What are you looking forward to?

January 22, 2017

Maria Crucifixion, Kingdom of God, Mark 15 , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

“Well what d’ya expect from him!” my cynical friend spit out after waiting yet again for a habitually late friend to show up.

Humans let others down.  Partly due to our sinful and selfish nature and partly due to how God designed us.  Creatures have limits.  Only God is limitless, perfect and consistent.

Expectations about others tend always to leave us disappointed.  As David Zahl, pastor of an Episcopal Church in Charlottesville says, “expectations are planned resentments.”

What if we were to change the WHAT or WHOM we place our expectations?  What if we were to place our hope in what is 100% guaranteed?  That’s a no brainer; if we did so, we would avoid disappointment.

I read just this morning about Joseph of Arimathea, one of Jesus’ rich disciples who according to Mark 15:43 was “a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God”;

What does that tidbit about his focus communicate?  Nothing short of the direction of his life!

After Jesus announced, “It is finished!” and died on that Friday outside of Jerusalem, this courageous man Joseph, along with the well-known Pharisee Nicodemus, took the bold step of requesting THAT AFTERNOON an audience before Pontius Pilate.  What they did was risky.

Their lives and their reputations at stake, the two sought permission to take Jesus down off the cross and bury Him.

That account is the last written about them, but not the end of their story.  I have no doubt that they are present with the Jesus they hoped in and staked all on.  No disappointments there.

So as this first month of the new year approaches the end, you might feel disappointed already:

  • with yourself and your lack of ability to keep up a resolution
  • with a friend or family member who has let you down, again!
  • with a job or activity you hoped would satisfy
  • with the way an organization acts

I’m learning that every created being or thing in this world on this side of the Cross will let me down, most especially me!  The path to peace and joy is to place our expectations in the only Person who doesn’t disappoint – Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.

I ask again: What are YOU expecting and looking for?

 

Thanking God for this Present Futility

November 9, 2014

Maria Freedom, God's Sovereignty, Hope, Matthew, Romans, suffering, Time , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Futility

 

 

 

I was set free – again – the other day when I heard someone reading from Romans 8.  Verses 20 & 21 caught my attention.  The Amplified Bible with its extra explanatory words in black translates the Greek like this:

  • 20 For the creation (nature) was subjected to frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it—[yet] with the hope (expectation) 
  • 21 That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

Since the Fall and man’s first rebellion, frustration and futility and struggle (all known as ‘suffering’) have been built into our universe. Reality is that we live in a broken world that won’t be ‘fixed’ until Jesus comes back.   Furthermore, God informs us that we humans and nature will get worse, not better. When Jesus is plied for the details about the ‘end of the age‘, He responds in Matthew 24:12 with…

  •  because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold

Why don’t I live as though I believe the fact of brokenness and imperfection?   Why do I still wake up each morning thinking that the ideal is possible if I work and pray ‘hard enough’?  When it comes to agreeing with God about my sin problem or nature, I don’t balk at His assessment.  Nevertheless,  I display blindness to God’s description of the world as long as I cling to false expectations and unrealistic hopes in

  • my job
  • my body
  • my marriage
  • my relationships with friends and other family members
  • my government
  • my church

God helped me this week think through a series of propositions leading to a new perspective about work:

1. If God has woven frustration and futility into the very fabric of our world until Jesus comes back, then I can let go of my expectation of finding THE ideal job.  And IT won’t exist until He creates the new heavens and the new earth.

2. Released from the false expectation that I can find and land the ideal job,  I am liberated to seek my ultimate joy in God, not in all-satisfying work.

3. If work doesn’t have to satisfy those deep needs meant only for God to meet, then I can view my job as a place to sprinkle grace by listening to others and encouraging them.  I can meet frustrations with calm since I don’t have to see them as blocking my ultimate joy or satisfaction.  These realities help me to relax and accept that no job will provide what I’m seeking to the degree that I’m seeking it.

4. Most liberating, if frustration and futility are ordained, then I can stop hiding, and instead SHOW my cracks and inconsistencies without fear.

  • Phil 1:29 – For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.

5. Being willing to reveal my broken self and how much I need Jesus’ saving and sustaining power brings glory to God.

6. My neediness and unashamed transparency give hope to others that God might be willing to accept/heal/support/love them.  Were I to persist in the myth of ‘Maria’s Competency‘, how would that help anyone?

Being Real

 

 

 

 

The final relief-bringing thought for me this week was a view of heaven that sprang to mind, that is MY version of heaven.  (No, it’s not one where I can eat dark chocolate without guilt!)

David Zahl, an evangelical Episcopal priest, wrote something for Mockingbird (Blog is here) like, ‘Life is not about passing test after test; you already have the A, the 10/10’.

That got me thinking.  If I knew I had already been accepted into the graduate school of my choice to follow my ideal course of study, I would be ecstatic.  And until I departed for this school, I would relax and enjoy life and fulfill my responsibilities and be fully present without all the anxiety of measuring up, or making it happen or…or..or…..

Kingdom of God is here

Well, those in Christ already have THE ‘A’.  The Kingdom of God HAS commenced.  Eternal life for the children of God IS a current reality.  But all those ideal situations AWAIT us.   They are not meant for this world, but for the next. So let us REST and not fret over the reality of this present futility.  Frustration is the NORM in a broken world.

Here’s a blog about those who give up the quest for perfect

 

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