Love Expectations

I love my sister. She’s just about the best thing in the world. We have a lot of fun together no matter what we do, and we can talk for hours. Plus she’s the best person to shop with. We have an incredible relationship, for which I’ve very thankful.

It wasn’t always like this. We’ve always been close, but sometimes we fought the way sisters or wild cats do. There was a lot of back and forth in the old days, not unlike any friendship.

You know how friendships are governed by all these rules? “A friend does this,” or “a friend would never do that.” Friends – especially sisters – are expected to say certain things, not say other things, and behave certain ways depending on the situation.

The problem is, people can’t agree on friendship expectations. Like who calls who when. It always annoys me when people say to me, “you never call me!” All I can think is, don’t you have a phone too?

Friends, and sisters, let you down. With my sister, I used to think about how I could make her love me. Like a great employee, how could I make myself indispensable to her so that she would keep me around even though I continued to screw up from time to time? I told her once, trying to solidify our friendship, that she had to love me because we were related. Wisely, she responded, “I don’t have to love you.”

She’s right. She doesn’t have to love me, or be my friend. I took this realization hard. I could never do enough or be enough to make her love me. The force of my will was not strong enough. All I could do was love her.

(By now you’re thinking “duh.” Sometimes it takes me a while to put these things together.)

And then I realized that’s exactly how God is toward us. He just loves us, without requiring anything in return. Romans 5:8 says, “This is how God demonstrated his love for us: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul (the author of Romans) also phrases it this way: while we were still enemies of Christ, he died for us.

God is always taking the first step toward us, and making peace with us before we do anything to deserve or earn it. He doesn’t love us because we deserve it. He just loves us.

And that’s how I decided to love my sister. It was an experiment. I would love her just because I wanted to love her, without expecting anything back from her. If she loved me, great! If she didn’t love me, that would be sad but I would be okay with it. Whether or not she liked me or forgave me or was nice to me would have nothing to do with how I loved her.

It was the most freeing experiment of my life. I can’t believe what I have learned from it. Now, both of us are free from my expectations … whether or not she behaves like I think she should has no power over our friendship. I am her friend because I want to be her friend, not because she’s nice to me or says the right things or calls me often enough. I just love her.

I don’t even know how to explain the freedom that comes from this. It has spilled over into so many areas of my life. I used to think that if my husband broke certain rules I would divorce him, no question. Now, I can’t imagine my marriage being held hostage to such rules. Now I am free to love him because I choose to, not because of how he behaves.

None of this means that I don’t have healthy boundaries or that I’m a doormat. Love really is about freedom, not chains. And I think the only way I can continue such an experiment is because I know what it feels like to be loved unconditionally. I can love her that way because I know I am loved that way. I have experienced God’s love so profoundly that it enables me to love others. Isaiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting glove. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”

Have you experienced someone loving you without expectation? What do you expect of your friends?

"Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll & Jesus," part three

The title really doesn’t fit this time – I’m not sure if there’s any sex or rock’n’roll, but there’s certainly violence. As I was drafting this blog mini-series, this blog remix popped up on my Newsgator (the program I use to subscribe to blogs). It’s a review of the movie Man on Fire, and why “I had an easier time connecting with God in the movie, ‘Man on Fire’ than I did in ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” as Jon lays it out in the first sentence. Here’s my favorite paragraph from the post, although I know you will all click HERE to read the whole thing.

“I missed it the first ten times I saw the movie. Missed that I’m Pita. I’ve lived most of my life under the stairs in a dark, dirty cage. But unlike Pita, this is the place I deserve. For although she did not ask to be kidnapped or receive this experience as a consequence of her actions, I did. If this were the story of my life, justice would have already been served. The prisoner’s life is the life I deserve. But God is like Creasy. In Isaiah 30:18 it says ‘he rises to show you compassion.’”

There is no more beautiful love story than that of a person who lays aside all power, all authority, all justice, and walks willingly to certain death to redeem their beloved.

I wish I could write another six pages about this story, the story of a man who, in the prime of his life, takes off his robes of power and allows lesser men to sacrifice him.

But you have to read Jon’s blog first.

"Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll & Jesus," part two

Okay, so maybe there wasn’t any rock’n’roll. But D wrote some groovin’ tunes, and I think that counts.

I’ve been thinking about the rescue/redemption theme of Moulin Rouge since we picked it to be the next video for our group weeks ago. (Now that we’ve done it, the actual next one is The Philadelphia Story.) I love the “freedom, beauty, truth and love” theme of Moulin Rouge, because I so believe in those things – I believe they exist, and they’re God. God is love, we always say. So God is freedom. God is truth. God is beauty. And I love the freedom, beauty and truth of knowing that God is a God who rescues us, no matter how deep and dirty the pit, and he redeems us, no matter what the cost.

It’s like the story of D.

D wasn’t a flashy entertainer like Satine, but D was a whore & an adulterer. And did I mention a liar and murderer? D was pretty down & dirty. I think the list of lovers ran well into the hundreds … and the marriages were countless. D was a bad parent, too, and the mistakes D made were enormous. Yet God never gave up on D. In fact, throughout D’s life, though D’s relationship with God ebbed like the tide, God held D up as an example – a good example – of a person who loved God wholeheartedly, and who God loved unreservedly.

It’s not just that God loves a rescue story ... he loves a comeback too. Like Satine, like D, after we’ve been rescued, sometimes we still fall pretty hard, right back into the muck we got out of. Sometimes we do the wrong things for the right reasons, like Satine, and sometimes we forget what’s right and wrong, like D. The great thing about God is that he’s the God of second chances.

God knew the kind of person D was, and the kind of mistakes D would continue to make throughout life … and none of it gave God pause. This is what D wrote about their relationship: “God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask your aid.”*

And you know, God himself said that D – King David – was a man after God’s own heart. Not because he was a murdering whore, and not exactly in spite of it, but through it. Whatever his ups and downs, David was repentant. I wish he hadn’t made his mistakes to begin with, but he did. And God honored him because when he messed up, he admitted it, repented, and made things as right as he could. While David changed, God’s love for him never did. What do you do with that? When in your life have you needed that kind of love?



*Psalm 73:26 & 86:5

"Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll, & Jesus"

Okay, there’s no drugs. But Absinthe was supposed to be a pretty wacky drink, so I think it counts.

I’m in a life group for single women, ages 18-25, where we eat dinner and watch a movie and then discuss the movie along with biblical themes. (Since I’m neither single nor under 25, you might have guessed that I’m the hostess.) This week we watched one of my favorite romances. So, as opposed to my previous movie post, I’ll tell you what this one’s called, so you can A) judge me for hosting a bible study on it, or B) go watch it yourself.

Here’s what “Dinner & A Movie: Chick Flicks 2” from Group Publishing, our curriculum, says about the flick in question, Moulin Rouge:

“While they may or may not have known it, the creators of Moulin Rouge! offer us a picture of Christlike love. Our young hero, Christian, ventures into a sinful and lost world in search of his love. Instead of being taken up by that lost world, he brings his own purity of heart into it – rescuing his beloved Satine from the grips of a desperate and sinful life. It recalls the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer as well as Christ’s own time on earth.”

I don’t write movie reviews anymore, but let me tell you about a few of my favorite scenes: Satine one minute sings about her dream of a new life – “someday I’ll fly away/leave all this to yesterday” – and the next acknowledges the hopelessness of such a dream – “why live life from dream to dream/and dread the day when dreaming ends?” She at once has both hope and no hope; she yearns for change, but thinks she will never be free, and knows what even a small measure of freedom will cost her. She is trapped by her past and by her own view of her self-worth. As she later shouts to her father figure/pimp, “My whole life you made me believe I was only worth what someone would pay for me.” But now she has real hope for the first time: “Christian loves me, and we’re going away…”

Even after Christian’s love for her changes her life, she still falls back into her old patterns – she does the wrong things for the right reasons. This is what reminds me of our relationship with God. Not only does he come right down into whatever mess we’re in and love us in the middle of it – giving us true freedom, hope and love – he remains faithful to us when we screw it up and push him away. 2 Timothy 2:13 says, “[Even] if we are unfaithful, He remains faithful.”

Just like the aforementioned Gomar, wife to the prophet Hosea. Gomar wasn’t a nice, sweet hooker like Satine or Vivianne (Pretty Woman) who fell into the trap of prostitution to survive. She was kinda nasty. Her biblical portrait is not pretty. And even after Hosea marries her, rescuing her from a life of misery, she falls back into the trap. She leaves her husband, sells her body and winds up a slave. And what does Hosea do? What the Lord advises: “Go and love your wife again.” So Hosea writes in chapter 3 of his self-titled book, “So I bought her back.” The study section of my bible says this: “No matter how low we sink, God is willing to buy us back – to redeem us – to lift us up again.”

Now that’s something worth living for. In Jeremiah 31:3, God says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; with unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” As Moulin Rouge states many times, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

"Gifts"

According to the Bible, we each have a special gift given to us by God. Obviously we have different personalities, different strengths and weaknesses, different tendencies and different talents. But we also, according to Romans 12:4-8, are given a “gift” by the Holy Spirit when we become followers of Christ.

It’s different from the “fruit” of the Spirit, the side-effects of having a growing relationship with God. Those are listed in Galations 5:22 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it. Those are the things that happen naturally when we’re in a growing relationship with God, because that’s what blossoms in our lives when we’re obedient and engaged. It’s an organic thing. You plant closeness with God, you grow love, joy, peace, patience, etc.

Being a rather “particular” person (let’s say) I tend to get hung up a lot on “shoulds,” as in, I should be perfect. It’s quite the burden. Self-inflicted, of course. God never told me I should be the best at everything and play all the parts in the musical of my life. In fact, he seems to be saying in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 that I will play only one role in the “body” of Christ. Hand, foot, armpit...not all three.

I think, in this modern age of multi-tasking, that we assume the “one” part of gifting isn’t a hard rule. I’ve heard people say you often get two or three. Why excel in one area when we could be reasonably good in three?

It leaves me feeling underachieved. I don’t need any help being my own biggest critic. I don’t need encouragement to trot out the “shoulds” and berate myself. So I find it very liberating to realize that God only expects me to be really, really good at one thing: the one thing he himself has given me. It takes a lot of the pressure off. Pouring all my energy into my “one thing” is exciting and fun. As opposed to spreading myself thinner and thinner trying to be good at everything. (It’s almost as freeing as when I realized that not everyone is going to like me, and that’s okay. It was quite the revelation. It freed me from trying to make everyone like me, which can be exhausting. Now I just accept that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea; in fact, some wonderful people can’t stand me at all. And that’s fine. We can respect each other without being besties.)

Have you ever taken one of those “gift” assessment tests that indicate your level of spiritual gifting? Do you have a sense of how God may have especially gifted you to participate in the body of Christ? What are you doing about that?

(And no, unfortunately, sarcasm is not a spiritual gift. Nor crafting. Bummer.)

"God Knows Who I Am"

I have this little piece of paper on my wall. It says, "God knows who you are." It's from a post on a funny blog I read, "Stuff Christians Like," which occasionally also has profound stuff. Here's the beginning of that post:

One of the first things you hear whenever you start an adventure is the phrase, “Who are you to think you’re qualified to do that?”

Whether it’s a new job, a new ministry, a new blog or simply a new conversation with a neighbor, this question is bound to pop up. A friend will say it. A family member will say it. Someone well intentioned and close to you will say it. And eventually, after hearing “Who are you” or “Who do you think you are” enough times, you’ll start to hear it inside.

I know a lot of you don't like links. Just reading this blog is enough effort for you. But please, click here and read Jon's blog about what God says to us. It has been hanging above my desk for three months, and every time I read it I'm reminded of how firmly God is in my corner (yours, too).

As I love to say, God is not a communist.

"Express Cook"

I work with an amazing staff at Fellowship, and one of those amazing peeps is Jeff Ream, Worship Pastor. Now, I know that the title might fool some of you, but this guy is more than just a pretty voice. I asked him if I could republish what he put on his blog last week, and he graciously said yes. I know you'll love it as much as I did. And, by the way, if you want to check out his blog, it's linked here.

Hostage Thoughts

This morning has been a good start to the week. Monday is my day off so I have the boys home with me today. I started the day off by putting a k-cup in my coffee machine, 20 seconds later a perfect cup of coffee. Then I cracked a few eggs, beat them, tossed in cheese and bacon bits, and poured it into our GT - Express (As seen on TV - it was a gift) cooker and 4 minutes later…beautiful yummy omelets.

Isn’t technology incredible these days. Technology has made our lives easier in so many ways. We throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and hit a button…4 minutes later we have perfect movie theater popcorn without the lines and a $9 movie ticket. We live in an express world.
As I reflect on the past several weeks of our series entitled “Hostage” I wish somehow that the problems in my life, mind, and heart could be fixed as easily as I fixed breakfast this morning. I wish my fears could instantly vanish, I wish my anxious heart would just one day wake up and be calmed. I wish I could hit the “express cook” on my spiritual journey and immediately find myself having arrived.
But that’s not how it is.

Philippians 2:12 puts it this way.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

Wow, that’s not so encouraging. One chapter later in Philippians 3:12 it says

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

Here we find Paul, the guy who wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else giving insight to his own struggles, admitting that he doesn’t have it all together either.

Why in the Christian realm of society do we think that we have to be perfect? Why are we afraid to admit like Paul that we don’t have it all together? How can we be real with others if we never take our masks of perfection off?

This brings me back to our HOSTAGE series. Let me take my mask off and let you know that this series has totally rocked me to my core. I have had to admit who I really am. I have had to admit my struggles. I have come to the place where I have to admit that I cannot fix them myself. I do not hold the keys to the chains that weigh me down. Jesus Christ does. He wants to free me from my struggles. We wants me to not hold on to the things that I do. God wants to free me just as He wants to free you.
This series has once again helped me look into the mirror of my soul and my heart.
I am so glad that God put this series on John’s heart. God knew the incredible work that needed to take place in so many lives.

So God, continue to work as we continue to be real!