Drivers

It was beautiful outside, the sun was shining and we were cruising on the way to football practice. The windows were down because the AC was acting up, but even that didn't bother us. My oldest was in the front seat dozing in the sun and we were bustling along I71 north of Columbus.  Out of the corner of my eye I catch a flash of red sports car as it buzzes past us in the right lane. The sporty drop top coupe appears, racing stripes and all, and then quickly disappears.

As we approach the next exit something has slowed traffic ahead and I see the sporty red car on my left, this time stopped in the traffic.  I notice that they have their turn signal on and just a moment before it's too late - they whip in front of my van with the purpose of advancing another 50 feet.  I slam on the breaks and dozing teenager sits up and says "HUH??!!" before drifting back to sleep.   Luckily, our exit is just ahead on the right so I get over into the exit lane and then realize that somehow, now they are right behind me.... how did that even happen?  The exit lane is jammed with cars escaping the freeway and at the end of the ramp there is a right and left hand turn lane.  I will be turning right so I make sure I am in the right half of the lane when suddenly in my side mirror I see the little sports coupe's nose beside me on the right, in the gravel, just as I am coming to a stop behind the car in the right turn lane.  The coupe skids a few feet and then the man in the front seat begins yelling curses in my window.  Screaming in frustration because I am also turning right  and he can't just create his own lane and do things his own way.  Large, football playing teen wakes up, sits up, has a oddest look on his face and just sticks his head out the window to stare at the rudest man on earth.... who, once he realizes he has a large football player staring at him, promptly shuts up.  We finish our turn, and in about 10 minutes we wind up at our destination.  My oldest still hasn't said anything but just before he is about to hop out of the car he says "What was wrong with that guy, mom?" and I just shrug.  "I don't know kid, maybe he was having a bad day?" and he shakes his head and trots away.

I heard someone speak once about how drivers look....

There's the envious driver that follows too close.  They are looking everywhere but at the road.  We might call them the distracted driver.  There's the driver of that's "living their own truth" they drive like a drunk, all over the road and if they are lucky they wind up in a ditch. There's the angry driver who speeds, they tear around other drivers throwing gravel, they have about a million hit and run accidents. There's the grieved driver who needs to go slow, they pull over to rest frequently, like driving in a sudden storm, one minute you're fine and the next you're in a downpour, waves of rain so hard you can't see to drive through it.

There's the new driver whose passionate and purposeful, but they don't have the discernment yet to see some of these other drivers coming. There's the bitter driver who will run people over because they deserve it, and then they back up and do it again. There's the driver that goes about handing out tickets, telling everyone how they should improve their driving. There are the destination drivers, they are just trying to get from point A to point B, they aren't really paying attention to other drivers, road conditions or anything else. And there are even some stranded drivers. There are those with a flat tire or who ran out of gas and doesn't really know how to get where they are going.

Some of these drivers drive poorly because of their attitude, some because of their life circumstances.  Sometimes it's not really a choice to be a bad driver, it's just the only way a person knows to drive.
So how is a driver supposed to keep it between the lines?

There are a few ways to determine the lines on the highway of life...

One way is the culture.  

We are living in a culture at the moment that has defined and re-defined itself bringing us into a post modern, some might say post truth, world.  Don't like the speed limit? Change it.  Don't like the outcome of what's happening? Claim it never happened.  Don't like the facts? Deny them, create your own facts, identify however you will.

The speed and depth of this change is frightening, but even more frightening is the churches willingness, and sometimes even approval, of a post modern, no absolute truth, no right and wrong, culture.  A big part of this is the idea that truth is personal.  What is right for me, may not be right for you....  God is however you define him/her/them.....  I can "have it my way" with my religion - custom ordered, tailored to what I like.  And while this false religiosity attempts to dissasociate "personal truth" from objective, Biblical, even logical truth, some church leaders praise these ideas as inclusive.

I heard someone say "Live your truth" the other day.   In our current culture truth isn't objective or logical - it's all relative to you.  It's all personal.  The driver becomes the most important thing, the only thing, in their world.  Don't like something? Tell people it never happened.  Do what ever you want - or in the word's of Alister Crowley "Do what thou wilt"

Within this growing cultural belief is that people are their own arbitrators of truth, that they can interpret and decide for themselves what is right and wrong.  When the church becomes it's own arbiter of truth, when a person becomes their own arbiter of truth, they have moved beyond any accountability.  They are not accountable to a body of believers, or anyone... not even to God.  Not surprisingly, when people live like this, there is never a need for confession because they are never wrong.

Apply this same logic to people who are in leadership.  Those who lead us are in higher positions, positions of trust.  The Bible, the absolute truth, says those people are held to a higher standard, they are more accountable to God for their actions.   Anyone can start a Facebook page, or a blog, and attract followers.  It's easy to surround ourselves with agreeing voices, but living out accountability is harder.

One of my favorite quotes is "Leaders who live with accountability rarely need it" but the opposite is true too - leaders who live outside accountability - within their community, with their peers, with their mentors (if they have them) - are often abusive, design their own convenient truths and desperately need an accountability which breaks the hold of moral relativity.

The other way to drive - is by God's word.

Truth says we are not the arbitrators of our covenant, we don't set the terms, we follow them.  We are not the author of what is right or wrong, we are subject to the Author.   Truth leads us to see that we are sinners in need of repentance and a Savior.  Truth leads us to confession and confession to faith. Without that truth, there is no hope for us. 

The most simplistic form of this is in Luke 10:28

He answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

How do we love God?

"If you love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15

Today there is a move to try to redefine what God says.  What are His commandments? Only the New Testament? Only the 10 commandments? Modern churches can't agree on this, many avoid the subject of sin altogether because it disrupts their congregants cultural beliefs.
I firmly believe that the only way people will learn God's word is to study it.  Study it all the time, sit under good teachers, read it, write it down, share it, post it, blog it, and keep it in the front of your mind.  There is no other hope apart from God's word, His absolute truth.  And if you're looking for a place to start - start basic - start with the 10 commandments if you must.  Don't put anything before God, Don't have idols, Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Don't murder, Don't defraud someone (steal), Don't envy your neighbors wife or stuff, Don't bear false witness (gossip/lie), Honor your father and mother, Keep the sabbath, and Don't commit adultery. That's how you love God, you keep His commandments, and you study to keep learning those commandments.

How do we love our neighbor?
It's hard to teach this in a post truth world - because before you might give a practical example, but now someone's "truth" might be "Well, if I were (insert accusation), I think I would want someone to (insert hateful thing here) towards me"

But when you step beyond this relativistic argument we see that Biblical truth says loving your neighbor is well defined in:

"Love is patient, Love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude or self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices in truth it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never fails...." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

So in the middle of a culture that is torn between relativism(define your own truth) and Biblical truth, what can we do?

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

1. Love God - put Him first even if other people think you're crazy
2. Speak truth - even when it's unpopular
3. Confess sin - own your part
4. Tie yourself to love, which is truth, in order to love your neighbor.  

Blessings,
Amanda

Remember

My life has a theme... (I think sometimes it has a theme song... and I might be humming it...but I digress)

My life has a theme - year to year it seems God is showing me things that I didn't understand.  And I have a choice, I can reject those things as hard, new, strange, weird - or I can dive into the difficult and figure it out together with Him.  I have chosen the later.

So last year (and it really does tend to run fall to fall!) the theme was "I AM doing new thing" - The I AM being God himself and his message to me that He was doing something new and to HOLD ON because I will miss it, I will barely perceive it.

Isaiah 43:19-21 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

This was very true- one year and our family looks entirely different, one year and our jobs look entirely different, one year and our lives look ENTIRELY different.  He wasn't kidding - He was doing a NEW THING.  New things can be hard things.  I can choose the new thing, but sometimes that means I have to let the old thing break, be shattered into a million pieces so that the new thing can come out of it.  New things can sound so good - until you realize that means leaving the old things behind.

This year my theme has been changed - still in the midst of the new things being born, still in the midst of a LOT of personal change - my theme has become REMEMBER.

Remember - and there isn't just a single verse, but the entire book of Deuteronomy, and Ruth, and Job.  So remembering has a bigger vision - it's like: Remember who I AM, and Remember who you were, and who you are now, Remember what I have brought you through, Remember what I have commanded you to do....

Remembering is a whole lot like Faith.  It is the personal testimony of each of us, it is the Faith-evidence that we each hold, not a wishy washy feeling of "I have faith" but the concrete, the proven, the tried and true, the assurance that remembering God's goodness towards us, God's pursuit of us, God's faithfulness, God's forgiveness and even God's displeasure towards us - helps us to better run the race that is before us.

Hebrews 11:1-3
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. 2 Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.3 By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

So I plan to write a series of blogs remembering some of the great things that God has done in my life, and even some of the not so great things that happened, in order to properly remember and there by re-member, reassemble the pieces that can seem broken but are really just part of the new thing.

A favorite quote of mine is "Sometimes when things are falling apart, they are really falling together for your good." and this is so important and part of that soul amnesia that we all suffer from - that we have to, have to, HAVE TO! keep remembering the goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, and awe-inspiringness of God.

Sometimes, when you go through a thing you just survive it.  You look back and wonder how that happened, life seems like a blur - it is only later that you see the pieces of it - how it fell together, and how the Lord blessed.

My first remember moment, although there are a few before this - times when I heard the Lord speak and really wanted to follow Him and do right but had no idea how to do that - comes when I was 27 years old.

Working as a counselor, married, three kids in school - we had purchased a home in Heath and we blessed by every worldly standard there was.  Our neighbors were lovely, our house was fantastic, our kids did well in school, we had a great church, a great group of friends, nice cars - life was good - all the way around - life was good.

And then - I heard God speak to me one day at church - I was under heavy conviction to quit my job....  Quit my JOB!!?? what?  That can't be right!  I have a great job, they love me here - I worked HARD to get here - they are sooo happy with me and I looove it! NO! I can't quit my job - how foolish, I must have misheard that one...

And then another week  - "Quit your job!"  So I talked to Drason about it - no way we could make it if I quit my job, that is foolishness for sure - nope! I can't quit my job!

And then again - "Quit your job" and again - week after week for about 6 months, I could not escape the fact that I was constantly bombarded with the conviction that I needed to quit my job and I consistently said "no way!"

It was fall, there was a special speaker at our church that day and the fire alarms started to go off.  Drason got up to go help turn them off (of course he was the one with the knowledge of how to do that) and comes back to sit down... about 20 minutes later they go off again - again, Drason gets up and handles it.... and about 15 more minutes they go off again.... I still to this day can not tell you what that message was about, but it was the one I needed to hear that day.  It is time for the invitation, Drason takes his seat beside me, and I hear the Lord speak to me again, but this time it is different, this time it is like a huge download of information in just a few words - "This is the last time"  This is the last time I'm going to ask you to follow me, to quit your job.  Either you decide today that you will follow me, or not.  I won't ask again....

I was crying, Drason who had literally just sat down takes my arm and helps me to the alter, I just sob and in that moment I give God my "Yes" forever, whatever He wants, for as long as I live, it is His - even quitting my job.

Every day before this day, I had doubts about my salvation - and every day since I never have.  My life changed drastically that Fall day, I turned in my 2 weeks notice the next day and they offered me a raise and a better schedule (which I still refused).

It occurred to me for the first time the other day that God pursued me.  It was a shocking revelation for me.  Wonderful and too good to be true - but completely true.  For 6 months God - creator of the universe - pursued me.  That is scandalous love, love that is beyond my reasoning.

Remembering makes us whole human beings.  I needed to know, to remember, that I was pursued by the creator of the universe.

Thank you Heavenly Father!
Amanda