I killed the ‘red lizard of sin’!

January 13, 2022

Maria Idols, Matthew 5, Sin , , Leave a comment

If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Matthew 5:30 ESV

Until last week, that talkative ‘red lizard of Sin’ continually plagued me.

Did you ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis? It’s a short book and very compelling. In one scene, an angel confronts a man who has died, described by Lewis as a ‘ghost’, someone who had rejected God and heaven. On this ghost of a man’s shoulders chatters a lizard, unceasingly arguing for the mildness of sin that he, the reptile, represents. 

This angel advises the confused ghost-man to kill the red lizard who whispers all the more persuasively to the contrary.  The lizard argues that the man most assuredly can manage him, that’s he quite tame, that what he suggests the man indulge in is not that bad.  

The angel doesn’t argue with the ghost-man or with the tempter. He simply offers to kill the Red Lizard himself.

The ghost-man cringes out of fear, anticipating pain and the loss of his pet sin.  But he yields to the angel who slays the reptile, thus liberating him.  I won’t spoil what happens next.  Read the book!

Like the vacillating ghost-man I have felt the forceful propaganda of a similar red lizard.  The Spirit himself finally convinced me that I had to sever something I had created because it was causing me to sin.

What was that sin?  An out-of-balance preoccupation with something material that often shoved Jesus out of his primary place in my thought life and heart.

I wrote last week about the project I started in 2018 to build a business helping language learners with English.  Nothing sinful in and of itself.  But starting and building an online presence tapped into pockets of ambition and pride deep inside of me that became disordered. 

Last week when I posted my blog, I had resolved to wait on God to see what he wanted me to do.  Within 24 hours of hitting ‘publish’ I knew what I had to do, what HE wanted me to do.  Since I was continuing to obsess, I had to take drastic action.  I truly wanted to be FREE, to tolerate NO interior drive that competed with Jesus.

So, I killed it.  I severed it, this on-line presence.  I knew that I did not have the power to tame it or change my thoughts and feelings.  Just as we clean up our phones to make more space, I had to eliminate the largest ‘file’.   

I called up Go Daddy, the tech company hosting my website, and told them to cancel it.  The tech support guy reassured me that it would remain active until the subscription period ran out in 5 months. 

“No, I want you to kill it now.  It’s a trigger for me.”  I’m sure he didn’t understand.  But he proceeded to read me the statement declaring that if he shut down my website, I would lose everything I had created. I replied, “I understand and accept that.  Please just do it.”

Just like that, three and half years of content disappeared. I purposely chose not to back up anything. Then I contacted Mail Chimp and did the same thing.  With this service, I had been writing and sending out helpful teaching tips, follow-up extension activities and how I had used each video in my on-line English class.  Now that was gone, too.

What did I feel?  Nothing. Just a sense of blahness.

But by the next morning, by grace, while lingering over scripture and dialoguing with Jesus in my journal, I started to feel light, free and cheery.  I knew I had done what was right for me.

It’s taken me two years to reach this point. I’ve wavered and talked to Mike and family members ad nauseum about feeling a love-hate relationship with English without Fear.  Making weekly content has felt burdensome. Yet at the same time I have taken pride in what I offered weekly to the language learning space. The burden grew as I felt or imagined that my subscribers ‘expected’ new videos on a regular basis. The continual wrangling with my thoughts and feelings weighed me down.

Am I sorry I started English without Fear?  Nope. I learned a lot about video production. I made contact with English language learners around the world who have enriched my life.  My faith deepened and I grew in my understanding of what sin is.  I don’t want anything to compete with Jesus and the first place he occupies in my life.

As Graham, my son, reassured me.  I can always start something similar again, if that is God’s will for my me.  He doesn’t waste any experience, but repackages it for his purposes.

The promise of beauty deceived me

April 12, 2020

Maria Decay, Resurrection, Revelation 21, Uncategorized , , , , , , 3 Comments

 

Decrepit tulips

The tulips never even opened.  Instead, they started to decay from the moment I placed them in water. The promise of their beauty on display at Target deceived me

I keep flowers all around the house.  This vase is sitting on my bathroom sink. Nearby on Mike’s sink, in contrast, sit some lovely Alstroemeria boasting in their fairness. But somehow the ugliness of the tulips speaks a louder message of truth and I am loathe to toss them.

I sense that I need to embrace the reality that these flowers represent.  This world, this Earth 1.0, IS decrepit, a crumbling place.  No amount of make-up or human enhancements can change this reality.  There IS a curse.

It’s always winter in Narnia – the power of the White Witch reigns. A fact, akin to my decaying tulips.

But just as C.S. Lewis penned, there IS a stronger Truth, an ultimate Power that is at work.  Aslan is coming and a warming, colorful spring heralds this Hope.

Resurrection Sunday, Easter, signals the same for us. A forever summer is drawing nearer. It’s different from summers we have known. Given our few senses, is it even a wonder that we CAN’T imagine a SUPERIOR-summer?

John, guided by the Spirit of God wrote in Revelation 21: 1-4: 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

This renovated, remodeled, new and best of all possible Earths will be Beauty par excellence because the King of Beauty, the LORD Himself will be present with us forever to enjoy.

Since mid-February I have begun to daydream more about this promised future.  I’m beginning to look forward to it.

In the meantime, I thank God for glimpses of beauty, for tastes of goodness here on Earth 1.0. They DO cheer me and lift my spirits. No denying that.  Still, I am sobered by dying reality. A reality that hints at an everlasting Beauty but a reality that cannot hide decay.  Like make-up on a cadaver being prepared for a funeral home viewing.  I’m not fooled. No one is, if they are honest with themselves.

So, this past week, I have learned much from my aborted tulips.  By grace, because of the gift of God’s Word, I know Truth. Jesus.  Though appearing ‘ugly as sin’ because He was MADE to be sin, He was and is and will always Beautiful.

And we believers who, along with my tulips, are decaying, will one day change out our outer layer for new bodies, a final and permanent version 2.0, supernaturally perfect and perpetual.

Aren’t you glad that the best is yet to be?

 

 

 

 

 

Good News for Christmas Blahs

December 16, 2019

Maria 1 Corinthians 2, Joy, Psalm 16, Romans 8, Uncategorized , , Leave a comment

When did Christmas last feel magical to you? I can’t put a picture to that feeling.  I don’t know where I was living or how old I was, but I KNOW the feeling. The awe, the bigger-than-life impending, wonder-filled reality.  Grownups have a word for that – transcendence.

Sadly, my transcendent experience had nothing to do with the sublime Creator God.  My mom wasn’t a believer then.  She was a single parent raising me with the help of her mother. We three lived together in ‘old-lady’ apartments. (poor me!)  She worked a part-time job and Mimi had some money; I think.

But I remember the pleasure of anticipation, at least one year.  Something mysteriously big was imminent.  And my desire for it mounted.

That vivid memory-moment returns annually this time of year, not to cheer me, but as a sobering reminder.  Seasons leading up to Christmas have never come close to matching that intense joy-filled awareness.

I thought about this last week. It was a Wednesday.  Returning home from sharing a lunch out with a Columbian friend, I walked into the house feeling blah. Nothing to look forward to, was how I felt.  Nothing interested me at that moment. I had no real plans.  Oh, I did have some work I wanted to complete. Another video for my English without Fear channel. But nothing new or exciting waiting for me around the corner.

It was then that a cheerful thought showed up.  A premise of C.S. Lewis. Lewis wrote that if we have a longing (Sehnsucht in German) or a craving that nothing in this life seems to satisfy, it’s because we were made for a different world. A place where there IS a matching fulfillment for each and every yearning.

That God-sent truth rejuvenated me with fresh energy.  King Solomon wrote an entire book about unmet longings. Read all of Ecclesiastes in one setting. It’s short.  This wealthiest and wisest monarch at the time tried EVERY experience under the sun.  And was bored by all.

Nothing at all thrilled him?  Nope! That’s because our hearts are made to be satisfied ALONE by God. Only God is big enough to enrapture us forever. Psalm 16:11 …in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Once God reminded me of how He fashioned me, my blahs disappeared. New energy arrived.  I bargained with myself to work for an hour on my video and then I would sit down and read the newspaper.

Since that change in mood, I’ve been able to apply the same truth to Christmas.  Especially in the realm of gift giving.

We all want to give a brief transcendent moment to those we love. Parents delight in doing this for their young children.  But have you looked at the ideas presented in the TV and newspaper ads?  Can a piece of jewelry do that for a woman?  Or a new wallet for a man?

My hairdresser recounted a recent errand she ran with her husband to Lowe’s.  Walking down one aisle, he stopped by one of those metal-finding tools people use at the beach to hunt for ‘treasure’.  He mentioned that he had always wanted one.  So, they bought it right then and there. She’s going to wrap it up for him and put it under the tree!  How’s that for transcendence!

The point is, NO thing here on earth can or should satisfy.  My early magical feeling of excitement is simply proof that I was made for something BIG, LASTING and not fully comprehensible – in other words something BOREDOM-PROOF.

For Christians, we have a guarantee of just such a world.  Waiting for us.  As Paul says, nothing here on earth is, (Romans 8:18)  …..worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Why? How?  (1 Cor 2:9) But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, …..God has prepared for those who love him.

Comfort yourself, friend.  It’s okay that the traditions and rituals of the season no longer move you.  They are but shadows of the real thing. Immerse yourself in the facts. The real Christmas is coming. Christ with us and we with Christ. A forever joy, excitement and über-satisfaction that will grow in its power to thrill us.

 

 

 

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