mercy – Sheila Dougal

How Josh Harris and I Fell

silhouette of a man standing on a mountain — Photo by Orlando Vera on Pexels.com

Elevenish years ago I was ready to die on the mountain of the issue of women not working outside the home.

Today I read this tweet from Jared C. Wilson:

A few years back, I significantly reduced my exposure to Christian influences that prove more passionate about “issues” than Christ & I’ve been better off for it. If that voice you listen to isn’t regularly stirring your affections for Jesus, how loud should it be in your ears?

Reading that I remembered my proud stay-at-home-mom years and cringed with embarrassment and regret.

The recent public announcement of Josh Harris’ divorce and statement saying he no longer considers himself a Christian, has brought up an issue for me. The issue of making issues the big deal and not Jesus.

It makes my gut ball up in knots at the thought that Josh tasted the goodness of Lord and walked away. I pray it isn’t so. I pray like Jonah, he’ll find himself hearing Jesus in the belly of a stinking situation. But this whole story about Josh makes me think about my own humbling, and friends I’ve watched fall while we stood tall, holding the issues we were passionate about high- the banner of Jesus’ love forgotten under our feet.

When I had a 3 and 4 year old at home I honed in on these verses

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. ” Titus 2:3-5

Whole ministries are formed based on these verses. And in the conservative Christian circles where I learned of Jesus, these verses have been central to teachings in all kinds of women’s ministries. When my boys were young I clung to them. I clung to them so tightly that I remember standing outside my garage one day thinking that I’d be willing to loose my marriage so I could, “work at home” and not have to go get a job outside my house and leave my kids in daycare.

I moralized a woman staying home as righteous and working outside of the home as sinful. Makes me nauseated remembering those days. If you search my blog far back enough, you’ll probably find all kinds of posts about how Christian women shouldn’t work outside the home. Thank God he humbled me, showed me how wrong I was, and used those same verses to draw me to the heart of Jesus and true homemaking (which has nothing to do with having a paying job outside your home and everything to do with serving and loving the people under the same roof with you).

I don’t know Josh Harris. But the fact that at one time he stood tall and wrote a book on the mountain of the purity issue and now is not only walking away from his marriage but his proclaimed faith makes me think he and I share a similar humbling. Both of us, and many others, have fallen on the mountain of issues in Christian teachings. We didn’t take heed like Paul warned, and we fell. I pray like me, Josh will find Jesus in the place he’s fallen.

The only hill worth dying on is the one where Jesus laid down his life for hypocrites- blind, wretched and pathetic like me and Josh Harris. Jesus is the banner we should be raising high. Not issues. Lest the very place where we think we stand tall and right, we fall.

Being God’s child changes everything – A meditation on 1 Peter 1:13-16

‘Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:13-16

As you’ve probably heard, if you read the word “therefore” you should probably look at what precedes it so you can see what it’s there for.

Before verse 13 Peter breaks down the weightiness of this salvation we have received as Christians. I’ve grown tired of the phrases, “born again” and “saved”. They come with the connotation of a superficial Christiandom that says it’s #blessed and has no sobriety about what it means to be saved or born again. But Peter gets to the down and dirty of what it means to be born again and saved in a way our western evangelical selves have gotten all sterilized and plastic.

Maybe I’m cynical. Maybe it’s because I live with an unbeliever, but for me, all the Christianization of things is nauseating. If Jesus isn’t real, if he doesn’t change the way I think and give me a whole new outlook on life and new desires and affections… if he doesn’t really turn my world upside down then he’s a hoax and I’m a liar. But if I’m really born again I’ll find a whole new kind of life growing in me. And if I’m really saved, that will mean something that’s very sobering. I mean, if “saved” just means put the Christian cherry on top of my devil’s food life then fooey! That’s not saved, that’s sugar-coated. Peter doesn’t say in verses 3-12 that we’ve been sugar-coated. Jesus had things to say about people that said they were saved and evangelized others to make them “saved” when they were really rotten dead walking around in white washed tombs making walking dead in nice suites out of their converts.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” Matthew 23:15

Peter, the one who knows what it feels like to betray Jesus, fall under the weight of that shame and guilt and experience restoration with Jesus, talks about being born again as a radical, life changing experience Jesus does in us. Being born again we love a Savior we have never seen, even while we suffer (vs.6-8). Our affections have been radically changed. It’s like we’ve been born all over again.

And our salvation is just that… a new birth that will grow up (by God’s tremendous grace and mercy) till the day when Christ perfects us at his coming.

Salvation isn’t a ticket out of hell. It’s death to our old self, daily. And new life growing in us, daily.

This is what verse thirteen’s “therefore” is there for. I just see Peter full of expression and passion looking at us with wide eyes after showing us the scandalous wealth we’ve been given in being born anew as God’s own children, saved from the destruction our sin-rotting selves were destined for, and say, “Put your big boy and big girl pants on cause it’s war now! You’ve been utterly changed, and now for the rest of your life here you need a sober perspective. You need to stop putting your hope in people, status, wealth, achievement, health… even this life and you need to fix your eyes on that promises that you’re gonna see Jesus. And when you see him, you’re gonna be made like him. And the war will be over!”

I was born in 1974 to Bob and Verna Deane. In 1990 I was born again to God. And now as His child, I don’t go the way of Bob and Verna and all that my firstborn self had set her hopes on. All those passions I had were due to ignorance. I had no idea how good God was and so I put all my hope in things and people that are not good. As God’s child I am set apart from all that. I don’t live from a place of poverty hoping that some broken person or lying status or temporary wealth will make me satisfied and secure. I live from a place of abundance with confidence in the One who laid down his life for me and took my old passions and all the deadly fruit they bore with him to the cross.

I am holy. Because my Father is holy. And by his grace he is bearing the fruit of his holiness even in me. That’s beyond amazing.

Coming Friday!

A new series

I’ll be posting a historical-fiction short story this Friday. This first installment of Fiction Friday comes from a piece I submitted to a writing contest. It didn’t win, but it got me thinking I should try to write some fictional pieces more often. I really enjoyed it. Anyway, I’d love it if you joined, and if you’re so inclined to write a short 1500 words or less fictional short story and email it to me at awomanfound@gmail.com I’d love post your piece on one of my Fiction Friday posts.

The needy in the American Church won’t always be forgotten: Meditation on Psalm 9

When I was pregnant I noticed everyone who was pregnant. When I had a 1969 Volkswagen bug, I noticed everyone with a classic Bug. And today, when the fire in my belly is still burning from the issue of abuse and the message Christian leaders like Paige Patterson send women, I’m noticing every message in my morning readings of scripture that speak to God’s love of justice, defense of the oppressed, and promised recompense for those in need who seem to be forgotten.

Psalm 9 is what I’m listening to this morning. Like David, I’m overflowing with thanks to Jesus for how wonderful he is. What he has done, how he lived and set an example for us, how upside-down wonderful he is compared to us who are so messed up. I see Jesus, and then I look at the church in America and Jesus’ men stand out like food lights in a very dark place. Jesus came to the people who claimed to worship God, and the didn’t recognize him as God. Jesus is still coming to the people who claim to worship him and he’s cleaning house!

Jesus is maintaining the just cause of his people who are often oppressed and shushed by people who claim Jesus but live blind to their oppressive ways. He judges his people with righteousness. He doesn’t ignore their sin. And he doesn’t condemn them for it either, he deals with it. He calls them out on it. He exposes it and gives them hope for repentance.

The needy in the American church won’t always be forgotten. And I feel like with the recent exposure of racism in the church, abuse in the church, misogyny in the church, sexual immorality in the church and how we’ve strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel in our religious-right stance, neglecting the weightier things of mercy, faithfulness and justice, Jesus is showing the needy he hasn’t forgotten them.

“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God…” (1 Peter 4:17)

“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (Hebrews 12:7)

Jesus, you are good. And your men and women in this land are those my heart delights in! You have swept my house, exposed my sin, offered me your hand and drawn me to repentance with your kind, just, merciful and faithful dealings with me. Have your way with me Lord. Have your way with us here in the U.S. May your name be exalted in us as it should be!