A Lesson in Humility

I learn a lot of lessons at my job every day. One of the more recent ones has been hard, but oh so good for my soul.  

For those who don’t know, I work with abused and traumatized children, which to say the least, keeps my work interesting. I’ve learned that children who are taken away from their families, the only place they know as home, by a stranger with a badge and brought to a place in Lubbock called “The Children’s Home” and told they will never see their parents again, have no reason to trust me. I’m just the nice lady that works there that gives them rules they have never heard of and have taken the place of their family that can never be replaced. While rules, discipline, and bed time may be the “norm” in most American homes, this is not normal for the children that come into our care. Their family may have been completely dysfunctional, but it was the only thing they knew as home, as normal.

I am a stranger to these kids. I know they have no reason to trust me, which is why many of them don’t. Adults in the past that they trusted hurt them badly. They were beaten. They were sexually abused. Often by people who claimed to love and care about them. I can say I am safe, that I will do them no harm, but they have good reason not to believe it.

This has been a humbling experience. In  my eyes, I often want to say, “But look at me! Look how good I am! I go to church. I read the Bible. I pray. I’m nice! I’m safe!” It can be a hit to the pride to know none of those things matter, to know that I can’t be “good enough” for them. In the eyes of a child who has been let down time and time again by adults, it doesn’t matter what you have to bring to the table. You have nothing. You are just another adult. And you are not my family.

Realizing this reminded me of my relationship with Jesus. I often want to come on the defense, like I do with my kids at work. “But God, look at me! I’m doing all these good things for you. Aren’t I making you proud? Do you love me more now?” God knows my heart. He knows I am another sinner, just like I’m only another adult to my kids. He looks at my works and says, “How could you possibly think this work of yours will make me love you more? You come with nothing.”

If it ended there, this would be terrible news. If it ended there, I would leave believing that God sees me as just another worthless sinner, not at all worth trusting, and not at all worth His time. But it doesn’t end there. No, my good deeds and morality don’t cause God to love me more. Because he CAN’T love me more. He loves me now to the full extent to which he can love. Let me tell you, friends, that is a lot of love. I will never be more loved by God than I am in this very moment. You will never be more loved by God than you are this very moment. My good works mean nothing. I don’t earn a thing. I can’t earn it. If I was to earn anything, it would end the same way my children at work see me, a stranger who is not worth trusting. Just another sinner, full of evil. But it ends with grace.

Last night I had the privilege of seeing Shane and Shane at their CD release concert. The name of their new CD is “Bring your nothing.”
Shane Bernard made an awesome statement that stuck with me. To paraphrase, he said all we have to bring is nothing. And that is all that God requires. This is what makes Christianity different from every religion in the world. It makes it the opposite of every religion. Religions tell you, “Bring SOMETHING. You need to bring something to the throne of God and then he might forgive your wickedness. Bring something to show you are worthy, to show you are sorry.” That’s not what the Bible says. God requires nothing. This is his one requirement. All we have to bring is our sin. So we come with our sin and an empty cup and tell God this is all we have. You have no reason to trust us. You have no reason to show us favor, to believe us when we say we’re sorry. You have no reason to think of us as nice or safe people. We come with an empty cup and empty hands, with nothing to offer. Then, he overflows our cup with his love. He gives us life and He gives us Himself – things opposite of what our sin has earned us. That is grace, my friends. THAT…is grace.

True Love

Sometimes I find things. And I think, YES. I couldn’t have said it better. This is one of those times. John Piper, Matt Chandler, and David Crowder are all men I respect. No additional comments are necessarily on this post. Just watch this video. Believe it’s true. It’s worth 6 minutes of your time. He loves us greatly.

Passion.

Dave Ramsey

Dave Ramsey is so right when he says this. All throughout college I struggled the “what I should do with my life” battle. I’d say that’s very common. While some come to college and know with all their heart they want to be a nurse or a teacher or a pastor, that was not my story. I felt like I needed to know what I was going to do. All my life, I had a plan for everything. Yet, when school was said and done, I had no plan.

What are you supposed to do when there is no plan? There were a lot of things I felt like I was “supposed” to do. Lots of things I felt I needed to do to please a lot of people. Grad school. Ministry. Move back home. However, I learned a lot about myself that Dave Ramsey so clearly portrays in this quote.

Passion. I found it, but it wasn’t where I expected it to be. It wasn’t necessarily in what other people wanted me to do. I found a passion for children that I had always had, but finally found a place to put it. I found it in social work.

Chances are, your passion is not the same as mine. Chances are we have very different interests. But chances are you love something. I have found an area I can work in and do well. This is my ministry. To enrich the lives of children in my care – the abused and the broken. I am learning every day how to do that well. I will continue to do this until I become excellent, then continue to work excellently. Excellent at caring for families. Excellent at being Jesus to those who need healing. Excellent in my pursuit of people’s progress and not quick to give up on them.

Christian culture today preaches a message of humility. And we should fight to submit ourselves to humility daily. However, this is an idea that has been misinterpreted and abused. Many take it to mean having a “modest” attitude about your work or talents. It is so common to hear someone say “Oh no, I’m really not that good” when given a compliment. It is not wrong to be good at something. That is not a sin. Even Paul calls himself a “skilled master builder” (1 Cor. 3:10) when it comes to his ministry. He has taken the time to become excellent and while he still boasts in the Lord and not himself, he does not undermine his abilities.

Find what you are good at and do it well. As a Christian, this does not have to be church ministry, but it surely can be. There are those who get paid to do ministry in the church and those who get paid to do ministry outside the church. Wherever you are, be all there. Use your work, your school, your ministry to bring glory to God. Become a skilled master builder at what you do. Don’t wish  you had someone else’s dreams or someone else’s passion. What a waste of time. Use your talents, hobbies, and abilities.

God has created you exactly how you are and exactly who you are in the exact place you are. Be there and do it well.

Come Lord Jesus, Come

Some days I see the brokenness around me more than others. The world is full of it, and we are naive to ignore the hurt and pain around us. It can overwhelm my weary heart.

People are murdering unborn children.

Christians are hating homosexuals.

Christians are hating everyone, really.

People are thrown into sex trafficking.

Parents are abusing their children – sexually, physically, emotionally.

Marriages are falling apart. Divorce is rampant.

Husbands are beating their women.

Boyfriends are abusing their girlfriends.

Women are manipulating men.

Alcohol is numbing the senses of society.

Pornography is one of the most profitable industries in the world.

Teenagers die in car wrecks.

Children die in school shootings.

Girls get pregnant too young.

People around the world die every day from hunger.

Or from lack of water.

False religions are spreading like wild fire.

People are believing them.

The list goes on. And it breaks my heart. My soul aches by the thought that children go to bed tonight without families, some of them I know personally. My soul aches by the thought that people are longing for just one more day with loved ones who died too soon, some of them I know personally. My soul aches by the thought of those who fight addiction daily and lose, some of them I know personally. Needless to say, this world needs Jesus.

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:” We don’t worship a distant God. We don’t worship an apathetic God. We don’t worship a cruel-hearted God. We worship a God whose heart breaks more than ours over the broken world we have created. We serve a God who is working all things together for good, and for his glory. We serve a God who will make all things new, who will put an end to the suffering of the world. This a good God. This is a God who fights evil, and a God who will win. What a glorious promise. He is coming back. And on days like this my heart longs for that day.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Revelation 21:4-5

My Best Friend Was Murdered

This man was a leader

He was a teacher

He was good

And he was murdered

*

This man knew no sin, no wrong

This man knew the truth

He was the truth

And he was murdered

*

This man led the way

He taught me to pray

Because of him I live today

And he was murdered

*

He died broken on a tree

His pain set me free

But it was me

That murdered my King

*

Had I been there years ago

My voice would ring ever so

“Crucify him!”

He called me his friend

And I put his life to an end

*

Twas my sin on that cross

My sin held him there

But death did not end his story

The grave did not stop his glory

*

His life knew no end

For he raised again

He conquered his enemy

My enemy, my sin

*

And now he lives

My best friend

Observations of a Walmart Shopper

The other day I was checking out at Walmart (a process that will test your patience even on a good day), and a baby somewhere in the store started crying. This isn’t news to anyone, a pretty common occurrence for Walmart. The older woman behind immediately stuck up her nose and said, “Can you believe that? That mother needs to take care of that.” The woman behind the register, who seemed completely friendly, agreed with her and said, “Maybe I spoiled my children too much, but that baby needs to be picked up and taken care of.” They continued to comment on the situation, watching the woman from a distance finally pick up her child and coax his cries away.

Since I am not a mother, I tread lightly on the subject of how to parent your children. However, I must say without having parenting experience, I sympathize for the ones who have to shop with their children. I can’t imagine how much of an event it must be to try to get a million errands run all while bringing 1 or 2 or 5 little ones. As I listened to these women (who both were mothers and have probably been there) stand with heads held high looking down on this poor woman, I couldn’t help but wonder what that mom’s stress level was like. She of course didn’t want to hear a screaming infant either. Maybe that baby had been screaming all night, and she was running on empty. Maybe it had been a long day. Maybe she just needed to talk with the sales person before she could get to the child. Most likely, her stress was worse than anyone else who had to “suffer” listening to this infant’s 2-3 minutes of crying who didn’t even belong to them. I am blown away by the lack of compassion in this world. Those who should be able to empathize, as fellow mothers and fathers, cannot even say “that poor woman” but instead with flaring judgment are so quick to give their two cents.

Interestingly, this SAME day, I caught myself completely guilty of this type of crime. As I walked into a Christian event, I was behind a small group of young girls (maybe high schoolers or college freshmen) who were not dressed to my liking. One had on a skirt too short and too tight. They were all in heels, and one could not even walk straight in them.  I scoffed at them (with my thoughts) the entire way into the building, thinking “None of you even want to be here. You aren’t coming to learn, you’re coming to show off.” Their conversation was immature and annoying. My 3 minute perception of them was incredibly low, and the more I thought about it, the more I began to see my own judgmental heart. I was in disbelief of how incredibly cruel my thoughts had been in a matter of  minutes, considering myself to be light years better than them. Here I was, looking down on them as some unworthy, annoying creatures, making myself an equal with the Walmart moms.

The very thing that had frustrated me about people, just hours before, was the exact hypocrisy I was living in. I cannot even judge others for judging others because I myself am a guilty one. We get so busy judging others and fighting to at least be better than someone, when we should be busying ourselves with loving one another. Because we have nothing to boast in, we have no reason to say we are better at anything. The truth is we are guilty. Completely guilty. If we’re going to compete, we have got to know that we are bound to lose. We are just as bad as our neighbor on God’s scale of righteousness. He sees us equally, as broken sinners who have messed a lot of things up. Since that’s the case, let us go on loving each other. Let’s work on building each other up. Let us not get so caught up in mindless judgment when we could be using that time to actually fight against sin for each other and with each other. This is not a competition. It’s a war to kill the sin that tears us down and breaks our abilities to live holy lives. Let us win this war together.

Most importantly, let’s hold fast to Jesus and boast in HIM (not ourselves) remembering that he is the one who loved us in spite of our wrecked lives and gave us unearned life through his blood. He deserves to be boasted in.

The Grace-Covered Sinner

Sin (noun \ˈsin\): A transgression against the divine law. It demands everything from you. It satisfies for a moment, then leaves you craving more. You go deeper in. It steals your life and strips your joy. You justify it. You hide it. You can’t get enough of it. The farther you go, the more you want. You hate it, yet indulge in it. It will end up destroying you because it cannot meet your deepest desires, but you will continue to seek it out. You will chase after it, but it will never feel good enough. It demands your very life, your soul itself.

Grace (noun \ˈgrās\): A manifestation of unmerited favor by a superior. It demands everything from you. It satisfies you completely, yet leaves you craving more. You go deeper in. It gives you life and fills your joy. You proclaim it. You soak in it. You can’t get enough of it. The more you have, the more you want. You love it and indulge in it. It will end up revealing your most deepest desires to you because it is the only thing that can truly satisfy them. It shows you that you are not good enough, that you haven’t earned it, but that there is a King who gives it relentlessly. It demands your very life, and you freely give it your soul.

The Difference? Sin steals your life, grace gives it. Both are demanding. The risk is high with each. The further you go into sin, the higher risk you have of being destroyed…because its destruction is inevitable. It only depends how much you want to be destroyed. However, receiving grace has its risks. The more you see of grace, the more you understand how unworthy you are. The more you see your sin and its corrupted results. Luckily, it doesn’t stop there. The more you also see of Jesus. As you learn grace, you learn the Christ who gives it abundantly. The more you see your need for grace, the greater your view of Jesus becomes. This leads you to want to soak more and more in grace, until you are completely drenched. Grace will cover you, and sin will run you dry, leave you thirsty. Come to grace and thirst no more. The never-ending desire for grace is the only demand that will ironically leave you completely satisfied.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Romans 5:20

Love’s Opposite

If someone were to ask, “What is the opposite of love?” almost anyone would respond with “hate.” I recently heard an interesting argument against this. While I still believe hate is anything that is against love, there is another alternative. What if hate is not our only enemy? What if something else combats love? What if something else is the result of our sin? Consider this verse:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. (1 John 4:18)

This is evidence that fear actually has a connection to love. Perfect love casts out fear, not hate. What is it then that connects fear to hate? How are they similar? How are they both love’s opposite? We often mistake peoples’ actions and sins as hate when they could very well be driven by fear because as imperfect sinners, our fears often lead us to sin.

What Looks Like Hate

Hate is defined as intense dislike, an extreme diversion or hostility towards something/one. We see the actions of people every day that seem to scream hate. Men beat their wives. People steal and vandalize property. Spouses have affairs. Parents leave their children. There is violence, lying, murder, sexual abuse, and racist language flowing from every city of the world. To know how these hateful crimes against God and against fellow human beings could be based in fear, we must know what people fear.

What do we fear?

We fear rejection. We fear being told by our loved ones or by society that we aren’t good enough. This fear can lead people to be pressured into drugs, alcohol, and sex because we have a strong desire to belong to a group and will go to extreme measures to make sure we fit in. The domino effect of these sins (as well as any) is eternal. For example, those who use drugs to be a part of a group can get involved in heavier substances, can get addicted, can end up severely hurting their children or other family members because their minds have been destroyed by the powerful sickness of drug addiction.

We fear being alone. This fear leads people (especially women) to getting involved in and staying in terrible, unhealthy relationships. We stay because the alternative of being alone appears so much more painful. This can lead also lead to affairs, over-dependence on friendships, or addiction to pornography all because we believe, “Once I am alone, it will be too hard to face.”

We fear disappointing others or being disappointed. If I lie, then I don’t have to let people down. I can cover my tracks to keep people from becoming disappointed. I can also keep everyone I know at arms length because letting them love me or allowing myself to love them creates a huge risk for being hurt.

We fear failure. A man may steal from a home or a store because he lost his job (again) and the thought of failing his family again is too large a load to bear. The thrill of thieving feels so much better than the failure of having nothing. Being the bully allows you to stay on top. If you can beat up, murder, or steal, then you are the winner and your victims are the ones who lose, not you.

We fear pain. People will constantly put down others whether that is verbal abuse or even through racism. If others have to feel the pain, then we don’t have to. Often pain is masked by inflicting pain on others. We also can often stay comfortable, keeping our blinders on to the world because we fear anything outside the comfort zone. Giving our money, our time, our love to others might hurt, so let’s avoid it.

No Fear in Love

Let me make this clear. This is NOT an excuse to sin. While fear might lead us to understand the reasons behind many sins, it does not justify it. We are always in the wrong. A judge who let a thief go free for stealing someone’s car would not be a right judge. Even if his reason for doing it was to get a car to help his family, we all know he would still be guilty. That will not hold up in a court of law.

Where do we go from here then? What does it mean that we are afraid of so many things? The deeper issue I see is not with fear or even with hate, but with love. God says there is no fear in love. We can infer then that we don’t have a perfect love if we fear. If we are fearful, we are missing love. Now we know we will never have a perfect love because we will never be perfect people, but there is One who holds this perfect love. Our creator, the creator and very definition of love, is the one (according to 1 John) who casts out our fears. The more we cling to his love, the more our fears fade away. There is no fear in His presence. The more we draw into his love, the more we are able to pour it out. The more we are able to pour it out, the less we have to fear. So what are your fears? Bring them to Jesus. Your doubt and your fear are keeping you from God’s love. Our desire should be to have a love like Jesus. We cannot do this in the midst of so many paralyzing fears. As we drift from God’s love, we drift into the hateful, detestable sins that fear brings. As we crawl our way back to him, we are reminded that fear has no place at the throne of a mighty King.

Who Will You Annoy This Valentine’s Day?

Today is one of those days where everyone has something to say about something on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it.

If you are in a relationship and happy about it, you are probably going to annoy the bitter singles by your gushy, lovey-dovey pictures and romantic statuses.

If you are single and bitter, you are probably going to annoy everyone who is mostly content with where they are by your negative and sarcastic remarks.

If you are in a terrible relationship and complain about it, you are probably going to annoy the people who are happy and wish you guys would just break up already, and  you will annoy the people who are lonely and think “Well, at least you have somebody.”

If you are flooding Facebook with quotes of “Jesus is my boyfriend”, you are probably going to annoy people who both love Jesus and have a boyfriend, those who are bitter single Christians (which you are likely covering up  with Christian cliches), and those who just don’t really care about you and Jesus.

If you are single and happy about it, shouting it to the world that you “don’t need a man/woman to complete you,” convinced that everyone who buys a box of chocolates is a sell out to a commercial holiday, again you will probably annoy both the lonely singles and the happy couples because honestly, they don’t really want to hear it.

Regardless of your Facebook status today, just enjoy your day. It’s just a day. You can celebrate or you can mope, but just enjoy it.
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

Lubbock: More than Texas Tech

Many people who think of Lubbock think… “That west Texas town with the party university.” While Texas Tech is a huge part of the infrastructure and economy of Lubbock, it is not all that Lubbock has to offer. Whether you live in Lubbock or live miles away, my aim is to show the various sides this town has to offer that I’ve personally grown quite fond of.

Lubbock is a city, not every road is made of dirt and not every building is only 2 stories high.

Lubbock has its wealthy sides…

And it has its impoverished…

Lubbock has its weird, artsy side

And it’s partying side

The people of Lubbock consist of every color, every age, young and old, rich and poor, big and small, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and just about anything else in between.

Although Lubbock is not the most aesthetically pleasing place on the planet, it even has some nice nature views. The sunsets are probably my favorite.

The weather in the South Plains will keep you on your toes 100% of the time. Be it dust storms…

Or snow storms…

Or just your average flood…

All in all, Lubbock is a city filled with diversity. I have spent time in fancy houses, and I have hung out with the homeless. I have heard the wisdom of the elderly and laughed at the stories of preschoolers. Whether you think Lubbock is just a bunch of college students drinking and having a good time or you think Lubbock is just an ultra-conservative podunk town where everyone goes to church on Sunday, you’re wrong. Lubbock has hints of both of those things, but it is so much more than that. Wherever you live, wherever you are, know your city and know its people. The people are what make a city a city. And the people are what make even a brown, dusty town in west Texas, beautiful.