My Résumé or His? (September newsletter)

Résumé-writing professionals, I heard on the radio, now demand upwards of $350 for their services. That page-long document is often a make-or-break reflection of a person’s accomplishments and abilities. The tricky thing about a long list of paper applause is that, a good thing for your career life is a horrible thing for your spiritual life.

I was reminded of that last month as I sat in a green plastic arena chair.

Tim Keller, the morning Bible teacher at our recent Campus Crusade U.S. Staff Training in Colorado, spoke of a VPR—our Validating Performance Record, a spiritual résumé, of sorts.

It can look different for each of us since it’s about where we might find our significance. Where is my success depicted? How do I justify my existence?

• Job title
• The professional or personal project just completed
• House, car or bank accounts
• Children
• Ministry

“The world believes,” says Tim, “that if there’s a God, He must work the same way as the world does—seeing their [résumé].”

This was my story. Well, in part. I knew that my salvation was a gift—by faith alone. Yet a strange thing happened after my decision to follow Jesus. Slowly—like slime oozing down a wall—I started living the Christian life like it was up to me.

Tim gave a great analogy of this wrong thinking. It’s like you’ve been a prisoner. By grace of the judge you’ve been released and are free. But with no clothes, no friends, no job, you set out to prove yourself. Thank you God for taking my sin and setting me free. Now, I’m going to be so good. You’ll be proud. I’m going to read my Bible and I vow I’m going to be nice to that one coworker who drives me crazy. You just wait and see.

That was an exhausting way to attempt to live. Exhausting and it didn’t work. Just like how I couldn’t be good enough on my own to earn salvation, I can’t be good enough on my own to live out the Christian life.

I understood the forgiveness part of my new life in Christ but was oblivious to the new reality—a divine swap, of sorts. Justification. Jesus took my sin. I get His righteousness. (See Romans 3:20-24, 28.) He becomes my VPR, my spiritual résumé. Wow. When I understand this, gone is the striving. I don’t need to prove myself. Like Paul in Philippians 3, I can list my résumé and pronounce it like a garbage pile.

Marcus Lohn (sp?) says, “To speak of forgiveness is to say, ‘You may go, you’ve been let off of your penalty.’ But to speak of justification is to say, ‘You may come.’”

Come.

Come to the One who has laid down His life for me and has given me His very identity and His power to live the Christian life.

Sitting in Moby Arena as Marcus Lohn’s words were said, tears came. How much I needed to be reminded that the Christian life isn’t just one of being let off the hook; it’s one where the Father looks at me and says, “Angie, come. All I have is yours.”

Then, I looked at the 7,000 of us in that room—full-time Christian workers who, just like me, probably really needed to hear that.

Then, I thought about those who will hear about Jesus from those 7,000 pair of lips.

At the very least, my pair of lips speak a little differently since my time in Colorado, after being reminded of the invitation to put down my résumé and simply come.

by Guy Gerrard, used with permission

 

Of Weeds & Charred Cookies

I was excited to surprise Scott with cookies after he’d been on the phone setting appointments last night.

This isn’t quite what I was hoping for. (Sondra, I’m so sorry I’ve annihilated your wonderful cookie recipe. I simply don’t know what happened.)

I pulled them out of the oven and laughed out loud. They were as flattened as soldiers crawling on their bellies through underbrush. Then, I got the spatula and cracked up even more as slivered pieces flew through the air.

“I mean, seriously? What in the world?” I heckled myself.

Scott was gracious. He said they tasted fine. I’m sure he must have been delusional or is still unsure how to react to his new bride’s kitchen skills.

Fast forward to today. Walking home from a doctor’s appointment I spotted flowers I’d never seen. Like a little girl, sans pigtails, I waded through the wet grass banks and picked some.

Lately, I’ve been buying a single flower (Gerber daisy or rose–whatever is on sale) for a vase in our bathroom. Fresh flowers make me extremely happy, I realized. Well, today the Lord surprised me with a bouquet.

As I walked along, with the little creations of pink and yellow and white in hand, I suddenly wondered, what if what I think are flowers are really weeds? Then I laughed at the lesson before me: the weeds of God are more amazing than my burned cookies! Even if they are wildflowers (feel free to let me know in the comments), they’re scattered with no plan and aren’t tended by anyone. Yet, with my best skills, a college degree, and focused attention, look how my dessert turned out.

Then God brought to mind:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. –1 Corinthians 1:25

 

Gardening 101 (May newsletter)

I’m not a gardener. (I know you’re shocked; I see you eyeing those grape-and-crimson-colored flowers above. But honestly, Wal*Mart handed them over to me just like that.)

When I say I’m not a gardener it’s 1) because my history has been one of killing plants instead of helping them live and, 2) I’m impatient. Enough already of the watering and sun and all; gimme more than dirt. Lemme see growth.

I feel a bit like a forth-grader who is sent home with a Dixie cup, dirt and a seed to teach her valuable lessons on agriculture with a side of patience. And that little 9-year-old goes home with cup in hand, plops down on the front porch step and sobs because she has no superpowers to make it grow at microwave-speed.

Yet as transformation and life percolates under the surface in the flower box on the front porch, my eyes are left unprivy. This wonder occurs in other places, too. In a cocoon during a month-long wait. In the womb over 40 weeks. In the tomb during a dark three days.

In my heart during this season.

And so I’m learning a few things, in Gardening 101.

God’s not nearly in the hurry that I am for growth. I see a fertilized rectangle of uniform brown and, daily, I’m begging it to sprout. The days drag on without a hint of green. I start to wonder if I’ve over watered. Or under watered. Or put seeds too close together and they’re duking it out underground, with some now unconscious.

But God isn’t worried. He’s ordained for each of His seeds, and for His children, just the right conditions—sun, rain, and sometimes manure—that will grow us into His likeness.

God knows more and, therefore, I need to seek His direction. Somehow I forget my lack of knowledge and often just jump into the dirt. Sure, I don’t know what I’m doing, but fevered activity counts, right? But I end up looking like Pigpen on Peanuts, with a swirl of mess and stink swirling around me. Instead, what if I paused and asked God what He’d like me to do today? Shall I water? Or pull weeds? Or plant more seeds? Or go help someone else with their garden? Or…simply rest?

God makes it grow. I’m disillusioned to believe otherwise. Yet I’m called His fellow worker. “[Paul] planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers” (I Corinthians 3: 6-9).

The more I play gardener, the more I am humbled as I see how nothing I do produces growth. Yet, the more I play gardener, the more excited I get to play a role, to have a stake in the life God creates. And my life gets involved; I’m no longer an innocent bystander.

But, ultimately, I think God might be making me a gardener because, as I play in the dirt, I look a bit more like my Father, the true Gardener.

 

Lilies that don’t labor or spin

Thank you, JF! Wow, can I say I was blown away when the doorbell rang? The lilies are beautiful and a perfect reminder of Matthew 6:25-34 you wrote down.

Thanks for letting God love me through you today.

 

A worrier whom I’ve observed

I never seem to read the famous “Do not worry” passage in Matthew 6 except for those times I seem to, well, uh, worry.

I’m sorry. I mean I have a friend. She worries.

Yeah, she worries.

She worries that she doesn’t work hard enough.

She worries that the bump on her left hand that suddenly got hard is cancer.

I worry…ahemm…I mean she worries that God won’t come through.

And she worries what people will think that she worries even though she knows Truth.

So, she tells me that today, in Luke 12, she saw something new in verses 25 &26:

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? [actually, it's 'a single cubit to his height'] Since you cannot do this little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Wow. Adding something, whether it be a single hour to my life or a cubit (finger tip to elbow, I think) is crazy-impossible.

And God knows that. He drives home the point.

Angie, if you don’t have the power to get 25 hours in today nor the ability to hit 6′6…don’t bother worrying about the rest.

And the amazing contrast is the fact that God has the ability to do those things. He has power.

As it says further down in verse 29, “Do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.”

In verse 31, “But seek His kingdom, and these things [food, drink, clothes, etc] will be given to you as well.

It’s about what I set my heart on…what my friend sets her heart on.

I can set my heart on the things God already knows I need (see v. 28) or I can set my heart on Him and His power for meeting my needs.

I’ll have to tell my friend.

 

What God doesn’t say

Scott and I went on a walk tonight to a park two blocks away. It’d been a battle-for-faith kind of day.

Sitting on the swing and talking about the day (and avoiding the bird poop on the left side), this thought suddenly popped in my mind:

God never says, “Try harder.”

God says a lot in the Bible, but never that. Never “Work harder” or “Grunt it out” or even — are you ready for this? — “God helps those who help themselves.”

Never.

But, He does say:

• Trust Me.
• Follow Me.
• Believe Me.
• Be still and know that I’m God.

So, that pretty much removes “run-around-like-a-crazy-woman” from my list of better options. Thanks, Judy and Virginia, for your gentle words reminding me to rest.