; but before I get to that, you need to know that "Abram" means exalted father, and "Sarai" means contentious one or princess, depending on your source. But God changed their names. In Hebrew culture, names were a reflection of one's character or destiny. It makes sense that Abram would have been given a name that reflected paternal leadership: his parents would have wanted him to father many children and propagate many descendants. And who can't imagine naming their adorable little pink bundle Princess, or a shrieking, insatiable little girl Contentious One? The problem is, Abram had no children at all, and Sarai was likely shamed because of her inability to bear children. Not quite the dynamic duo their names implied. God had a plan, and because it was not a simple little plan to give Abram an heir and erase Sarai's shame, there had to be a HUGE promise, accompanied by a name change. Abram would no longer be exalted father, but he would be the father of many nations! Sarai would no longer be a princess wounded by the contentious words and side-eyes from other women, she would be the mother of multitudes! Abraham and Sarah were to walk into their new names; they were to become who God said they were. But it wasn't going to happen overnight. In fact, it would take twenty-five years! What?! Oh, and by the way, Abraham and Sarah were about seventy-five and sixty-five, respectively, when God gave them the promise of a son, the start of a nation. 

Imagine this, though: Abraham and Sarah would no longer call one another by their old names; in the neighborhood, at the grocery store, they'd identify one another by their new names. They'd have to stop people from using their old monickers and request they be called by the promise God had given them! Imagine a barren sixty-five-year-old, pushing an empty stroller up to the weaver, ordering a baby blanket and leaving her name for pick-up: Mother of Multitudes, please. *eye roll* Meshuggah. Barrenness would have become the least of Sarah's worries. How long before the snarky comments of women at the well turned to heads shaken in pity? And Abraham, he was pretty well-to-do before he received the promise of God. Imagine the response in the boardroom when he announced his name change and continued to insist that's how he be addressed, despite his wife's age, despite the passage of time. Did his clients trust his judgment anymore? Did his servants continue to respect him? Were the stockholders up in arms? With a name change handed down to the couple by Almighty God, there'd be no keeping it a secret. If they wanted this child, if they wanted to serve God, if they wanted to be people of promise, they had to use the names God had given them, they had to go public. No matter how ridiculous people thought they were.

If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you know. If you're just getting started, buckle your seatbelt. If you've been dabbling in the idea of following a Savior who is the only way to a restored relationship with God, but you're afraid it's going to be way too vanilla for you --oh, Dear One, you can't be more wrong! Jesus is the Son of the God who named His people twenty-five years before He brought to bear the fulfillment of that title. Jesus is the Son of God who came to bring a sword, who came to upset the status quo; He charges His followers with the task of changing the world by doing the things that were and are counter cultural. We are not to sit quietly by, complying with every whim of society. We work to bring glory to God, for His pleasure, and work that others may do the same. And it is not for the faint of heart. Instead, our hearts should be so fixated on Him, so transformed by His Spirit, we acquiesce to whatever He would have us do. Even demonstrating before a vast and watching world the God we humbly serve. If our hearts are as they should be, there should be no keeping it to ourselves.

Midweek: Lessons Learned in Adoption #1

The adoption process has been a huge part of our lives for the past year. I have been unable to write about some aspects because of the legal nature; I have been hesitant to write about it because of the personal nature. Now that it has become official, now that the newest Murphy has been made such in the eyes of the law, I'd like to share what I have learned along the way.

I'm guessing that many of us can't even imagine what it would be like to be adopted. Before a year or more ago, I couldn't imagine what it was like to adopt. But through this process, I have learned about the needs of children waiting for adoption --even children who are not legally children! --those in their late teens and early twenties who are simply looking for a family to support them through those first difficult years of adulthood or provide a home for them to return to when dormitories shut down for breaks. (Sincerely, these are the ones who break my heart.) And I have learned a bit about trying to see things through the eyes of children whose only parents are the guardians and hard-working foster parents assigned to them by our state's system. I have learned about us, our motives, our weaknesses, our God-given strengths, our purpose. I have learned a little more about why I resisted (and, in mindset, sometimes continue to resist) adoption by my Heavenly Father, and a little more about the love it takes for Him to adopt me in the first place. Over the next couple of Wednesdays, I'd like to share with you some of the lessons learned about adoption --the perfect adoption by our Heavenly Father and the shadow of it here on earth.  

Out of love and out of obedience, Scott and I began the process more than three years ago. Before that, we'd "fallen into" fostering two children. It was a Hey would you be interested in... letter, and a We'll be at your house in an hour with the children phone call kind of thing. Just like that, we were foster parents. And it was chaos. It was one of the hardest seasons we'd encountered up to that point. It tested our marriage and our work relationships. It taxed our time and living spaces. It canceled plans and created ones of which we were not particularly fond. And we fell deeply in love with the children and the privilege of being part of something. We wouldn't have traded those days for the world (or so we thought). Our home became unbearably silent and suffocating the day they were gone. 

With the passage of time, Scott began discussing with me the idea of adoption; my thoughts had turned toward writing and pouring into my mother: at best, I would agree to fostering. But God had shown us what a closed door looks like --they slam without a sound --and I began praying that, rather than my trying to change my husband's mind, God would handle it from His angle. 

The Lesson: I would encourage you to pray, without ceasing --especially with regard to your relationships. Whether you are praying, Lord, is it Your will that we adopt?, or Please teach me how to love and be loved, God hears and will answer. Be prepared to accept His answer. If He has brought you to it, He will bring you through it. And by that I don't mean it will go your way; I don't mean you will come out unchanged or unwounded. What I mean is, He will be with you, and He will do something wonderful out of it. We pray in accordance with His will, and He does the work. He changes hearts and changes circumstances. We obey and He moves. To fight and argue --particularly with those in our family, and no matter how "right" we may be --can provide the perfect opportunity for Satan to sow seeds of dissention and unforgiveness. Nothing is stronger than the power of God, and as I've learned, I don't always know what is best.

    

Relationship to Reconciliation

Ram Dass, a spiritualist and author once said, "We're all just walking each other home." Martin Luther is credited with saying, "We are all mere beggars showing other beggars where to find bread." Humble approaches to relationship (though, sadly, Dass was not intentionally walking others to Christ). 

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 is one of the clearest, most humbling expositions on our "job" as citizens of the Kingdom of God living in relationship on Earth:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Simply put: We have been saved and transformed, reconciled with our Creator; now go, develop relationships, and show others they can be also!

In her novel, Glittering Images, Susan Howatch explores the existential crisis of her character, Rev. Canon Dr. Charles Ashworth. He has developed dual personalities; not in the sense one is acutely aware of the other's activity, but in the same way we sometimes tend to move seamlessly from our "public" self to our "private" self. Ashworth's dominant public persona had been constructed to gain approval and disguise feelings of worthlessness; but a public breakdown causes him to seek the help of Father Jonathan Darrow.  

"I SUPPOSE you now want me to admit," I said later as Darrow sat down beside me on the bench in the herb-garden, "that there are a bunch of terrible skeletons in the family cupboard."

"Charles, I'm just the porter with the trolley. I'm not here to criticise (sic) the quality of your luggage or to order which bag you should put down. My function is simply to offer you the chance to get rid of any bag which you don't want to carry any more, but the decision to keep or discard each bag must be yours and yours alone."

What a marvelous picture of how we can present the Gospel to others! What a marvelous picture of how Jesus presented Himself to me! This is what coming alongside others can look like. And I can't say this without mentioning, this is how we've seen our pastor do this hundreds of times. Involvement. Investment. Interest. No fanfare or gimmicks. Without judgment or unnecessary rebuke. Not ignorant or accepting of sin, but seeing those held in its clutches, needing to be free, and giving them the One Way to freedom. Here's what it means to be free in Jesus. Watch what I can do, how I can live, because of Jesus. You can, too. Relationship with the goal of reconciliation. 

My father dabbled in sales back in the day. I say "dabbled" because I distinctly remember boxes and boxes of product in our garage long after he had quit the business. Perhaps he was his best customer. Nevertheless, I remember him telling my mother with confidence, "The product sells itself!" Not to belittle the Gospel in any way, but Jesus doesn't need our flashy antics or a worldwide platform. The Gospel works and does its best work when we simply strive to be honestly and fully who God made us to be; and we open our arms and hearts to demonstrate and facilitate the coming to reconciliation of those around us. 

You Could Probably Use a Snack

If you're feeling a little peckish, you might want to grab a bite to eat before you read any further. Today we're going to talk about food. I'll wait.

Have you ever stopped to think about the role food, drink, and the partaking of these things play in the Bible? Before mankind was formed, food was provided by our Creator to sustain us. The perversion of that provision proved eternally, generationally tragic in the Garden of Eden. Noah was ordered to take food for his family and the animals to sustain them during the flood. When Noah and his family left the ark, God gave humanity permission to eat the flesh of animals. Abraham hosted the Lord, serving butter, milk, and a tender young calf. Lot prepared a feast fit for angels; his wife provided the salt. (I didn't even try to resist that.) Esau, grandson of Abraham, sold his birthright for some stew, and Jacob later stole his brother's blessing with the aroma of savory game. All this talk of food, and we're not even out of Genesis yet! A dream about food lands Joseph, Jacob's son, a job as second in command to Pharaoh, and the ensuing famine relocates all of Israel's (Jacob's) family to Egypt. Despite the nation's deliverance from slavery they murmured against God, an offense often predicated by hunger or thirst. Leviticus contains a litany of dietary laws. Fast-forward to the New Covenant, Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life and offers those who desire Living Water (the Holy Spirit). Jesus fed multitudes with barely enough for a young boy. John devoted an entire five chapters in his Gospel to the goings-on at the Passover Feast more commonly known as Jesus' Last Supper. Jesus commands us to remember Him with food and drink, bread and wine. In one of Paul's epistles, God through the apostle exhorts us to do all, whether we eat or drink, to His glory; in others, he speaks unfavorably of those who choose fleshly pursuits like food and drink over whole-hearted service to the Lord. All of Scripture concludes with a tremendous feast, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And that's just a taste of references to food and drink! (See what I did there?)

What of eating and drinking in our society? Eating contests, innumerable books on dieting or recipes, "reality" shows, the billion-dollar snack industry! We have terms like "food desert" and "hangry" and "morbidly obese." Christians (hopefully) "fast and pray," American celebrations revolve around a menu. Where's all the hoopla about oxygen?! Isn't breathing more important? Ever seen a toddler hold their breath in defiance. It can terrify a parent --just once. It doesn't work. The child holds their breath, and a properly functioning body automatically restarts the breathing. God designed us to survive in that way, automatically. Eating and drinking, however necessary for life, was placed within our control. We can follow instructions and receive the greatest benefits or abuse the process and suffer tragic consequences. God gives life, but we control the living of it.

God breathed into Adam the breath of life. Adam did nothing but receive it, a free gift from his Creator God. Adam was now alive. After His resurrection, Jesus breathed on His disciples, telling them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit was now with them. But to partake, to experience, to sustain real living, to "taste and see" the goodness of the Lord was going to require --and does still require of us --a choice, compliance, regimen. Just as breathing is the most basic and reflexive sign of life, salvation and the presence of God's Holy Spirit in us is the entry level position of believers. Our commitment to proper, regular eating and drinking sustains living. Our commitment to abiding in the Bread of Life, (obeying Him, reading and trusting in His words, talking to Him and listening to Him, worshiping Him) and sharpening our sensitivity to the work of the Living Water in us is what gives us that next level, resurrectionary life. Increased activity means a need for additional calories and increased hydration. Denying that need can result in reduced ability, organ failure, or death; living to the fullest becomes impossible. The further we travel on this journey with our Savior, the harder the days, the more things He gives us to steward, the closer we get to Him, the more we are called to do, the greater the demand on our spirit --additional time with the Bread of Life is needed, additional refreshing with Living Water is required. Denying that need can result in reduced ability, heart failure, or the death of a vibrant Christian life; living to the fullest becomes impossible. 

The focus on food is no accident. God knows that whatever He gives us to control, without first submitting to Him, we will pervert. Hunger drives us to distraction; it commandeers our schedules and our budgets. Our response makes us unhealthy. But if those same passions were applied to the feeding and watering of our spirits... If the same industry used to care for our physiology was used to care for our spirituality... Are you prepared to increase your recommended daily intake?