Don't fence me in!

"I'm eighteen! I can do what I like!"

As a parent, I know I am not alone in being confronted with this statement. And I do acknowledge that the push toward 'freedom' from parental boundaries is a natural part of maturing. However, it is far from clear which boundaries should be relaxed and when this is appropriate, not to mention the fact that there are parents who feel powerless to stop their eighteen year old doing what they like.

The push to break free of society’s inhibitions and expectations has grown since the 60's and 70's. However, rather than finding freedom from a few constraints, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, where anything goes. The rights of the individual are paramount and 'it is my right to do what I feel like' is voiced more and more stridently.

In all the fight for the freedom to be who I want to be, to do what I want to do, though, I can't help but wonder if we haven't lost something vital. I start to question what the true cost of our 'freedom' may be.

An example of this issue was raised recently on a program titled "Australia on Drugs". The topic of the legalisation of drugs was front and centre again. While such a plan may indeed remove some of the criminal elements, does one person's 'right' to be free to use whatever substances they choose not come with the total responsibility of the cost this may incur to society? 

However, this is only one aspect of the issue as I see it. We live in a society generally satiated with every 'good' thing. Lack is mostly a perception rather than a reality, and I believe that this also brings its own problems. 

You don't have to read or watch much news to get the impression that our society seems less and less safe, either physically or emotionally. When I read about some of the sexual activity that is being promoted as normal, including the pervasive use of pornography, when I hear the responses of hate toward any who would try to curb or rein in certain behaviours, it seems that the boundaries have not only been broken through, but are in the process of being dismantled and destroyed as permanently as possible.

On the flip side, though, the rate of suicide, self-harm, depression and anxiety are increasing at alarming rates among our young. If what is on offer in terms of 'freedom' is so liberating and wonderful, and they have every 'good thing' at their fingertips, why are they so unhappy?

An insight presented by Walter Brueggemann in The Prophetic Imagination suggests that 

a society that is satiated with all that is good actually becomes numb.

I read this as the lack of struggles and difficulties resulting in an inability to actually feel the enjoyment of all that is good. When we are no longer grateful for the good in our lives, and we simply take it as our entitlement, that good ceases to provide any positive impact. We then live from a place where everything is simply “meh”.

This makes sense to me in terms of depression and self-harm. Being depressed is often associated with feeling numb, and those involved in self-harm perhaps just want to feel something, anything.

With no boundaries and no direction because anything (and subsequently, nothing) will do, many of our children are left with too many options. They lack the maturity, self-awareness, self-discipline and foresight to make decisions, so end up making none. From this point, they can easily be led by either the dominant voices around them, or their need for acceptance and belonging. 

For me, an illustration of our dogs is helpful. Although I love to see them running free, where they can revel in the freedom to roam and smell and explore, it is only within the boundaries created with them (like staying near me, or responding to my call) that they are secure in that space. 

However, there is also a great difference between how they respond to me and how they respond to my daughter.

Because she plays with them, rolls around on the floor with them, and allows them to do things not generally tolerated, they are far less responsive to her discipline. Part of this is because they are confused about what is acceptable and what is not.

They don’t know what the boundaries are because the boundaries keep changing.

The confusion of our dogs is replicated in much of our society. Because there are less and less generally accepted boundaries, there is confusion and loss of direction. There is also an absence of any clear reference point.  While we continue to embrace this “freedom” as a society, we will continue to reap more of the same results for our kids.

Fences are important to stop us getting lost!

Bondage: What's your style?

When was the last time you engaged with a little bondage?

Personally, I really value my freedom. I live in a culture that would appear to value freedom, particularly the freedom of the individual, above almost everything else. The freedom to carry a gun, the freedom to marry whom I choose and freedom of speech are just a few that pop easily to mind. And watch the public outcry if a ‘civil liberty’ is even perceived as being curtailed.

How is it then, with all our appetite for freedom, that we can find ourselves in bondage?

As I engaged in my own little bondage routine at the gym recently, (not to the treadmill, but those other pesky machines), I became aware of Taylor Swift’s song “Mean” playing in the background:

“You have pointed out my flaws again.
As if I don't already see them. 
I walk with my head down, 
Trying to block you out, ‘cause I'll never impress you…
Someday, I'll be, living in a big ol' city, 
And all you're ever gonna be is mean…”

The lament conveyed here is not new to many of us, and is possibly why the song is so popular. The cry for vindication, for justice and for freedom from the opinions (real or perceived) of others is one that many of us can relate to. 

“One day I am going to show you just how wrong you were about me!”

Unfortunately, though, instead of being set free by “showing” others their error we are actually held in bondage by this desire for exoneration. If my goal is to prove anything to anyone else, I will always be bound by my need for validation from them.

And so, in all our desire for freedom, we can actually live in so many bondages. Bondage to the opinions, desires and expectations of others; bondage to acquiring the next gadget, refurb, experience, holiday; bondage to creating or maintaining an image that we believe will make us acceptable to or belong with others; bondage to the ladder of success in our career and relationships.

In my experience, the desire for acceptance manifested itself in me as an extreme difficulty in saying ‘no’ to others. Even when I didn’t want to say yes, I would find myself agreeing to something and then feeling trapped. I had constant battles with rehashing conversations and situations, beating myself up for a variety of failings I perceived in myself.

However, this is only one illustration of a variety of bondages I found myself in trying to get my needs for value, acceptance and belonging met. I also tied myself in knots trying NOT to need value, acceptance and belonging from anyone. I lived in a vicious cycle of trying to maintain feeling good about myself and failing dismally.

 So what does true freedom look like? And how do we live in it?

As long as we look to others, to material goods or to achievement to meet our deeper needs of acceptance, value or belonging we will continue to live in the cycle of unmet need. Although some of these work for short periods, like the proverbial addict, we keep coming back for the next and bigger fix.

While it is true that just like food, there are areas of our lives where we do need fairly consistent input, what we put in has a great impact on the output. When we use things that were never meant to bring fulfilment or value to our lives, it is like only ever eating junk food. We are left feeling empty and dissatisfied.

Christianity: Powerless, Small and a Little too Sanitised

As we sat in our Good Friday service this morning, I found my eyes drawn to the wooden cross that is placed on the platform at Easter. Quite unexpectedly, I found myself wondering at its dimensions.It suddenly seemed small and a little too sanitised. I found myself wanting it to be made of heavy cross beams, rough cut and less regular, rather than two pieces of neat, clean 6 by 4.

Do we sanitise our faith?

It made me wonder: Do we sanitise our faith? Do we reduce it to meet our experience? We have been disappointed before, so we don’t want to expect too much. Yes, we are happy to hope for eternal life when we die, but we’re not looking for or anticipating much, here...now...today.

A verse that has been prominent in my thoughts the last week or so is from Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” I have been reading Dutch Sheets' book “The Power of Hope”, where he discusses the results of living in a place where we feel as though hope has been deferred too long, too often, which include loss of faith and courage. We stop believing for big things, and the things that seem big in our lives grow bigger again, with a life of their own, becoming bigger than God Himself in our perception.

One of the songs we sang this morning is “The Power of the Cross”. At Easter, we celebrate that Jesus overcame the power of death, and yet, we struggle to believe that we, through Him, can overcome the power of our limitations, struggles and sin here and now. It is easier to live small and defeated lives, because, underneath, we believe the adage, “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed”.

But this was not what Jesus promised; this is not what He came for, and certainly not what He died for.

When Jesus said that He had come to bring life that we might have it to the fullest, when He said that He had come to give the blind sight, to make the lame walk, to set the captives free, this was far more than just physical (although that would blow most of us away). He came so that we could see the reality of what it means to be sons and daughters of the Most High God, that we could walk, leap and run without being weighed down by our experiences of the past, and that we could live the free and abundant life of knowing we are loved unconditionally, that there is nothing more we have to do.

I don't want a faith that lacks power, and I don't want it for those around me, either.

If we are serious about wanting to make a difference in this world, we cannot afford to continue to accept mediocre, wishy-washy, ‘expect little’ faith. If we are serious about wanting to make a difference in this world, it is time we get things back in proportion, back to the size they should be. 

If the cross (and I mean all that the cross signifies) is central to our faith, then we need to make it real and make it big in all its power and force and beautiful ugliness. It has to match with the reality that death was the last obstacle Jesus overcame to give us abundant life here and now. 

Are you prepared to come to that place where you get real, get down and dirty, and lay it all on the line with God? 

Because it is here, and only here that transformation begins and it is only from here that we connect with the power to transform the world.

For God So Judged the World

What is it about judgement and condemnation that makes them useful tools to bring about positive change? 

Or if they are not, why do so many feel the need to pour them out on the heads of others?

Personally, I have struggled for a number of years as I have read the judgements meted out by many a Christian online about other people; be they other Christians, those of other faiths, or even atheists. I fail to understand how these sorts of evaluations and attitudes marry with the rest of Jesus’ teachings. Even though He mostly ministered to those of His own faith group, He rarely stood in judgement, and then, really only over those who were busy expounding on how much better they were than everyone else.

As I read through the Gospels, the recurring theme I see is one of love, compassion and mercy. I know that I am far from alone when I suggest that if, as Christians, we acted with love, compassion and mercy, if we offered up grace, as it was given to us,we would be a whole lot more attractive to most people on this planet.

So why don’t we?

From my own experience, as I have wondered at times about my desire to speak judgement over others, whether in my heart or to another, I realise that it is mostly about my own sense of inferiority or lack. Usually, it has been about a desire to knock someone down a peg or two because I have felt they have done that to me and/or others. There has been a sense of trying to vindicate or even avenge myself.

Over time, I have gotten better at recognising and dealing with my own insecurities through more productive means than criticism and judgement – let’s face it, we usually don’t really feel better when we drag someone else down with us, anyway! There are a couple of things that stand out.

The first is that no one can make you feel “less than” unless you give them permission.

Why do we give them permission? Usually, it is simply the assessment we have already made of ourselves rising up in agreement with what we are perceiving, even though it might be subconscious. Closely related to this is the issue of fear. We are afraid we don't match up. We are afraid of being found out as a fraud. We are afraid we really are not good enough. We are afraid we are not loveable.

And while there may be a number of ways in which we can get our needs for feeling worthwhile, valued and loveable met, I firmly believe that if other people are our primary source of this, we will always be in danger of reverting back to that place of “less than” and judgement. There will always be times where they “fail” to give as we think we “need”, or our own brokenness means we fail to receive.

In my own journey, I have found the best, most secure and consistent place to find my worth and value has been out of my relationship with God. It is a place I can go back to at any time and get a refill, knowing that He is constant and consistent in His kindness and love for starters. And on those occasions I still feel that prickle of insecurity, a great question to ask Him is to remind me how He feels about me, how He sees me. This leads to the second point. 

We can’t give what we haven’t received. 

And maybe this is why many of us as Christians feel the need to give out judgement. Because this is what we have believed we deserve and receive from God. If we have a sense at any level that all God has for us is judgement, then we will inevitably pass that on to others.

Perhaps another “favourite” verse has been, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. We focus way more on our sinfulness than God’s grace and mercy, and so we fail to receive His grace, His mercy and even His love. Yes, we can give intellectual assent to His love for us, and even quote a multitude of verses about it, but do we know how to receive it, and do we continue to receive it regularly?

And while I would also agree that we need to come to a place of recognising that we often don’t meet the mark, we must be very careful that this is not about condemnation, but about realising that we can’t do it on our own; that  God is so “for us”, and wants to make up the difference, wants to pour Himself into us, so that we can do “all things” – especially to extend that love, compassion, mercy and grace to a world that is in desperate need of as much as it can get.

"For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of."  Luke 6:45

Rest on the Run

We went to see the third Hobbit movie the other night. What a marathon! About two hours into a movie that lasts just shy of two and half hours, I whispered to my husband, "I'm exhausted!" Without really needing to give a spoiler alert, possibly two hours of the movie is devoted to battle scenes. Toward the end of course (and this is a spoiler alert if you couldn't see it coming), just when you think all is sure to be lost and the few that are left have no more energy, the eagles swoop in and save what is left of the day, completely routing the enemy.

Something about this movie struck a chord with me, mainly because I have felt like I am in an ongoing battle on a number of fronts for most of the past year. I have been feeling exceptionally tired. At times I have wondered whether I can continue and sometimes I have wondered what I am even fighting for - does it even make a difference or is the outcome already decided? At the end of the movie, I found myself almost tearfully whispering, "God, send Your eagles, it is time for Your eagles. I need your eagles."

As I reflected on this over the next few days two things came to mind. The first was the words, "The battle belongs to the Lord". This well known verse comes from 1 Samuel 17:47, where David is proclaiming his victory against Goliath before it had happened. Although the context probably suggests this means the victory belongs to God, the perception I saw was that although I may have a role to play in the battle, it is not my battle; it is His. I don't have to take responsibility for the outcome.

The second part of my reflection was regarding how I can find rest and restoration in the midst of my battle-weary state. What does rest look like when you can't afford to let your guard down for a minute? 

I realised that the place of rest is in worship. Our battle song is one of worship of our great God. This reminds me of some of the Old Testament stories, where the people sang as they went to physical battle. As we worship, our eyes turn to God, and we see things from His perspective, particularly who God is and what He is about. This brings us hope and refreshing.

My end point on this reflection was the realisation that we actually have an opportunity to be the eagles. As I thought of verses about eagles in the Bible, I was immediately reminded of the promise from Isaiah 40:31

"they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." 

It is not something that comes automatically, though. We cannot rouse this strength by our own acts or abilities. It comes from waiting on the Lord. Not just stopping, but waiting in expectation and hope that He will show up and show us the way forward. And I think we must wait as long as it takes, as opposed to getting impatient and going on in our own strength and ways.

Personally, I think I probably need to practice that sort of waiting bit a little more.