Someday my Prince will come...

I recently read an article from RELEVANT Magazine about the horrible dating advice (you can read the article here: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationships/5-horrible-pieces-dating-advice).  As I read through this article, I was reminded of all the terrible advice I've been given.  At 33, I could count on one hand the number of men I've been on a date with, and I doubt I'd need even that many to count relationships that lasted past the first date.  That being said, I've heard a lot of advice from various people about dating, including four of the five from the RELEVANT article.  

I grew up on Disney movies like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, and thus I always believed that I needed a man to be complete, to be counted as worthy.  I saw movies like Snow White and believed that "Someday my prince will come...".  So I attempted to heed the advice I was given...I tried to just stop looking, to (as my mom would say) "Let go and let God".  I tried to being "hard to get"; I wore a ring on my left hand to try to get attention (seriously!!!!).  I tried to not be so picky, which turned out terribly (I blogged about it in an earlier post), but nothing lasted.

I watched my siblings, friends, co-workers and cousins pair up and marry off.  I kept wondering what I had to do to make God love me, to make Him give me what I wanted.  I tried to imitate my sister because clearly God loved her more.  Maybe if I did what she did, I would finally find my match.  I continuously compared my single life to the lives of those married folks around me and I became more and more confused.  What was I doing wrong? Maybe I needed to pray more, read my bible more, fast, join a small group, "kiss dating goodbye", go to bars, join eHarmony. I tried every piece of advice I was given, but it didn't work.  More than that, it left me in despair, struggling to find my place in a world full of couples.

So, if you have want to give me (or anyone else) dating advice... Don't tell me to trust God more, tell me why I need to trust God more. Remind me of the Gospel. Tell me who He is and who I am because of Him. Remind me that He is sovereign, that He is good, that He loves me.  Tell me how He has worked in your life. Don't just tell me what I need to do! I have been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  I I need more than a to-do list.  I need the Gospel.  I need to know that I am loved because Jesus gave His life as a substitution for mine; that I am righteous because He is righteous, that I am worthy because He makes me worthy, not because I am married.  I need to know that in His sovereignty and goodness, God has given me everything I need, that I don't need a spouse to "complete me" because that can only be found in Christ, our heavenly bridegroom.

I know the way out...

I was watching an episode from the second season of "The West Wing", a show that chronicles the lives of senior staff members in the White House.  In the first season, the deputy chief of staff, Josh Lyman, was shot as the president and staff were leaving a town hall meeting, and in this episode, Josh was suffering from PTSD and was reliving the night of the shooting.  As his behavior spins out of control (he actually yells at the president in the Oval Office!!), he is assigned to meet with (fictional) American Trauma Victims Association to discuss his erratic behavior and, ultimately, his self-destructive behavior(he put his hand through a window in his apartment).  At the end of his meeting with the trauma specialist, he meets with the chief of staff, Leo, to discuss his diagnosis and Leo tells him this story...

"This guy is walking down the street when he falls in a hole.  The walls are so steep he can't get out.  A doctor passes by, the guy shouts up, 'Hey you, can you help me out!'  The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.  Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out!'  The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.  Then a friend walks by, 'Hey Joe, it's me can you help me out.', and the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says,  'Are you stupid, now we're both down here.'  The friends says, 'Yea, but I've been down here before and I know the way out'."

This story reminded me of  Galatians 6:1, where Paul tells the church in Galatia," Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently." The word "caught" in the original language has an element of surprise to it.  It reminds me of the movie "Finding Nemo". Near the end of the movie, just as Nemo and his father were reunited, Dory(the blue fish who helped reunite father and son) was just swimming along minding her own business when she was suddenly caught up in a fishing net with other fish. That's what "caught" means here in this verse.  Dory certainly wasn't looking to be in that net with other fish to be someone's dinner; it happened quickly and she was trapped with no way to free herself. Fortunately Dory had Nemo, who had heard a story about fish working together to free themselves, and immediately swims into the net to rescue Dory and all the other fish by getting them all to "swim down". His father, Marlin, immediately protests(having just been reunited with him), but Nemo insists, "It's the only way we can save Dory!".  You can sense the anxiety Marlin has in letting his newly freed son willingly put himself in danger, and it's amazing to watch as they encourage all the fish to "swim down" and "just keep swimming" and to finally see the net break and the fish swim free.

Dory and Josh were both "caught" in a situation out of their own control. They both need to be rescued from their "net", and the best person to do that is one who has fought the battle before and won because only they know the pain and frustration and only they know the best way out.  For Josh that person was Leo, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and for Dory it was Nemo, a little clown fish with a "lucky" fin who had heard about a group of fish defeating a fisherman by swimming down all together.

This is how we as Christians should approach a brother or sister who is "caught in a sin," understanding that they need to be rescued, sought after, restored.  As Christians, we are called to be that person for each other because God did it for us first.  He sent Jesus down into our "hole" to rescue us not because Jesus could guide us to the way out, but because Jesus is our way out.  In the Old Testament, we see that God's law required sacrifices by the Israelites to satisfy God's wrath for man's sin.  It couldn't just be any sacrifice, though, God required a lamb or bull without defect to atone for man's sinful ways.  Only Jesus could be that perfect lamb and it was only through His death on the cross that God's justice was fully satisfied and sin's hold on us finally broken.  Jesus fully satisfied God for me and for you, and because of that we are free, free to jump into holes and swim into nets to rescue our brothers and sisters because we have already been rescued.

True Love

I loved the movie Frozen. If you haven’t seen it yet, I encourage you to do so.  It is cute , funny and engaging .  My favorite line from the movie is, “Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart.” I immediately thought, “True love’s kiss…”, and so did the writers of the movie, and most everybody in the movie theater, but I believe true love means more than just what we see portrayed in Disney movies and other fairy tales.   

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 , NIV

The fact that God sent Jesus to earth is definitely an act of true love, and the fact that Jesus knew his mission from the beginning of creation only adds to that love. You see, not only did Jesus have to die for our sins, but he had to live a perfect life leading up to that terrible death.  Have you ever thought about that?!  In her book, Found in Him, Elyse Fitzpatrick writes, “Jesus willingly hid himself away in Nazareth for thirty years. Generally ignored, he toiled without complaint, suffering humbly on our behalf. He lived as Jesus the child, big brother, carpenter, and single man providing for his family. He voluntarily adopted all these roles for us.”  

In the book of Leviticus, God gives the requirements for bringing different kinds of offerings to the temple...peace, sin, guilt, but all of these offerings require an animal without defects. Again, Elyse Fitzpatrick in her book, Found in Him, writes, “the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament was simply a foreshadowing of the ‘good things to come,’ the sacrifice made on the cross of Christ.”  God only accepts a perfect animal for offering, therefore in his humanness, Jesus had to be perfect.  He had to keep all the laws, resist those 40 days of temptation in the desert with no food or water, because that was the only way his death would provide the offering God required for our sins to be forgiven. As Elyse Fitzpatrick notes, “If he had sinned even once, then his death would not have benefited us in the least.”

After living the perfect life and dying a terrible, painful death, Jesus still had to suffer the wrath of the Father, the just wrath that we rightly deserve. Imagine it...having the one person in your life that you have always been with, suddenly turn his face from you!  Oh, the pain that must’ve caused Jesus, for the first time in his life, to not be able to see the Father’s face.  He was abandoned, forsaken, all so that we could be reconciled to the Father and become Christ’s perfect bride.  Forget about Prince Charming, this act of true love is more than enough to “thaw a frozen heart.”

Wrong Worship

I had almost made it.  The building was in sight covered in white, fluffy snow.  If only I could get up that last hill, but as I increased my speed, my back tires began to spin and soon I was in a ditch just feet from the school.  I was so angry.  I had made it all the way to Diagonal, but was now stuck just feet from the parking lot.  You see, in spring, summer or fall, my car’s just fine.  I can drive in rain, thunderstorms or gravel roads with no trouble with the all wheel drive, but not in snow.  You see, even though my car claims to have all wheel drive, when it comes to snowy conditions, my car functions as if it were rear wheel drive. I can drive in snow, as long as the road is straight with no hills.  As soon as I have to turn a corner, stop or go up a hill, it’s a no-go.  I will slide and the only way I can go is reverse.

As a Christian, I am sometimes like my car.  You see, I claim to believe that God has saved me from my sin, that Christ took my sin upon the cross and forever reconciled me to God.  When life is going well, I am trusting God and laying hold of my identity in Christ but as soon as something goes wrong, or I don’t get something I want; I begin to function, not as a Christian saved by grace, but as an idolater. I have begun to trust in and depend on my desire rather than my identity as a sinner saved by grace. I have put my desire for sleep, respect, or food above my love and worship of God. In essence, I am functioning as an idolater.

Idolatry is not new to the human race.  The Israelites struggled continuously with idol worship, rather in the form of a golden calf or the desire for something other than God to rule their hearts and lives. John Calvin says that the “human heart is an idol factory”, meaning that once we get rid of one idol, another one will inevitably take its place in our hearts.  Our hearts, like my car, are in need of repair, and the only real repair for any idolatrous heart is to replace it with right worship of God.  As Christians, this means we need to confess our idols to God, seek and receive forgiveness and then make a plan to help guide our repentance so that we can rid ourselves of the idols that rule our hearts. It is only God’s amazing love and grace that will heal our hearts of our idols.