Life, unmeasured {An Advent Invitation}
At one point in ministry, I remember a trusted leader standing up in a staff meeting and reminding us, “We get what we measure.”
Ok. Fair enough. I know this is a well-known maxim in business, and touted by many successful authors and leaders. But is it true in the context of the Kingdom?
A godly pastor I know used to run (lots!). He loved to run. And I remember him saying that he always timed himself running up a particular hill. That way he would “get what he measured” (a faster time!) and this motivated him to run faster. Again, fair enough.
But over the years, I’ve felt uneasy about this constant quantifying. Not throwing stones here, the problem is me. I’m constantly quantifying. And I live in a world that’s constantly quantifying. And to some measure, this is unavoidable. We have to measure ingredients for cookies. We have to calculate the cost of a particular purchase. We have to evaluate the benefit of various options. We must measure (judge), this is how God created us.
But could it be this measuring stuff can go haywire?
I’ll tell you what: I’m so tired of measuring. I am writing a chapter right now about being Poured Out and there is nothing measured about being poured out. You just pour. You just go.
When that beautiful woman busted open her alabaster flask and poured it out at Jesus’ feet, she didn’t measure it first.
She just poured out her life.
And she didn’t give a rip if the people around her “liked” what she was doing (they didn’t). Jesus did and that’s what mattered.
Amen? While the folks around her with mentally calculating the cost of her offering, she was just offering it.
I don’t want to be the one, arms folded, who goes through life measuring and calculating, without offering.
In the last few weeks the Lord has put his finger on a sore spot of my heart, and revealed to me that the root of it is just this: plain old measuring.
Slicing and dicing and weighing and measuring, tracking and calculating and keeping score. The next thing you know we’ve hacked up our life and killed the whole darn thing.
Anybody else?
I laid all this out before Him, as honestly as I could, and told Him I wanted to turn from all this, this ruthless measuring business. You know what I heard in my heart?
This is how I want you to celebrate My birthday.
And I know there a lot of beautiful ways to celebrate the coming of our King, at Christmas … but this will mine:
Live life, unmeasured.
This Christmas, I am taking a break from the ways that I am personally prone to measure. It’s a small thing, but it’s my birthday gift to God, recognizing in a real, tangible way, that what He says about me is enough, that His coming to earth was enough, that His sacrifice on the cross was enough.
His grace, His, love, His gospel is immeasurable.
I don’t need to measure anything else.
This advent, I invite you fellow recovering-measurers, if you’d care to join me, from now until Christmas: Let’s live life, unmeasured, as a little gift to our God.
{In what ways has measuring hacked up your life? Where might you find greater freedom by living life, unmeasured? Praying our hearts are freely pour out to Him, in unmeasured love. Thanks for reading.}
Jeff and the Turkey-Hat Girl (Because we each run our own race)
Hello!
It’s so good to be back here. You probably didn’t notice, but I’ve been gone for 2 weeks, on a 3,000 mile road trip to visit family for Thanksgiving. I’ve had a guest post and reposts and what not, but I’ve been mostly unplugged for two weeks straight.
It feels good to sit down here, now, and say, Hello!
One of my favorite parts about family trips is that I get to read. I always take with me the really delicious books like fiction, memoirs, or just highly recommended reads that I know I’ll want to crawl right into and lose myself in the pages. I can’t let myself read these during “normal” life or no one would get fed. So I wait for trips, and then … devour.
My two favorite reads from this trip were The Spark and The Homeschool Experiment. I’ll review each of these later, but one small reflection I made, as I finished the final pages, was that both of the moms represented in these books were similar to me, but oh so different too. Often I felt like I was reading about myself. But then there were other parts where we differ vastly. In some ways, their lives made mine look SO EASY. Oh my. My life looks like a walk in the park compared! In other ways, I have some life circumstances that make a lot more challenging, or at least different, for me.
So what struck me about these two great books written by two great moms, was just this: We’re each running our own race. I don’t have to run their race and they don’t have to run mine.
On Thanksgiving morning, Jeff ran a Turkey Trot race.The race has a 5k option and 10k option and both run at the same time, together. More than 4,000 people ran this race, so the place was swamped.
Now, Jeff is fast. He ran the 10k race, and he began 10 minutes after everyone because it was so crowded. Because of that, and because of running the farther distance, he came across the finish line at the same time as … well, people who are running a whole different kind of race altogether, let’s just say that. So my hard-core husband comes sprinting across the finish line next to … look to the left. Do you see her?
That’s a tutu. And a turkey hat. Yes, dear Turkey Hat Girl is directly to his right, finishing her own little merry race, grinning ear to ear, as Jeff is striding it out for his Personal Record.
And there they are … crossing the finish line together.
Because isn’t that it? She doesn’t have to win Jeff’s race. She’s winning her own. Jeff’s 10k PR is completely irrelevant to her own happy adventure.
And there they are, side-by-side at the finish line. Sure, he ran farther, faster, but there they are, both champions because they both got out there and ran their own race the best they could.
I’m not Kristine Barnett or Charity Hawkins or you. You are not me. But what a joy it is to run together, amen?
I’ll do my race, you do yours, and we might just cross the finish line together.
{Happy race-running! Thanks for reading.}
A Love Story
There once was a little girl.
She was good and mostly happy, she played and had fun, but as she grew up she always felt a little empty inside. She wasn’t quite certain of her parents’ love for her, and often tried hard to earn or win their attention or affection. She worked hard in school, earned good grades, and went to college. But a haunting, increasing sense of her own inadequacy always crept into her mind. She didn’t feel cherished. She didn’t really feel loved. She felt afraid that she didn’t quite measure up. She knew she wasn’t that pretty, wasn’t that smart, wasn’t that clever or special or unique. And this continual feeling of emptiness never really went away.
It didn’t take long out in the real world to figure out what it would take to be happy. A man, to start. Handsome, with a good job. Plenty of money. Some kids—cute ones. A big house—the bigger the better. New, nice clothes. A new car. Plenty of jewelry and the latest home decor. A job, too. Yes, she would have it all. She worked and worked and worked to construct this life to fill her heart. It looked great from the outside—the Facebook version. Plenty of professional photos were taken, staging what looked like whimsical, carefree family moments, that didn’t capture the stress and irritation and touchiness and moodiness of trying of make everyone look just so. More and more she felt angry at her family, angry about the demands and work of keeping up his dream life. Her husband was at a loss—he’d given her everything she wanted, why wasn’t she happy?
So they went to church. Certainly God could give them the peace they needed, the icing on the cake of this perfect life. They found a big, beautiful church with lush decor and an extravagant water feature out front. There were lots of nice cars in the parking lot. Everyone there looked beautiful, and inside she felt a little insecure being there, but being part of such a beautiful, happy, charismatic group of people made her feel so good. They were smart, beautiful, witty, wealthy, and had wholesome families and well-behaved kids. The messages were awesome—how to have a great marriage, how to raise confident kids, how to balance the busy demands of life. Often, the pastor would talk about the gospel—that Jesus died to take away our sin and give us an awesome abundant life of joy and peace. Yes! Even more than they had before! They both jumped in—this was the final piece they’d been looking for. The icing on the cake of the perfect life. They joined a community group, and quickly discovered other people just like them! It was so encouraging to know that everyone faced these same demands—juggling 60-hour workweeks and huge mortgage payments, that everyone had frequent marital spats and yelled at their kids sometimes. They enjoyed plenty of wine together and were so grateful for the Christian fellowship.
But in her heart of hearts, she still felt empty. And those outside her little world could see it. It became harder and harder to keep up the smile. The kids were exhausting, the gnawing hunger for more stuff drove her on. Years and years went by, their life consisting of more and more stuff, better vacations, more carefully staged photos, more and more and more and more … Where exactly was that joy and peace?
There’s a little bit of this story in me, maybe in you, and certainly in many American Christians. This gospel isn’t effective because it’s incomplete. It’s like someone going in for a heart transplant, and the surgeon giving the patient the anesthetic, putting him to sleep, then waking him up and telling the patient he’s healed. They haven’t really been given a new heart, they’ve just gone through the motions. Without cutting, blood, pain, without a true transplant nothing will be really changed at all.
The heart of the gospel is an appalling, audacious, ridiculous LOVE that slays us with its power and changes everything. And this love is what the world needs now. A love that bids me come and die, and find that I may truly live. The world doesn’t need another addition to its life, it needs new life.
- A new identity, knowing Who loves us, knowing we are not slaves or orphans but children.
- Freedom from idolatry, changing what we love, cutting free from the crippling shackles of false gods.
- And a life-calling of intercession, loving our neighbors as ourselves by becoming branches, conduits of this ridiculous love and grace.*
I pray this Christmas that the true gospel, with its ridiculous love and shocking implications, becomes more real and transformative than ever before. As we look at Jesus may the love of the Father lure you closer and closer into His heart. Thanks for reading.
*Originally published Dec. 2, 2013
Because sometimes, we just can’t remember…
I had only been gone 5 minutes when it happened. Onions were simmering for soup. Christmas music floating through the house. Dutch intense over Legos. Heidi happily coloring. I ran out to Jeff’s office to discuss church business, ran back in to stir the onions again. I didn’t see Heidi.
Stirring the onions, I saw her come from around the corner, head down. She wrapped her arms around my leg.
“Hey, babygirl. What’s up?”
Head stayed down.
“Heidi, what’s up Sweetie?”
She finally looked up. Her eyes wide, stricken. I lowered down to look in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” She turned and pointed, then took my hand and led me into the living room. Around the corner, she pointed.
A long line of pink marker down the wall.
“Oh.” I looked down into her wide eyes, her mouth started to twist, eyes filled, stricken by the pain of guilt. Tears spilled over her eyes. Oh I know that feeling, babygirl. That feeling of Oh, What have I done?
I scooped her up, ignoring the sizzle of onions behind me, and took her, crushed, crying, to her room. We slide down into the rocker. We rock. She grieves. I’ve been there:
Godly sorrow, it’s good–got to let it do its work.
This girl’s only 3 but has a spirit opening, like a flower, and I never want to miss an opportunity, thinking she’s too young.
“Heidi, does your heart feel sad and yucky inside when you do something naughty?”
“Yes,” she sobs.
“Me too. Mommy does naughty things too sometimes, and it makes my heart feel so sad and yucky. It’s a terrible feeling, I know. You know Mama does naughty things sometimes too, right?”
She nods. (A little too readily, if you ask me.)
“Do you know what those naughty things are called?”
She’s on it: “Sin.” She says it like she knows it, hates, it, hates the feeling of doing it. How early on we are acquainted with it!
“Can I tell you something wonderful?”
She nods.
“Do you remember why Jesus died on the cross?”
She’s recited it a hundred times: “To take away our sins!” but now, in the midst of her own sin, she can’t remember.
That happens to me too.
In the midst of my sin, I forget why Jesus died on the cross. I can’t see it. Don’t know it. Just can’t remember. Can’t think straight because the frustration and darkness of my selfishness eclipses the light of His love.
“Can I tell you again?”
She nods.
“Jesus came as a baby–at Christmas–and died on the cross, because He loves you so much He wanted to take away ALL your sin–even writing on the wall–and forgive you and take away all the sadness and yuckiness from your heart and make you all new and clean on the inside. Do you remember that?”
She nods.
“Mama forgives you, babygirl. I’m proud of you for showing Mommy your sin instead of hiding it. That’s the same as confessing. And now we’re going to pray and then go clean up the wall together.”
Now she’s stricken again. “But Mommy,” she sobs, “I tried to clean it up, I can’t. I tried with my finger and I can’t. See?” She shows me, pink ink smudged on the pad of her pointer finger. She looks down, now hopeless again.
I smile. “But this time, Mommy will help you. Do you believe Mommy can do it?”
A glimmer of hope: she nods.
After praying, we walk together to the living room, hand in hand. She shows me how she tried to get it off. How the pink just smudged and got bigger, worse.
Again, I ask: “Heidi, do you believe Mommy can do it?”
She nods.
I grab the spray cleaner and a little doggy-puppet wash cloth. She’s laughing as puppy makes silly voices and gets soaked with cleaner.
“Now, Heidi watch. Do you know what Jesus does with our sin? Watch carefully.”
Her eyes are wide. I spray the wall, and in one smooth action, wipe with doggy-puppet-washcloth and all trace of pink-pen … is gone.
Her face is light.
And I’m reminded, why Jesus died on the cross.
~
{Remembering this from three years ago, as we begin the Advent season, watching and waiting for Christ. Thanks for reading.}