January 2006

Do you ever make New Year’s resolutions? I’m not one to normally do so, though the start of each new year does bring with it a sense of promise and a longing to do some things better than I did the year before.

I know the typical resolutions involve exercise and weight loss, and when it comes to both, I’m no different. In fact, this year I decided to add walking the treadmill to my weekly routine, not just because I would love to be in shape and want to shed a few pounds, but because if I don’t start exercising, I’ll be a lot more achey and creaky!

And as a writer I have job related aches – back, neck, arms, etc. A lot of it has been due to poor posture and bad ergonomics, which I’m also working to correct. But let’s face it, the older we get the more we hurt. Exercise makes me more flexible and less creaky, kind of like oiling a rusty machine. :)

To make exercising more bearable, I have to do something else along with it. I’ve always felt like exercise is a giant waste of my time, thus my aversion to it. I used to read while I walked, but that’s rather awkward and makes walking fast even harder. So now I use the time to pray.

I don’t mean that to sound pious. But honestly, I haven’t been as good at keeping a scheduled prayer time as I should, and mixing it will walking helps me keep my exercise date and actually enjoy it. I am energized when I praise the Lord, and grateful for those times to spend with Him.

As for other resolutions? Well, I have a few – one is to keep a more regular writing schedule. How am I doing? Not as well as I’d hoped, but I’m working on it! :)

Do you ever get tired of doing the same tasks over and over again? One of my least favorite things to do as a wife and mom is to pack lunches. I’ve been doing them for almost 29 years and frankly, I still don’t find them all that exciting. Sometimes, I feel frustration when supper time rolls around, knowing that after dinner it will be time to pack the lunches for the next day. Other times I think, how can I show love to my family and do something extra special for them? Maybe I’ll add pickles to a sandwich or cut up veggie slices to add some crunch. My mood over this task varies from day to day and depends on how tired I am.

But have you noticed that so much of life is repetition? We get out of the same bed, brush the same teeth (at least I hope I’m brushing my own teeth!), wash the same hair, feed the same mouth, drive to the same job, wash the same clothes, deal with the same people, watch the same TV shows.

Even Christians, who should be the least bored people of all, can get into a rut. Our devotions become rote and our prayers look like a child’s Christmas list. Worship becomes flat and mechanical and joy is one of those obscure feelings that flits by us now and then but doesn’t last.

I was reading Beth Moore’s Believing God book today. I came to the chapter where she asks what do we do when we are waiting for God to do something big in our lives and His answers are still eluding us? Her response was to keep doing the things we always do, the routine things of life, and keep believing.

As a writer who is still praying for her big break in the book publishing world, I can so relate to these feelings. All the work, all the rewriting, and all the prayer become so repetitious. Sometimes I wonder if God is as tired of them as I am. But I also realize that God created us to be creatures of habit. He established routine, though He never intends for it to become mundane. Steady Bible study and reading and continual prayer times were never meant to become rote habits. God views each new day as special and looks forward to those times with us. But then He sees it as a relationship building experience, not something we are just supposed to do.

And when He listens for the zillionth time to my prayers for my writing, for the editors who have my work, for the agents who I’m considering, for the words I’m going to write, for the people who may read those words, I don’t think he grows weary of hearing me say them. As long as I’m saying them with meaning and feeling and not just reciting passionless, empty words (vain repetitions would be the Biblical term for it).

I think part of the reason God allows so much repetition and routine in our lives is to strengthen our faith. Will we stay true to Him when things get boring? Will we run to Him to instill new life in us when our lives becomes dull? Will we allow Him to teach us to delight in Him? And will we remain faithful even when He seems to be delaying His answers to our prayers?

It’s all part of faith. Growing faith is living and active – a faith that lasts – right in the midst of routine and repetition.

Have you ever known anyone who committed suicide? It’s a scary thought, and yet I would bet that most people at least know someone who knows someone who decided to end their own life. Perhaps this thought hits close to home for many of you. Perhaps you’ve even entertained such thoughts of your own.

What is it that drives some people to the edge of despair, to think that there is nothing worth living for?

For some, their minds have been altered by alcohol or drug use to where they are no longer thinking clearly. For others, depression can set in and take such root in their hearts that they can’t see any way out. Somehow they think death will bring relief. But that depends entirely on where they go after they die.

I’ve known of several people who gave up on life. Some young and some older. Just this week a young man in our area jumped off the overpass of an expressway, ending his life. Years ago, we knew a young man who shot himself, and a pastor of a local church who chose to die by hanging.

There are many ways to do the deed, which I don’t care to explore, but it saddens me to see people lose all sense of hope and think that death is somehow better than life. Is it?

For the Christian, who has the hope of heaven when they die, I could say yes. To depart and be with Christ is far better according to the apostle Paul. And yet, to live was more profitable for those Paul would minister to. For a Christian to end his own life, would be to disobey God. Nothing in Scripture gives us any right to choose that option. In fact, the exact opposite is true. In the Old Testament, Moses gave the people God’s command,

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live”

God’s choice is clear, and yet even His most devoted followers have succumbed to despair and discouragement. Elijah, a great man of God whose prayers had stopped the rains from watering the earth for three years, faced such a feeling. After the emotional high of watching God send fire from heaven to devour his sacrifice in answer to his prayers, he was faced with the threat of Queen Jezebel, who promised to have him killed. He ran away to hide, but his exhaustion and fear led him to ask God to end his life before Jezebel could get to him. He felt all alone and useless and lost sight of the victory he had just witnessed.

So what did God do for His trusted servant when all Elijah could think of was that death seemed better than life? The Lord, in His tender mercy, sent food and water and blessed rest until Elijah could think clearly once again. The Lord understands our frame that we are but dust. And He cares for each of us in a very personal way.

But sometimes we lose sight of that, and we lose sight of the bigger picture. We think this world is all there is and when it gets too painful, when we can’t take it any more, some will entertain thoughts of death. The problem with that option is that it is so totally self-seeking. The pain makes people inward focused until they no longer care about the people they would be leaving behind. Perhaps they are so alone, they think that no one would care anyway.

Elijah thought that too. He thought he was the only person in Israel that hadn’t bowed to the false god Baal. That’s when God reminded Elijah that He had 7000 men who were just as faithful, who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

And after God revived Elijah with food and rest, he sent him a companion (Elisha) to help him, so he wouldn’t be so alone.

Death may seem like a great relief when the stresses of life become totally unbearable, but it’s not. God has a better plan for every life if we’ll but ask Him. “Choose life, that you and your descendents may live.”

It’s the option of hope and blessing.

I read an advice column in my local newspaper on Sunday – advice given by two religious leaders. They call themselves The God Squad. These two men may mean well, but their answer to the seekers’ questions left me feeling saddened and sorely disappointed.

The seekers asked how anyone knew what was right when it comes to religion? They were frustrated that everywhere they turned people were telling them that in order to go to heaven they had to believe their religion.

These people quoted Jesus’ own words where He says, “No man comes to the Father except by me,” but they admitted to being unable to understand the connection between Jesus’ death on the cross and that being able to save someone. They asked, “How could a loving Father demand this of his son? And how does it affect me?”

Oh, how I wish I could meet these people and show them God’s truth from His Word. There is no religion that can answer this question for them, organized or otherwise. Religion doesn’t save people. Jesus is the only one with the power to do that. But obviously, that still doesn’t answer their questions, since the seekers admitted to not understanding Jesus’ death on the cross. So let me try to explain.

Imagine two mountain peaks. These two mountain peaks are side by side, but there is no valley between them, only a bottomless pit. If you try to get from one mountain to the other, you will fall into the abyss.

Now imagine that all humanity is on one mountain and God in heaven is on the other mountain. How do men and women get to God when there is no way to cross?

Throughout the ages men have built bridges trying to reach the mountain where God is. These bridges go by a variety of names. Some are:

1. Good works —
2. Going to church –
3. Giving money to charities –
4. Praying at certain times –
5. Reading the Bible –
6. Adhering to the tenets of religion –
7. Sacrificing their life to serve others –
8. Being baptized –
9. Following specific rules –

The list can go on to include anything where men and women think that by their own actions they can win favor with God. But every bridge that men can build falls short. They will not reach the other side – nor even come close – and every human being who has tried has been unable to bridge the gap between God and man. Why?

Because God’s standards are higher than ours.

“As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:10-18

In a culture that refuses to believe in absolutes, we cannot comprehend standards that are unchangeable. We cannot accept a Creator God who might have the right to demand certain things of His creation. We think (if we believe that He exists) that we can appease Him one way or another.

The Bible says that God is holy and just and that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That sin carries consequences (wages) – and those wages are death. Because God is holy, perfect, sinless, He cannot look upon sin.

The Jews, with their sacrificial system understood that in order for their sins to be covered, for God to look on them, they had to make atonement for their sins. Now in truth, we all deserve to die for our sins, but God in His mercy designed a system by which men could sacrifice a perfect, unblemished lamb on the altar. But the blood of bulls and goats couldn’t forgive sins forever. It was temporary, a symbol of what was to come.

When Jesus came as both God and man, he lived a sinless life, and became the perfect Lamb that God allowed to be sacrificed on the altar of the cross.

Think of it this way. (It might help to think back to a time when men were hung for their crimes – so picture the late 1800s, if you will.) Imagine – You have committed murder and are caught by a posse and brought to stand before a judge. The judge sentences you to hang immediately – justice must be served. But before they can drag you to the tree outside the courthouse, the judge’s son steps in and insists on taking your place. You watch the judge and his son exchange a look you cannot understand, but in the end the judge agrees and the townspeople take the judge’s son and hang him in your place. You are free to go if you want to, if you will accept that the son took your punishment in your place.

C.S. Lewis showed it another way in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. If you recall, Edmund got caught up in the White Witch’s promise of power and pleasure. So he succumbed to his desires and obeyed her wishes. In Bible terms, he sinned.

So when Peter, Susan, and Lucy begged Aslan to help them get their brother back, they had no idea that something deeper was going on. But Aslan knew. He made a bargain with the White Witch for Edmund’s soul, but it cost Aslan his life. So he sacrificed himself freely so that Edmund could live. What the White Witch didn’t realize was that there was a deeper magic in the stone table than she could even imagine. Aslan’s death was not permanent, and it unleashed a greater power for good than Narnia had ever known.

In the same way, Jesus died on the cross of His own free will because there was no one else who could rescue sinful men and women from their bondage to sin and Satan (the White Witch). Jesus had to die to break the curse of sin, to fulfill the Father’s wrath against sin, and to free the human family to come to Him and be with Him forever in heaven (the deeper magic of the stone table). His death was not permanent because like Aslan, He arose from the grave three days later.

He became the bridge from one mountain to another, from God to man. And only those who cross through faith in Him will make it to the other side.

Because those seekers were right. “No one comes to the Father except by me.” And this, God’s truth, is the only satisfactory answer to those questions.