Truly random musings…

I am feeling a bit rebellious right now – but hopefully in a good way. I am trying to figure out who I am exactly and what I’m about. Not from a theological point of view – just from a “this is me” point of view. I’m having such a hard time finding where I belong in church world. I have never had this much trouble finding a church; but my church search since I’ve moved to Charlotte has been slow going. I am not a “church shopper” – I want to find a place, settle in, get connected and start serving and growing. That is who I am, and how I have been every since I became a Christian. But this particular venture has proven difficult for me, and I cannot figure out why. So maybe if I just brain-dump on my blog for a few days, the answer to my dilemma will become clearer.

This is the thing…

I am Black. Wow – newsflash there guys! And there is a certain culture attached to that identity. And half the time I don’t feel like I fit into that “mold”, whatever it is. In fact, I don’t feel like I fit into any mold, and I am, quite frankly, tired of trying. I am who I am, and I don’t want to be told that it’s wrong to be so. The Lord made me this way – He gave me a certain set of experiences, a certain temperament, and certain personality. My musical preferences, or my political leanings, or style of dress…all of these things are a part of what make me who I am, and I hate the fact that I feel like I have to apologize for these things. Anyone who has read my testimony (see link above) knows that this has been a lifelong journey.

I want to be clear here that I am not talking about things that would be labeled “moral choices” if you will (for lack of a better term). What the Word says is wrong is wrong…I live by that Word. I’m not talking about that kind of stuff. I’m just talking about those idiosyncratic things that make a person an individual.

I like rock music…and jazz…and R&B…and classical…and on and on. I like exuberant worship…and reverent reflective worship. I like expository preaching that systematically walks through the Word…and powerful prophetic preaching that fires you up (all biblically correct of course). I like jeans and flip flops…and I like cute frilly skirts and feminine sandals or flats. I love my frizzy hair…but I also like to straighten out every once in a while. I can get down with the Ebonics…or bring out my inner Valley Girl (I’m most comfortable somewhere in between).

So, as I set out to find my church, I feel this pressure – my choice is a loaded one, at least in my heart. But the question is why? Why do I worry so much? Perhaps it’s carry over from days gone by…perhaps I am still not quite settled into accepting myself.  Not the sinful parts – but the parts that make up my personality, my temperament. The parts that make me…well…ME!

I suppose I lament the fact that so often it’s a choice. There are a few churches that are intentionally multiethnic. But for the most part, you’re either going to go to a Black church or a White church. Or a Latino church, or Asian church…name your ethnicity. And please know I’m not being flip when I say that, I’m just stating a reality that truly burdens my heart. As I venture out to find my place here, I have to make a choice. And I’m very conscious of that choice, and it truly bothers me. And it’s not just a choice of musical style, or preaching preferences…and it’s definitely not a doctrinal choice, because I will not compromise on that point. But it’s a choice nonetheless, one that carries considerable weight with me because of my life experiences. Wouldn’t it be nice if that didn’t have to be part of the picture?

More later…

Grace and peace…

 

An extended quote

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

In my meditation and study of 1 John 3:1-3, I have read some pretty spectacular and thought provoking things. But what I read last night was so good, I just had to share. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is my new favorite author – I have learned so much from my reading of his works. I am currently reading through his book, Life in Christ: Studies in 1John, which is a collection of sermons he gave on the book of 1 John. I highly commend this book to you! You will be richly blessed by your reading.

I wanted to share one extended passage from his sermon on 1 John 3:3. In this sermon, Lloyd-Jones makes clear how the truth of verses 1 and 2 naturally flow to verse 3. If we believe all that has been presented by John about our blessed hope, the natural, reasonable response will be to purify ourselves, because He Himself is pure.

But I will let him speak, because I cannot say it any better than he has:

[W]e can put the teaching like this: If I really believe what the second verse has told me, if I really know that I am a child of God, with all that this means, if I believe and know that I am destined for eternal glory in the presence of God the Father, if I really believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return again, to be ‘manifested’ as John puts it, in this world as King of kings and Lord of lords, if I believe He is coming to judge the world and to destroy everything that is evil and vile out of the universe as a whole, if I believe that I am going to be with Him in glory, if furthermore I believe that I am going to see Him as He is, if I really believe that I am going to be like Him, that my very body shall be glorified and that I shall be faultless and blameless and spend eternity in His holy presence, if I really believe all that, says John, then of necessity, this must follow.

Amen.

Grace and peace…

 

Another topic switch…

Okay, back to my thoughts on “passionate pursuit”. I have been revisiting my meditation on 1 John 3:1-3, a passage the Lord has had on my heart for quite some time. I just finished reading D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ commentary about the first verse of chapter three, and a few thoughts come to mind.

 The first would be the distinction between calling us “children of God” versus “sons of God” in this passage. The term “son” refers more to a legal identity, whereas “child” carries a more familial, organic idea. He says, “We cannot be children of God if we are not like God; the child is like the parent, the offspring proclaims the parentage, and God in that way makes us His children. He puts His own nature into us, and we become His children, and that nature which is in God is in us, and it is acting and manifesting and expressing itself.”

 Our vision of salvation, I think, is too small.

 If our salvation means union with God through Christ, in which the very nature of God indwells us and changes us, we become something wholly different. The new creation that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 5 takes on greater meaning if we truly consider the ramifications of this. What Lloyd-Jones states earlier in this chapter captures this much better than I can: “Let us never again think of the Christian as just someone who is trying to live a good life, trying to be a little better than somebody else, a person with a belief in doing certain things, going through certain forms and ceremonials and keeping certain regulations dictated by the church. Christians do all that, but before all that is this vital fact that they are children of God.”

In other words, what we do comes forth from who we are. Our moral character is not the central point; our union with God in Christ is. This is the basis for everything else – including our character, our behavior, our practices, our deeds. We are like Him because we are born of Him; this is why James advances the idea that faith without works is dead. It is not that my works save me; but my works will show forth to Whom I belong. If I am truly born of God, my life with reflect this new reality. Albeit not perfectly, but the demeanor, the disposition of my heart – and by extension and in increasing measure my actions – will display the reality of this union.

To the extent that this truth becomes reality in my heart and mind, my life will reflect it. To the extent that I see the lavish nature of God’s love toward me, my heart will be melted with love and gratitude in return. We cannot fully understand our salvation until we understand our standing as children before God. And we cannot truly understand the enormity of this reality until we grasp the reality of our sin and the nature we possessed before Christ.

It is at this point where I am acutely aware that my words are too small. No words can capture this in all its richness. I pray the Lord’s help in illuminating my heart and mind that I might see it more clearly so that it will capture my very heart and captivate my soul. It is truly a marvel to consider how deep the Father’s love for us!

More later…

Grace and peace…

 

Here we go again…

I am truly in “random” mode right now, flitting from one topic to another. Forgive me for my lack of consistency! You are just getting a peek into my mind…yes, it can be scary at times…pray for me, would ya? :o)

Anyway, I don’t even know where to begin. This topic I am about to revisit is huge and personal and touchy and something that I would rather forget. But it is something I am continually brought back to, and I guess I will not escape as long as I live in this skin I’m in.

The issue is race.

I have talked about this many times before, and most of the time I would rather not. But it is a point of contention in my heart – it is a deep soul ache that I cannot seem to soothe away easily. And so, I must engage this topic yet again. Pray for me.

I recently listened to a message that was first introduced to me about a year ago. It is a message that Thabiti Anyabwile gave at a T4G conference (for my summary and initial thoughts on this message, click here; for the message itself, click here). I won’t go into the reasons I searched out this message again; but I will walk through some of my thoughts, some of the things that this new hearing of the message has caused me to ponder.

Anyabwile’s primary thesis is this: the foundation of our worldview in terms of how we see ourselves and other people is deeply flawed and inadequate. Specifically speaking, the idea of race as biological difference does not in reality exist. Please hear clearly what he is not saying: he is not saying that the differences do not exist, but that our explanation of those differences doesn’t exist. And, most importantly for Christians, this foundation is built on an unbiblical set of assumptions that undermine the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, and could very well undermine the Gospel itself. For these reasons, we need to completely remove this rubric of race from our thinking and replace it with a more biblical set of assumptions about identity. The rubric he embraces is ethnicity, which includes such things as “language, nationality, citizenship, culture and perhaps religion”.  As I said the first time I talked about this message, I highly commend it to you – there is so much to this message I would be hard pressed to do it justice in this entry.

In his message, he expounds on the truth that our biological identity is rooted in Adam – we all share biological solidarity with Adam and Eve, our first parents. This reality is not rooted in the Fall, but in the creation of man, male and female, in the image of God. This is the foundation upon which our identity must be grounded. Because, although there are indeed difference across ethnicities, our shared identity as human beings made in the image of God is our unifying truth. For the Christian, this is more deeply expressed in our union in Christ, where God has created a new man, breaking down the wall between Jew and Gentile (of which all non-Jewish ethnicities belong by the way) and becoming our peace. The cultural identity of this new man is one of holiness and righteousness in Christ, as God works to conform us to the image of His Son. This is the basis of our unity, and our identity, and should determine and inform how we view our earthly identities of ethnicity/race.

I explain this at length because this message has had a profound effect on the way I think about race – and how much I desire to remove this distinction from my vocabulary and the way I see myself and others. As Anyabwile puts it, the “trajectory of race” does not lead to unity, because it exalts our differences instead of focusing on our common humanity. Race as biology is deeply personal, and any discussion or racial distinctions can be heard as an ad hominem attack on the person, leading to division.

I would have to say that I am a living example about how physical difference cannot be used to determine racial identity. Those who know me know that I am very fair-skinned. It’s not always evident what “race” I belong to just by looking at me. My biological makeup would include a host of difference “races”, although I am forced to identify with only one. What determines which is dominant? Cultural forces demand that I identify myself as Black, and I would never back away from that identity (and not for biological reasons, but cultural ones; I will discuss that in a later post). But is it a “racial” distinction? Is marking my identity in this very narrow view of race really helpful?

The bottom line? This idea of race as we understand it is distinctly American. It is completely foreign to biblical thought, and woefully inadequate in engaging all the different cultures and ethnicities that are represented in America today. Historically, race has been about Black and White – but more and more the ethnic makeup of America makes these categories way too constricting. Not to mention they leave no room to engage people of Native American, Hispanic or Asian descent, except to assign them their own “color” – Brown, Red, or Yellow and so forth. Trying to fit people in neat categories of racial distinction denies the richness of ethnic identity. I need to be clear here that I am not an advocate of “multiculturalism” as it is so popularly espoused on many liberal university campuses today. What I am trying to demonstrate is that this rubric of race is woefully inadequate in explaining the differences that are real across, and even within, ”races” as we commonly understand them – and it serves more as dividing lines than a point of unity.

Bringing this into the context of the body of Christ, what shall be our governing principle in defining who we are? I argue that our identity in Christ should trump our ethnic identity. Notice I did not say it should remove it – but it should govern how we view it. The way that race is defined creates a barrier for that. Because race is so rooted in personhood, the idea of asking a person to subordinate their racial identity to their identity in Christ can sound or feel like an attack on the individual, a swallowing or taking away of personhood instead of a liberating invitation into the new reality of who we are in Christ. How do we move past that?

I will not pretend to hold the keys to this aspect of the kingdom if you will, but I constantly wrestle with these thoughts, and they needed an outlet…so, here we go again… 

More to come…maybe on this topic, maybe something else. Who knows but the Lord…(sly grin)…

Grace and peace…

 

The precious jewel of meekness…

So as I’ve been journeying through this True Woman meditation, I have been drawn to a study of meekness. This is a subject that, quite frankly, makes me uncomfortable. But I am finding the pursuit vastly enriching, more so than I could have ever imagined.

Let me start with a definition of meekness. Meekness is a heart attitude first and foremost toward God. Vine’s Expository Dictionary defines it as “that temper of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting.” This attitude of spirit recognizes that God is in control, and that God is working all things for our good and His glory. So, a meek spirit is a spirit that is at rest, that is confident in the Lord, and in His goodness and power. The question of meekness is not just an acknowledgement of this truth – it is a surrendering to it, a submission to the control of the Lord in our lives. It is accepting that ways and purposes of God as good, even if they imply a certain level of discomfort or suffering in our lives, knowing that there is a deeper purpose to these things than we can see.

Now, I want to apply this very narrowly – at least for now – because this hits a very important note in my own life, and perhaps it will in yours as well.

The issue of great importance in my life this year as been about wholeness. As I began the year, the word that the Lord placed on my heart was “wholeness” or fullness. So, as I seek to apply this concept of meekness to my life, it would mean (among other things) being whole and complete in the Lord and resting in that. A meek spirit accepts that which the Lord gives or allows as good. There is peace in that disposition. There is a trust in that, a security in knowing that in all things God is in control and do not need to strive and toil. That peace gives a sense of well-being, of wholeness, that can only be found in the hands of the Lord Himself.

So, if I am looking for other people to provide this wholeness or completeness, I cannot live with a meek spirit – I will not have a gentle and quiet spirit. I will be disappointed; I will be anxious, wondering what will come. I will be toil and straining, seeking to control circumstances and people to achieve what I think I need to make me whole. Another human being cannot provide this for me – they are looking for the same thing! Why do I think someone can give me what they don’t have themselves – what they must depend on the Lord to provide for them?

But if I am depending on the Lord for these things, I can live in peace and rest. And I can relate to others with gentleness, patience, peace, mercy, love – all the fruit of the spirit will spring forth from a meek heart because I know that the Lord is providing all I need.

May the Lord work this into my life…

More later…

Grace and peace.