The Cure

On Sunday, a student asked me how we can really believe God is loving when he sends people to hell.  I know this student's home life, how much she loves her older sisters and wishes they would come to church with her.  I know how much it must hurt her to look at them and think that, based on what she believes, one day she will be rejoicing with Jesus in heaven and they will be suffering in a terrible place far from God.

Since reading David Platt's Radical a couple years ago, I have been struggling with similar questions.  In his book, Platt drills home the point of our hopelessness, how we were born evil sinners without hope outside of Christ.  He tells his readers that we are enemies of God, living in opposition to and hatred of him, working against his purposes until we are saved by the mercy of the cross.  I struggled to reconcile God's hatred of sin and his love for sinners.  I struggled to balance verses that tell me things like God created my innermost being with ones that tell me I was born a sinner.  Why did God create me with the capacity for such evil?  I had it twisted and felt at times that if God created me and knew the evil I would harbor in my heart, he must have created me to be the wretched sinner I am and have always been.

While I wrestled with these questions, little by little I have been discovering new truths and working out the rough spots in what I believe and what I don't understand.  Thankfully, that student asked me her burning question, and God gave us both an answer.

I didn't have this answer prepared, I never had 100% clarity about the answer until she asked and I started speaking.  Words came out of my mouth that surprised me like I was hearing them for the first time just like she was.

I told her that God created two healthy humans and gave them the power to choose so that their choices could mean something.  Then, an enemy brought poison to the garden, and with their choice the healthy humans drank the enemy's poisonous lies.  The poison gave them a disease called sin, a disease that is degenerative, contagious, and fatal.  To see how truly insidious the disease of sin is, just look how quickly a sin of simple disobedience (I mean, really- they only ate an apple.) evolved into the sin we think of as one of the worst.  It took one generation for Adam and Eve's disobedience to progress to their son murdering his brother.  God flooded the world and saved only Noah, which looks so mean to us but was really a great picture of love.  Noah was the only man on earth fighting his infection while everyone else was accelerating the effects of the disease, like continuing to smoke when you have lung cancer.  Using the flood, God wanted to slow the epidemic because he knows how quickly it spreads and how deeply it destroys.  After watching his people indulge the disease for years and years, God knew that this ruthless infection was too much for humans to fight on their own.  He came to us in the form of a doctor, a healer, with the only known cure.

Now, our choice looks different.  We are dying from what was previously deemed a hopeless and fatal disease but we have been given a vile of hope.  Just like Adam and Eve chose to drink Satan's poison, it is up to us to drink the cure of Christ.

Then I asked the student, "If someone was sick and the doctor gave them medicine but they wouldn't drink it, would you blame the doctor?"  She smiled and said no.  "Would you say he was a good doctor or a bad doctor?"

"He's a good doctor, but his patient is stupid!" she said.  I told her that we don't always know why people don't accept the cure for sin that Jesus gives us, but we know it is because God loves us that he has given us a cure and every opportunity to drink it.

Some people don't know they are spiritually sick and dying.  Some people know and drink poison for all their days anyway.  I know people who only act like they've taken the medicine.  I've heard of others who have been suffering from the sickness their whole lives and take the medicine right in the nick of time, getting their second shot of life in heaven.  Some think they will cure themselves by doing their best to be good and healthy people, but stage 4 cancer will not be cured by eating right.  There are those who swallowed the medicine long ago and still daily choose to lie in their death beds, letting their now healthy muscles weaken and atrophy.  While some took the medicine and are healed, they are not living healthy lives.  The disease is gone, but they are not taking care of themselves as if they've been given a second shot at life.  Others still are stingy with the cure.  There is enough to go around, but they keep the answer to themselves.

In any zombie or epidemic movies I've seen, which admittedly is not many, the main characters try to outrun the disease and fight off the infected for as long as they can until eventually they are infected themselves.  Imagine how those stories would be different if, in one of the final scenes, the group somehow finds the antidote.  They find that not only does this disease miraculously heal those who have been infected; it offers an immunity to the effects of the disease.  Now, the group could rejoice in their good fortune and breathe deep sighs of relief, and it could end there.  The credits could roll, and the small posse of friends could walk into the sunset toward their happy ending.  But what would turn that good story into a great story is if, with their second shot at life, the group departed on a mission to cure everyone else.  Now they are not only lucky; they are heroes.

A couple of weeks ago I started writing a post for this blog about how it was so nice in high school.  I was lamenting about how much easier life was then and how much I took it for granted.  I was wishing I could go back there, be the person I was allowed to be then, not have to deal with real, raw life.  I didn't post it because it was a glorified pity party.  

Interestingly enough, a couple weeks ago I also started reading the story of the Israelites' wandering years.  Though they had been liberated from the Egyptians and had been able to overcome many obstacles with the LORD their God on their side, they whined and complained for what seemed like the entire 40 years.  

What always struck me in this story was that those silly Israelites actually wanted to go back to Egypt.  

They griped and wailed, saying, "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost - also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.  But now we have lost our appetite, we never see anything but this manna!"

In fact, just as soon as leaving Egypt, the Israelites wished they had died under Egyptian rule because at least there they had pots filled with meat and all the bread they wanted.  Sure, they were dying in captivity, but at least they were well fed.  

Though I have never spent time being captive under a foreign nation, I do finally empathize with the Israelites' wishes to return to an "easier" life, however harsh and meaningless, because it was one where they never had to step up or take responsibility for anything.  They forgot that they had cried out to God to rescue them from that life, they forgot that they had prayed for something more.  

I can connect much better with the Israelites now that I have been wandering myself.  I have been living in the in-between.  Leaving something wanting more, but not yet being given the more.  

I can empathize, too, with the spies who were sent in the promise land and came back warning their own of giants.  I can understand how scary the promise land looks from the desert.  God had been training the Israelites to be the type of people who could survive in the promise land, and still they complained, and still they cowered in fear, and still they lacked faith.  

Man, how I hate to identify with these people.  And I have been wandering for four years, not forty, in the comfort of home not through the wilderness.  And my giants are only metaphorical, not beings that see me as a grasshopper.  

But I am in the in-between.  Though I called out to God for something more, I am now wanting to turn back to the place where the fish were free and the meat was plenty.  Somehow nostalgia turned those into good times.  And I am looking ahead to this scary new life where the bills and responsibilities and choices all look like giants.  I need the faith of Caleb who looked at those giants and said, "Surely we can conquer them!" because he knew all that mattered was their trust in God.  

God hasn't specifically promised me a future flowing with milk and honey, but he has promised me a life full and overflowing with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.  I believe he has offered me a place in his story, and while it is overwhelmingly frightening to try and figure out where that is leading me, including possibly far from home, I want to follow.  

I want to look at the giants and say, "Surely we can conquer them!"  Because it doesn't matter who I am, but who I am following.  

Now if only I could start living like I believe that.  

I think I know what it looks like, though.  Living on the manna of God's word, trusting in his provision and protection.  Proving that I can be trusted with little so that I might be entrusted with much.  Rebuking fear and not focusing on the size of the giants but on the size of my faith in a big, big God.  Praying for faith like Caleb, reliance on God like Moses, and preparedness training for the promise land.  

I want to get to there, wherever it is.  But I won't get there by turning back or being afraid.  I hope to somehow find contentment in this training ground of the in-between.  I hope even more to walk courageously into the future, transformed because of my time wandering.

I saw this sticker on someone's bumper today.  Though it's just a sticker from a natural dog treat company, the fact that it was next to an Obama 2012 sticker made something click in my brain about where I stand on the issues and where I fit on the political spectrum.  This might sound weird for brains that aren't constantly making connections between related and unrelated things alike, so let me explain :)

For a long time, I've avoiding thinking about current events and politics.  I think it was partly because I was scared of something I had such little control over.  But it was also because I was scared that I didn't know where I stood.  I didn't know what I thought, didn't know how to defend my opinions, didn't even know what those opinions were.  (As I'll talk about later, I was also afraid because every time I starting looking at the issues, I felt I fell more toward the liberal view, and was afraid what that would mean since I'm "not allowed" to be a Democrat.)  But a couple of summers ago, I made it my goal to figure it out once and for all what I think.  I wanted to sort through the muck and figure out where I stand on the issues, how my faith comes into play with that, and how to defend where I stand.

The hard thing about politics for me is that in most things I think a balance between extremes, possibly leaning to one side, is where we find truth.  A lot of either-or questions, in my opinion, seem to have yes-to-both answers.  The paradox is that we can't pick sides and yet we have to pick sides at the same time.

I think it would be fair to say that liberals in general are optimists on the surface.  They like ideas like, "Love, not war," we should help those in need, the government can be trusted and should be utilized to care for the people's needs, likewise public schools should be trusted and utilized to educate our children, individuals do not need guns for protection, anyone who wants to should be able to enter and live within our borders, Social Security and welfare are useful and helpful programs, rich people can pay more taxes, everyone should be considered equal and it's the government's responsibility to ensure that everyone is considered equal, etc.  The problem for me has always been that since I am also an optimist, I at least half agree with all these things on their face.  Earlier in my life upon seeing a sticker that said, "wag more bark less," I'd probably think, Oh, that's nice.  Yeah.  And then probably, Dang it, I'm a liberal.  I'm not supposed to be.  I'm a Christian, raised in a conservative Christian home within a conservative Christian community.  I'm supposed to vote Republican, I guess, but how can I when at the heart of me I'm an optimist and I want to help people?  I want to not go to war, I want everyone to have the things they need and not have to struggle.  I want the people in need to receive aid.

But here's what happened today that was different.  When I saw that car's stickers I thought, Wait.  Sometimes we need to bark.  

This is where things clicked for me.  Wouldn't it be great if public schools could be trusted to educate our children and we never had to go to war and no one abused the welfare system and Social Security made sense and was helpful and useful to everyone?  Wouldn't it be nice if no one needed a gun for protection and the government was trustworthy to protect the rights of individuals while working helpfully in society within healthy boundaries and we had enough room and resources to let anyone live in this great country?  Don't you think we'd all like a world where no one ever had to bark and all we got to do all day was wag?  But can't you also tell that we don't live in that world yet?  What a wonderful world liberals must live in, but I don't think it's our world.  I don't think they fully embrace reality.

Unfortunately, we live instead in this broken reality.  That's why we sometimes need to bark.  And here's where the balance comes in.  I don't want to be a person who always wags or a person who always barks.  I don't want anyone to be that type of person.  I want to change the sticker to something sillier sounding but more true: wag often, bark when necessary.  I think we should believe in and hope for the world mentioned above (mainly because I believe with everything that we will someday live in that world, it'll just be called Heaven).  I even think it should be our goal to make that world a reality now.  In fact, I think it's part of our mission to build communities that look like that where there's no one in need and all are psychically and emotionally safe and all are welcome.  We should want that world, but we have to realize that it's not the world we have now so we have to make accommodations based on the reality that we are currently faced with.

We have to believe in the good while realizing that good is under attack and that we have to fight for it.

______________________

A quick note to the only two people I think read this blog... 

Sarah, I've been excited to surprise you with a new blog post, and I'm even more excited to have healthy discussions with you about this, especially when it comes to education.  I love your unique political view, and I'm excited to discuss this in more detail with you :)  I luh you bess frenn.  

Joseph, I just wanted to thank you for never demanding that these be my opinions.  While it would be problematic if I disagreed with you on certain political issues, I honestly believe we would survive it.  I think these opinions of mine that I have stumbled upon after going back and forth for a very long time now actually do fit very well with yours, but I wanted to thank you for being patient and letting me come to them on my own.  I feel like they are mine, even if they may look very similar to yours.  I don't feel like you have ever told me what you think assuming or demanding it would be what I think.  I am thankful that you have shared with me what you think without ever having the tone of trying to convince me of it or win me over to your side.  Thank you for the discussions we've had and for the ways you have encouraged me to decide what I think.  I'm excited that I feel like I finally have the tools to discuss politics with you, and I'm excited like I never have been before (I don't just mean I'm more excited than I ever have been but rather that I never have been before and am now excited) to vote.  I love you.  

So right now I'm in Peru! During my time here, I've had the opportunity to take Salsa dancing lessons and apply my lessons at different parties and clubs. It seems like all they dance here is Salsa, and all their music matches perfectly. Dancing is big here. Last night, I watched a movie set in Ireland. I had seen this movie before, but last night, I guess since being immersed in the Peruvian culture for the past couple of weeks, it really struck me how different each country's culture is. There was Irish riverdancing instead of Salsa, meaning people danced in circles instead of pairs. There were radically different instruments and different sounding songs and different people. It made me want to watch an interaction between a person who had grown up in Ireland and one who had grown up in Peru. And then I thought of how many people groups, how many cultures, how many different types of music we will meet and see and hear in Heaven. I thought about all the dancing that will be happening there, all the Salsa and Riverdancing and what have you. And I got excited about having eternity to learn all the dances and languages and cultures that have ever excited. I even got excited about all the different kinds of food we'll be eating because hopefully in Heaven I'll love every bite of whatever is served to me.

A couple of weeks ago, giving finally clicked for me.  What I feel was even more than a simple desire to give.  It was an urge to no longer be not giving.  My perspective changed; I traded my blinders for binoculars, an earthly perspective for a heavenly one.  I saw giving as the opportunity it really is: to invest in eternity.  I didn't want to waste any more time not investing.  That was Sunday.  The next Friday, I promptly gave 10% of my paycheck to the church.  It felt great not only to be exercising this discipline again, but to be finally giving with a cheerful heart.  I was excited about my investment in the kingdom.  Giving had transfered from obligation to opportunity. 

Fast forward to the next Tuesday, when I was paid for a babysitting job.  I was still excited when I realized that 10% of this, too, would be used for God's kingdom.  At the end of that week, another pay day came and went, and I gave.  Still cheerful, yes, but to be honest my reaction at this point was more like, "Oh yeah.  Giving." 

Just yesterday, upon the end of the semester, I sold back all the books I've aqcuired since my first year in college.  There were probably 20-30 of them.  The University didn't pay me very generously for my books, but I was excited for the extra money.  I'm not sure where my excitement for giving went, but I my first thoughts were, "Saving! Spending! Yay!" 

I want my first reaction to be giving, I really do.  But today, when I found too more books to sell, my first thought was, "Oh, dang.  I'm gonna have to give again."  Back to obligation. 

I feel guilty about this, but I will admit... I was feeling like, "Haven't I given enough?  Can't I be done yet?"  I don't know where this thought came from besides my selfish, human nature, but I am thankful for the thought that quickly followed:

"When has God stopped at enough?"

Truth came rushing in at that point and put my attitude back in check.  I thought of all God has provided for me.  When I think about it, I have never been in need, not once.  I thought of all the blessings he has provided and the myriad of ways that he has gone above and beyond for me.  He doesn't stop at mercy but freely gives grace.  I thought of the sacrifice of Christ and of what God gave up for me to send his son to suffer. 

I thought of Jesus' words in Matthew 27, of how many times Jesus has forgiven me.  Seventy times seven: a phrase that in its time meant essentially endless, countless, innumerable.  Jesus has forgiven me and blessed me seventy times seven times, an eternity worth. 

I thought of the story Jesus tells after that, about God's math.  In the story, which is a methaphor for God's forgiveness, the king forgives the servant's debt, which was more than a lifetime of the servant's wages.  If he worked twice as hard and earned twice as much for the rest of his life, the servant wouldn't be able to pay back the king.  But the king uses math that doesn't add up and forgives the servant's debt. 

I am in debt to God more than I can ever pay back.  And God has wiped that debt away from his records.  And in the moment when my selfish heart was weary of giving, I was the servant who left the king's presence and wouldn't extend the same grace to his fellow servant.  How can I be forgiven of an unpayable debt and remain unchanged and selfish? 

I also thought of a Sunday school song about Ananias and Sapphira. 

Ananias and Sapphira 
got together to conspire 
a plot! to cheat! the Lord and get ahead. 
They knew God's power...didn't fear it... 
tried to cheat the Holy Spirit... 
went into the temple and 
they BOTH DROPPED DEAD! 

Hey! 
God loves a cheerful giver, 
Give it all you got! 
He loves to hear you laughing 
When you're in a an awful spot... 
So when the odds are up against you 
And you cannot do a thing... 
Praise God! To praise Him is a glorious thing!

When I get selfish with my money and my things, I am trying "to cheat the Lord and get ahead", which really makes no sense at all.  Why would I want to cheat God?  Why would I want to keep the blessings he gives me all to myself?  I am trying to get ahead, but what I am really doing is falling so far behind.  In my attempt to get ahead, I miss the point entirely.  I miss what God is doing, in my heart and in his kingdom.  I allow the chain of God's blessings to end with me, and in doing so I sever the chain. 

My money is not mine, and holding onto it with white knuckles will only cheat me in the end.  God blesses me so that I may be a blessing to others.  I want to give like crazy so that God can continue to bless me like crazy and I can continue to bless others like crazy.  I want to give up the desire I have for my finances to make sense and submit to God's math that doesn't add up.

Jesus promises in Luke 6 that his math won't always add up, but his blessings for those who give will always be running over.  Jesus promises a good return on investing in the kingdom. 

³⁷ “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back."

The opposite, then is also true.  Hoard, and it will be hoarded from you.  Hold tight to your blessings and blessings will be held tight from you.  Refuse to respond to God's grace with more grace, and grace will be no longer given to you. 

I don't give solely that God would bless me, but there is blessing simply in the giving also.  I give out of recognition that God has given all to me, and I want to give him the first of my fruits.  Even though I can never pay him back for all he has done for me, I want to thank him for the debt he has cancelled for my sake.  I want to trust him with all I have, and I want the blessings I have been given to be used to bless others. 

God loves a cheerful giver, give it all you've got!