The Reason We Exist

Why do we exist? What is the point or purpose for my life? Is it just about what I decide to do with it? What I want? What I like? Is that why I exist- to find my own fun and reason to live? Or was I created by some huge, powerful being that I will answer to?

This morning my mind wandered off and I found myself imagining ants. I have played with this analogy before but it tends to fall short of what I hope to achieve. But, what if I loved ants? What if I found them delightful and charming? I loved watching their industrious – busy- hard working focused little lives.

So I got myself a big comfortable camp chair- we’ll call it my throne- and I perched myself where I could watch them building communities- fighting wars with other communities- working together to haul home large, heavy, dead bugs home as tho’ it were some huge elk to feed their growing young.

Stretch this even further and imagine that I actually created the ants and I have the power of life and death over them. But I am a loving creator and I provide gentle rains, sunshine, abundant sand and every material they need to thrive and prosper. I protect them from dangerous bull-dozers and I watch over this yard. I sprinkle delicious bread crumbs and berries on the ground for them. I give them everything they need to multiply and prosper and take over the entire backyard.

And let’s imagine that the whole reason I created them was solely for my pleasure, there is no other reason for their existence at all. My hope, as I sit there on my throne watching their busy little lives, is that they will THINK and WONDER about why they exist. I hope they will look for meaning in life beyond moving the grains of sand. I hope they will look up- find me and love me for giving them life and abundance. I want them to love me.

In fact, I want them to love me with all of their hearts and minds, their strength and souls. It is what I want more than anything! I want them to live for my pleasure- adore me- worship me. And if they do…if they search for me and love me utterly- I will gently reach down my finger and lift them up to a paradise that is beyond their wildest imaginations and I will keep them as my own delight and we will have such a celebration.

And for all the rest of them who ignored me- hot burning fire- that will destroy every trace of every work they have ever done. What if…?

A religious leader asked “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ "

(Mk 12:30 )

The Value of Loyalty

I wasn’t very popular in grade school but I had one special friend starting in second grade, named Suzanne. We played together every recess. We shared our lunches and swapped food with each other. We played jump-rope and hopscotch together. We confided and told each other secrets. We were best of friends. Suzanne’s mother was a bit unstable. The diagnosis “bi-polar” didn’t exist then but that was the style of her instability. She would seem to switch personalities. I still envied Suzanne for her family life because it seemed far superior to mine.

One day in about 5th or 6th grade, Suzanne came to me sadly and told me she was no longer allowed to play with me. It seemed her mother was having a bit of Protestant zeal and had decided that my nominal Catholic home was a threat. Suzanne would not be allowed to play with any Catholics. I assured her we had no real religion but she said her mom’s mind was made up and her younger sisters would be watching to be sure that we no longer talked after today.

I was crushed. I could hardly believe what was happening but my hope was that her mom would soon “forget” and we could resume being best friends. But the sadness I felt was nothing compared to what was coming. Suzanne not only stopped talking to me but in a fairly short amount of time she joined a small group of girls and started taunting me- calling me names. I was so hurt and shocked. How could a person be a close friend one week and an enemy the next? Our relationship was never the same- even after Suzanne’s mom “forgot” about the ban on Catholics.

I do think it can be very hard at times but I believe there is much value in loyalty. I am afraid we have become a culture that pursues immediate personal happiness and comfort at the expense of relational depth. If a job doesn’t keep me happy- I get another job. If a church doesn’t feel good to me- I get another church. If my marriage is hard- I get another spouse. We readily throw up our hands and leave when things get hard- we have little to no fortitude. No willingness to suffer for the greater good.

I know I don’t like to suffer but I must say, lately, I have been harvesting some of the sweetest relational fruit that I have ever had. I have been married to a sweet gentle man for 35 years. Our anniversary is tomorrow and we are able to laugh easily, work side by side, talk deeply about heady subjects. We can endure tough times and pull together to do it. It hasn’t always been easy but the loyalty has been utterly priceless.

I Have Food Issues

I have started a new Bible study called “Made to Crave” and the speaker talked about how dieting can make us feel deprived and we need to think of ourselves as empowered by God to make choices. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves and whining when everyone else is eating cake- think about the truth. I can eat the cake but I have the power to pass and be satisfied without it.

One bad habit I have had for a long time is evening eating. It was a ritual- unwind by snacking even tho’ I wasn’t hungry physically. Then I would go to bed and get heartburn! I knew I was causing the heartburn and one part of me hated my behavior yet did it over and over again.

As I pondered my behavior and sought God to help me understand why I repeatedly ate at night the thought popped into my head “going to bed hungry is a punishment”.

That’s when I remembered being forced to go to bed without supper, many times. I weighed 93 lbs when I graduated from high school and I was skin and bones all of my growing years, so I didn’t have lots of “reserves”. When I was forced to go to bed without supper I wouldn’t be able to sleep through the night. So, I would slip out of bed and put some peanut butter on a slice of bread. But my step-mother would count the slices of bread before she went to sleep. She would also tie a thread to a cupboard handle and drape the thread through the other handle so she would be able to tell if the door had been opened. She would also use a flour sifter to put a light dusting of flour on the kitchen floor so she could be positive which child came out of their bedroom in the night. So I might get a slice of bread at 3 am but I would get a whipping with the leather strap in the morning- and no breakfast.

I knew it was wrong to have someone treat me this way and I seethed with hatred and bitterness toward her. But I was also terrified of her and felt she had the potential to kill me. But I made a vow- “when I grow up I am going to eat anything I want and no one is ever going to stop me.”

But then here I am- 50 years later- empowered with the Spirit of God to make good choices and I am still choosing badly, still bound by my own vow. I asked God to set me free from the vow- I no longer wanted to be driven by it.
I feel it is shameful to live in today’s world where horrible suffering is taking place all over the planet, governments are collapsing, earthquakes, flooding, tsunamis, famine, disease running rampant, economies on the brink- all sorts of horrendous troubles and my whiny prayer request is “oh Lord, help me get my face out of the bowl”!!! I feel so ashamed! THAT is my greatest need??? What is wrong with this picture? And it isn’t just me! Many of my female friends are caught in the same net.

With Paul I cry “who will set me free from this body of death?” and then he answers his own question- “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” (Romans 7). Jesus can set me free- even tho’ I have willingly beaten a deep rut in the path of habitual evening eating- Jesus is able to free my feet from the net and set me on a new healthy path. I will daily look to Christ.

New Thinking on Love

My father worked two full time jobs for 12 years (and then he dropped dead of a heart attack at 42 yrs of age). He worked from midnight to 8 am - came home, drank a pot of coffee, showered and changed clothes and then went to a 9-5 job. I didn't see him in the mornings because of my school schedule. He came home at 5:20 and dinner had to be ready. We ate and then he went to bed to sleep til 11pm. I saw him for 20 minutes a day for 12 years. Every day I sat across the dinner table and yearned for him to look at me- notice me- talk to me. After years of no acknowledgement that I even existed I hardened my heart to the need. I decided it was weak to need anything from anyone. I decided to need nothing- expect nothing.

I am married to a wonderful guy. We celebrated our 33 1/3 anniversary last spring and it has been a good relationship but one thing that has been an ongoing stresser has been his desire to be appreciated. He will do some job around the house and wants me to look at it, express interest, appreciation etc and I have always seen this as a weakness. My attitude was- ok, big deal- you got one thing done- now go do the next thing. I thought it was silly for him to need praise.
God has done some amazing healing in my life this past year and part of that healing has enabled me to be vulnerable enough to "hope" for things like love, appreciation, validation, affirmation. The amazing thing is that I realize - we were created with this need- this longing. It is not a weakness. It is a God given part of being human. How convicting it is for me to realize that I have withheld a very natural part of life from someone I care about! He wasn't being weak- he was being real and I was the one who was wrong. Without love we are nothing.

Feeling Entitled

As I have struggled in my pursuit of personal holiness- which currently manifests itself in my desire to lose weight for the glory of God- I have discovered feelings of resentment and bitterness. I have messages inside my head that say “I have suffered enough” or “I’m entitled to a treat because I have worked hard today”.

As I explored the roots of these thoughts I came to painful memories of being denied basic necessities like food and sleep. My step-mother would frequently come into my bedroom in the middle of the night and grab me by the hair and drag me out of a sound sleep. She would force me to stand in the middle of the bedroom. She’d slap me hard to make sure I was awake and tell me that my snoring woke her up and that I had better not make a sound until she was fast asleep.

She would deny me food because I didn’t eat fast enough. When she was done- I was done. She would grab my plate and throw the remaining food in the trash- usually it was my dessert.

Another thing I was denied was the right to treasure anything. If a teacher had written a note like "good job" at the top of a school paper and I wanted to save it, I might hide it in my dresser drawer. Periodically and totally unannounced- my step-mother would storm into my room, dump all of the drawers out onto the floor, flip the mattress up checking underneath and then she would destroy everything she found.

She despised me and she made sure I knew it every single day.

So, it is easy to imagine that a child treated this way would harbor resentment, bitterness, vengeful thoughts and make vows like “when I grow up no one is ever going to treat me this way. No one is ever going to tell me what to eat.” It’s also easy to understand why this child might grow up into an adult that is angry with God, believing that He is not trustworthy- after all He has allowed a great deal of pain. He allowed the people who were responsible for my care and well-being to be hate-filled and cruel. It is easy to see how this could cause a child to question authority since those in authority were not trustworthy.

I think the enemy of God loves to injure and confuse small children. They are easy to deceive and they grow up into wounded adults with trust issues.

Thankfully, I have found God to be loving, tender, willing to heal my broken places, assuring me that He was not pleased with the way I was treated either. Vengeance belongs to Him- He will repay. I must forgive those things done to me and not allow bitter roots to grow. As someone once said “harboring unforgiveness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Pulling Weeds

Call me a skeptic but whenever I hear about a great new book or program that is causing excitement I seriously doubt that it will have any significant impact on people's lives. The reason for my skepticism is that I truly believe that for any good seed (or idea) to grow- the soil must be prepared first and the weeds MUST be rooted out. They can't just be mowed down and raked up a bit, they must be rooted out deeply. If the weeds are allowed to remain there will be no significant fruit resulting from the seed no matter how pretty the package is.

It grieves me deeply to see people rushing out to buy the latest packet of pretty seed because I believe almost all of them are a total waste of time and energy. And I see it happening over and over and over. I admit that I have bought more than my share of "self-help books" in the hopes that I could find a quick easy fix for my life. It never works and it never will. There are no shortcuts to growing fruit.

The only reason for any hope at all in reading those books is that perhaps- just maybe- they will stir a deep longing for change and that longing will move a person toward the hard work of pulling weeds.
I love it when I find great tool that helps me in the battle- some blast of a chemical I can spray or some granule that prevents weed seed from germinating at all but the battle is still relentless. The wind blows and a zillion new weed seeds fly in. If we want to have a garden that bears any fruit at all- I believe the most important thing we can do once the seed is planted is to diligently root out weeds.

I think it is true as well in every area of our lives. The enemy wants to crush us with clutter, activity, busyness, needs, fears, worries, noise, temptations and the list could go on and on.

I have gone on vacation each year during July or August just to escape the humidity and when I come back the weeds have NOT been sleeping- their growth has been remarkable! But I roll up my sleeves and get back in the fight because we cannot grow weary in the battle- we must persevere and we must believe that it WILL pay off someday. There WILL be a harvest and when that lovely harvest comes in- all the sweat of labor will be forgotten.
It will be worth it all.

Do I accept or ignore?

I downloaded some messages from the Desiring God conference just recently and one of the speakers said something about "accepting Jesus". He said Jesus doesn't need to be accepted- we need Jesus to accept US! It is very true. Jesus doesn't need friends so He can have a high number on His Facebook page. I thought about how people send messages asking to be accepted as a friend on Facebook. We have two buttons we can click on: "I accept" or "Ignore."

When it comes to Facebook it is a pretty shallow decision, not a lot hangs in the balance. But when we're talking about Christ we are making a decision that has a horrendous amount of importance. It is the most significant decision we will ever make! It is the decision between asking for a lifeline to be thrown to us or choosing to fall into the center of a raging volcano! If we "ignore" this choice we fall into agony and torment beyond anything we have ever imagined. And it isn't over quickly- like a fall into a boiling volcano would be- because we have a spiritual part that lives forever.

Forever and ever- realizing that they missed the whole point of life. I have many, many relatives eternally screaming in pain and anguish. They had a choice to make and not choosing IS a choice.
The way I see it- if everything I have experienced of God was all my imagination and God doesn't exist at all-if I die and just rot in the ground- then I just slowly rot into nothingness. My time spent pursuing God, learning about Him, praying to Him, serving Him didn't really matter but it didn't hurt anything either. But if I had chosen to ignore God in this life- and I died and found out I was wrong- it would be the most horrible mistake anyone could ever commit. And there would be no do-over.

God will not be mocked. We can't pretend to be following Him, going through the motions. The worse words we could ever hear are "I never knew you".

"Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord...did we not prophesy in Your name and cast out demons, and ...perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them "I never knew you; depart from Me..."" Matt 7:22

Those were upright church-going folks prophesying, doing miracles for crying out loud! But Jesus didn't know them.
They hadn't ever asked Christ to "accept" them as His friend. It's not too late for some of us. He is worth knowing. He is the most important friend we will ever make.