humility

Leaving Our Kingdoms Behind

Leaving Our Kingdoms Behind
Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash

 

I heard once that Jesus talks about the kingdom of God more than anything else. More than love, or the resurrection, or peace. Why?

Recently, my mind has been fixed on the kingdom. Or rather, my kingdom vs The Kingdom.

I know that there exists a kingdom of my own making. You have one too. It’s in our nature, to build a world for ourselves, to find what Buechner calls, “our place in the sun.”

I also know that we need to leave our kingdoms behind.

I’ve been in a slow process of doing so for many years. God started it. He always does. We aren’t meant to live in our own self-made domains. He loves us too much to let us live there.

But what do I mean by this kingdom creating? I mean the systems we create to provide for ourselves, to protect us from pain, to find love and belonging.

Our kingdoms have rules and values, ways of operating. And unfortunately, they usually run counter to the uppercase Kingdom.

That’s where we get in trouble.

The Trouble With Our Kingdoms

See, in Gina’s kingdom, I take care of myself. I do a pretty good job of taking care of others too. I perform to, or even exceed, the expectations of others. My reward is admiration and recognition, which kind of feels like love.

If you bump up against my kingdom, you might feel the pressure to live up to those expectations too. If I’m too wrapped up in my world, it might be hard for me to notice if you’re doing ok-after all, I don’t expect others to pay attention to my emotional well-being either.

But in God’s Kingdom, there’s no taking care of self, because it is prideful.  There, perfect love drives out the fear that He won’t show up for me. In His way of living, there is no striving, only resting, when it comes to finding worth. There aren’t expectations on performance, just a hope that we will live gladly and purposefully in light of His love.

The troubles we encounter in life often center around the places where we expect others, including God, to live by our kingdom rules.

If the banner of my little self-made land is performance, but your world is focused on everyone being positive and having fun, and someone else’s dominion is ruled by order and perfection, and on and on, well, you can see where we might all have trouble living in peace with one another. Because deep down, we all think our dominion is the right one and the best one.

After a while, they aren’t kingdoms anymore: they’re prisons.

And our kingdoms need to crumble.

Letting Our Kingdoms Crumble

Jesus talked about the Kingdom so much because He knew we would try to make our own, and they would be lousy places to live.

He knew we would resist living in that true place He offers, so He wanted to give us a solid picture of His vs ours. He won’t stop until we live there.

The good news is that we are citizens of a new Kingdom.

We have a choice. I believe it’s the choice Jesus was talking about when he said to take up our crosses daily and follow Him. Each day, we choose to walk away from our kingdoms, the rules and expectations we impose on ourselves and others, and to walk in a new way.

We stop believing God should act according to our kingdom rules and we surrender to the life-giving freedom of His.

To do so requires humility. It requires a willingness to believe that maybe our best efforts are simply that-our efforts-and maybe there’s another way to live. For our worlds to fall away, we have to surrender.

When we seek His kingdom first, He tells us that everything else falls into place. We can live in peace with our neighbors, because we’re all actually in the same dominion now, not warring against one another.

So we ask God, “Where am I still trying to make this kingdom work for me? Where am I not living by your way but my own?” And then we raise the white flag.

The good news, God is patient, and He is relentless. The Kingdom He has built for us is always there, waiting for us to lay down our defenses and rest in Him.

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5 Reason to Be a Burden

Five Reasons to Be a Burden
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

 

I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before, “I just hate to be a burden” or, “she doesn’t want to be a burden.” A friend once even told me she admires people who don’t want to be a burden to others.

I don’t.

When we say we don’t want to be a burden, there’s usually lies fueling it, lies rooted in our worth.

Those lies tell us that speaking needs places our worth on the table for examination. Am I worth the time, attention, and energy of others? Will they still want me if I appear weak, needy, or foolish?

Some of us respond to the lies by diminishing ourselves. Others of us (ahem, looking in the mirror), respond by determining that we will never leave the worthiness question for others to answer.

And yet, we should let others carry us.

Here’s why:

5 Reason to Be a Burden

  1.  It dispels the lies about our worth.

    When we choose to offer our needs to others, rather than stumbling on alone, we break the power of the voices that tell us it’s not ok. We declare ourselves human and worthy of space in the world. That’s a brave and beautiful thing.

  2. We find healing.

    Not only healing but rest, strength, grace, hope, and help. We need each other-that’s how God made us. I sometimes hear people express an idea that all they really need is God. But what God gives us, He often gives through others. The help we need comes from God, through others.

  3. We give others an opportunity to use their gifts

    when we ask them to carry our burdens. Withholding our needs from others robs them. Ministering to us might be the way God wants to use them today. Who are we to deny them that?

  4. Our humility invites others.

    Sometimes it seems we’re all wounded soldiers, triaging ourselves, insisting someone else needs more attention. But when one of us cries out for help, it frees the rest of us to cry as well. The enemy wants to keep us silently wounded. But we defy him and lead others to healing if we ask for it ourselves.

  5. Bottom line? It’s Biblical.

    Galatians 6:2, “Carry each others’ burdens, for in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.” What is the law of Christ? To love God and love others. When we offer and receive the weightiness of our burdens, we love.

“In their created limitations, Adam and Eve were held together in a bond of naked vulnerability . . . that is because in God’s design we do not manage our needs, we confess them. Intimacy demands hearing and telling the truth . . . [and it] recognizes that we will be inadequate to respond to the needs that are shared. We don’t mend each other’s brokenness, we just hold it tightly.”  Craig Barnes, Yearnings

In God’s design we do not manage our needs, we confess them.

We don’t manage needs, we share them. And when we do, it’s not anyone’s responsibility to fix us; we simply ask them to hold us. It requires vulnerability and humility-both challenging, both necessary.

So be a burden, today, if you need to be. Confess your need. Let someone carry you. This is how God made us. Share on X This is how we love and are loved.

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How to Avoid Being Poor in Spirit

How to Avoid Being Poor in Spirit
Photo by Norman Toth on Unsplash

“The poor in spirit . . . have made peace with their flawed existence.”

I remember reading this quote from Brennan Manning when I was barely out of college. It did not sit well. Poor in spirit? Doesn’t sound fun. Flawed existence? Eesh.

But he spent a lot of time talking about being poor in spirit in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel. While he spoke of it as something to emulate, it brought to mind worthlessness, weakness, helplessness, being lesser. I wanted none of that. When I read in the beatitudes that the poor in spirit inherit the kingdom of God, I thought, “well, at least they get something out of it.”

Fast forward 20 years, and I can’t say that in the interim being poor in spirit was something I even thought about. Until now.

This phrase, “poor in spirit”-I can’t get away from it. When I mention it to others, they say, “That’s not good, right?”

We don’t want to be poor in spirit. I have wondered what it really looks like. So I’ll start with what I know-how to not be poor in spirit.

How to avoid being poor in spirit

If we want to avoid being poor in spirit, we take everything for granted. Believe that whatever we have, we deserve. We have a right to it. That includes religious freedom, answers to prayer, a smaller waistline (c’mon 2018). Come to think of it, we should include salvation in that. After all, we’re decent people.

We should also get the glory for where we are in life. We have gifts and we used them, simple as that. Give us some credit.

Of course, we should rely on our own resources. Don’t admit need or ask for help. We don’t want to be a burden to anyone. People like you better when you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, right?

Naturally, we should maintain some semblance of control. We can do it all and have it all if we just exercise enough autonomy over our circumstances.

We should be underwhelmed by life in general. The sun comes up every day-no need to be wowed by it every time. If people are kind, loving, generous, or gracious to us, just accept it. No need for gratitude.

But if we do all this, we lose the kingdom.

I don’t know about you, but I’m done being underwhelmed. Relying on myself hasn’t gotten me far. Everything I have is a gift, and I want to treat it as such. There but for the grace of God go I, in every single thing. I want that truth to permeate my being.

So what does it look like to be poor in spirit? Here’s where I’m starting:

The poor in spirit are humble. The truth is we have nothing apart from God, and everything with Him. When we are poor in spirit, we own our brokenness and our wholeness, and see ourselves rightly before God and others. We make peace with our flawed existence.

The poor in spirit are generous. If we know nothing we have is ours to begin with, we won’t hold tightly to it. Instead, we will be open-handed, giving and receiving freely. Beggars showing other beggars where to find bread.

The poor in spirit are grateful. When we remember that nothing originates from us, and yet we are swimming in blessing, how can we not be thankful? The first breath we breathe every morning, the work we do, the people we love, the fact that we have purpose, joy, peace, salvation-it is all an undeserved gift.

The poor in spirit are dependent. Dependent not only God but on others. Our weaknesses will not drive us to hide but to lean. Daily bread will be our food, limping our stance, and all without shame.

I want the kingdom.

So this is my intention for 2018: to live out what it means to be poor in spirit. I’m still learning what it means, but I’m going to start with this: humble, generous, grateful, and dependent.

What about you? What is your intention for 2018?

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A Willing Sacrifice

A Willing Sacrifice
photo by Ben White

I stood scrubbing the dishes with gritted teeth. This was my kids’ job, and they had failed to do it before bed. This was the job I had just asked my husband to come help do, and while he had verbally committed, he was still sitting on the couch watching YouTube. So there I was, alone, doing a job that was not mine, and I did not want to do. Yes, a sacrifice of my time and energy, but willing? Anything but.

I too was tired after a long day of meetings and driving kids. I wanted to relax. A small part of me knew this was an opportunity to serve my family with a joyful heart. The rest of me wanted them to see my service and feel guilty, or show up too late to help so I could feel more justified in my self-pity.

Not my finest moment.

Is it sacrifice if it isn’t willing? After all, I still gave. I still served. But I walked away with a heart tinged with bitterness, in need of forgiveness. Making that a practice is a sure way to harden me to the people I say I’m serving.

I’ve wondered, since that night, what it takes for me to sacrifice with a willing heart, even when it is challenging.

I know what gets in the way.

Pride. And pride can take so many forms.

Sometimes it looks like using serving others to gain approval. It happens when the giving of my time and energy seems like a worthy transaction to earn the good will of others. It feels willing, but if the response of others is tepid, my pride will hunt for more. What seems like sacrifice is nothing more than using others to prove my worth. 

Sometimes it looks like being willing to carry others’ burdens, but denying others the opportunity to carry mine. It stems from the lie that what I offer is all people want from me, not my heart, not my desires, not my needs. Pride whispers that I am only as good as what I do, so I must give.

And still other times, pride says I am better than you because of my giving. It shows up as self-righteousness, stubborn obligation. I give because it is expected, because I outwardly fit the model of Christian service, while inwardly I stew over the dinner dishes.

But a willing sacrifice? Sacrifice means I have to give up something I value for the sake of others. Willing equates to ready, eager, prepared. To be a willing sacrifice I must walk away from self, and lay down the pride that gets in my way.

In Philippians chapter 2, Paul paints a picture of humility, asking us to be like Christ as he emptied himself and became human. Humility bids us to empty our souls of this focus on self. It requires us to die.

But there’s a difference between dying to self and shutting down our hearts.

In dying to self, I own when it is hard to sacrifice, when it feels like too much, when I have no more to give. Like Christ in the garden, I lay bare my weary heart and my desire to step away from the task.

When I die to self, I acknowledge that my motives can be selfish and self-serving. I call out pride where it exists, and turn my eyes upward. I choose to walk the road for His sake, and no one else’s. Only then am I unencumbered and free to serve with joy.

I think back to that night at the sink, and I wonder how I could have done it differently. I imagine stopping for just a minute to let myself feel my humanity. I picture giving myself space to acknowledge my fatigue, my reluctance, my desire to do anything else, as all valid.

I wish I had taken my angry, messy heart to God, confessing-let’s call it what it was-my hatred toward my family in that moment. I needed to spill out the prideful attitude that set me above them. God wanted to empty me of self-righteousness, my attempt to make a martyr of myself, so that I could move toward my family with an open heart.

And I wish I had simply done it for God; not my family, not for recognition or justification. I wish I had let that moment be a holy gift back to God, done out of love for Him alone, from the low ground He calls us to walk.

Humility leads to a willing sacrifice. When our giving is tangled up with pride, we are bound to the responses of others. But when our sacrifice is for Him, we walk freely.

 

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Learning to Respect My Limits

Learning to Respect My Limits

Limits. I hate them. I push them. I want to believe I am a superwoman who has no limits. And then every once in awhile (more frequently in recent years) God pulls me aside and reminds me that I do in fact have limits, and that they are good. I should respect them.

I sat down to write about this recently, and realized I already had about a year ago, on my friend Dayle’s blog (see what I mean about God reminding me over and over?). So here is what He continues to teach me:

Our dog Scout begins her daily exercise like her tail’s on fire. We’ve resorted to biking her – walking is just not her pace. Still, she runs so fast out of the gate that she can pull us. I watch her and think, “That can’t be comfortable. She’s choking herself.” Yet many times, toward the end of the ride, I am the one having to urge her along. I can only bike so slowly before falling over, after all. If only she had paced herself.

I’m just like her though. I am not a respecter of my own limits. Physical, mental, emotional – I push them all. I have a lot of passion and ambition, and those are good things, except when they lead me to strain at the leash and pull in directions God isn’t leading me. And the natural consequence? I run out of steam.

If only Scout knew that I know how far we are going every day. Then she might trust my pace. If we’re taking the short route, it’s fine for her to run faster, but we’re usually taking the long back road and it’s not for sprinting.

If only I would trust that God knows where He’s taking me. He knows how far we’re going. He knows the limits He has given me and wants me to live within them. He knows that if only I kept His pace the journey would be so much more pleasant for both of us. If only I would take the time each day to listen to what He has for me, and agree that it is good, and it is enough, and that the tasks that won’t get done will be the path for another day.

Galatians 5:25 says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” I need Him to show me step by step, moment by moment where the boundaries are for me, and I need to walk humbly and obediently in them, trusting that the good shepherd knows me and knows my way.

What about you. Are you keeping pace with Him?

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