The Tragedy of Insecure Christians

Today, my heart is heavy.  Of course, I am mourning with the people in Haiti who have suddenly lost loved ones, and are dealing with the aftermath of the recent earthquake there.  The photos and videos are heart wrenching!   Yet, there is another tragedy that my heart is mourning over.   I feel pity for Christians who see God as an angry and unforgiving God, who’s only nice toward them if they are “good.”   These Christians have never experienced God’s unconditional love (or, if they have,  they have forgotten it) and truly fear His judgment for themselves.   They believe that God has a big bucket full of wrath that He’s ready to pour on them if they ever fail to “live a righteous life.”   They are insecure Christians, and out of this insecurity, they have a need to judge others in order to make themselves righteous and feel better about themselves.  They are the ones saying that the disaster in Haiti is a curse that God has brought upon the people of Haiti for practicing Voo-Doo, or having  “made a pact with the Devil” generations ago.  These Christians believe that the reason Haiti has suffered thus is because God has finally unleashed His wrath upon them.

Some are saying, but look, these Christians are also rallying help for the Haitian people, so they do have compassion for them.  Let me ask you this:   When you are down on your luck, through things not in your control (like unemployment, or flood, or earthquake), does it make you feel good to receive help from people who have made it clear to you that you’ve “brought this upon yourself”?   Well then, how do you think the Haitians would feel receiving help from these Christians who have first condemned them?

My heart breaks for the Haitian people who heard these proclamations.   These words cannot be farther from the truth!   My spirit is grieving at the pain caused by these reckless words from people who claim to know God.   By their words, these Christians are showing me (and the world) that they don’t know the heart of God for people at all.  Instead of being the bearers of Good News, they bring condemnation.

Oh, if these Christians would just understand that through Jesus, God has already made the whole world righteous before Him, that ALL humanity has been restored to our Creator, and we (ALL humanity) can approach God as confidently as His children, and even climb onto His lap if we want to.   He is always welcoming us, ALL of us, whether we believe or not, with open arms.  Jesus has finished the job of making us right with God once and for all, for ALL mankind, for ALL eternity.  THIS is the true Gospel that brings joy and peace!  THIS is the real Good News!

If I can have the audience of these insecure Christians, I’d like to tell them:

You can be set free from this insecurity, to never have to feel the rollercoaster of feeling high or low depending on your performance again,  if you’d only embrace the truth of God’s unconditional love for you, and accept all that Jesus has already done for you.    Repentance is nothing more than a change of mind to accept Jesus as who He said He is (the Son of God who came to earth in the flesh), and thereby accepting this Father-child relationship with God that’s been given to you before you were even born.    And all that’s required for righteous living is to acknowledge that God is real and loves you deeply, and then just relax and let Him change you through His unconditional love from the inside out.   He is gentle and kind, and all the while never keeping score of your performance.   The Christian To Do List that you feel you need to do in order to be “good Christians” (which changes depending on which group you’re with)  is a religion that people came up with (by twisting God’s truth) to control other people.

Come to really know God for yourself, instead of through someone else.   Listen to the Holy Spirit in your heart, and stop following those man-made rules of the Pharisees.   Let God reveal His unconditional love to you, and stop keeping scores (of either your own or others’ performance).  Rest from your own strife to be righteous, and you will have no more need to put down or condemn other people.

How do I know this?   I know this because I have lived the insecure life of a Pharisee and nearly died in the process.  I am thankful for my second chance at life, and am living each day in the freedom and joy of His unconditional love.   God loves you very much.   Don’t waste anymore time living like a Pharisee.  Come and experience His love for you, then you will really have Good News to share with the world!

The Garden Of My Heart

I have been blessed with many heroes in my life, people who, at one point or another in time, had loved me and helped me along the way to become who I am today.    They inspired me, showed me the beauty that God has created inside me, and encouraged me to become all that I can possibly be.   They were there for me when I needed help, and taught me that God is bigger than any problem I may face in life and that He will always send help in the form of these heroes.  These wonderful people were used by God to heal me from past hurts and teach me about real love and friendship.

Over the years, especially the last 2 years, I’ve had to say good-bye to many of these heroes as they left this physical world for the spiritual one.  I have missed them terribly.   I get sad whenever I am struck with the realization that I can’t just pick up the phone to call them and hear their voices anymore, or be able to visit them, or ask them for advice, or. . .

This morning, as I’m grieving the recent loss of two of my heroes, Betty Malone and Uncle Ben, I am aware of something new.  Well, it’s not really new because I’ve heard it said before, and even said it myself, that our loved ones live on inside us, but this time I see a pictorial representation of it that I never saw before.    Betty, Uncle Ben, Karl,  Becky,  my grandmother, Doc, and all the heroes that had gone before them, aren’t really gone at all.    And the reason is:   When these heroes loved me and gave of themselves to me, their gifts had been used by God as seeds in the garden of my heart.   These seeds have become plants and trees that have produced flowers and fruits.    This garden is still thriving, as God tends to it, doing whatever is needed to keep the seeds of love growing.

Love can’t be destroyed by death.   Love keeps on growing inside the hearts of those who have been touched by it.   Sometimes the seeds of love are watered by tears of grief, as those who are still living yearn for the departed loved ones to be here physically.  But after the rain, there always is sunshine.  As I look inside the garden of my heart, I see here in a sunny patch, a yellow sunflower that grew from the seed of Betty’s love, still blooming brightly, cheering me on to keep writing and share my heart with the world.   And over there, in the shade, a violet that grew from Uncle Ben’s words of encouragement the last time I saw him is motivating me to keep singing.   And in the pond, the lilies that grew from Carl’s generosity and Karl’s affection are there to remind me that God is always with me even through hard times.   The whole garden is splashed with flowers of many different colors, and in the air I can feel the love that they all represent.  Yes, they are all here, my heroes, still living on in my heart.  And when I visit this garden, I am comforted.

Thank you, my heroes, for letting God use you to make my garden so beautiful!

Following Him

This morning, I heard a song that I haven’t heard in a long time by John Denver called “Follow Me.”   Although John wrote this song for his wife, Annie, inviting her to follow him on the road as a traveling musician, the phrase “Follow me” was also used by Jesus long ago to call his disciples to follow Him.     And I believe He still calls to us today to follow Him.   Hearing this song again made me reflect on my own journey from the time I first knew about Jesus as a very young child till now, 40-something years later.

Over the years, people and religious entities had tried to convince me that by following their beliefs and practices, I would be following Jesus and get closer to God.   They all could pull verses out of the Bible to back their claim (now I see that they would take these verses out of context and totally disregard God’s true nature that I have come to know since then).    I had followed some of these beliefs and practices, and had learned at nearly the cost of my own life that a religious belief system can be just as addictive and destructive to a person as substance abuse.

We are all born with a need to be loved and accepted, a need to feel that we are of worth and important.  God offers to fulfill this need for us through a personal relationship with Him that’s not based on anything we can do, but on His unconditional love for us alone.   Jesus came in the flesh to show us this love.  We don’t have to earn it, we just need to open up our hearts and accept it.   And because it is unconditional, we can never lose it either.  Nothing we can do will ever separate us from God’s love.  Yeah, it really is that good and simple!   But until we respond to His invitation for a relationship based only on His grace, and are changed from inside out by His love, we really won’t understand the simplicity and purity of this unconditional love, and we will forever try to fulfill this need within us through pleasing those whose approval we seek (having our sense of worth go up and down depending on how well we please them); and we will make others earn our approval as well.   We will also be vulnerable to those who want to manipulate and use us–all they have to do is feed our need for love and approval, make us feel important and needed, and they have us right where they want us.   It’s my observation that the fear of rejection and the need for approval are the two strongest tools used by people who want to control other people.

Jesus doesn’t use deception to manipulate you.  He doesn’t use the bait and switch tactics.  He doesn’t lure you to a party and then enslave you to a list of Do’s and Don’t’s.   He said His yoke is easy, His burden is light.  And I’ve found it to really be so!  You simply only have to acknowledge that He exists and invite Him to be a part of your life.  Listen to His quiet voice in your heart, and follow Him where He leads.  Get to know the people that He brings into your life and see them through His eyes.   Love them as He shows you how to love.   Just relax into His unconditional love and acceptance of you, then let your thoughts be challenged by His higher thoughts, and your ways be changed by His better ways.  Before you know it, you have become a vessel of His love to be poured out to others.

Religious people who are still trying to earn God’s approval for themselves will not be able to accept what I had just said in the previous paragraph.  They will say that it’s too simple; that you need to study the Bible, go to church, and do all these “Christian” things in order to grow spiritually.  I can tell you that I have done all that, and I have found that these things won’t do any good at all if you do not have a relationship with Jesus and have a clear understanding of His grace first.  For it is only with that understanding can you begin to learn to see things through His eyes.  Without learning to listen to that voice in your heart, which is His Spirit teaching you and guiding you, you’ll only be following an empty religion, and vulnerable to be indoctrinated by other people into their interpretation of who God is.  And you will feel fine until you fail to perform to the standard of that religion.    You will feel good or bad about yourself depending on your performance.  But in a genuine relationship with Jesus, you can wake up every morning feeling loved just as you are, regardless of your performance.   And you’ll also be able to accept and love others just as they are, regardless of their performance.   That is how Jesus transforms us into His likeness.

Yep!  Following Jesus really is that simple!  The lyrics to this song is very close to what I hear Jesus saying to me everyday:

Follow me where I go;

What I do and who I know;

Make it part of you to be a part of me.

Follow me up and down;

All the way and all around;

Take my hand and say you’ll follow me.