www.IlluminateTheTruth.com

Were it not for my woefully short attention span, I woul—

This is what I call a Gamer-Changer: when a scripture that you’ve interpreted one way, suddenly means something entirely and deeply different, and you can’t believe you’ve never seen it that way before.  And because it means something different to you now, marks the fact that you are different now—thinking within a larger framework, and you find yourself inclined toward, and wanting, different things.

Scriptures, like say, this one:

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”  (Mark 11:23)

What an intriguing verse!  Could it really mean what you hope it means?

You are in the process of a transformation which is becoming more and more complete—filled more and more fully with eternal life.  How you interpret this verse is like a litmus test which reveals the fullness of that life in you.

You proceed with the certainty that there is no condemnation in Christ and that there is no shame in being immature; you realize, however, it really would be such a shame to be forever immature.

When you were young—when you were a beginner, the way we all start—this verse appealed to the new, worldly self that you came to Christ as.  Christ knows this state, He planned for this state—He came to you and to everyone, and sought you out as you were in this state—this endearing, self-centered, small-minded, yet so-adored-by-Christ-state.

And this verse hooked you because of the way you turned it to mean something that further affirmed your self-centric understanding of everything.  God in His wisdom set this verse before you, and right or wrong, you were drawn in because of what you hoped it meant.  You claimed it.  You clung to it.  You said you had faith because you wanted it to be true.  It became your strength.  And your incomplete understanding of it perpetuated a life of further incompleteness.

In this self-centric state, the mountain meant “Anything that keeps me from personal success”.

It was not a wrong interpretation, but it is infinitely far away from being fully right.

In your young faith, you came to believe the mountain must be something like monetary poverty, and lack of opportunity, and failure, and weakness.  And so you spent all our time praying against only these things.

Again!  It wasn’t wrong, until it affirmed that wealth and success and strength were the only things you wanted.  It’s wasn’t your fault—they were the only things you knew how to want.

Then, one day, the world revealed in an undeniable way, that your interpretation of that verse was untruthful.  It simply could not be.  And not long after that, a new understanding was whispered, “The mountain is anything that keeps you from salvation”.

And soon, you actually start wanting salvation!  Who knew?  You want this new, real thing because God gave you this new desire—He took His heart’s desire and placed it within you, too (another verse you’ve completely misinterpreted).

Suddenly, you realize the mountain is actually pride, distrust, unbelief, bitterness, guilt, apathy, the inability to forgive, or the worship of self-perfection; because what you really want is a Savior and His life of un-threatenable contentment, and you’ve experienced that all those other things get in the way of it.  And you see that the higher and faster you try to overcome this mountain by your very self, the steeper and more slippery it becomes, and finally, you realize it is a mountain that must be leveled and thrown into the sea by God alone.

So in your longing for this new thing, you look at your impossible mountain separating you and the kind of saved-living you really want, and you wait for Him to cast the mountain into the sea.  And you wait… and hope..  And…… one day, either whiz-bang or still and quiet, it happens.  Yes, it happened!  God did what He promised He will do!  It’s true!  The Bible is true!

And somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that that mountain was just the first of a long range ahead of you, but you press on because you know without a doubt now, that God is alive, and true, and powerful, and knowing, and He desires you—He desires you forever.  So you’re less overwhelmed by what you know is ahead.

Now you want to shout to your Christian peers: “There is no shame in how you have interpreted various scriptures.  He is not wanting that you should be poor and sick; yet He knows that physical wealth and health can eclipse the longing for, and separate you from, ultimate wealth and health forever.  God knew and loved you in your separated and finite state.  You couldn’t MAKE yourself understand eternity.  But now, let’s strive to not be old and grey and still think that Christianity is for the edification of our stature in this world.  Make yourselves humbly willing to consider that Christianity is for something much more triumphant and fulfilling than that.  Because it really is!”

“Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you…” (John 6:26-27).

I’m obsessed with the book of Hebrews.  I love the layers upon infinite layers of truth.  I love how it addresses the educated leaders of Christianity and gives them a whoopin’.  I love a good whoopin’.  I love correction.  I love truth.

What hooked me was when a mentor-friend of mine and Lance’s met me for coffee nearly four years ago and we were discussing “getting off of the foundation” as it relates to Christianity—that is, not forsaking it, but growing/building upon it.  And he brought up the verses toward the end of chapter five in Hebrews which discusses this very thing.

“Yes,” said my wise friend “the writer essentially says to stop being hung up about basic things like baptism, and to stop merely revolving around the laying on of hands—and do you know what else the writer lumps into the ‘basic’ category, according to my Bible’s translation?  Faith in God.  Faith… in God.”

Faith in God?  If that’s basic, what is …  un-basic?  What is there beyond that?

This much I knew about the setting of that infamous “get off of the baby’s milk, already” statement: the religious people of the Christian church have gathered around for some teaching.  In their small vision for eternal life, they seek only instruction on how to perfect the measurable rituals of religion.  They think that in their questions they are being virtuous, but really, their questions belie their immaturity, their stubbornness and vanity.

“Are we still here?” asks the writer, “Are we still here?”

I sense the frustration, the agony and the imploring.  I’ve felt this before as a mother—I mirror it with my own children: “Are we still stuck on ‘how to wash hands properly’?” I am but one step below incensed at this point.  “We could be doing so many other, more fun, more exciting, more responsible big-girl things if I didn’t have to spend my time reminding you to wash your hands and making sure you actually use soap.”  I am more than eager to move beyond this being the thing that trips us up—beyond this being the thing that we have to focus on.

Anyway, last fall, I finally made it my mission to try to figure out what next thing we long-time Christians were supposed to move on to.

I read and studied Hebrews from start to finish.  I read it in different translations.  I read the cross-reference verses.  (I didn’t read the commentaries though… because I’m egotistical and I want to come up with the answer first).

And do you know what I think the answer is?  Want to know what I think the writer thinks we’re supposed to be moving toward, though he doesn’t actually say it specifically?  (I ask this while acknowledging the irony of thinking YOU might not want to come up with the answer yourself).

The answer is this:

Move away from “Faith in God”…

And move toward faith in God.

And understand that there’s a difference between the two.

I’m a redeemed narcissist.  I like to stand in front of people and have their attention… so that I can talk about God.  I’m one of those weird people who enjoy public speaking.

I spoke in May at our church about love.  It’s a centering concept for me.  It’s helpful to have a grounding thought when life begins to feel as if it consists of urgent nonsense.

My insufficient grasp of love became undeniable to me one day as I found myself writing a letter to a heartbroken friend of mine and I wanted to tell her that I loved her (as if that might fix something—old narcissist ways die hard).  I sat there staring at the paper, wanting to tell her why I loved her, and all I could think of were reasons that gratified me.  (“You are generous with me, you are kind to me”, and so on).  Yet I didn’t want to send the message that in order for me to love her, she needed to be those things—especially to me.  I did love her, but what did that mean?

I was further convicted when one night, while putting my girls to bed, was telling my girls why I loved them and I was saying things like: you’re fun, you’re beautiful, you’re smart, kind…  But did they have to be those things in order for me to love them?  What if they didn’t possess any of those things?

My understanding of love felt conditional and self-serving because my reasons for having it were.  I knew that was wrong, or at least wildly incomplete, but I didn’t know what a right definition was.  I wrestled with this for months.

Then, one day I realized the unchanging factual basis of my love for my daughters is this:  They belong to me.  This is why I love them: They are mine.  It’s not what they did, it’s not a reward—they didn’t earn it.  No, my love for them is based on the fact of our irrevocable oneness.  And the presence or lack of squishy or warm feelings neither denies nor confirms nor excludes the presence of love.

Love is oneness.  Love looks like committed unity.  This is my mechanical, non-emotional, nuts-and-bolts definition of Love.  I love my girls because together, we are one.  They belong to me and I belong to them, and it is not based on mutual reciprocity or worthiness or adorable qualities.  It is not fickle or conditional; it simply IS, as a result of their existence.

As I learned in a Young Marrieds class, love is a commitment, not a feeling.  And thanks to Corinthians 13, I know that love is patient and kind and does not seek its own way.  But there was more, so much more to learn about love, so I studied the Bible to see what it had to say about love.  Here is what I’ve learned so far:

• Love is Sacrificial: 1 John 4:10 – “This is love; not that we have loved God, but that He sent an atoning sacrifice for our sins”.  Love absorbs debt.  It rises for the sake of relationship.  Love lays down the desire for individual greatness for the sake of forever-unity.  (Big side note: There are all kinds of ways that we humans have corrupted and have been damaged by attempts (or lack thereof) of sacrificial love.  Somewhere out there, is a perfect Christ model of sacrificial love which doesn’t ignore destructive behavior, but somehow releases the person from eternal condemnation).

• Love is God: 1 John 4:8 – “God is Love”.  Here’s a fun experiment—if God is love, try swapping out the word “love” with the word “God” in some of our favorite love verses.  For example: 1 Corinthians 3:2-3 “…if I have faith that can move mountains, and sacrifice all I have for the poor and needy but do not have… GOD… I will gain nothing.”  Or, James 2:8 “Love your neighbor as yourself” becomes “Be Christ to yourself and also to your neighbor”.  Which is to be gracious, edifying, humble…  both yourself and to others

• Love is verb.  Love is the moving toward oneness.  Consider the antonym: hate.  Just as with love, hate may or may not involve emotions, but if love is the act of creating oneness, then hate is a “conscious uncoupling” (thank you for that phraseology, Gwyneth) as well as final separation.  Consider in Luke 14:26 where it says “If you do not hate your mother and father, you cannot be my disciple”.  This is not imploring us to feel bitterness and animosity toward our parents, but rather to be wholly undivided unto Christ first.  Love is a conscious working toward oneness.

• Love knows God: Do we know God or do we just know about Him?  Oswald Chambers says “If we become advocates of a belief of God without knowing God for ourselves, then we only believe our belief about Him”.  Here’s why that’s important about love.  Do we know what love is?  Whatever our understanding of love is, that is our expectation and projection on to others of it as well.  For example, do we believe that if we act rightly, we ought to be loved?  Or do we believe that we are not worth of love unless we are perfect?  If this is the love we know—the God we know—then we will likely, unknowingly project this onto others, and also accept God’s love of us within this sort of merit-framework.  But if we know a God who is unlimited, generous, humble and gracious, then we will love in this way too—in a way that is not rigid or self-serving or demanding.

• Love is our Witness: John 13:35 – “By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.”  Love is the expression, the testament and our witness to the truth of who God is.  Not personal virtue by way of admirable achievements or a spotless record.

• Love is the whole point:  John 17:22.  It’s interesting, don’t you think, the last corporate prayer of Christ. Aren’t you curious as to what Jesus would say—how He would pray—what final words He would leave us with, especially knowing that it was His last time with his disciples and he would soon be killed?  In my opinion, Christ leaves us with the whole point of everything in this prayer.  He states the definition of eternal life is: knowing God.  He does not ask that His disciples be removed from the world, (because love can rescue us regardless of our circumstance). And then, right there, hidden for thousands of years right in front of us, is the point of it all: So that we all may be one with each other, just as Christ is one with the father, and that we will be within the bonds of Christ and the Father. Read the John 17:20-26.

Love—oneness—with all, through oneness with the Father is the final eventuality.  It is the means, the end and the whole point of everything.  It is the desire and the will of the Father, whose will, WILL be done.  Oneness with each other in Christ is the only safe thing to hope in because it is the only real guarantee.

I do not know if my girls will reach the height of personal success, or not get into a car accident, or marry someone I approve of.  And I hope that they stay kind and fun and sweet.  I hope all of these things and will pray for these things, but at the end of the day, love persists regardless.

Whatever we are one with will be our virtue and our condemner.  But there is no condemnation in the love of Christ—a love which holds no record of wrong.  Oneness with Him is our virtue, our validation and our fulfillment.  Love Him first, and these things (validation, fulfillment, and more) will be added.

When we see the will of God for what it really is (eternal love/oneness with us), we see how abundantly He provides for it.  Remember Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid?  Did he really want his fence painted or his car waxed?  No, he was training Ralph Maccio for success in the ultimate ring.  In this same way, love and acts of love transform us into people familiar with the movements of eternal life: sacrifice, a belonging, and humility.  He provides for our coming to our own end, which awakens a need in us to unite with something bigger.

If you are not being charged by “likes” from the world, and instead find yourself at the end of the day humbled and needing Christ—CONGRATULATIONS!!   You are the winner.  You are being nurtured toward the whole point: humbled oneness with Christ—or, love.

We are loved.  We didn’t earn it and we can’t un-earn it.  It’s not based on my adorable qualities or lack thereof.  It isn’t based on my goodness at all.  Love is this: belonging, oneness—specifically oneness with Christ who is in and through all things.  The more fully we can align and immerse in this, the more fully in love we are.

I have this undeveloped hunch that several homeless people have a big secret. A secret that some of them don’t even know yet. That some of them are angels. And that I will be working for them in the next age. I walk by them, curious; I look into their eyes and try to make out a sense of knowing. Is it there?   Do they know?

So it was no surprise to me the other day when this thing that I’m going to tell you about, happened.

I’ve been trying out a fledgling coffee shop in the developing, sputtering-toward-its-potential, historical district of my town. The first time I went there coincided with the time when, out of nowhere, extremely loud and profane exclamations belonging to an older male bellowed out from across the street and down a few doors. The surprised patrons walking nearby at that moment scurried into the closest open, public doors.

The worker at the coffee shop I scurried into came out from behind the counter, and peered outside the doorway and around the corner to see what all the excitement was about. After a few seconds the shouting stopped, and the coffee shop owner said, to no one in particular, “Historical Roseville…   iiiiiiiiiiit’s exciting!” (He said it with the inflection of an announcer at a WWF event). He followed it up with a mumble, “The weird thing was that he was yelling at his own reflection in the window.”

I decided to go back a couple weeks later, because 1) I’m a bleeding-heart, small-business supporter (albeit contradicted by my love affair with Amazon Prime), especially IF, 2) The product is good. And in my opinion, this place has the best coffee in town. So, the second time I went, I sat outside on a bench fashioned by two-by-four lumber and cinder blocks. The small table for my bench was composed in the same way. Very endearing to anyone like myself who has ever tried to express their inner person with dorm room furniture.

I was alone at my table, which is the way I prefer it—alone—with my journal and laptop. There was a thoughtful handful of fresh flowers in the small vase on the table. A homeless man hobbled by, mumbling something about an AA meeting. Then he hobbled by three more times, hunched over, shabby, repeating his line about looking for the meeting. Then the man paused to rest on a window sill near me. He asked if it would bother me if he smoked.

“Yes.” I told him, “The smoking would bother me”.

But I had this feeling I ought to listen to him if he talked, and sure enough, after sitting together for a few moments of silence, another character trailed through, shaking his fist at enemy demons, and the man sitting next to me says, “There sure is a lot of evil in this world; but if there wasn’t any evil, how would we know what ‘good’ is?”

“Wow!” I exclaimed, “That is profound!”

That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. “Well, thank you”, he said softly. “I don’t… people don’t usually think…” He trailed off. He wasn’t looking for pity, so he didn’t need to say what he meant: “People don’t usually think I have anything to offer.”

“Did you go to college?” he asked.

“Yes”, I said.

“What did you learn?”

(Uuuuummmmmm………)

“I tried school”, said the man. “But it seemed more suited for teaching people how to make money. Doesn’t it seem that way to you? Nothin’ wrong with that, but I’m looking for real knowledge. Like, how to be a decent human being. Seems like that would solve some of the real problems we have. I mean, for a top food-producing country, we sure have a lot of hungry people. Maybe if we were more decent, and less focused on making money, we might actually do some real good. Sometimes I think most of the people who resort to drugs are the ones who just can’t believe the cruelty and greed of this world.”

He went on to tell a story of when he worked on a shrimp boat and ate until he was nearly sick of food, and how he realized then that the main thing we all need to learn is how to be fed.

Twenty minutes into it, he was still talking, and I would have left at any time (because in my midlife age, I am getting less polite; and with less time ahead of me, I feel less inclined to indulge other peoples’ need to talk), except that I was intrigued. I was doing myself a favor by sitting and listening. Meanwhile, several strollers-by glanced at me with “whaddyagonnado”-type faces, or eye rolls, and at one point the coffee shop worker came out to casually offer the seating in the back that they hadn’t quite finished painting yet, but it was available if I wanted it.

After a pause, the man I was talking with picked up where he left off, “It seems like we could learn a lot from the Creator, but people seem offended by that. For the life of me I can’t understand why that would be an offensive idea—that there is a Creator. I’m sort of dumbfounded by that.”

Then he turned to me and asked, “Do you have anything for me?”

Right or wrong, I felt a little disheartened for a second until he clarified, “I mean, knowledge—do you have any knowledge for me? I have everything else I need, but what one thing do you know that has helped you, that could maybe help me?”

The “Dueling Banjos” tune popped into my head.

Oh, the importance of being prepared for these moments. And, oh, the disappointment I feel toward myself when I feel so unprepared…

It was clear this man already knew the true “One Thing”. But as for a “one bit of knowledge-thing”, I’m not one of those people like the cowboy-sensei from City Slickers who has this “One Thing” of knowledge that I stay with or hand out. I tend to move from thought to thought, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. So I considered the current branch that I was dangling from at that very second.

“Well”, I started, as a pithy thought bubbled to the surface, “I think what I’m grappling with right now is the belief that I’m OK.”

“Huh?” asked the man.

“What I mean to say, is that I—we all—do all kinds of ridiculous things, believing that we are not OK.”

“Oh,” he said.  “Huh.”

It was time for me to go, so I strapped on my purse and put on my sunglasses. I went over to shake his hand, and as we shook, he kindly said, “Thank you, my dear, you are an inspiration.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Robert”, he said. “But my given name is Roadrunner.”

And that was that.