March 20, 2012

surrender.

Written by Andrea Lucado

How do we surrender and experience victory simultaneously? In our culture, surrender is equivalent with failure, right? Surrender is giving up. Surrender means we are not strong enough, not good enough, not something enough to complete the task at hand and come out on top. No, we are not anxious to wave our white flags of surrender. We clutch them tightly and keep them hidden behind our backs. We are not weak. Or at least we don’t want the enemy to think we are.

So then why, of all things, does God the almighty and victorious one call us to surrender?

He does it often. From the Old Testament when the Israelites were rebelling and refusing Babylonian captivity to the New Testament when Jesus upholds those who are meek and instructs us to “turn the other cheek.” God’s word urges his people to surrender from the battle within and from the battle around us. We often grow unaware of these battles, forgetting that our flesh is at constant war with our spirit and that good is at constant war with evil. These battles are too big and too important for us to fight on our own.

The battle occurring within each of us is dangerous to forget about. Our flesh leads us down paths of destruction: bitterness, jealousy, anger. Our flesh tries hard to achieve our worldly desires and goals. We work hard to save money, get a promotion, not let others hurt us, not let others hurt the ones we love, fix people’s problems. It is exhausting work. And lasts only until we hit a wall or rock bottom or completely fail, realizing we have nothing left to offer.

Rather than depending on ourselves until that point of defeat, God calls us to lay our weapons down at the start of battle, take a deep breath and resign to what we fear most—surrender. But God promises captivity is not what we will walk into if we raise our white flag. Actually, He promises the opposite will occur: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). When we choose Christ above our own ability, we find freedom from our struggle. In that sense, when we finally raise our white flag, we are actually raising up the cross. And in the cross is more power than we could ever have.

Paul tells us that His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). When we are not able, He is able. Able to make pick us up so we can stand again (Rom. 14:4). Able to bless us abundantly (2 Cor. 9:8). Able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine for our lives and for this world (Eph. 3:20). Able to make us wise (2 Tim. 3:16). Able to help us while we are being tempted (Heb. 2:18). Able to save us completely through Christ (Heb. 7:25). Able to keep us from stumbling and able to bring us into God’s presence (Jude 1:24).

He fought the battle a long time ago, on a cross, and “[t]his is the victory that has overcome the world” (1 John 5:4). Now he simply waits to see our white flags being raised one by one. As soon as we get out of the way and allow Christ to be our defender and victor, we are free and he in turn is enabled.

The battle raging around us is even bigger and more impossible to overcome than our internal battles. Evil seeking victory through human trafficking, child hunger, poverty and countries at war—these are much too huge for us to overcome on our own. We are not strong enough and never will be. But imagine if we stopped looking around at one another to fight these evils and started looking upward toward Christ. What a difference we could make, putting the one who defeated death in charge over ourselves. We may just accomplish something and accomplish it to His glory. We are not the answer; he is.

The idea is inverted and counter-cultural, as all aspects of the gospel are. Once we surrender, we are free. Once we succumb to our weakness, we are strong in Christ. Explaining this sounds a little insane, but experiencing it makes more sense than anything else in our lives. And once we grasp this biblical concept of surrender, our white flags are no longer a symbol of weakness but, instead, a gift we exchange for freedom.



March 7, 2012

being a good person doesn't really matter

Some would describe me as a good person. I try really hard to be kind, treat people well, and love others. I mediate situations, I go to church on a regular basis, and I have an annoying tendency to do the right thing.

But when I look at myself the mirror, I stare into the reality that I am not a good person.

I am an awful person. I am petty, jealous, bitter, perfectionistic, inadequate, angry, grumpy, proud, snide, manipulative, self-absorbed, evaluating, judgmental, selfish, incompetent, codependent, and many more adjectives that would describe the average awful human. So for most of my life, to maintain an image of being good, I would try harder to be kind, treat people even better, and love others as much as possible. I would prevent arguments and hold myself to a standard of perfection in every action.

But earlier this year, I woke up one day with a crazy notion: I worship a good God. And therefore me being a good person doesn’t really matter in the long run. Because that is not how God sees me.

One might assume that this sort of epiphany would bring freedom and joy and giggles because, hey, for any Christian it kind of makes sense. But for me, this notion rocked me to my core.

Did you ever put on those goggles at the police station when you were a kid? The ones that simulate drunk driving? I feel like I’ve been wearing those my entire life. And that morning that I woke up, I opened my eyes and found to my surprise that the Lord had taken those silly things off. And I freaked out.

There was nothing in my life that I recognized around me, and worst of all, I realized that the reflection I’ve been looking at for so long and have been so ashamed of is not the version of me that my Heavenly Father sees.

Because, you see, when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He bore God’s wrath. And theologically that sounds nice, but in a more image-based description, what that really means is that Jesus was ugly. Like, really ugly. He was my kind of ugly. He put on my mask of being a good girl and carried my bitter, foul little heart around in His chest and hung on a cross. When He died, was buried, and then woke up and starting walking and talking again, all of my crap got left behind.

For people who grew up Christian, this is logical. We learn it in talks from our pastors, we read about in Christian books, we even skim the surface as we read Scripture. But for me, I was living with the distorted image of my good girl self and my broken little heart. I was still walking around carrying this picture of me as the little girl who believed she was to blame for the separation of her parents’ marriage, the child who thought she could somehow prove she was deserving of love and attention, the teen who believed that no one could see the food she refused, and the young woman who thought the only kind of love she deserved would always come with strings attached.

So when the goggles came off and I saw myself the way that God sees me, I was shocked to perceive that I am whole. I am perfect. There are no stains on my clothing, no blemish on my skin. A pleasing aroma comes from me, there are no tears on my cheeks or lurking in my eyes; there is no shame burdening my shoulders or pain creasing my brow. I am His. And I am perfect.

When Jesus died on the cross, He took our sin. That means that God doesn’t see it when He looks at each of us. This distorted image of myself that I had been carrying around was not in fact reality at all.

I had been deceived into believing that all my striving, all my attempts to live a good life would somehow continue to buy me God’s favor. That my outer goodness would somehow outweigh my inner garbage, that God would see my deeds even though He knows my heart and somehow maybe He would decide that they even out. My inner sense of brokenness drove me into a captivity of legalism. I started depending on myself and all the things I could do for God to get Him to accept me, to notice me, to heal me, to love me, instead of on Him.

But our God is better than that. He is a good God. He is a intentional God who works in all things for our good. He is a Shepherd who will not let us stray too far. He is a Father who welcomes us in with open arms. And so He took off my goggles and led me out of my Egypt, my slavery.

For so much of my life, the words I have said most frequently to the Lord have been “I’m sorry”. But in 2011, God showed me that it’s time to change that phrase to “Thank you”.


Ali Mason

March 4, 2012

A Letter To My Younger Self

Hey. Stop what you’re doing for a minute and listen. You aren’t going to believe everything I’m about to say, but I know you will understand it. I know you, and I know what you’re thinking. Maybe you will recognize me. Maybe you won’t.

First things first, you’re gorgeous. I know you don’t think that, and I know right now you’re smiling and inwardly negating my words; you do that a lot. Stop it. God made you. You don’t know Him that well yet, so you don’t understand this, but He formed every part of you. He molded your face, gave you that hair you try to cover up. He made you with hips (not the bad thing you think it is). And all those curves that make you feel disproportionate? He made those too. He made your nose and your eyes and he made you a little shy.

You feel cheated right now, wondering why the God of the universe didn’t make you alluring or talkative or anything like the girls you wish you were, but you’re wrong. You’re so wrong. Because, when God made you, he didn’t step back and look at the finished product and say, “good enough”. He didn’t grimace when he realized he made a few mistakes, but ushered you out into the world anyway. He didn’t even nod and think he had done pretty well. No. He saw you and he was enthralled. Girl, the king is enthralled with your beauty. Why? Because you – because the woman he made – was absolutely gorgeous.

I know you don’t feel that way, when the boys in the hallway try to rate your beauty on a scale of ten, when they make you feel unseen, unwanted. Don’t listen to them. Ignore them. For they are just boys and you are a woman – not one of their playthings. You surpass their scale; no one can assign your beauty a number, a rating, a degree. Those who try and do such things are mere fools, not worth being heard. Yeah, their opinion seems like the world to you now, and the things they say cut deep, but you’ll get through it and soon they will be as laughable to you as they are to me now.

You think your brain is your only redeeming quality; you feel threatened when people try to challenge that. You tell yourself that if you can’t be pretty, at least you can be smart, but that’s not true either. God made you beautiful and He made you smart, so stop putting yourself down, stop believing lies (you made most of them up anyway; in a few years, you will realize that). You feel like no one will ever understand you, and they probably won’t, but that’s part of what makes you beautiful. God made you mysterious. You wouldn’t be you if people entirely understood you.

You don’t believe me. I know that. You won’t understand for another few years. You’re asking yourself how anything I say can be true, when deep down you feel so small and unseen. You don’t feel beautiful or powerful or anything like a woman when you sit in the back of the class room silent, avoiding eye contact with the “pretty girls” and the teacher who knows that, though you won’t speak, you have so much to say. That’s right; you don’t fool me. I know how your mind is racing, how badly you yearn to be heard despite your fear of speaking. Your stutter really isn’t that bad.

Girl, things aren’t going to be easy, getting here. Sometimes it’s going to hurt – a lot. But some day you’ll understand what I’m saying. Some day you will come to terms with the truth that God made you beautiful, and the lies you once believed will enrage you. Some day you will be angry at the world that pressed those unhealthy expectations and feelings of failure onto your heart, and you’re going to fight. You’re going to make war on those lies – in your life and in the lives of others. That’s right. Some day there are going to be women who look up to you, and you’re going to understand the struggle in their eyes. You’re going to see in them the girl to whom I am writing this letter. It’s still going to be a struggle for you; it isn’t always going to be easy, but God is on your side.

And you will grow, step by step, day by day, as I am growing now, as you learn what it means to be a woman deeply loved by the Lord.

Listen to me. Please. You are beautiful, just how God made you. If nothing else, please understand that. Cling to it. Cling to the truth that God made you well.

And keep fighting. I’ll see you on the other side.


taken from goodwomenproject.com