Acts 2 Church

As we talk about what it means for the main difference between the church and the world to be fellowship, it leads naturally into our Communion devotional for this week. 

The church, from her history, was modeled after the way the disciples took Jesus's ministry to heart after His resurrection and set about spreading His message - the Good News - in the world. For many churches today, that means we look back at Acts 2:42 when the church was just starting to form, and we do our best to model our meeting after theirs. 

And Acts tells us that the early church (which the Bible doesn't even call a "church," but a "community" in some translations, which should tell us something important, as well) "continually committed themselves to 1) learning from the apostles, 2) gathering for fellowship, 3) breaking bread, and 4) praying. (Number divisions mine.) 

Just two sentences later, Acts tells us, "There was an intense sense of togetherness among all who believed." 

Wow. 

So we have a community who was committed to fellowship with an intense sense of togetherness, and this is the example that we say we're modeling our churches off of, but sadly, when we say it, I think we too often mean that we're getting the elements of the actual gathering correct - teaching, Communion, prayer. 

But the early church wasn't so interested in the elements of the gathering; their heart was in the gathering itself. 

It's how we get so many "one anothers" in their example. 

And so, too, is this Table a togetherness. 

We're so used to our convenience culture and our church of elements where we kind of just browse around the world and pick and choose and consume whatever seems to fit us, and we're relatively mindless of others, who we assume are also just browsing around and picking to their liking. Like we're all living our own "choose your own adventure" novels, even when it comes to our faith and our church experience. 

I have watched congregations as the Table is set, as the elements are passed. Each person takes the cracker and the juice and does their own thing with it. Some pray after the person leading the devotion prays, while others are already eating their portion. Some take their portion and enter their own private devotional while someone else is addressing the entire congregation. Some are so busy passing the meal to others (be they ushers or parents or friends or whatever) that they take their portion almost as an afterthought, as just the element. 

For the early church, the breaking of bread was never just an element. It was an integral part of their fellowship. Their togetherness. Their commitment. This breaking bread together, which is something it is so easy for us to forget in our content-focused, experience-driven, consumer-culture churches. 

But if we're truly modeling ourselves after the early church, just breaking the bread isn't enough. That's not what it was about. (That's not even what it was about in the Upper Room, if you want to get technical.) 

What it's about is doing it together. As a community who is committed to fellowship. 

That's the church. 

That's the Table.  

One Another

So why do you go to church? 

At the heart of it, the only thing that makes the church fundamentally different than what the world offers is that it is (or is supposed to be) through-and-through a fellowship experience. You're not supposed to be able to do church "alone." You're not supposed to be able to just go and consume content or have a sensory experience or even have a human experience; church is intended to be a shared experience. A fellowship. 

And it is here that so many of our churches are fundamentally failing. 

It's fellowship that keeps folks in the church. 

We've already discussed how they can consume content from anywhere on the planet. The truth is that for a lot of churches, they can even consume your content from the little content device in their pocket. So it doesn't really matter how good your content is; a world that's just looking for content can find it in spades. They don't need your church for that. 

We've also discussed how they can have a sensory experience very well at home. With big screen televisions, home projectors, sound systems with bass boost, even popcorn or crackers or juice or bread or whatever in their own pantry, it's entirely possible to have the full church sensory experience at home. So it doesn't really matter how good your production is, either; a world that's looking for a sensory experience can have it just fine on its own. They don't need your church for that. 

They don't even need your church to have a human experience. There are plenty of places in this world that they can go to be doing the same things that others are doing and draw on the human reactions of those other persons - shopping at the mall, eating at a restaurant, sitting in a movie theater, playing at a park. The world is full of parallel play opportunities. They don't need your church for that. 

To an extent, we could even say they don't need your church for a shared human experience. That's what friends and family and coworkers are for. Most persons have at least one person they can call if they want to make a memory, to form a connection, to have a moment together. 

The difference in the church is that the shared human experience is fundamental to it. It's not optional. You don't have to go looking for it. Or, you shouldn't have to. Walking into a church should be automatically walking into a place where you're having a shared human experience, where the connection between persons is the most fundamental thing about it. 

We've lost sight of this. And that's why so many of our folks are leaving our churches and looking elsewhere. They are realizing that the one thing that the church is supposed to have in abundance, that the church is supposed to be above and beyond all else, is lacking. If they walk into a church, even if they walk into a church for 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more and at some point realize they are just consuming content, just having a sensory experience, just having a human experience, then that's the point at which they're going to walk out. Because at some point, they realize they can do that basically - virtually - anywhere. 

I think that's why Jesus told us to love one another. 

It's truly the only thing that sets us apart from literally everything else. 

Fellowship

So why do you go to church? We've determined it's not for the content; you can get content anywhere in this world, even right in your pocket. It's partially for the experience, but not really for the sensory experience of it because we've done pretty well at mastering the "home experience," all things considered. 

There's something about the human experience, but we left off yesterday saying that it's something even more than that. And it is. 

That something more is the fellowship. 

That's what takes the church experience up a notch. 

Let's go back to our movie theater analogy. We know that the movie is better when you see it in a theater because you have the emotional and physical realities of the other viewers to bounce off of. You laugh harder when others are laughing. You let the suspense capture you when you have the security of a room full of other persons. You weep a little more freely when the person next to you is reaching for a tissue. 

That's all well and good. It takes our movie experience to a deeper dimension. But once the lights come up and the credits roll and you go to the parking lot, then what? Unless at least one of the persons in that movie theater was your friend or relative or someone significant in your life, the experience is over. You can talk about it with anyone you want to, but you can't really share it with anyone else again. 

You don't know those persons. There's not going to come a point when you're going to run into one of those persons in a McDonald's somewhere and be like, "Hey, do you remember that time that we saw Ernest Goes to Jail in the theater together?" Even if that were to happen, they would probably look at you like you were crazy. You might have been there at the same time, but you weren't there together. 

Contrast that with a good friend who went to the movie with you and sat right next to you. Someone whose reactions helped to fuel your own, but someone who also noticed your reactions just as much as you noticed theirs. Now, when you're hanging out with your friend or your brother or your sister or whoever and you say something like, "Hey, you remember when we saw Ernest Goes to Jail together?" you can both just bust up laughing at that thing or that scene or whatever because you have a truly shared experience.

That is, at its very best, what church is supposed to be. Not just a human experience, but a shared human experience. 

A fellowship. 

These persons in the pews - they're your friends. Your good friends. Your brothers. Your sisters. These are the folks you are supposed to be able to look at at any point in your life and say, "Hey, do you remember the time....?" and they're supposed to go, "Yeah, I do!" And you both bust up laughing or crying or hugging or praying or whatever it is you do together in response to that moment you shared. 

See, a church isn't made by a bunch of folks being in the same place at the same time; it's made by a bunch of folks being together. Drawn into and connected with one another. (Which, by the way, is one of the most popular phrases of the New Testament - "one another.") 

That's really what we go to church for. It's not the content. It's not the experience. It's not even the human experience, although that gets us closer. It's the fellowship. The togetherness. The connection. 

An Experience

So why do you go to church? 

We saw yesterday that when we're asked this question, many of us talk highly of the content of the church experience, but in a content-driven world where we carry little content devices in our pockets, content isn't what keeps us coming back. 

It's the experience. 

Think about it like this: we live in a world of content, and we also live in a world of streaming. Nearly anything you could want to see, media-wise, you can stream in the comfort of your own living room. You might have to wait a little longer than the big release, but it'll be there. But the experience of watching a movie in your living room is far different than watching it in a movie theater. 

We have tried to replicate this. We have created surround-sound systems and ginormous screens for our own homes so that we get the sensory-immersive experience of being in the theater - our eyes having to move back and forth across the screen to get the whole picture, our bodies feeling the vibrations of the sound. We turn the lights down so there are no distractions. We are even getting really good at homemade popcorn - "movie theater butter" flavor. 

We've nailed the "home experience." 

Except...we haven't. 

Because there's still something special about watching a movie in the theater. Ask the average person, and they can't explain it. They can't tell you why it's better. They might say it's the bigger screen or the audio system or the snacks, but that's only because they can't put their finger on it. 

The truth is...it's the shared experience. 

When we watch a movie in a movie theater, we have the added bonus of having the reactions of other human beings in the room. This encourages us to get in touch with our own experience in a new way. 

Something might strike you as funny in your living room, but when you hear a dozen other persons start to chuckle, the humor hits you in a different way. You can't let yourself get too caught up in the suspense of a moment in your own house, but there's safety in numbers, and if you're all caught up in the same suspense, there's just something different about it. When you see the person next to you reaching for a tissue at the most touching moment, it gives you a little bit more permission to cry. 

Watching a movie at home is a content experience; watching a movie in the theater is a human experience. 

And that's what the church is. That's why we go to church. 

We can sit at home and read the Bible and sing worship songs and pray all we want, but there's something about doing it together, about having other humans in the same room who are having human reactions to the content, who give us permission to also have human reactions to the content, who help us have a safe space to open our hearts to really be affected by things, who confirm what we're experiencing, who draw us deeper. Reading the Bible in your living room, turning on the radio, streaming the service is a content experience. 

But church...church is a human experience. 

And it's even better than that.... 

Content

Why do you go to church? 

Many folks will tell you that they love the preaching at their church. Or the music. That they go to fill up their soul with Jesus by having this space where they ingest deeply from His Word and His love. Or maybe they go to "learn" how to be a "better Christian," to grow in their faith by receiving the instruction of more seasoned saints or the wisdom of the structured format of church teaching. 

Here's the thing, though: that's not really it. 

We live in a content-driven world. We are constantly bombarded by content. We hold little content devices in the palms of our hands. (Okay, full confession: I'm writing this on a desktop computer right now, like I always do. So...most of us hold little content devices in the palms of our hands.) If you are just looking for the content of church, there are a million other ways to get it than actually going to a physical building on Sunday morning. 

In fact, we have learned this quite well because of the pandemic. Churches all over the world shut their doors for a period and many transitioned their services to online. It's now common for someone to simply stay home on Sunday morning and "stream" a preacher and a worship team from anywhere in the world - across town, across the country, across the globe. No matter where you are, if you've got your little content device, you have access to "church."

But do you really?  

I am not trying to downplay how wonderful it is that the church is stretching out of her buildings to embrace a new demographic of persons. I think virtual church is wonderful for those who find themselves shut in for a season, usually by sickness. It lets us stay connected to our congregation while protecting ourselves or others by not being physically present with them (passing germs around, compromising immune systems, etc.). 

But it's not church. 

Content alone is not church. 

In our heart of hearts, we know this. Someone who is connected to a church only for its content quickly realizes all of the other places in the world that that content is available. The content they do engage with quickly becomes boring. It's always fun to pick up a new book but if you tell yourself you're always going to read for at least an hour, it can quickly become tiresome to try to pick up the book at all. In the same way, it can be fun to go to church for a sermon and some music, but it's really easy to fall into a rut when that hour seems to start stretching longer and longer and...it's because you're bored. It's because the content isn't really the thing, even though that's what you think you came for. 

There's content all around us. There's Gospel-centered content all around us. In terms of content, the church doesn't really have anything special to offer. And, actually, that's not what the first church came together around anyway. If you told anyone in the book of Acts that you came just to be preached to and to sing a little, they would look at you like you were crazy. 

No, there's more to the church than content. And we'd do well to pay attention to what that is. 

My Portion

There are some days I feel like I need more of Jesus. Can I get an Amen?  

There are some days I feel like I'm messing up, falling down, worn out, dragged around, faith-thin, and I just need more of Jesus. There are other days when I'm on top of my game, feeling good, doing well, and just a little dab'll do me. 

There are days when I look at the persons around me, in real life and on social media, and I think I'm probably not as good of a person as them. I think there's something fundamentally wrong with me; I can almost feel it in my bones, just looking in the mirror of the world that shows me everything but myself. On those days, I feel like I need a little more Jesus. There are other days I look at the folks around me and think, you know what? I'm doing okay. Comparatively. They probably need more Jesus than I do. 

There are days I want my portion of this bread and my cup of this juice to be super-sized. There are other days this little bit of cracker and this sip of juice is just fine. 

Some days, I wonder if anyone would notice if I snuck 2 portions. 

Sometimes, I think about the disciples. I wonder if Jesus gave everyone in the Upper Room the same portion of the bread as He broke it or if He gave little bit more to one than the other, portioning it out exactly for who needed it and just how much. Peter, on the eve of his betrayal, might have gotten a little more, wondering why Jesus would give him a bigger piece. Wasn't he the best disciple? Why would he need a bigger piece of grace? 

John probably needed a little bit less. After all, he knew he was - and declared himself to be - the "disciple that Jesus loved" (as if Jesus didn't love the other 11 just as much). Andrew wasn't very good at math, so it would seem, so maybe he wouldn't have noticed. But Judas Iscariot was always doing the accounting. He definitely would have noticed. 

So that piece Jesus was dipping into the oil at the moment he said, "It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread," you know Judas was sizing that one up. A big portion for the betrayer? A little one? More oil than bread?

Who knows?

I know. 

I know not because I was in the Upper Room that day (I wasn't). I know because I know Jesus. I know the dynamic of what was going on there. I know exactly how much every single person around that Table got that night. 

They got it all. 

That's the only measure in which Jesus ever gives Himself. All. Fully. Completely. 

On the days that I feel like I need a little more, He gives it all. On the days that I feel like a little bit would be okay, He gives it all. When my pride convinces me I'm fine with a little portion, He gives it all. 

And that little portion? That little portion holds it all. 

Whenever you get Jesus, you get all of Him. Period. There is no other portion available. 

God Knows Your Name

Have you ever noticed how many names are in the Bible? There are a ton of them. 

What's most interesting to me about these names is that a good number of them, very many indeed, are not the names of God's people. They are the names of God's enemies. Or citizens of the nations of not-God's-people. Or seemingly random folk who live and serve somewhere else. 

That's the case in Esther, where we are told the names - more than once - of Ahasuerus's servants. Servants in a foreign land. Guys who served a king who did not serve the Lord. Guys who served in a nation that was about to order the mass slaughter of all Jews, of all God's people. 

God still lists them by name. We may not know who they are. We may not see their names more than once (and in many cases, we don't). We get no follow-up, no more details about who they were. No indication that their role was anything bigger, really, than existing in a place that intersected the journey of God's people somewhere, somehow. And yet, God lists them by name. 

This is good news. 

As a Christian, as someone who knows how much God loves me, it can sometimes be difficult for me to believe that He remembers me, that He knows my name, that He pays any mind to my existence. These are what we call the hard days.

But even moreso for those who don't know God at all. For those who walk into our lives searching, seeking, wondering if there might be a God out there for real. Wondering if He cares.

We tell them that He loves them, but how are they supposed to believe that? We tell them that He knows their name, but how could He when they don't know His? We tell them that He's known them since before they were born, since He knit them together in their mother's womb, but it seems completely unbelievable. Certainly, God knows the name of His Davids, His Pauls, His Peters, His Johns, but how could He know the name of little old me? 

So we show them passages like the ones we find in Esther, passages where men and women who don't even know God and, often, don't even care to know God, are named. By name. In the middle of the story He's already telling. 

We show them the passages. We point them out. We highlight them, underline them, draw circles around them. 

Then, draw circles around our seekers and tell them they're in, too. 

Friend, God knows your name.

Promise. 

God Remembers

The book of Nehemiah ends with a simple prayer - O God - my God - remember me with favor.

This comes after Nehemiah has recounted and retold all of the things that he did not just to physically restore the Temple and the wall and the city of Jerusalem, but all of the things that he did to spiritually restore Jerusalem and her people - reading the book of Moses, reinstituting the Temple worship, ensuring the purity of what was going on in this rebuilt place. 

His prayer is not really remember me, but remember all of the things I've done with a pure heart for You, Lord, and for Your holy place. 

As if the Lord could forget. 

As if the God who knows every hair on your head, the God who knit you together in your mother's womb, the God who numbered your days, numbered your breaths before there was even one of them could forget anything that you do, especially the things that you do out of pureness of heart and love for His holy ways. 

We live in a world, and we talked about this yesterday, where you have to keep doing something new all the time if you want to be remembered. We live in a world that can only recall your last fifteen minutes of fame, and if that was more than fifteen minutes ago, this world might not recall you at all. (I recently asked some younger coworkers if they even knew who Pauley Shore is, and they just stared at me like I completely made up a name. But when I was younger, Pauley Shore was in everything. He was the guy. But I digress.) 

The world that we live in makes us assume that God must be the same way, only remembering the latest thing we've done. Many of us live our lives of faith trying to constantly be doing a new thing, a better thing, a bigger thing for God. 

Let me ask you - what would have been a better thing than what Nehemiah had already done? The only thing left would have been for him to go to the Cross himself and die for the people, but that wasn't what God had asked him to do. 

It's not what God asks us to do, either. 

Yet, it's where we lead ourselves when we think that God might be prone to forget what we've done if we don't keep outdoing ourselves. If we don't keep doing more. So we do more and more and more until we're pretty sure we are supposed to be the savior of the world and then, we realize we can't. And we worry all the more that since we couldn't do this bigger thing, God - like the world - will simply forget us. 

As if the Lord could forget. 

Friend, you need not worry about God forgetting you. Nehemiah knew this even before He said this prayer. He prayed this prayer in the knowledge of the goodness of God, what he already knew about the Lord - 

That He really couldn't forget. How could He forget? 

The Lord always remembers you. 

Always. 

God is Famous

Everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame. Or so they say. It may be more true today, in an era of social media, than it was decades ago when I was hearing the phrase as a child, but nonetheless, everyone has that moment when they are more known than others. Nearly everyone. 

What's strange in our world is that those fifteen minutes don't necessarily last long, even when they seem like they might. They really are just fifteen minutes in the grand scheme of things. Years ago, everyone was jumping on the "ice bucket challenge" trend...but dump a bucket of ice on your head on the internet today, and you're just weird. That was so yesterday, and yesterday is gone. 

It's true, though, even with our real celebrities. That actor you like from that one movie, someone else remembers him from another movie entirely. There are actors who were wildly popular a generation ago, but you mention their name today, and the young persons have no idea who you're talking about. That singer's hit song from two years ago...I haven't heard it, but have you heard the latest by...? 

So even celebrity doesn't last. Not in any meaningful way. 

Unless you're God. 

After the remnant have finished rebuilding the important sites in Jerusalem, Nehemiah offers praise to the Lord, where he recounts the Lord's wondrous deeds for His people - the same deeds we read about in the Bible and recount to this day. 

At one point, he declares: So you opened the sea, and Your people walked through the water on dry ground, and no one has forgotten the name of the One who did it to this day. 

That's Egypt. That's the Exodus. That's thousands of years before the exiles come home to Jerusalem. 

Remember, in many of God's prophecies, He changes how He is known by His people to the newest thing He's done for them. He goes from the God who created the world in six days and rested on the seventh to the God who led His people out of Egypt to the God who parted the Red Sea. He says He will be known as the God who brings His people back to their land from exile. 

But here are His people, back from exile, and remembering Him as the Lord who parted the sea and led His people out of Egypt. Not only are they remembering it, but they know that the whole world remembers it. None of these ancient peoples have forgotten it. 

Thousands of years after that, we haven't forgotten it, either. 

So if there is such thing as real celebrity, God's got it. God's got it in spades. Millions of persons over thousands of years have remembered Him for the very same things, the things He's written in His book to remind us of. His people are talking about it. The world knows about it. Even the unbelieving world knows the stories of God. 

That's saying something. 

God, Our Helper

It's a lot of work rebuilding the ruins of a ransacked city. That's the situation that Ezra, Nehemiah, and the other returning Israelites found themselves in when Darius not only let them return to Jerusalem, but enabled their restoration project as they tried to rebuild the city and the Temple. 

Jerusalem was destroyed. Totally devastated. The walls were crushed. The Temple was nothing but rubble. Everywhere you looked, there were splinters of what used to be, broken bricks and broken dreams. Looking at it, it has to be overwhelming. Where do you even start when it doesn't look like there is one single block left on top of another anywhere in the vicinity? How do you start when the people who are in the ruined city, living in the crumbling facades of once-glorious houses, are against you? 

How do you rebuild Jerusalem when you're just a small, ragtag remnant of exiles trying to return home? 

You start by realizing you're not just a small, ragtag remnant of exiles; you're a small, ragtag remnant of the people of God. 

And the Lord is with you. 

And God is never going to call you to a work He's not going to help you with. 

In fact, Nehemiah tells us that's the only reason their rebuilding project succeeded, and it was so obvious that God Himself was part of the work that even the peoples around them, those who opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem and who didn't even believe in the Lord God of Israel, could draw no other conclusion than that God helped the returning exiles in their work. 

When our enemies hear the work was complete and the surrounding nations saw our wall, their confidence crumbled. Only one possible conclusion could be drawn: it was not just our efforts that had done this thing. God had been working alongside us. (Nehemiah 6:16)

And God works alongside you. 

Whatever He's called you to, however big it seems, however impossible it looks, when you're surrounded by rubble and ashes and it doesn't seem there is even one block left on top of another anywhere in your sight, God works with you to build what He's building. His hand is so obvious that even the world, even your enemies, can't deny that it had to be Him. 

So do the work, whatever it is. 

And know that you do not labor alone. 

Unknown Table

If you've been around me for very long, you know that I love the Table. It's one of the reasons that I have committed every Friday this year to offering a reflection on it. 

What you might not know is that for the first three years that I attended church (I did not grow up in church, but fell in love with her in my tween/teen years), I was not in a church that celebrated Communion. Ever. 

Not once. 

I didn't even know that this Table existed. 

That probably comes as a shock to those of you who worship in churches where Communion has always been part of the landscape, where you have always known this sacrament. What are the people of God doing if they aren't breaking bread at the Table with Jesus?

On the other hand, there are many of you who read the things that I share and you, too, have no idea what this Table is. Either you worship in churches that don't celebrate the Table or you don't worship in a church at all, and so the entire concept is foreign to you. 

That's okay. 

The truth is that we don't know a whole lot about what went on in the Upper Room the night that Jesus broke bread with His disciples. There is more that we don't know about that night than that we do know, although I will also say that what we do know has been enough to keep us devotionalizing this remembrance for thousands of years. But there is still a lot we don't know. 

We know that it was the Passover, but we know very little about the Passover, relatively, too. We have the description of the first one in Exodus, but the details there are even scant. It would be hard for us to recreate the entire experience of the Passover from what the Bible tells us; we have to depend upon the oral history passed down to us from faithful Jews whose families were there that night, who passed the story on down to them. We have to depend upon the tradition that has been established for thousands of years and gracefully handed on to us. 

The same is true about the Table. There is more that we don't know than that we know from the biblical witness, and yet, we have at our disposal thousands of years of the celebration of this moment to draw on. We have a history and a tradition handed down to us from generations upon generations of Christians who have broken bread together in remembrance of this. I suppose it looks a lot different today than it did in the church in Acts, when Christians were first getting together, but I think there some fundamental similarities that keep us going. 

After all, most every church that does celebrate the Table celebrates it in roughly the same way. There are not wide disparities in how we do it, although there are minor twists in some of the components of it. Yet, here we are, with a very short synopsis and thousands of years of history, gathered around a Table that we both know and don't know. 

And it seems strange to those who don't worship in a church with the Table. 

But can I be honest? 

It seems unreal to those who do, as well. 

Grace

The name of the game when it comes to our dirt is grace. It takes grace to embrace who we are, and it takes grace to change the things about ourselves that we can change. 

But grace is hard. 

One of the reasons that it's hard is because we've been conditioned against it. 

Here's what I mean:

There are things about myself that I don't like. Things about my dirt that I don't like. Things that I think create barriers for me in this world, that complicate the things I try to do and the relationships in which I try to do them. But the primary reason that I feel so much tension with these things is because others have been so generous in pointing them out to me over the years. In kind and not-so-kind ways. These are the things that others have always cited as "wrong" about me. Or that I am "doing" "wrong." 

We are a people who are shaped in many ways by social pressures. Almost as much, sometimes it seems, as we have been shaped by God. We have spent our lives listening to the world tell us what we are doing wrong, what we should be doing better, what we should be doing different. 

In some ways, this is good because it can open us to our blind spots, to help us understand in new ways how the ways that we act and interact and interpret the world can be wounding to those around us. Unintentionally, of course, but wounding, nonetheless. I can admit that there are those in this world that I have hurt just by being the kind of dirt that I am. I can't change my dirt, but I can temper its expression in some ways so that I do not so severely wound those that I love...hopefully. 

But in other ways, this isn't so good. Because it can create in us a self-hatred or self-loathing, a lack of empathy for ourselves. A misunderstanding of our own dirt. It can create in us an insecurity and a constant sense of self-doubt. Because we're always aware that at least one person out there doesn't like who we are, at least one doesn't approve of the way we are, and we assume there are probably others. So we can start to feel isolated, or to isolate ourselves, because who we are is not wholly received and is even sometimes condemned, degraded. This is not good. There are things about our dirt we simply cannot change. 

Therein lies the rub. We want to be mindful that we are not solitary beings, but sometimes, the social pressures are so high that there's no amount of grace we can have for ourselves that would be sufficient to overcome them. 

It takes a certain strength. 

At the end of many of my days, I feel like a failure as a human being because my dirt gets in the way of my being a "proper" member of society, I guess. This is the condemnation of the ungraceful few speaking. This is the way that their condemnation has gotten into my soul, and it makes it hard to have grace for myself. Because the thing that I least want to be is one of those persons who very abrasively declares, "This is who I am. Deal with it." I recognize that my dirt is my dirt, but I also recognize it needs to be tempered. I never want to be obstinate about my broken things. That's not helpful, and it's not healthy. 

As a child of God, I am learning to push back on this some. Because yes, the condemnation gets into my soul in an unhealthy way, but there's a message of God, too - sparked by things like the verse in Jeremiah that kicked off this week's discussion - that God likes the dirt He made me from. So much so that every time He's reshaped me, in big and small ways, He's used the very same dirt to do it. I am the way that I am for a reason, and somehow, it's going to reveal His glory. Somehow, some way, some day. 

And this is how I start developing grace for myself. By tapping into this message to my soul, by knowing that maybe I'm not always liked, but I am always loved. I am beloved. And that's what is most important. 

So maybe there is grace. And maybe it's amazing after all. 

Little Steps

You can't change your dirt, but that doesn't mean you can't make meaningful changes in your life. But I think there are obstacles to change, not the least of which is our own lack of grace for ourselves. 

Many of the stories that I have heard over the years from folks who have tried to change in big and small ways are stories of how quickly they "failed." They started a new diet, but two weeks later, they were eating a bunch of cake and cookies again. They tried to quit smoking, but three days later, they were lighting up. They were breaking off bad relationships...except when that person finally sent one too many texts anyway and now, they're right back into it. 

The same is true for the good changes we try to make in our lives. We commit to reading the Bible, but time gets away from us, and we realize we missed a few days. We decide to start praying more, but a few days go by and we realize we haven't talked to God at all. We determine that now is the time we finally start a real exercise routine, but then we get sick, and by the time we recover, we've forgotten all about our new commitment. It's just not practical. 

The problem we face is not the we failed, even though that's how we say it. The problem is that we've given up on ourselves too soon.

I used to be one of these folks. I used to be the kind of person who started with all kinds of gusto, but after a few days and a minor failure, I was ready to give up. Throw in the towel. Quit. Accept that I'm just not capable of being a better human being. 

But...I've matured since then. I've grown. And I've learned about growing. 

If you want to truly make changes in your life, you have to do it in little steps, not big ones. If you want to have success at changing something, you have to celebrate your successes, even when they aren't 100% triumphs. 

Here's what I mean: 

If you're trying to eat better and after a couple of weeks, you have a piece of cake and a couple of cookies and you're mad at yourself (by the way - you shouldn't be; cake and cookies can be part of a good diet, in moderation), then you don't just quit. Instead, you say, "Wow! I made good diet decisions for 13 days in a row. My previous record was 2! Now, let's see if I can do 20 days." If you're trying to quit smoking and after three days, you light one up, celebrate three days of not smoking. Then, commit yourself to making it four days. 

The same is true of those good changes, too. If you want to start exercising or reading the Bible or praying more and you do these things for four or five days in a row and then get off track, celebrate that you made it four or five days living the kind of life you were wanting to live. Then, commit yourself to doing it for a little bit longer next time. 

I know it's cliche to say it, but it's true - it does get easier, if you don't let yourself get discouraged. 

We tend to look at change as all or nothing, but change is a big thing done in a very small way. Sometimes in a thousand small ways. Sometimes in a thousand small ways over a million different attempts. But the key to change is not wholesale never or always doing something; it's about doing it more and more or less and less until it becomes the new pattern of your life. And having grace for yourself - and your dirt - along the way. 

Which is definitely the hardest part.  

Change

What I'm not saying - and what God is not saying - when we say that you are always made of the same dirt...is that you cannot change. What I'm not saying is that you can't make fundamental changes in how you engage with and experience the world. What I'm not saying is that you are locked into all of the things you don't like about yourself and that God will never set you free from the things that you believe hold you down in life. 

That's not it at all. 

There are three major truths about each and every one of us, and they are these: how you perceive the world, how you perceive yourself, and how you present yourself to the world. 

How you perceive the world, I think, is part of the dirt you're formed of. It's just the way God made you. It's the thing that makes you cry when you see the beauty of a flower or fill up with rage at something broken. It's that instinctual, natural response that you can't help but feel without even thinking about feeling it when you encounter the world. That's your dirt. That's the stuff God made you of, and it's not likely to change very much. You can find ways to mask it, but it's the core of your being - no matter what you do, it's there. 

How you perceive yourself is how you feel about your dirt. It's whether you love or hate or are indifferent to the way God has made you. This is where we have most of our trouble. Most of us, when asked what we want to change in our lives, really want to change the way we feel about things - not our behavior, but our gut-level reaction that produces that behavior - because when we look in the mirror, we feel that. And we know that we feel that. And if it's the kind of thing that, for whatever facade we're trying to create for the world, we don't want to feel, it feels like a betrayal. And if we don't like the behavior that it evokes in us, it feels like the simple solution is to change the way we feel. Most of us, when we're broken, want to change our dirt. We can't. But grace will let us change how we feel about our dirt. We can, in some measure, by grace alone, change how we perceive ourselves, how we think and feel about the way God made us. 

How you present yourself to the world is your actual behavior. It's what comes out of your dirt after you've perceived it. It's what that soul-feeling in your core that you can't do anything about drives you to do. And you can change this. Just because you feel things a certain way doesn't mean you have to act on them in a certain way. 

We don't like this. Nobody likes to be told their behavior is their own choice, but it's true - you decide how you react, even if you don't decide how you feel. And if you want to change something about yourself, if something about how you react in a moment bothers you, it's your behavior - it's the way you present yourself to the world - that you have to change. You can spend your whole life trying not to feel the way you feel, but you never truly will. On the other hand, you can invest a relatively short amount of time investing in changing how you react, and you can have great success. 

It takes hard work. It takes discipline. It takes prayer. It takes a little favor and a lot of forgiveness and even more persistence, but it's possible. 

So no, knowing that you're always made of the same dirt is not an excuse for not changing, for not growing, for not improving yourself, for not getting better. Rather, it's an invitation to grace - to learning to embrace yourself for who you are and who God made you to be. It's an invitation to humility - to accept that God made you out of this dirt for a reason. And it's an invitation to growth - because you can't change your dirt, but you do decide how you embody it.

And that's really all that any of us are doing on any given day - learning how to embody our dirt for the glory of God. 

Dirt

From dust you came, and to dust, you will return. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

You've probably heard these sentiments, usually meant to help you embrace your humility. You are a creature, created by God but a creature nonetheless, and you should remember that no matter what you do, no matter who you are, no matter what happens or what comes of you, at the end of the day, you're just dirt. 

Still, it seems like we spend a lot of our lives trying to put a little glitter in our dirt. Trying to always make ourselves "more." Trying to change some of the fundamental things about ourselves that we don't particularly like, or that the world doesn't like, or that we think the world doesn't like. We're always trying to change who we are. 

But...we can't. 

Not in any kind of fundamental way. 

It's true that we are dirt. Dust. Clay. God formed us just the way He wanted us. 

It's also true that God formed us out of exactly the stuff He wanted us formed from. 

Even if, even after, we've been "born again."

God sends the prophet Jeremiah to observe the potter, see how he works the clay. Watch him as he carefully forms whatever pot he is working on. Notice how he engages in his craft. 

One of the observations that Jeremiah makes is that when the clay the potter is working with goes out of shape, when it's not doing what the creator wants it to do, when a little malformation works its way into the process, the potter simply lumps all the clay back together and reworks it again, making it into what he wants. 

What Jeremiah does not observe is a potter who, when his clay goes out of shape, throws that clay out and gets new clay to start over. And any of us who have done any work with clay or know anyone who has also know this is not true - no potter just throws out the clay because it gets a little out of shape; he always simply reworks it. 

The same is true of God. He doesn't just discard the dust you're made of because you get a little out of shape. He doesn't just toss out the very fundamental things about you and start over with something else. 

No matter what you do, no matter who you are, no matter what happens in your life, no matter what you try to make of yourself, no matter what forces of this world come at you, no matter how out of shape you get sometimes, no matter how much you wish it was different, you are and always have been and always be shaped from the very same dirt. The very fundamental things about you - who you are, what's in your heart, how you love, how you break, how you hope, how you grieve - these aren't going to change. This is the dirt you're made of. 

And God never just throws that out to start over. He simply keeps it, broken or malformed as it might be, and molds it into something more beautiful. 

Stop the World

Stop the world; I want to get off. 

Do you ever feel that way? Like if everything and everyone could just stop for a second, maybe you could catch a breath? Maybe you could blink at least once? Maybe you could hear something other than the noise in your own head? 

I wonder sometimes about what it must have been like to be at the Table with Jesus. I've talked before about how it wasn't a silent, solemn meal. Jesus knew what was coming, but His disciples didn't - they were all just celebrating the Passover together, and the Passover was a feast of remembrance and celebration. I imagine that inside the upper room, there was quite a bit of talk going on. Quite a bit of laughter. Sharing stories. Praying together. Reading the Scriptures. It was a very full, very vibrant, very rich experience. 

But I wonder about Jerusalem, too. I wonder about what the streets were like. About how much of the population at that time were devout Jews, about how many of them would have been having this same moment around similar tables in their own homes with their own families. About how many folks, if any, would have been left on the streets. 

I wonder about looking out the window and seeing that it seems, for just a few minutes, like maybe the world has stopped. 

It's hard to imagine, isn't it? In our 24/7/365 world where, at the very least, we would hear the hum of the refrigerator in the next room, it's hard to imagine the kind of stillness in the world that happens in a place where everyone is doing their own loud, wonderful thing in their own sacred space and the streets...are empty. 

It's an intimate togetherness - a common table that everyone is sharing at just this moment, yet each in a very personal and private sort of way. And the world...just stops for a few minutes. (For the Passover, it would have been hours.) 

And I know that I'm probably over-glamorizing this a bit. Jerusalem was under Rome's authority, and there certainly would have been more than Jews living in the city. We can imagine that there was still some human activity on the streets that night, just as there would have been on any Sabbath, as well. Roman guards would still have had patrols to make - perhaps they would have even stepped them up on a night like this, fearing trouble from a people who, let's face it, once used this very night to walk themselves out of an occupying kingdom's grasp. What's to keep a people who are celebrating leaving Egypt from getting up and walking out of Roman territory? (Except, of course, that there was just so much Roman territory at the time. But I digress.) 

Still, it must have been something to see not a single faithful Jew on the streets. It must have been something to recognize the sparsity of remaining human activity. There would have been a noticeable difference in foot traffic, in noise, in motion. The world would definitely have slowed down, even if it didn't stop...and isn't that what we're all looking for sometimes? You don't have to stop the world. Just slow it down a bit. 

That's what this Table does. That's what it still does. See, God's people come to this Table and that means they step out of the world for a minute. They come to this place that is celebrated by millions of persons, but they do it in the most intimate of ways, and when you look out over the world and wonder if they've noticed...you certainly notice. You sense how much it has slowed, how many have stepped away for a breath. You can't help but feel that kind of stillness in your soul that you're supposed to be looking for...even while James and John are elbowing each other for their turn at the dipping bowl and Peter is making eyebrows at Jesus, wanting to ask a question, and Judas is counting the money in the purse, and... and it matters, but it doesn't matter because there's just a certain stillness about it. 

A stillness that doesn't come from silence or solemnity, but that comes from what God's people have always known of this Table: 

An intimate togetherness. 

With one another and with our Lord.  

God of Covenant

"Covenant" is a word that we throw around a lot in the Christian world, but it seems antiquated to the culture at large. A covenant was a binding heart agreement entered into by two parties, and in human terms, it is most often referenced in talk of marriage - i.e. the marriage covenant. 

We use it in the Christian world to talk about our keeping our promises to God and God keeping His promises to us, and certainly, a covenant is very good when both parties are keeping it. That's ideal. 

But it's not necessary. 

Think about marriage for a minute. Marriage is ideal when both parties are faithfully covenanted to one another and both are keeping their promises. This is the goal; it's what we all dream about when we dream about the kind of relationship we want to have with our spouse. 

But the truth about marriage is that sometimes, it's broken. And it's broken because we're human and we are broken. We all go through seasons that draw us further away from the covenants that we've made - seasons when, any couple will tell you, it's just harder. For one reason or another. 

There are times when one partner is unfaithful. Or one partner is sick. Or one partner is unemployed. Or one partner is facing a physical or mental health challenge. Or one partner is facing legal trouble. Or whatever it is. (This is, by the way, the vow of the covenant - for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, richer or poorer, etc. It's the vow because these are the things that actually happen.) 

Human nature, when we're broken, doesn't make us very good covenant keepers, but we also know that when one party is struggling, it's entirely possible for the other to keep the covenant alive. To keep it going. Through sacrificial love and steadfast commitment and a measure of goodness and hope and faith and whatever else it takes, one party can keep the covenant going. One party, totally committed to it, keeps the marriage together while the other struggles. 

We know this. We've seen it. And...we've lived it. 

At least, we've lived it in our Christian covenant, the covenant that we have with God. 

Because we are human. We are broken. We are troubled. We face trials in this world. We have things that we face that make us bad covenant keepers sometimes. And yet, God continues to love us. He continues to be good to us. He continues to be faithful, even when we're not. 

Make no mistake - God keeps this covenant going. Period. Even when, if it were up to us, it would fail miserably. 

Nehemiah opens with this in the book that bears his name, in a prayer that he prays right at the outset. He says, "You are the keeper of the covenant." You, God. Not me. Not Your people. Not Israel. Not Jerusalem. Not the church. Not the pastor. You. God. Through thick and thin, up and down, sickness and health, richer and poorer, better or worse, God is the keeper of the covenant. 

And isn't that good news?

God of Mercy

We talk frequently about the grace of God and how amazing it is. We also talk frequently about the mercy of God, which is also amazing. But did you know that mercy and grace are not the same things?

God's grace is His free gift to us of things we have not earned. God's mercy is when He does not give us the full weight of the very hard things we have earned. So grace is when we get what we do not deserve, and mercy is when we do not get what we do deserve. 

And Ezra reminds us that God punishes us far less than we deserve. 

It's an interesting statement to make, coming back to a Temple that lays in ruins, a massive pile of rubble that used to be God's holy city, after decades of exile in a foreign land under pressure to serve foreign gods and completely cut off from the most holy places of your own heart. Standing in the ruins of a life long gone, bent under the weight of exile, attacked on every side from those who don't want to see Jerusalem rebuilt for the Jews, Ezra declares: 

You, Lord, have not punished us near as much as we deserve.

Wow. 

I have to be honest and say that a little bit of God's punishment feels like far too much for me. A little bit of destruction is a heavy burden to bear. A little bit of exile, of that feeling of not being at home, at knowing how far away I am from the holy place where I want to be...that's enough. It's almost too much.

There just doesn't seem to be a bone in my body that's ever willing to say, "You know, that punishment wasn't really severe enough." Punishment feels severe. Exile feels severe. And if at any point it would start to seem in my brain that it wasn't, I'm pretty sure the rubble would remind me. I'm pretty sure the little bits of what was once holy blood that now dotted the broken pieces of what used to be a glorious Temple would tell me exactly how severe God's punishment has been. 

Yet, Ezra says, in full recognition of the depth of sin in God's people, that it wasn't nearly as much as they deserved. 

He's right. I just don't think I'd be saying that out loud. 

He's right because our sin is devastating. It ought to cut us off harshly. It ought to ruin everything. Were it not for God's great love for us, it would have. But thankfully, God's love comes with an eye toward our weakness and failure, and it is full of amazing things. Like grace. 

Like mercy.

God Honors Trust

God helps those who help themselves. 

Have you heard that? Did you know that it's not true? Did you know that it's not even biblical?

The biblical truth is that God helps those who trust Him and walk in faithfulness. 

Ezra knew that, and his story serves as a reminder for all of us even to this day. 

It's dangerous to be among the first persons to return to a previously conquered land, a land that has been filled with other exiles from other places, a land that lay in ruins, a land where you're likely to face opposition in trying to come home because, let's face it - it isn't home any more. In the years that Israel spent in exile, Jerusalem itself had changed. There were real dangers to what Ezra was trying to do.

Ezra knew it. Israel's captors knew it. The king who was letting him go back knew it. In fact, the king offered to write him official letters of safe travel, for himself and for everyone that was traveling with him. These letters would tell any potential enemies to back off and leave the returning Israelites alone, lest they face the full force of the very powerful government that was not only allowing this to happen, but was facilitating it. 

There were groups that may have wanted to pick on the Israelites, but nobody wanted to pick a fight with the dominant ruling powers of the day. 

But Ezra refused the king's letters. He said he didn't need them. 

He said that if the Lord was really the God that Ezra knew, the God that He had demonstrated Himself to be, the kind of God whose temple and altar and holy land were worth restoring, then God could keep them safe on their journey. God would protect them from anyone who might come against them. 

That's what he told the king, and that's what he told the people. He told the people the king offered them guaranteed safe passage and that he refused. He put his faith on full display and invited the rest of the returning exiles to share it. He encouraged them to take hold of the kind of faith that he had, the kind of faith that was willing to risk going back to rebuild, the kind of faith that believed that Jerusalem was worth it. That the Lord was worth it. 

Of course, it was. He was. He is. 

And God did keep them safe. 

Not because of anything they had done. Not because of anything the other nations hadn't done. Not for any other reason than that they simply trusted the Lord, trusted His heart, trusted His character, trusted the testimony of His story with Israel up to that point. And God saw that trust. He saw that trust put into faithful action as the exiles headed for home. And He honored it. 

And He always will. 

God is Secure

In the ancient world, battles between peoples were thought of as battles between gods. It wasn't just whether my army was bigger and better than your army; an army wasn't enough to win a war. You had to have the bigger, better god on your side. 

That's why when conquerors came into Israel, it was important to them to destroy the Temple, to tear it all the way down, to make it nothing but rubble. If you could defeat a nation's god, you could subjugate the people; they had nowhere else to turn. 

It's also why when the people of Israel started to return to Jerusalem after the exile, the first thing they started to rebuild was the Temple. 

Not the walls. Not the gates. Not their homes. They started on the Temple. 

Because if they could demonstrate God's strength in the land, that was akin to getting their land back for good. It meant something - something more than just the faithfulness or piousness or righteousness of the people. It meant something about their God. 

One of my favorite scenes in the rebuilding of Jerusalem comes early, and it comes in Ezra 3. 

A few of the Israelites have returned to Jerusalem to start rebuilding, and this includes a number of priests and Levites and those who serve. And the first thing they do is clear out a space in the middle of all of the rubble...and rebuild the altar to start offering sacrifices. Yes, in the middle of the rubble. 

You have to read the actual account in Ezra and let this paint a picture in your mind. The whole place is in ruins. There's not even a city left. There are no walls, no security. A few mangled houses. Nothing left of the Temple, which has been laying as a pile of rubble for decades. Then, these guys come in, sweep out a section right in the middle of it all to get down to the flat ground...and build an altar. 

Then, in the middle of the dust and ashes, they start burning a fire, slaughtering animals, and offering sacrifices. Now, there is dust and debris and dirt and rubble...and blood and smoke and fire. 

There is no image like this one. 

But it raises a good point about God. 

You wouldn't think you'd want to rebuild an altar first. You wouldn't think that the first thing you'd want in a ruined city would be a sacred place. You would think you would want to have a way to protect your holy place before your build it - that you'd want to have walls and watchtowers and guards and, at the very least, a structure around the altar itself...not just an altar on an open floor in the midst of rubble. It seems too easy. It seems too vulnerable. 

But God is not vulnerable. 

That's what Ezra knew. That's what Jeshua knew. That's what the Israelites knew. There is no worry about putting up an altar in what looks like the most vulnerable place possible because God is not vulnerable. 

He is secure. 

Even in the most wide-open, desolate place.

To Share

For thousands of years, God's people have fasted. There seems to have been more stress on this act of piousness in the Old Testament than in the New, and there have long been debates over whether we should fast or what God requires from us in fasting or what even the point is. 

It seems weird, as we come to the Table, to talk about fasting, but stay with me. 

God's people were, for a time, very serious about their fasts. Think about what you consider during Lent every year, when you decide to abstain from this or that, but on steroids. They were extremely diligent about their fasting. 

When we think about fasting, we think about abstaining, about doing without, about depriving ourselves of something. The intent is that we would then have more energies, not taken up by things of this world, to focus on God. The goal is that instead of being able to meet our own needs, we would feel our needs very deeply and depend on God to fill them for us. 

A hungry people seem to have a deeper connection with the God of manna. Those are just the facts. 

But there's a verse in Isaiah that says that the true heart of fasting is not depriving yourself of food, but sharing your food with others. 

And that...changes everything.

Our individualistic culture has seeped in even to our faith, and many of us come to church...and even come to this Table...thinking about ourselves. About our relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Spirit. About what our own heart has been like lately. About our own spiritual state. About God's goodness for us. About all the things we personally want from Him. 

I'm struck by the image of the dipping of the bread in the Bible's telling of the Last Supper, how Jesus said He would identify His betrayer by dipping the bread into the oil and giving it to the man He was talking about. This tells me that even at this first moment, at the time when Jesus shared this Table with His disciples, it was truly a shared experience - one communal reservoir for dipping. 

So different from the way we approach it today. 

So important, then, the way that Isaiah reminds us that even the things we think we're doing for ourselves are really things that are meant to be shared. The true heart of Christian discipline...is and always has been generosity, hospitality, and service. 

The true heart of fasting is not making yourself hungry, but putting yourself in a position to recognize and minister to the hunger in others. 

The true heart of Communion is not coming to the Table for the body and the blood; it's dipping your portion in the communal cup and making sure this Table isn't just for you - that it's for everybody. 

Come, let us feast together. Come, let us feed the hungry. Come, let us love one another. 

Let us pray.  

 

Truth

In order to get past hate, we have to find our way back to truth. Hard truth. The same hard truth that we didn't want to face in the first place. 

And it's not easy. 

See, hate blinds us to truth. It has to. And not just the truth about whatever situation we were trying to avoid; hate blinds us to the truth about the object of our hate. 

There can be no redeeming qualities for a person or a group of persons that you think you hate. You cannot let yourself have one moment of sympathy with them, one inkling of pride, one iota of good will. You cannot let yourself be convinced that they are anything but completely, totally, 100% detestable or else the facade of hate that you've built up will start to crack...then crumble...and then bring you to the truth you didn't want to face in the first place. 

Imagine you have crafted a hate toward a particular individual, as a way of protecting yourself from some truth you didn't want to deal with. If you then run into that individual and see them strong, healthy, happy, successful, etc. then you have two choice: either you can accept that maybe they aren't that bad after all (and thus, force yourself to reckon with your hate and the truth behind it) or you have to decide that there is something very dastardly in them after all that is quite good at faking it and has everyone else fooled, thus convincing yourself that they are even more worthy of your hate than you even thought. 

Most of the time, we do the latter. It's just easier that way, we think. 

One little bit of truth always leads to another, which leads to another, which eventually brings us back to the truth that we were trying to get away from in the first place. So there's no space in hate for any smallest, tiniest, most troubling bit of truth at all because it can bring the whole enterprise down. So hate keeps us doubling down on it for the rest of our lives unless we make an intentional decision to do the hard work to enter the tough spaces and deal with the truth. 

That's what makes hate so tough to overcome. We begin to hate almost instinctively, as a protective mechanism built somewhere deep into the broken human psyche, but we have to be intentional about choosing against hate and, well...that's just harder. It's not as instinctive. It's not as easy. 

But again...what is your hate really getting you? 

A constant bitterness, a smaller world, a perpetual fight against things you can never defeat, an ongoing defensiveness...we could go on, but must we? Isn't this enough to choose against hate? To commit yourself to the hard work? 

This series began as a reflection of an encounter I had recently with someone - one of the very few persons in this world - who hates me. Honest-to-God hates me. Because hating me is easier than grieving loss and brokenness. Despite my best efforts over many years, there is nothing I can do to change this person's mind, and I started thinking about why that is...and the answer came quickly and clearly: because ceasing to hate me, choosing to recognize any of the millions of very good things about me, deciding to recognize the ways in which I am created in God's image, takes this person back to the very point at which they chose hate in the first place and requires them to face the truth of brokenness and loss all over again. And...that's hard. 

But it's hard for me, too. It's hard to be the object of someone's hate because you know it's based on a lie. Because you can feel them trying to push the walls of your world smaller (even if they don't succeed). Because you know there's nothing you can do to change their heart until and unless God changes it so that they can choose truth. 

Because...so often, the experiences we have with hate come from places close to home, from persons we once loved and perhaps still do, and it's so hard to watch their hearts get wrapped in this blackness, in this darkness, in this lie. It's so hard to watch them unable or unwilling to do better. And, of course, it stings a little that whatever love you used to have between you isn't enough love for them to choose truth. So..it stings. Even when you understand it. 

But as I said yesterday, all of this hurt, all of this understanding, all of this knowing that I have about what hate really is...it just drives me to grieve. It drives me to weep. It drives me to pray for those who are stuck in it. And...despite being the object of it, let me make clear - I'm not the one stuck in it. I'm not the one whose life is fueled by hate. It honestly doesn't affect my day-to-day a single tick. Not one. I think sometimes when you hate someone, you get this idea in your head that they spend all their time thinking about how to make you miserable, but let me be clear - I don't think about the persons that hate me at all. I just live my life. Embracing all the good and beautiful and wonderful things of God, grieving the broken things of man, praying for the restoration of it all - even of all the hateful things, and I go on about my life. My head space doesn't dwell on hate the way the headspace of the hater has to - has to, because that's how hate works. 

So I can only grieve. And pray. And face the truth and do my best to embrace it, whether that means accepting it or working hard to change it or whatever it looks like.

Because the last thing I want to do is buy the lie and end up on the other side of this whole thing, full of hate and darkness myself. 

That's just not me.