Category Archives: living God’s truth

authenticity . . .

Authenticity. Being authentic. Not fake. Genuine. Real. Threadbare and exposed.

Are you authentic? If you answered “yes” then allow me a further probe. Who decides what’s authentic? How do you determine the boundaries for the definition, or does the definition (in and of itself) require that no boundaries be put around it? Does being authentic mean you just throw your “all” out there and hope for the best—take me or leave me, this is who I am?

It’s getting a lot of buzz these days . . . authenticity, especially in our “Christianese”—the vernacular of us religious folk. There’s something to be said for our exposure before one another; truth-telling can be a crucible for holiness. We can’t move forward in our faith by faking it. But I’m wondering, if, perhaps, our version of authenticity stops short of being a productive, spiritual discipline.

What’s the point of keeping it real, if keeping it real becomes an end in itself rather than a means to achieving an end—holiness?

Case in point. I’m about to expose myself. Hold on. You might not be ready for this one.

Yesterday, I canceled my appointment with my general practioner . . . for the 2nd time. It was scheduled for 3:45 PM. I called (actually I had my husband call) and cancel around 2:00 PM. Why?

  • I didn’t want to weigh in.
  • I didn’t want a repeat lecture about my cholesterol being too high.
  • I didn’t want to weigh in.

My decision was based on an earlier encounter with the bathroom scale—my husband and my twenty-three-year-old son’s throw-down, weigh in. They bantered back and forth about who weighed less, who ate more, and who would be thinner the next time around. When I heard their numbers, I was crushed and loudly pronounced my angst.

“I’m the heaviest person in this family. I weigh more than the rest of you. Call the doctor, Billy, and reschedule. I’m not going in today.”

He complied; I cried and continued to wrap myself up in the enemy’s shame regarding my appearance. Nothing’s fit right since cancer. Nothing looks right, either. It all feels wrong on me.

There, that wasn’t so hard. There’s some real and authentic truth for you. I’m not proud of it; I should have put “my big girl panties on a dealt with it.” Problem is, the big girl panties are too big, and I’m not keen on exposing them to others. Just keeping it real, friends. But here’s the problem: it’s not enough to tell you about it, throw it all out in front of the world while shouting, “Take me or leave me, this is who I am.”

This isn’t authenticity, not according to God; this isn’t transformation. This is defeat; this is refusing to do the hard work that follows personal disclosure. That hard work for me?

Well, it’s not just about my moving more and eating less. Greater still, it’s about exposing my pain before Jesus, about moving more into his Word, and about eating less of the enemy’s assessment regarding my body.

This is authenticity . . . not being afraid to fully disclose the pain and truth before the mirror of God’s Word and before God’s heart, knowing that with reflection will come greater understanding, greater strength, and greater exposure to the only truth that has the power to transform me rather than to judge me. If I’m willing to do this—to go all in with Jesus and with his assessment regarding my appearance—then I can boast about personal authenticity. Otherwise, I’m just living a lie, kidding myself and trying to kid the world into believing that my big girl panties and me are here to stay; take us or leave us, this is who we are.

Authenticity. It only comes to us as we are willing to come to the cross and expose our nakedness, our wounds, and our truth to the nakedness, wounds, and truth of Jesus Christ. He is the standard-bearer for authenticity; he defines it, refines it, and mines for it in each one of us. He is the means to our holiness. He is the end of it as well. When we go to him and pour out our reflection before him, he begins to pour out his reflection into us.

This is how we can make peace with our flesh and live in peace with God’s people. His truth over-powering and replacing the enemy’s lies. His estimation overtaking the mirror’s assessment and bringing forth new life from woundedness. More of Jesus reflecting authentically through less of us. Accordingly,

Take us, don’t leave us, Jesus, this is who we are, and this is why we so desperately need your hand of grace in our lives. Amen.

Sassy Granny has also written a post about authenticity. You can find it here.

moving the Kingdom forward in the next sixty minutes . . .

Movement wins. If you’ve been a regular reader at my blog in the past year, then you know that I chose this phrase to serve as my “anchor word” for 2012. Forward movement is a worthy pursuit, whether in the physical or spiritual realm of advancement. When we make the deliberate decision to move forward in faith, then it’s a win, not just for us but for the kingdom of God as well.

Along these lines, I’d like to offer you a challenge today—a single way that you can move your faith forward, thereby advancing God’s kingdom. It may sound simple, but I imagine it might be harder in practice. That’s what we’re going to do . . . practice our faith in a practical way. Practice is often the conduit for transformation. Great teaching will only take us so far, but great teaching applied in earnest unlocks the sacred potential in all of us to move forward in our perfection. So if you’re willing, let’s apply this one change to the way we spend our next hour (whenever this hour arrives for you).

Two steps are required. First, listen to the Word. Second, do the Word. Ready? Then listen up:

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.” –2 Corinthians 5:16

Now, do this one thing: No longer regard anyone from a worldly point of view.

Translation? Stop looking at the people in front of you from a worldly perspective. Stop viewing them as flesh and blood. Instead, view them as soul and spirit. See them not as temporal beings but, rather, as the eternal children of God. Look deeply into the faces of those around you, those who’ll cross your path in the next sixty minutes, and find the face of God. Notice Jesus and his pulse as he hovers around them. Recognize a single human life for what it is—a created being fashioned and formed in the image of God, a life worthy of Calvary’s investment. Grace’s investment.

With the Holy Spirit’s help, you can do this, friends. We can do this. In doing so, we move the kingdom of God forward. We may not be privy to the results of our investment or feel the earth move beneath our feet, but we can be certain that the heavens are marking our paces and turning the pages of the kingdom calendar in great anticipation of the arrival of its King.

This is not the time for weak faith and shoddy investments. This is the season for bold faith and Jesus investments. No, God doesn’t need us to move his kingdom forward, but because of his great love for us, he offers us the privilege of sacred participation. He gives us the opportunity and the occasion to see his people, all of his people, from his vantage point.

No longer regard anyone from a worldly point of view. The souls in front of us cannot afford our negligence. So get busy; the clock’s ticking. Fifty-seven minutes and counting. Make them count. As always . . .

Peace for the journey,

living life forward . . .

I recognize this girl. Perhaps you do as well.

Every now and again, she shows up on the front curb of my heart, marks off her thirty-six inches of personal space, and refuses to budge from her spot . . . not even for the garbage truck. She’ll risk a little stink in order to stay there . . . stay stuck. There’s something about the sidelines that appeal to her. It’s safer on the curb, less risk and less trouble. Life is hard, cruel at times, knocking her out of the game and keeping her mired in the pain.

Life on hold instead of life lived forward. This is how the hurt never heals.

She doesn’t see it that way; she can’t, because she’s yet to take the first step in a new direction. No one blames her. They’ve stood by and watched the world take out its frustration on her body, mind, and soul. Heartache has numbed her desire, crushed her spirit, and pressed her to the curb. What used to be no longer is, a realization clearly seen and deeply felt there, along the sidelines, while the world journeys on without her. She grieves for yesterday, for what might have been had that soul-eating “something” not arrived to rob her of her progress. And so she stops moving forward, at least for today, and tells herself that tomorrow she’ll get in the game; tomorrow she’ll do the hard work of soul-survivorship.

Life on hold instead of life lived forward. This is how the hurt never heals. This is how the hurt never even has the opportunity to heal. A life resigned to the sidelines is a life resigned to less—to an existence shackled to pain rather than an existence shaped by its prod.

Yes, I recognize this girl—her tears, her frustration, her resignation, and her fears. Maybe you recognize her as well. Maybe she is you. Maybe you’ve been wounded by life . . . by a game-changing punch to the gut that has mocked your strength, rocked your faith, and kicked you to the curb. Life’s been cruel, leaving you with scars that continue to throb their witness. You carry around in your flesh a tumor or two, a soul-eating something that continues to devour your health at a rapid rate. You don’t identify it as a cancer—a disease that occurs when abnormal body cells replicate uncontrollably, thereby replacing the healthy ones. Still and yet, a hidden malignancy exists, and left untreated, it threatens to hold you captive to the one person you thought you’d never be—

A boy, a girl, . . . a man, a woman resigned to the curb—life on hold instead of life lived forward. A life where the hurt never heals.

God wants more for you, for you to live forward with hope and with movement. He hasn’t created you for life on the sidelines, despite the many sorrows and sufferings that have, understandably, pushed you to the curb for a season. Instead, he invites you, even as he has invited me, to take hold of his hand and to find your place on the road of faith—the journey of trust that leads you onward toward wholeness.

This is why I wrote Beyond Cancer’s Scars, an invitation for the wounded—those who suffer from all manner of ills and aches and soul-eating “somethings”—to step courageously away from the curb and to enter the fray to lay claim to a stronger spirit in Jesus Christ.

Life lived forward instead of life on hold. This is how our hurt begins to heal. One beautiful, courageous, and intentional step at a time. If you are someone who is living life on hold, then I invite you to take hold of my hand and, together, we will take hold of the heart and hands of Jesus Christ and start living forward. Time to get in the game, friends. Life is so much better with you in it. As always . . .

Peace for the journey,

choosing when to walk . . .

Rain.

I’m growing weary of it. Not of its existence; rain is needful. It cleanses the earth, grows the seed, and cools the summer scorch. No, I’m not knocking the benefits and beauty of the rain. I am, however, a bit disgruntled by its timing.

Let me explain.

I’m an evening walker. I used to walk in the mornings, started my day off fresh with a hearty three or four mile jog in the brilliance of the sun’s light. Somewhere along the way, things changed. Life changed. My jogs turned into walks, my schedule obliterated by the urgent and necessary. My schedule, these days, not so necessary, less urgent than my previous one, yet new habits have taken over where old ones once reigned. And so, I now walk in the evenings. There’s nothing profound or deep buried in this reality. It’s just how it is.

For the last several weeks, the rain has accompanied me on my walks. I may start out dry with blue skies and a smattering of gray-bottomed, cloudy pillows as my companions, but I usually return to the house with a few drops of heavenly dispensation on my clothing. In all my years of living on the East Coast, I’ve never experienced such predictability. And so tonight (with my son’s promised forecast for sunny skies and lower temps), I began my customary stroll around the neighborhood. This time I took my umbrella . . . just in case. Good thing. My “just in case” rolled in about the time my feet rounded the corner on Fordham Drive.

Buckets of rain, absorbing through my cheap umbrella, making sure I knew it meant business. I wasn’t going to escape the wetness. Instead, I was forced to endure it . . . again, all the while praying that anyone in my household might look out the blinds to notice my predicament and run to my rescue. They didn’t. Instead, they stayed dry in the comfort of our home while I willfully pushed through puddles and streams and soggy socks, all the while hating the rain and wondering why it seems to prefer my walking hour rather than the other twenty-three that fill up a day.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking about it too. Why not change the time of your walk, Elaine? Why risk the rain at night, when the morning promises more dryness? Why not the certainty of the day rather than this new predictability of the evening?

Why, indeed?

I don’t have a good answer for you. I won’t even tell you that “into every life a little rain must fall.” You get it. You know about the rainy season—those times when we cannot choose the climate surrounding our hearts and we must press through the rain because there’s no other option. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I am wondering about are those times when you and I have a choice . . . to walk in the rain or to walk in the sunshine. What about those times in our lives when we stubbornly choose the rain over the sunshine? When we refuse a change of habit and heart and cling tightly to our way over a better way? Why walk with the clouds when the sun is available?

I’ve had a lot of rainy days as of late; I cannot predict all of the clouds that will move in and out of my life, nor the precipitation they’ll bring with them. I can, however, predict a few of them—those evening showers. Accordingly, I can make a choice to avoid them . . . to move my walking to daytime hours. In doing so, I’ll avoid some wetness, some heartache as well.

I don’t always have to get wet. You don’t either. Sometimes we get to choose when we walk. Sometimes we have an option . . .

The sunshine or the rain.

Seems to me a better choice to enjoy the sun while it is shining brightly overhead rather than to be caught in the rain with regret. And therein lies a thought or two worth considering. As always . . .

Peace for the journey,

My friend, Melanie Dorsey, has also written about “choosing” today. Join her in worship by clicking here.

a right word at the right time {part two}: muddied and still willing

“Not until halfway through the feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to preach. . . . Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.’” –John 7:16-19

Dirty. Soiled. Polluted. That’s how I feel this morning, not because of what I’ve done but because of what I’ve allowed the world to do to me—slap me in the face and in the heart with untruth.

Speaking God’s truth comes at a price, because whenever his truth is spoken, the enemy stands ready and willing to defend the ground he’s temporarily claimed and cultivated with his lies, his native language (John 8:44). Satan’s lies always start with a question . . . a thought . . . a probing not unlike the one he leveled at Eve in the Garden of Eden:

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” –Genesis 3:1

Did God really say?

Isn’t this the point at which all detours off the road of truth begin? When we initiate inward dialogue about what God said . . . says? When doubt muddies the waters of truth with opinion rather than fact? When we believe our own billing and trust our own instincts over the knowledge and character of God?

We do it all the time. This happens whenever we tiptoe around God’s truth and lean in to our own understanding—those inklings that scratch the itch of what’s comfortable, what feels good, and what allows us to keep living the sin, doing the sin, all the while calling it something else. Calling it personal preference; calling it a justifiable choice because, after all, no one should have to change who he or she is to suit another human being.

“For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. The will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” –2 Timothy 4:4

**NEWS FLASH: We’re not here to suit one another. We’re not here to suit ourselves. We’re here to suit God. To honor him with our lives and with our willingness to bend our sin-sickened hearts to the process of holiness. It’s never been about us—these years we’re allowed on planet earth. It’s been about God and his allowance of those years for each one of us. We’re wasting precious time, friends, arguing about truth. Truth isn’t relative. Truth is truth; there cannot be multiple versions therein. There is only one way, one truth, and one life—Jesus Christ, Son of the living God (John 14:6). When we begin our search for truth with him, our confusions and personal preferences bow to the firm conclusions and preferences of God. When we begin our search for truth anywhere else we bow to our flesh, we serve it, and we risk permanent and eternal separation from God. . .

F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Is that a risk you’re willing to take? If so, keep living unto yourself and keep slinging your mud at those who bravely speak truth to your soul. It might feel good to get a little dirty from time to time, to enter the pit of confrontation all in the name of personal preference. To rub a little sludge in to your neighbor’s eye and to throw in a few kicks to the gut for good measure. Go ahead, live your independence and call yourself brave. Stand for intolerance and carry the flag of self-preservation. Shout loud. Shout now. Shout for all you’re worth. Give it all you’ve got while you have some got to give because the time is fast approaching when your stage, your platform, and your voice will be silenced by the stage and voice of the King. And when he speaks, there will be no denying the truth. Instead, there will be hell to pay.

F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Did God really say?

Yes, God really did say.

And so must I . . . say truth, say a few words from time to time. Why? Because I love God, and I want to honor the King with a life of service to his truth and his cross. And secondly, because I love you, and because hell is too high a price to pay for the lies you’re willing to boldly and self-assuredly live on this side of eternity.

There are right words and a right time to speak those words. Today is that time for me. Accordingly, I risk your confusion, your anger, your mud, and your condemnation. Better to risk yours than to know God’s . . .

F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Peace for the journey,

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