A Habitat for Humanity

Sometimes certain verses inspire me; but other times, the same ones just make me spitting mad.

Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. 1 Tim. 4:12, NLT

but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy.  1 Peter 1:15

Verses such as these--and there are a myriad of others--remind me of the simple fact that I cannot do it in my own power.  When I was younger, I hoped to grow into a personal strength that enabled me to be these things.  I allowed that in time I would grow into my full stature.  I begged forgiveness for failure and redoubled my efforts.  It all "looked right" on the outside.  I went through the right motions; I embraced the right characteristics; I prioritized the right objectives.  But all of it...all of it...was wrong. 
Maybe that's why the flames of anger shoot higher the older I get.  In my younger days, it worked to tell myself--as if I was some reincarnating Hindu all rolled up in one lifetime-- that "next time I won't be the worm I am now." Such self-encouragement, however, echos more and more hollowly with incessant repetition.   I began to resonate less with "impossible" verses and more with Lloyd Ogilvie when he says in Ask Him Anything: 

Peter had built his whole relationship with Jesus Christ on his assumed capacity to be adequate.  That's why he took his denial of the Lord so hard.  His strength, loyalty, and faithfulness were self-generated assets of discipleship.  The fallacy in Peter's mind was this:  he believed his relationship was dependent on his consistency in producing the qualities he thought had earned him the Lord's approval.  Many of us face the same problem.  We project into the Lord our own measured standard of acceptance.

I begin to realize the very verses that irritate me are the ones You are using to  show me where I am refusing to decrease, refusing to allow You to increase.

It is a hard lesson that seeps into the soul's cracks with persistence and continues to do so for a lifetime, making the potential for discouragement very great at times.  Those are the moments when the gift of companionship is so rich, and yet sadly least available in some communities.  Some communities dare not touch you when you go THERE!  But for me during that moment in time, that hard spring, You supplied human fellowship just so.  If You were the wool coat against the last blast of winter, then C. was the bright warm muffler to complement You. You and, by Your commission, she kept me from having to lean too hard on those nearest to me, those who were just as weary as I was.

C.'s card was stuck in my little prayer journal.  It must have fallen out and got stuck back in the wrong place.  I found it today.  I put it back where it belonged, but here in the blog, it falls out of order.  It should have showed up in those days of affliction before we moved south to the city.  I had a few dear friends who knew some of the heart ache we felt with regards to our church work, heartache we mostly kept private; and one of them sent me this for an encouragement. (Picture every double-exclamation point having a smile drawn under it.  If you look closely, you can see one in the picture.)

April 30, 2003
Deb!!
Thanks so much for walking with me tonight!!  Wasn't it gorgeous out!!
My prayer to God for you is that out of all the events, trials, times that are occurring right now, somehow HE will see you through.  Hang on!!
I appreciate you and all that you have done @ our church this past year.  I want you to chew on this:  "The carefree spirit of joyous festivity is absent in contemporary society.  Apathy, even melancholy, dominate the times."  Harvey Cox says modern man has been pressed "hard, so hard toward useful work and rational calculation he has all but forgotten the joy of ecstatic celebration..."  I think you do a good job of trying to celebrate!!

I kept this little note.  It speaks to me even today.  Finding true encouragers is another grace of God.  Some seasons of life I've had very few.  As I reflected before, and with a sadness--sometimes, being an encourager, particularly to a scapegoat, means putting your own neck on a spiritual community's chopping block.  Too much of that thinking like Peter, I guess, for it to be safe to share life's pains too deeply or too publicly. I remember reading where Oswald Chambers said something about being careful about condemning that person who sounds the most blasphemous, because he may be the one who is actually closest to the heart of God.  I didn't "get" what he meant by that for a long time.  I think I'm finally beginning to see the wisdom of it.  That blasphemer.  He might be one who is finally wrenching free from his days as a pre-rooster Peter.  Watch him with a sacred alertness.  See where he goes from here.

I doubt if C. even remembers she wrote that note to me.  She did this sort of thing a lot then.  I expect she still does.  I'm sure she has quite a legacy of encouraging words out there.  I pray that YOU fashion such a role of encourager for me one day, too, my Beloved!