Do you feel courageous in your daily life?

August 6, 2024

Maria 2 Corinthians 5, Confidence, courage, Prayer, Trusting God, Uncategorized , , Leave a comment

Therefore, being always of good courage….2 Corinthians 5:6 NASB

Reading this affirmation from Paul, I had an inkling that another meaning for the Greek term might be cheerful.  Sure enough, ‘tharreo’ also signifies:  being of good cheer, being hopeful, bold, and confident.

When I think of courage, I think of a physical feeling surging up.  But I can’t identify with that.  However, I can imagine being cheerfully light-hearted because of God. 

What I know of him from the Bible, the perpetual non-ending nature of all his attributes, fills me with confidence in God and true hope for the future.

Thinking of cheery people, I picture someone not preoccupied with himself, freed from the smallness of self-focus. 

Only by meditating on Jesus as my older brother, on the Holy Spirit as my helper and on the warm welcome of the Father can my face broadcast a relaxed smile. 

Of course, the personal Almighty will take care of all my concerns, especially those heavy and ‘No Exit’ (think Sartre) burdens people dear to me carry.

We CAN change!

May 16, 2024

Maria 2 Corinthians 5, Genesis 22, Identity, Renewing, Trusting God , , , , , , 1 Comment

i….f anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

How have you changed since you became a Christian? I bet you can tick off a number of areas in your life that are different. I can as well, but some aspects of Maria have not been renovated.  I still carry around views of myself that turn out, it seems, to be quite limiting.

For example, I’ve often said, “I’m not good at art.” This seemed to be a reasonable truth. For some people clearly gravitate toward drawing or crafting or painting out of love. Here’s another example: Mike is very musical.  I’m not.  I tried piano lessons for 10 years and because I didn’t enjoy practicing, I didn’t grow much in skill nor in enjoyment.

These conclusions form what are called identity statements, as in: I’m not the kind of person who does X.

Recently, while listening to a podcast, I started to see for the first time just how many of these negative, limiting identities I have absorbed and frequently use.  The guest, Mike Zeller, being interviewed shared a captivating concept of alter egos. 

During the podcast, I found out that he had personally coached the host in identifying his own limiting beliefs about himself. During the conversation, listeners learned how Zeller had guided him in creating a persona that he could ‘wear’ and act like, an alter ego. Each alter ego was given a name. Zeller encourages his clients to name the old persona something silly, something mock-worthy. (think ‘Debbie Downer’ or ‘Eeyore’)

For some reason, this way of stepping away from a negative identity into a new one seemed do-able to me. Especially when I realized that a lot of my self-talk was in fact damaging me, a revelation that had never before struck me as negative. For these beliefs had seemed simply to be true.

For example, I love languages and speak various ones with different degrees of proficiency.  Yet, whenever anyone remarks, ‘Maria, you’re good at languages, they come easily to you!’, I deny that and reply, ‘Not really, I just work super hard because I really want to be fluent in all of them.’

And that’s the truth about how I have thought about myself. I had never seen that in reality, that assessment is both negative and limiting. I was stunned! 

I bet you have run similar crippling scripts through your mind without realizing it. Here is what is hopeful.  You don’t have to retrain your subconscious; you just have to catch yourself in the middle of asserting one of those ‘lines’ and step out of it into a new alter ego.

Here is what I have done. I have identified an alter ego, to whom I have given the name, “Fluent Frankie” (I had an Aunt Frances whom I don’t remember whose nickname was Frankie).

This new gal, ‘Fluent Frankie’, is programmed to respond to someone complimenting her on multiple languages: ‘Thank you! I really like languages and I have found that they are pretty easy to acquire if you’re willing to put in the time.’

I’ll give you another example.  Maria’s depressing view on picking out gifts for family has always been: ‘I’m not a creative gift giver like my husband, my son Graham or my late mother-in-law’.  That self-constructed identity has always made me dread birthdays and Christmas.  Selecting appropriate gifts that delight the person has felt like a burden.

But…..as a new creation in God, with multiple alter egos, I have created, ‘Good-gift-giver Gabbie’ (I’m picking out first names of people I have never personally known). For this new character I can choose to play thinking about and selecting gifts is FUN.

There are about 11 other invented alter egos I have created and can select from when I catch myself running a negative, depressing and limiting script. They are: Patient Paula, Leisurely Leslie, Trusting Tina, Flexible Fiora, Solid Sleeper Sammie, Fun-loving Mimi, Cheerfully-Confident Carol, Silent Susie, Worry-free Wanda, Grateful Gretchen and Stewarding Serena.

The 11 personas that involve my walk as a child of God are glimpses of how I want to grow. I desire to trust more the Father’s unchanging love for me and be more willing to obey Jesus about not fearing or worrying. Handing over all that concerns me because he knows me intimately and IS constantly praying for and providing for me.

Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the LORD will provide”). Genesis 22:14 NLT

Can you be passively active?

May 29, 2023

Maria 2 Corinthians 5, Ezekiel 37, John 3, New Birth, Philippians 4, Romans 12 , , 2 Comments

So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ John 3:7 NLT

Don’t we sometimes long for a ‘do-over’?  For years, I’ve celebrated new beginnings. But coming upon Jesus’ words this morning I spotted a new way of thinking about the new birth as he startled the learned Nicodemus.

What do people assume when they speak of a ‘do-over’?  I know my mind goes directly to inaugurating a fresh start. A chance to try again and to better THIS time.

But is that what the Bible teaches? That we all receive a clean page, unblemished by sin in order to ‘make it good this time’?

Knowing me, that’s not good news.

I don’t have confidence that I can do better.

Praise God that Jesus’ conversations point to a passive plan of action.  He does this by using the passive form of a verb, BE born again.

Okay, let’s pause for a brief grammar review.  Just what is the passive ‘voice’ in language?  Wikipedia simplifies it this way:

“…..In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb – that is, the person or thing that undergoes the action or has its state changed. This contrasts with active voice, in which the subject has the agent role….”

Jesus holds out to the current and most influential religious man in Jerusalem a different way of doing life.  It’s a receiving of an action done to him that is going to change his life forever. That is, if he submits.

Is this good news?  To me it is. For ‘try harder….do more….change your ways….start fresh’ no longer hold out hope. They simply remind me of how I CAN’T!

I remember the years that I loved January 1.  The calendar proclaimed the tempting possibility of maybe getting it RIGHT this time.  I’d pull out and unwrap a brand-new planner and write down goals and steps and the intermediate milestones, tagged to specific dates. I dared to imagine that THIS year would be better.

I don’t do that anymore.  Oh, I still have hope.  But a new kind, one that causes my entire body to relax.  I can’t change myself, but God can. Not only does he want to, it is his express plan of how we are to live.

Let’s start with what happens after what Jesus describes as the second birth. Consider this biblical fact:

Now, we are new and different living beings. And that condition is right from the start. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Okay, now what?  Is there something we are to do?  Paul tells us what to expect as new boys and girls, men and women:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind….Romans 12:2 ESV

If you and I were meant to do the change, the Holy Spirit would have exhorted: Don’t conform yourself to the world, but transform yourself by……

Can you SEE or maybe FEEL the difference?

Countless verses and passages in the Bible lay out for us just how much we have received (a passive action) from grace, to strength, to riches, to comfort, to guidance, even to the gift of wanting to repent.  

But here’s one of my favorite examples and this is VIVID.  Do you remember Ezekiel’s encounter with God in a vision in the Valley of Dry Bones? Read all of chapter 37 for the details, but let’s look at verses 5 and 6s showing that God is the agent.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

It’s ALL of the Lord’s doing.

Maybe you are you questioning:  So, we don’t do anything?  We just let ourselves be DONE to?

To the contrary! Yes, primarily we are to receive, but Paul DOES strongly exhort us to practice various ACTIVE behaviors.

For example, given ALL that God has done for us and IS doing every second, we are to:

Per Romans 12:12

  1. Thoroughly enjoy the hope, the expectation we have of permanently belonging to God as his ‘do-over’ children.
  2. Bravely and calmly bear whatever affliction or suffering he ordains.
  3. Chatter to God all the time through thanksgiving and praise and handing over all our requests.

Per Philippians 4: 8 ESV

Here is where we are to direct our thoughts:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Of course, we are to read, study and meditate on God in his word daily to receive his counsel. And he DOES lay out actions we are to take like helping others and offering hospitality. 

However, I think Christians can fall into the trap of thinking it’s all about their DOING.

Let’s add thanksgiving back into our daily lives,  the ‘being done to us’ side of the Christian life.  Remember, WE don’t cause fruit to grow on our branch.  That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, too.

My words to Maria and to you are: “Relax, little branchlet, little twig, little offshoot of the trunk who is Jesus. You have a gardener who knows what he is doing.  Just be glad and receive his care and let him grow you into a strong branch.”

What is something fresh or different you see in Scripture?

March 10, 2021

Maria 2 Corinthians 3, 2 Corinthians 5, Christian Liberty, Hebrews 13, John 13, Service , , 2 Comments

Don’t you love it when the Holy Spirit shows you something new in His Word? I have chosen two of my ‘devotional bites’ (what I call each day’s writing practice) that talk about new insights or discoveries.  The first offers a different way of thinking about Christian liberty.  And the second describes a new practice I am implementing.

Whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.  Now the Lord  is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image. 2 Corinthians 3:15-18

Taken in context, Christian freedom communicates a meaning different than most talk about. This is not a liberty to do as one pleases.  Paul is writing about being emancipated from an incorrect understanding of God’s Word. Before Jesus came, we were not at liberty to comprehend God’s plan.  It was hinted at, but ‘kept under wraps’ until the right time.

‘Freed’ from wrong conclusions, we now can grow in knowledge of Jesus by means of the Spirit. And most amazing and wonderful of all, this release or freedom from the custody of the law, as Paul explains in Galatians 3:23, means we are growing to be more like Jesus.

Grace frees us to be holy.

****

(Jesus) wrapped a towel around his waist. John 13:4 NIV

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:15 that we are to live FOR the One who died and was raised FOR us. Jesus modeled what it means to center one’s life on someone else.  It’s called service.

As an illustration, Jesus put on the ‘uniform’ of a servant when He grabbed and attached that drying cloth to himself.

‘Just what is MY uniform?’ I pondered this morning.  The idea came, ‘What if I put on one of my 4 necklace crosses?’  That day-by-day deliberate act of fastening the clasp would remind me that I am Jesus’ servant, with tasks He assigns.

And for whom are these daily duties?  Jesus Himself isn’t physically here. However, we know that when we serve others, we are serving Him.

But what should we be doing? Hebrews uses the term ‘sacrifices’ to describe our service.  In Hebrews 13:15-16 the author explains that we are to praise God continuously, do good, and share with others. All and only in Jesus’ power, of course.

Wearing a cross reminds me I have a Master.