Well... crap...

Evangelical Christians talk a lot about being "convicted" of their sin. It always sounds like this neat, orderly process - the Holy Spirit convicts them, they feel deep remorse for their wrong-doing, and they set about changing the sin in their life.

What I wonder, is does anyone else ever think, "well... crap..." when they feel convicted of their sin? 'Cause I do.

Let's face it - sin can be really fun. Recently I came to the realization of my sinful treatment of a person in my life. This person irritates me. Deeply. So, behind their back, I mock them, being bitchy and snarky in my commentary on my dealings with this person. I almost always get a lot of laughs, and I feel vindicated in my feelings about this person - after all, how can I be expected to be gracious and merciful with someone so irrational?

So when I came face to face with the sinfulness of my treatment of this person, my reaction was not to thank God for the work of the Holy Spirit in my life and gladly begin changing my attitude.

My reaction was to think, "Well... crap..."

Why was I reluctant to change my attitude? Because I want to be the hero of my own story, which means that everyone who comes against me to complicate my plans, is a villain.

Frederica Matthewes-Green talks about this attitude in her great little book, The Illumined Heart: Capture the Vibrant Faith of Ancient Christians. She points out the great flaw in our thinking of ourselves as heroes is that, "the person whom we're practicing heroics on is unlikely to recognize that he's the bad guy." In fact, "the plotline in his mental movie is different than ours," meaning that I might very well be the villain in their story.
No one blames the hero for not caring for the villain. And when I stop being bitchy and snarky and begin to see this person as an independent being whom I must respect and love and encourage in their walk with Christ... well, that costs me something.

According to Matthewes-Green, I and this person in my life are not enemies, facing each other with swords and weapons, but fellow travelers, bound together in a three-legged race of sorts. We make our way toward the finish line of transformation together, lurching and stumbling the whole way.

I want to ignore this. I want to run my race on my own, free from the cumbersome weight of another person's sin and issues, discipleship and transformation.

But I can't. Because Jesus says to love my neighbor as I love myself, and the light has nothing to do with the darkness, I must every day put my irritation aside and choose love instead of comfort, and even humor.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the only one who looks at Jesus, sees how their behavior should be, and says, "Well... crap..."?

Death and the Resurrection

My paternal grandmother passed away this past Thursday. I was named after her, but I have never been very close to any of my grandparents for a variety of reasons. These reasons don't matter anymore, but our relationship can best be described by the fact that we simply have never understood each other. The years that separate us are significant years - wars, women's lib, a sexual revolution, the internet - major cultural changes have occurred, giving me opportunities and choices that my grandmothers never imagined. So at an age when they were getting married and starting their families, I was moving hundreds of miles away from my family to get an education.
In light of the divides between us, I've come to look at the resurrection and the world to come in a new way.
Often when we as Christians lose our loved ones, we comfort ourselves with the thought of being reunited with our loved ones, telling ourselves that they are not really gone, just temporarily separated from us. We rightly look forward to the day when we are together again.
But the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come promises us much more than simply a resumption of our current relationships.
When the Kingdom of God has fully come, when we live in the new heaven and the new earth and we are reunited with those we've loved and lost, we will not simply be the same frail and fallen people we are now.
In that day, we will be complete in our sanctification, we will be the people that God intended us to be all along. We will stop speaking past each other, and begin to truly understand the other. We will cease our impatience with each other and know what it is like to love and be loved in the light of Christ.
I look forward to that day, because I look forward to the day when my grandmothers and I can see each other, not across the distance of generations and decades, not from two different worlds, but within the Light of Christ in a world with no need of a sun.
That's what we have as Christians - not merely the promise of a relationship renewed, but of a relationship restored and redeemed. We look forward to the day when we are no longer separated by our differences, but united in our worship.