Grace Intersect

Growing up in our church we sang a lot of guilt-inducing songs. I especially remember those about work and working. One song was called To the Work. Another was Work For the Night Is Coming. I don’t know the author’s intent in those songs, but I know they were used to shame and guilt us into doing more of whatever the leadership thought was needed. While they referenced evangelism or good deeds, they certainly didn’t convey the New Testament message of resting in the grace and freedom Jesus provides.

But what about the inside--the deepest core of us where our being is most intensely personal? Where we search for significance and meaning to our existence? How do we deal with the negative experiences there? Especially when there is no one else who can duplicate the personal me?

So finally I just had enough and I realized you have to go one way or the other because you're talking about this in your mind and focusing and ruminating on this over and over and over and over. There's nothing new going on here.

I was beginning to imagine his insulting response. The class was utterly silent and it seemed like the full weight of his scornful reply would be felt that much more. Finally, he spoke. Just one word: “absolutely”.

I knew, if there was any chance at all for us to get back together, it was now or never. As we slowly rode toward the meeting place, I gently placed my right hand on her left knee and said to her, Paula, I love you. Nothing like putting her on the spot. After a brief pause she said, I know. Someday I’ll know what to do with that.

Paula: Just because we're Christians, doesn't mean we don't feel the full impact of traumatic experiences. And what I was walking out on a daily basis was wondering if I would have you the next day or the next week. I remember trying so hard and asking God often. I don't want to look back and have squandered all this time by only being sad. I want to embrace every sweet moment that I can have with my husband right now.

Paula: I think the podcast that begun this series of conversations that we've been having, you were talking about the heart attack in 2017. And you said that I received a phone call and I was left hanging and that I would get to tell my story one of these days. So I guess that's today. Yep. I left you hanging on a very short call. And all you knew is that there was something serious going on again. Paula: Yeah, I was with my friend Maria.

Oh, it's so crazy. It's not like God was sitting there smacking his head going, really? What are you thinking? I think that's how we look at ourselves. We put that pressure on ourselves. But God's not doing that. He's just kind of like, well, I knew this was your process, and I got all the time that you need.

History is a great teacher--if we are willing to be students. In the last episode of Grace Intersect, my wife, Paula, was left hanging on the other end of a very brief phone call--a call she always knew could come, yet trying to live as if it wouldn’t. The lessons of history, when learned, are hard to ignore.

I had to make a decision. Did I try to stay alive, or let the darkness consume me? I thought if I could somehow find the strength to open my eyes, I would live. If I chose to not open my eyes, my body and life would be covered with the blackness from which there would be no recovery in this life.

. . . after I got in trouble, though, it was a, it was the realization that . . . more that I was OK, not that it was OK that I did that, but I was OK. That God loved me. He met me where I was in that jail cell. He . . . the grace was again overwhelming and it provided that launch pad for me to move past guilt and shame and holding that anger. And I could move on and . . .

This was an attempt to mix ingredients of the law into the provision of grace. To do this indicates a very poor understanding of God's grace. For some reason, it seems like God’s grace is so very hard to wrap our heads around. We, as humans, are wired for qualifying and quantifying. Almost all aspects of life are charted and measured. So, it is very natural for us to think that, even when it comes to grace, there must be things that require measuring the quality and quantity.

In the early to mid-seventies, when I was in my mid-twenties, I had occasion to attend a screening of a movie called Marjoe at California State University, Sacramento. It was a documentary of a child evangelist who, in his twenties decided to expose his experience of manipulation in the Pentecostal movement. It was introduced by Marjoe, himself. What impacted me while watching the movie were feelings of anger, shame, embarrassment, and frustration. My church roots allowed me to picture myself at some of his events. The tent revivals and sawdust trail were familiar to me.

Paula, you have mentioned many times in our relationship over the last 30 plus years how you have struggled at times with your image of God. And I think the experience that you have is not going to be too unusual. I think a lot of us have similar experiences, and I'd like for you to share that.

Do you sometimes wish you had a “Get Out of Hell” card that God would honor? Does God’s grace qualify? The church I grew up in believed you could “fall away” from the grace of God. The idea of eternal security--where God never disowns any of His family--was strongly opposed. In fact, it was not unusual for that idea to be mocked. It was derisively called “cheap grace”. This meant that grace wasn’t worth much if we didn’t lose something--like our relationship with God--when we messed up. It also meant that we would probably feel free to mess up all we wanted because there would be no eternal consequences.

What is actually happening here is that it is really hard to accept that God would not run out of grace. It just goes against everything that makes sense to us, so we have to find justification for it. In fact, we might be able to teach God a few things since He seems to get His priorities of justice and mercy mixed up sometimes. Bottom line, we are relying on our human experience to determine how God should do things. If He would just listen to us, this world would be in a much better condition. OK, let’s be honest, sometimes He should just listen to me because there are times you are just wrong. (Sure hope you are catching the sarcasm along the way here).

We all have this soul-deep need for love and to love. We crave it. There is something about loving and being loved that gives purpose and meaning to living. But, how does that work? What does that look like? What kind of love are we thinking about?

The drive for intimate, loving relationship comes from deep within our souls. We want to know and be known in a safe relationship where the purist love possible blends each person into fulfilling intimacy with the other.

A special personal highlight for me was having the honor of officiating the wedding. This was a first for me. Trying to figure out what to say was an opportunity to think and pray about what would be good for Maddy and Stephen and all of us to hear in the context of a wedding.

What do you think? Do most people go to their graves still wondering? Of all the questions you ask yourself, I’ll bet this one comes up often. I know you have asked this question, and you have heard others ask this question --probably many times: “Who am I?” Oh, that question. Does it make you feel frustrated just hearing it? Depending on where you are in your life experience, you may be ready to just ignore that question. After all, have you heard a really satisfying answer to it? Have you figured it out yet? Do you think you ever will?

Do you remember the 1969 haunting song by Peggy Lee called Is That All There Is? Here are lyrics toward the end of the song: “ I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you, when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath, I’ll be saying to myself, Is that all there is, is that all there is? ”

In the usual physical and spiritual patterns that we can relate to most easily, we are chained to a process full of rules and regulations, things we are suppose to do or not do to become what we are suppose to be. Even those who profess no religion have their own rules and priorities with which they measure themselves for better or worse. In this arrangement, freedom of some sort, even spiritual freedom may be a goal, but it sure doesn’t seem to be part of the process of getting there. Even if it does somehow enter into the process in some respects it is limited, inconsistent and insecure.

The practice of Christianity has not been immune from this common theme of religion. Many have preached and continue to preach a form of Christianity that includes a lot of what we expect in a religion. For example, there may be required activities and specific behaviors for desired blessings. Otherwise, there is a risk of getting denounced. There are some really warped ideas about promises for health and wealth. Some are even willing to speak for God. Of course, there is a lot more.

About 2000 b.c. Abraham grew up in the home of an idol maker in what is now modern Iraq. God appeared to him when he was 75 years old and invited him to leave his home and travel to a new place God would show him. It seems that the big revelation to Abraham at this time was, that instead of multiple gods, there was really only one god. Beyond that, this god was wanting an actual relationship with him. Idols were not needed. Abraham demonstrated some form of faith when he agreed to accept the invitation. He knew only the direction to go but not sure where he would end up.

Here’s a thought: could it be that Adam and Eve were convinced that they would actually be better, improved people if they had the God-like wisdom of knowing the difference between good and evil? Maybe their motivation wasn’t just giving in to a simple temptation to disobey God. Maybe they were persuaded that they were actually doing something good and, in their innocence, chose poorly. Can you identify?

Do we put our trust in our ability to keep rules perfectly or to live a perfect life? It doesn’t matter if we are Jesus followers or not. If we do, we will forever experience failure, guilt, shame, etc. because we can’t do it. Some days are better than others, but have we experience a perfect day? If so, I wonder about how well society can function with those rules.

I sat in a recliner across from Dad. Our discussion started out about general church stuff and then seemed to naturally evolve into being about how my wife and I were dissatisfied with our church experience. At some point it became clear that to me that we were at a point of no return in our thinking. That it didn’t seem possible to continue our current church participation--it just didn’t make sense for us any longer. We were ready enough and needed to move on.

Confused. It’s a good word to describe most of my early attempts to understand the belief system in church of my youth. Bible verses were used to support all of the teachings. While there was usually general agreement on the verses used, there were also a variety of interpretation of those verses and how they applied to the teaching.

Grace Intersect is an opportunity to hear about one person’s journey from religiosity to relationship. This is a spiritual journey that, while unique as all spiritual journeys are, is so similar to the journeys of so many others. So similar that others, perhaps yourself, may find something that might make a difference for the better in the course of their journey.

Getting together around the campfire in the evening was usually a time of singing and listening to someone speak about life and God. Some of these times were good contemplative opportunities to think about who I was and why I was here--the big questions we can’t help but encounter as we’re growing up. Other times were not so peaceful. Like sitting through a miserable talk that was a judgmental, guilt-inducing manipulation of the heart. Looking back, it seemed a bit like spiritual abuse. The idea in both cases was to help us behave like perfect, mistake-free kids who would make our parents, our church and, of course, God very proud.

Here is a truth that is so hard to comprehend and internalize: we are free from the Law, free from the spiritual consequences of sin and free from eternal death. Oh, in our humanness there is a tendency to want to go back to what we have known, even though it is a yoke of slavery, burdensome and exhausting. This is the inevitable debilitating failure of striving through self-effort. We are told to stand firm against that. Jesus wants us to experience and enjoy our freedom in him. This is what he has for us because of what he has lovingly done on our behalf. Nothing we can do beyond accepting his love will cause him to love us more, make us more righteous, bring us closer to him, ensure our eternal life--nothing. He did it all and it is enough.

During my time in my original church I twisted verses and their meanings into verbal and contextual pretzels to make them say what the teaching of the church was. My desire to be intellectually honest chipped away at much of the teachings. Finally, only a very few teaching remained but they were really being held on to for the sake of not completely letting go of the church. Finally, when my struggle of trying to blend the gospel of grace with the remaining law became obviously futile, I had to make the hard decision to leave.

So, when our acquaintance from our former denomination discovered we were no longer part of it, her reaction was very understandable. Paula and I were heavily invested in the church growing up and people could reasonably expect we would never leave, especially for theological reasons. While it may have seemed sudden to some, it was a many years' long journey. Here's a sketch of how it happened.We all have significant questions for which we seek reasonable answers. Is there a God? If so, what is God like? What does God have to do with me? Where/how do we find answers to these and more similar questions?

Sometimes he would reference the OT law to explain what the spirit of the law was. Like in the Sermon on the Mount. That was even harder to hear--it was tough enough to try to keep all of the law perfectly in practice and then Jesus would take it to the intended level--the spirit of the law. The point in all of his teaching was to set up his main message: God has some really good news. Because of his great love, God would extend grace toward his human creation. He was providing a way for them to have an eternal love relationship with him and each other.

Wow. Just wow. What a moment! This is heart-pounding kind of stuff. They had been taught that a Messiah would come. They knew this scripture was a prophecy of that promise. Here he was, right in front of them, claiming it for himself. That takes some on-the-spot heavy-duty processing.

The way the dots of scripture and logic were connected said a lot about the person doing the connecting. Some were like a true journalist who tried to let the evidence take them wherever it would and that conclusion was the truth. Others were more of the agenda journalist variety and seemed to have a desired outcome that shaped their informational journey. Often the starting premise was faulty. But blindness of it prevailed since it wasn’t even noticed by any of those participating in the discussion. The same assumptions could be naively made by all because, well, we grew up with them and didn’t even realize the assumptions even existed, let alone were faulty.