Romans 14

So let us try to do what makes peace and helps one another (v19)

I can imagine this verse, along with other content in this chapter, becoming fodder for someone who wants to align the Bible with moral relativism. Let’s not take things out of context. Paul is writing specifically about eating and holidays. These are rituals related to the old testament law. I think that the statement could reasonably be applied to church traditions and music, which are modern counterparts to the things he was dealing with in this time. It does not, in my opinion, extend to issues like divorce and abortion that seem to be considered “morally grey” these days. Verse 17 seems to support that the statement in 19 is limited in scope:

In the kingdom of God, eating and drinking are not important. The important things are living right with God, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Personally, I have felt the power of this whole concept in a way that crystallized verses 22-23 very well:

Your beliefs about these things should be kept secret between you and God. People are happy if they can do what they think is right without feeling guilty.23 But those who eat something without being sure it is right are wrong because they did not believe it was right. Anything that is done without believing it is right is a sin.

TMI Warning, but here we go. I struggle with knowing what God really wants for me in the area of family planning. At one point in my marriage, my husband and I both felt like God was speaking clearly that everything in our lives was ready for us to have children. The problem was that we didn’t feel ready. I don’t feel guilty about not trying to have a baby from the first night of my marriage. However, once God made it clear that He wanted something else from us, there was no end to the trouble we had with our consciences and even our relationship until we decided to comply. Once we understood that we were living out of line with God, our actions became sinful and we began paying the price in our spirits and lives. We never expected that God would follow up with a pregnancy within a month of that decision, but that was His plan.
I have since had a second child and find myself needing to make a decision about the future. I know what God has placed on my heart, but I remain afraid to act on it. Despite 20/20 hindsight of the messes I have made and miracles God has worked, I remain lured by the idea of staying in control. So remains the cry of my heart- Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Romans 6

Paul is addressing the inevitable question: “If all your sins are forgiven, why do you need to ‘be good?’”

His answer is, (in part and channeling a friend of mine who kindly fixed up my new computer last night,) “That would be like running Windows on your new iMac.” You could do it, but you would be undermining the greatness of the work of Christ and ultimately cheating yourself out of the gift He has given you.

Paul addresses Christ’s resurrection, the work which grants us eternal life, in verses 8-10 in order to draw a parallel between victory over death and victory over sin.
in verses 5-7, he makes this point:

Christ died, and we have been joined with him by dying too. So we will also be joined with him by rising from the dead as he did. We know that our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful selves would have no power over us and we would not be slaves to sin. Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control.

The gift is of Christ is not only freedom from death, but also freedom from sin. It is only in freedom from sin that we can be free from death, but I don’t want to overlook the magnitude of that second freedom in and of itself.

Looking at this from another direction, if someone is asking, “Why should I be good if I am forgiven for being bad?” what they are really fighting against is letting go of something they enjoy in life that is contrary to God’s will as they understand it. As a twenty-something (admittedly barely hanging on to that title,) the people in my life are usually talking about “partying” in some form. Whether that is alcohol, drugs, sex, or just plain irresponsibility doesn’t make any difference. Why would these people, or anyone, want “freedom” from the lifestyle they are enjoying so much? Paul’s answer is easy to refute and impossible to deny:

Surely you know that when you give yourselves like slaves to obey someone [or something], then you really are slaves of that person [or thing.]

The mouth says: I’m not a slave to drinking. I’m not a slave to smoking. The heart echoes the truth: Why is it that sometimes I just don’t feel right until I have that drink?Why did I spend more on cigarettes this month than I paid on my credit card debt, even though that debt is keeping me up at night?

The specifics of my own don’t matter, because the cycle is familiar to anyone who has wrestled their own demons. I felt bad- depressed, bored, insignificant, stressed- I turned to my self-help of choice, I felt “better.” The next day, I was about as glad to be done with the cure as with the sickness, and I was haunted with the knowledge that the next time I felt bad, I would most likely find myself going down the same path. The truth is that even as they brought pleasure, those dark little things brought pain because I knew in my heart I was enslaved. If I really faced the truth, I knew that without them, there would be a hole in my life that I couldn’t fill. It is torment to know that you are not complete without some ugly thing that must be bought, made, done, added- over and over again- that is not you but less than you.

It’s not like that with God. God fills that void with Himself - something not you but greater than you, something that is not made or bought or done, but given. That is what freedom from sin is all about. It’s about the power to overcome that which makes us less than what we desire to be, because ultimately, we desire to be beautiful, pure, and wonderful, and that is what God desires from us as well.

Where I've Been

If anyone out there is wondering where I've been, the answer is long and complicated or short and easy, depending on how you want to look at it.

The short and easy answer is that my one-year-old has been in such a state with ear infections that he hadn't gained a full pound since his six-month checkup. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't really eat, and he cries. ALOT. Throw in vomit and other messy bodily functions brought on by antibiotics and you have a recipe for an unhappy baby and an unrested, unhappy family. We did get tubes put in his ears about 3 weeks ago, after several delays due to him being too sick for the surgery. Since then, he has already gained almost 2 pounds and started saying several "words," including "teetee" (kitty,) "mama," and "tay too," an imitation of "thank you" that he seems to think means "you take this and then give it back to me." While he is doing better, he has already had another infection and sleep is still an issue. We have a long road in front of us to get him to unlearn the bad habits that came with all the drama, but there's a light at the end of this tunnel, and I'm glad and thankful to be getting back to our family routine with the start of the new year.

The long and complicated is....well, more complicated. I am neurotic about schedules. I need structure and goals to feel "right," but it is a self-defeating cylce. Once I start feeling "not right," my tendency is to want to "give myself a break," and let go of some of my commitments. Then I get behind on my plans and goals, and....you see where this is going. Like everyone else on the planet, I am my own worst enemy.

So what is the plan? Resolved: I will try to write an entry in this blog once a week, hopefully on the same day each week, but not about a set amount of sripture. I will cover whatever my study and quiet time has been on that week. Don't worry, though. It will still probably be some sort of sequential path through the New Testament because that is still where I am reading on my own.

I am also going to get back to writing in my other blog on a weekly basis, so you can find me there, too.

Happy New Year!

Romans 4-5

All week, I have been thinking about how grumpy I am. I have been wondering about this "joy of the Lord" business. If the Joy of the Lord is supposed to be my strength, my lack of it is clearly the reason I keep failing at doing what I want to do. Then, what do you know? Right there in my reading for this entry, Romans 5:1-5 is all over me:

Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, who through our faith has brought us into that blessing of God's grace that we now enjoy. And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God's glory. We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.

We have joy with our troubles because of the hope we have of sharing God's glory. What am I supposed to do with that? I read another blog this week where the writer wrote an interview with a dead friend. He does not seem to believe in Christ or heaven, but at the same time, he was grappling with the idea that everything can be really bad in "life," but it's still OK in the big picture. That's what this is all about. God does not think my problems aren't bad. He is saving every tear in a jar. It's just that he knows that everything is also OK, and He has given me a way to plug into that. It's my choice whether I want to take the small view and have sorrow alone, or take the larger view and have both sorrow and joy, knowing that someday I will have only the joy.

Easier said than done. I've heard a dude by the name of Zig Ziglar put this concept this way - not a quote, just my paraphrase:
The transition from believing that God promises life to having faith in that promise is like the change in how a girl thinks of her wedding day when she becomes engaged. Every little girl, to some degree, dreams of being a bride. She looks at magazines and imagines what it will be like for her. Girls used to keep a "hope chest" of all the things they collected for thier future wedding day. Then, one day, a man puts an engagement ring on her finger, and all the hopes and "ifs" become possibilities and "whens."

I was not the girl who had fantasies of being the Princess in my wedding gown, and when I got engaged, I started looking on e-bay for a dress. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time with this joy thing? I don't have a huge capacity for dreaming of "happily ever after." Still, the second part of the verse resonates with me. I have felt hope, and I have felt love. These things are what sustains me, and I have always thought that they were enough. I guess I'm starting to question that now.

ACH! Schedule?

OK- I'm behind on my posts, but I am actually keeping up with the reading. New post coming soon!

Matthew 4-5

Ouch. The beatitudes are always hard to read. If I ever think I am getting it right, all I need to do is go and read Matthew 5. It’s not the description of sin that is most convicting to me. I already know that I am a sinner. It’s this line that gets me every time:

29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. (NIV)

Sometimes I think that I love God and not the world, or that I am done with the process of dying to myself to make room for the Holy Spirit to work in me. All it takes is those two sentences to set me straight. I know that I could not do this thing that Jesus commands, although it is for my own good. I could not cut off my hand or gouge out my eye, nor could I give up some of the comforts of my life, even knowing that I would be eternally better off without them.

Just one example- I love my house, although I know there is sin in the way I spend hours of my time and too much of my money making it clean and shiny and well-adorned – especially when company is coming, and especially if I know that the guests’ house is better looking than mine. I know all this, and yet I continue to do it. Why don’t I give it up? My life would be less busy and less stressed if I did. Do I believe that my friends’ potential judgment of me and my home-making skills is more important than God’s judgment of my stewardship? Actions speak louder than words, I suppose.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.