What do you consider your greatest sin?

March 30, 2023

Maria Holiness, Jeremiah 17, Matthew 5, Repentance, Saving Faith, Sin, Witnessing , , 2 Comments

I carry a heavy heart because a dear friend, Roberto, is not (yet) a believer.  Last week I had read something illuminating written by John Eldredge in his book Walking with God. He described three epiphanies in the life of a Christian. 

The first occurs when you recognize, “Oh, there IS a God.  He really does exist!  And Jesus was a real person who walked on earth and claimed to be God’s son.”  At this stage, you’re not a Christian. In one sense, you are like Satan who totally believes God is real. My friend Roberto has camped out here as long as he can remember. As an Argentinian he grew up in a catholic family, school and culture.

The change that transforms a person, that second epiphany, occurs when a person wakes up to the fact that ‘if God is real, then I have to deal with him. I have to acknowledge his presence in my life.  I can’t ignore him any longer.’

We who live this reality hope that the Holy Spirit imparts to these our friends, family members and/or the stranger on the street the power to SEE and BELIEVE the offer from the Father. We pray they now naturally repent and with relief submit to Jesus’ authority.  Plus, we want them to be amazed by the news of the accompanying supernatural benefits for now on earth 1.0 and the amazing forever future awaiting him or her as a newly welcomed Kingdom son or daughter.

I won’t mention the third epiphany or stage in the life of a Christian. But, if you’re curious, read Eldredge’s book!

God used this explanation about the progression toward saving faith together with recent tornado deaths in Mississippi last weekend to motivate me to record an audio message to Roberto explaining my respect for him and fondness as a friend and how I wanted him to know Jesus via a relationship. He’s never read the Bible for himself, let alone the gospel accounts.  His view of God and Jesus are cobbled together ‘bits and bobs’ as my English friend says.

I did explain the two phases. I affirmed that I recognizes he freely acknowledges the existence of God and Jesus. But that I wanted more for him. That there IS more to Christianity than he has heard.

He kindly responded and I could tell that what I shared was done in love.  Our friendship has grown over three years through our weekly on-line chats, both in my ESL conversation group I run for some Hispanics and one on one with him. 

But his sticking point is: “I can’t understand how a god would allow little children in Africa to suffer drought and hunger and perish.  I guess I’ll find that out after I die.”

I did follow up with Roberto but since then, I’ve been musing about how the real problem of suffering is an obstacle to many people.

This morning the Holy Spirit gave me an insight. I wrote in my journal: My sin is a far more pressing concern (or it SHOULD be) than the suffering I see around me.

That response doesn’t negate the reality of the horrors that occur all over the globe every second of the day.  But it does focus one’s attention on ‘first things’, our sin.

I thought a while about what people, even mature Christians, consider ‘sin’.  Most of us probably think of behaviors, those actions that in their mildest form are unbecoming to a believer and at the opposite end of the spectrum the traditional ‘egregious’ ones.

How did Jesus address sin?  He aimed straight for the heart, repeating the message of Old Testament prophets.

Jeremiah in 17:9 ESV declared:  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Matthew recalled Jesus’ words to the crowds in 5: 27-28 Berean Study Bible:  You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

I think Jesus would explain sin to Roberto and to us like this: 

Your thoughts and your will drive your actions.  For sure, your actions harm and damage and destroy other people. But unless you understand the deeper problem, just how your thoughts and feelings affront Holy God, you don’t know God.

The good news is that Jesus willingly came, lived, taught, and died to take care of this sin problem and to enable us to please our Father.

God is leading me slowly but surely to go deeper into the mystery of MY sin and God’s holiness. It’s been taking me a long time to start to feel even some horror and shame over my interior and invisible to the world sins. 

Oh, Father, may my friend Roberto grasp all this now and far more rapidly than I have.  It’s up to you to open his heart, like you did with Lydia.  I ask for this, Amen.

There’s been a ‘heat’ wave and my leaf is still green!

December 2, 2021

Maria Bible Reading, Faith, Jeremiah 17, Patience, Self-Control, Self-Pity, Spiritual Fruit, Spiritual Warfare , , , , , 2 Comments

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8 Berean Study Bible

Are things ‘heating up’ for you? Is trouble brewing?  We’ve just passed through that feast day when families gather, some happily and some reluctantly. Often mixing with those we don’t regularly see except at Thanksgiving can produce sparks that ignite as surely as rubbing two sticks together.

When Jeremiah’s words popped up in my Prayermate app earlier this week I lingered a while connecting God’s words with what Jim, our associate pastor, had emphasized on Sunday. Wrapping up this fall’s Sunday School journey through Paul’s encouraging letters to the Thessalonians, Jim emphasized our absolute need to meditate daily and deeply on Scripture.  His exhortation included imploring us to pray for our pastors and missionaries that they would do the same.  For how can we hope to endure as believers and encourage others in the faith unless we……stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 NIV?

Last Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, I saw first-hand the blessing in standing firm, a growing ability due to years of lingering leisurely over God’s word. So, what happened?  Just some ordinary ‘heating up’ right before our families arrived that could easily have thrown me for a loop.  Satan lost this skirmish to manipulate circumstances toward his evil plans.

We had hosted friends for 2 nights the weekend before Thanksgiving and I was tired. I had a day and a half turn-around time to get the house ready, to stock the kitchen and catch up on some tasks foregone during our friends’ visit.

Even when our friends were with us, I continued feeding on God’s word.  Company, cooking and other tasks weren’t going to stand in the way of what I look forward to. I always need time each morning to reset with Jesus.   So, on Tuesday morning, after reminding myself that ‘God’s got this’ and ‘He is my sufficiency’, I set out for Kroger’s, my favorite grocery store, to gather all the food we needed for the eleven of us.  A shortage of baggers, time needed to hunt for one-off items and a plethora of holiday shoppers stretched my normal 45-minute shopping trip to 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Only by grace, could I practice patience, frequently reminding myself that ‘All this serves my eternal good’.  I was even able to rejoice when I maneuvered that overflowing, heavy cart toward my car, for I thanked God that it wasn’t raining! Furthermore, no egg cartons fell off nor did cherry tomatoes make a break-out run from their plastic homes.

The Tampa family was due to pull in between 4 and 5 that afternoon.  After putting everything away, I wanted to get the Coq au Vin prepared and set to ‘warm’ in my Instant pot so I could be free to enjoy these dear ones.  But another probe from Satan materialized. The chicken stuck in the Instant pot and started to burn.

I immediately unplugged the pot and released all the steam that had built up. As I transferred this rich chicken-wine-mushrooms and thyme goodness to a regular pot on the cooktop, I reminded myself, ‘This, too, serves my eternal good’.

In the past, I’ve given in to self-pity many times when situations heated up.  But thanks to the Lord and his word, my leaf remained green.  Rising early to feed the cats and make some coffee, I refocused on Jesus and refreshed myself each morning in God’s word while our families slept to at last 8 am.

A week has passed since Thanksgiving.  Looking back, I can see how God showered so much grace on us, including protecting Gizmo, our kitty escape artist.  I found out later that in the confusion of 4 extra adults and 5 kids, he did manage one time to get out the back door. Somehow, someone succeeded in catching him and returned him to the house. Grace!

This morning, God added a PS to last week’s grace. Our microwave popped, hissed and went on strike, refusing to re-heat my coffee.  My first thought flew right to God and the grace he showed in delaying this microwave failure by one week.  We used that microwave SO much preparing, heating, melting, reheating food and liquid as we feasted all week.  Furthermore, ALL the appliances, the gas fireplace, central heat and the hot water worked perfectly.

What encourages me more than God’s grace is how I see the blessing of this practice of slow meditative Bible reading. Fruit such as confidence in God and his promises, patience and self-control come easier.  I rejoice in God’s goodness.

Can’t you see the water?

August 28, 2020

Maria 1 Corinthians 10, Anxiety, Fear, Jeremiah 17, John 7, Worries , , , , 6 Comments

A certain young man whom I dearly love is struggling with fear, anxiety and worry. He has recently been moved into a position with more responsibility and fewer resources that he can see. Knowing himself well, he has rightly concluded: I don’t have what it takes to succeed in this job!

Night and day, he has fallen into obsessing about failure. He feels stuck in the position because it appears to be one that will last until June 2021. He confessed to me last week that he sometimes daydreams of working an 8 to 5 at Walmart!

Haven’t we all been there!

Yes, he is a believer and knows Scripture well enough to realize that all this pressure is from God. He should also know that as a born-again child of God, he has been given solid promises that are his to use and to cling to.

So, when I read Jeremiah’s description of the ever-green leafy tree, I immediately applied it to his pressure-cooker of a job.

God’s sovereign governing of all that concerns his children includes where He ‘plants’ us. The Holy Spirit, through Jeremiah, is reminding us of the following:

  • wherever the Lord ‘plants’ those who TRUST HIM, that place is always VERY near a nourishing, life-giving stream. What does the stream represent? Something that is invisible at first to our eyes. Do you remember when the Exodus crowd were parched and out of strength in the desert? God instructed Moses to strike the Rock (Jesus per 1 Cor 10:4). Water gushed out in abundance. That MASS of people were enLIVEned, refreshed, encouraged and energized. Never would they have imagined water coming from a boulder.
  • the one who is confident in God’s WILL and ABILITY to provide draws near to the LORD, the only constant and dependable supply. Jeremiah is given a vision of the tree moving her roots TOWARD the water. Why would a tree bother to spread out her roots? Because there is no rainwater. But having sensed water and its life-giving relief, she moves toward it.
  • when troubles come, like NO RAIN, the tree keeps her roots IN the water. She does not say once she is satisfied: “Thank you, stream, that will do me just fine. Have a nice day!” No! That would be stupid. Since she has received, she stays connected to the Source.
  • what is the happy result? She doesn’t suffer the natural consequences of rain-deprived trees. She has a secret supply of what she needs. The effect of being so nourished is evident to all – GREEN leaves amidst dying, dried-up trees.
  • furthermore, do you notice the impact of HER leaves staying green all through the drought? She produces fruit. Do trees need their own fruit? No! Fruit is for others, whether the next generation of little trees, for squirrels, birds or humans!

So, sweet friend of mine. This is for you. I believe the Lord has planted you in a desert where you are withering. But take heart. There is a river nearer than you think. God’s never-ending Supplier, His divine Spirit, the Helper, is not just NEAR you, He is in you.

But yes, He is invisible as are His supplies. Yes, depending on your abilities alone scares you. It should! God means you to be overwhelmed if you’re looking at just you and all that is on your plate. But God, rich in mercy, has not planted you NEAR a stream. He has planted the stream IN you!

John 7:37-38 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

They don’t think like I do!

November 7, 2017

Maria Gentleness, Grace, Jeremiah 17, Peace, Sanctification, Soul growth, Thinking , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

‘Everyone’ has discovered the Enneagram!  So it seems these days.  This lens into how each of us classifies life at an early age, whether accurately or not, points to the self-defense strategies we have cobbled together.  These tools or personality coping strategies appear to be set by age 5 and then we unconsciously hone them as we grow up.  They are NOT the real us, for they are just protective layers or a persona that we craft and wear to cover up our vulnerable self.  Finding out which type each one of us is, requires that we look at our heart motives, not our behaviors.

And that requires inward work.  No one can typecast us by evaluating how we act. Knowing oneself requires courage.  It takes ruthless honesty to pull back the layers of past shame and fear, guided by the gentle Holy Spirit. For as God says through His prophet in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Well, with God’s help, we can know some things about our heart.

My journey with the Enneagram began in April.  I met my friend Mandy for one of our infrequent coffees.  She and I share a love for books and thinking, but she lives in Nashville and I live in western North Carolina.  As we were catching up, Mandy told me about a book whose wisdom and insights had NAILED her good!  Instantly mesmerized, I asked her about it.  The title of the paradigm she began to unfold sounded a bit new-age-ish – the Enneagram.  So instead of buying the book she was studying, I asked our library to order The Road Back to You.

When it arrived and I opened to page one, I knew I had to get my OWN copy so I could write in it.  And then the ‘binge’ began – 3 more books and all the podcasts that the authors Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile had recorded etc.

What appeals to me about this system of 9 (‘ennea’ is Greek for 9) different ways of looking at life are several key benefits that accrue to the one who decides to glean and use the useful bits:

  •  it confronts me with the incontrovertible fact that MY way is not the only way to view life and react to others and circumstances
  • there’s a reason I am weird (or maybe I’m not weird, but normal!)
  • there are ways I can grow up and discard some of my coping mechanisms that might have worked in the past. I’m learning that they are not healthy NOR are they what God is calling me to be as His beloved child and servant. Awareness, however, precedes change.

The ways each of the 9 personality types differ have to do in part with wounds we interpreted as young children.  As I understand it, Mom might have been scowling at us and as a 2 or 3-year-old, we drew the conclusion that we were to blame.  That could have been the case, or more likely, she was preoccupied with something else.  Nonetheless, very early on, from our environment, we crafted a way to protect ourselves and get our needs met.

How have this knowledge and understanding concretely helped Mike and me?   When one of us is ‘having one of those moments!’ we are beginning to offer grace more quickly and NOT take the emotional reaction personally.  “Oh, that is Maria’s 5-ness or Mike’s 1-ness acting out.”

Being an ‘Observer’, the 5 who conserves her physical, emotional and rational energy out of fear of depletion, I live in my thoughts.  I honestly believed that everyone else did as well.  So for all the 37 years before April 2017, I trumpeted to Mike: “If you would JUST change your thinking, you could automatically change your emotions.”  He never seemed to ‘get it’, or so I concluded.  But then after April,  I learned that he and others don’t view life like I do.

Call me naïve!  Or a slow learner.

So what is Mike as a 1 on the Enneagram circle like?  He is a ‘Perfectionist’ who operates out of his ‘gut’ or body.  He’d call it instinct.  Visceral feelings lead and color his thoughts.  I’m less likely these days to SAY out loud: “You don’t have to think like that!”  (code for:  Your thinking is wrong!)  I’ve realized not only how unloving that response has been, but also how ineffective it is. So these days I practice stopping myself from correcting his thinking and focus my energy toward understanding just what he is feeling.

Do I have feelings?  Yes, but they trail an event by at least 24 hours.  Often when I have hurt Mike by an action or a tone or a look, I can apologize and I do so, but I don’t FEEL sorry.  I THINK sorry.  And later, the feelings hit me. It’s then that I taste shame and sorrow and it rocks me when I FEEL how I’ve hurt him.

But as a rule, I’d much rather talk to you about your thoughts and my thoughts and what we’ve been learning Questions fascinate me because they lead to more inquiry, which gives new understanding.

This past summer, however, I actually experienced an immediate feeling of anger at someone close to me.  (Can you actually count the feelings you have had in the past year? – that would be like asking me to count the thoughts I have had.) The other intense feeling that hit me happened in early April.  So that’s TWO immediate feelings this year…..but who’s keeping track?

On this rare occasion, there was an event, triggered by another person, followed by an instant intense feeling.  In tandem with that feeling, my thoughts raced.  I stood outside the scenario and evaluated this rare occurrence.  I actually felt GOOD that a strong feeling had barged in, even if uninvited, for to me it represented growth!  I CAN feel and identify an emotion!  In between marveling over the presence of this stranger, I also rationally thought through the consequences were I to choose to welcome him fully and allow him freedom of expression.  I knew I dared not, at the risk of ruining an evening among family members.  But the cost of NOT sharing the feeling was that I withdrew and projected ‘Ice Princess’.  My protective stance.  Yes, and a bit passive-aggressive.

Back to the present.  It’s been 8 months since Mandy introduced me to this personality index.  ‘Everyone’ else as well seems to be discovering this ancient ‘spiritual’ tool toward wholeness and integrity. Or I’m finding that since it’s been in the marketplace of ideas of America since the ’80s, some of my friends have known about it for a while.  But no one I have personally encountered, other than Mandy, actually uses it.

One thing DOES annoy me.  There’s a Facebook group of Enneagram devotées.  Some of them seem to have adopted the stance that their type is the correct way to look at things.  One practitioner invited group members to offer suggestions on how to ‘help’ a 5 in her small study circle to “go deeper and learn to share feelings”.   I suggested that ‘feelings’ might be the tool and term that everyone else feels skilled at employing, but the 5 turns to thoughts as his/her tool of choice for expressing what is meaningful. And that the leader should allow this person to communicate in that way.  The advice-seeker lightly chastised me for offering the suggestion that what some call feelings, 5s might call thoughts.  No such beast allowed, apparently.

Dear Friends, one of the beauties of the Enneagram is how it shows us that we are all different. The wisest way to help a 5 or any number let go of his/her preferred, but stunted coping strategy is to model healthier ways of living in a winsome, uncritical manner.   Being around non-judgmental broken fellow sojourners who are walking with God both gentles me and encourages me.  Chastisement does not.

How about you?  Are you an Enneagram practitioner?  If so, I’d be interested in learning how the Enneagram is helping you grow more integrated, more like Jesus.  Please leave a comment!  And if you are a Five like me, please let me know.

 

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