If All I Ever Am Is His, It Is Enough

“If all I ever am is His, it is enough.”

Do I really believe that?

I’ve had this phrase rolling around in my head and heart for a while now and I’ve been trying to decide if I believe it is true. Of course, it is true, no matter what I think about it. Jesus has said this quite emphatically. He loves me just as I am. Not some future version of me once I get all the kinks worked out. Not all the stuff I do for Him… because we all know He is quite capable of handling His affairs here on earth without me.

He loves me. Just me. Me. Mess and all. And the greatest anchor for my identity and security is resting in being His. Because I will never be straightened out enough or productive enough to earn what He has mercifully and beautifully offered to me – a relationship with Him. Because He loves me. Just me. Me. Mess and all.

If you are from church circles, then you are familiar with knowing the right answer in your head but some how, your heart doesn’t get the memo. We almost always know the right answer in our heads don’t we? We can usually give the Sunday School answer with our hands tied behind our backs. We can often give really good advice to others in similar situations. We can see reality outside of our own circumstances so much clearer.

Do I believe this truth is true? It is so crazy to me that I even have to contemplate this question.

And it is true.

If all I ever am is His, it is enough. Even when I struggle with the most basic of spiritual truths.

Random Life Lessons With Deanna pt. 1 – Fasting Is Good

Life goes in seasons. We all know this. It circles around different activities, relationships, projects, etc. When we are in tune with and lean into these seasons, our lives generally experience less turbulence – like when we walk with the wind instead of against it.

I just finished a season where I had lots of visitors staying in our house. It has been great! These are dear friends I don’t get to see very often, so pretty much everything else in our lives stopped while we captured all the memories and experiences of this time. And since I’m from the south, that has meant food. Lots of it – and special varieties of it that you only make when company comes over. You know what I am talking about. This season of life for me has meant celebration and enjoyment of the things God has made – friendship, flavors, the feeling of a pleasantly full stomach and then a cup of good coffee on top of that. These moments point us to the Creator of these moments, so I’m pretty sure they please God when we enjoy them.

So now that everyone has gone home and we shift back into our routines around here, I need to enter a season where I make sure that this pattern of indulgence doesn’t become the norm. It would be easy to think that every meal needs to be a big one, every activity punctuated by food, by moving slow and the pursuit of enjoyment. Centering one’s life around satisfying desires and appetites is a dangerous place to live. Therefore, that means that I need a season of fasting and a focus on discipline.

One of my random life lessons over the last year or so is that fasting really isn’t about food. It is about discipline, about mastering the desires, whatever they are, that would master you. It is about exercising self-control over your body. And I’ve found that those lessons carry over into many other areas of my life. Since appetites grow when I feed them and have a way of demanding control over me the larger they get, I need to make sure they know who’s boss. That means that now I need a season of fasting.

And by fasting, I don’t just mean just abstaining from food (although I do most certainly mean that!). I’m talking about abstaining from whatever it is that, while I can enjoy it in another season, I must control it in this one. I must consciously make certain decisions regarding what I choose to intake in a way that I can be looser with at other times. So deliberately choosing to miss a few meals, or consciously saying no to Chick Fila or that chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream at 11pm (although it was awfully tasty while company was here:), or drinking water instead of a soda, or going running instead of watching tv, or going outside instead of sitting on the couch – sometimes these are really great spiritual exercises that bring a vitality to my soul.

I’ve found that fasting can act like a reset button on my desires, returning me to the ‘mastery position’ instead of the ‘being mastered’ position that could result from a season of enjoyment. Life is about rhythm and working with the seasons God has given us. While certainly not fun, fasting, in its time, place and context, is very good.

Unconventional Marks of Spiritual Maturity – saying “I’m sorry” and “Please forgive me.”

Matt. 5:23-24 “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

But the words “Please forgive me,”…now those words are loaded with power. First, we think they sound churchy, so we use that as an excuse to substitute, “I’m sorry.” But “I’m sorry”, while part of the process of asking forgiveness, isn’t the same thing. Second, to ask someone to forgive is to admit guilt. I did something wrong. My actions hurt you and I need to make it right. No one likes to admit in public they were wrong. We’ll do all kinds of things to avoid it – minimizing our offenses, ignoring them, blaming the other person, etc.Third, approaching the subject of forgiveness is to automatically take an action into the spiritual realm, to invite God into it because forgiveness is something we don’t really do well on our own. We are admitting that there is a standard of right and wrong (and by extension, a creator of that standard) and we are admitting that we fell short of it. That has spiritual written all over it.People are afraid of the words, “I’m sorry,” and “Please forgive me”. Well, usually we don’t mind “I’m sorry,” so much because often it doesn’t accompany more feeling than saying, “Oops,” or “My bad”. It doesn’t carry much responsibility or demand that restitution be made. We say “I’m sorry” when we step on someone’s toes, accidentally spill their drink or run a few minutes late for a meeting. But I think we all know those words don’t cut it when we truly, deeply hurt or offend someone else. When we fail to keep our word, when we say hurtful things that we can never take back, when we aren’t there for someone who really needs us and for whom we are responsible…you know what I’m talking about.

And many people aren’t willing to escalate a situation past “I’m sorry” all the way to “Please forgive me.”

I think not being afraid of these words is a sign of spiritual maturity. Using them shows an accurate understanding of who we really are – a sinner saved by grace. I don’t have to put forth this “superman/wonder woman” front, where I try to fool the world, hoping they think I’m just as great as I’m pretending to be. No, someone who asks for forgiveness of others at the appropriate time shows a security in God. They mess up and rather than run from it or try to cover it up, they instead make it known so that God can repair it. They also show a deep concern for the other person. By making a wrong situation right, protecting the other person’s feelings and restoring whatever was broken is more important than their pride.

So where you find a follower of Christ who uses these words well, you will most likely find someone with spiritual maturity.

Unconventional Marks of Spiritual Maturity – Response to leadership

Heb. 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

How someone responds to leadership says a lot about their spiritual maturity. I know some people who always have a better idea, who always have to give their input no matter how uninvited it is, who can always come up with a scathingly and brutally honest critique of someone else’s work and describe exactly what is wrong with it, often in excruciating detail. They love to deconstruct and analyze a leader’s motives, skills, decisions, performance, words and giftings.

But they don’t want to lead themselves. For them, the back seat is much better than the front seat. They have a season pass to the peanut gallery. Rather than getting their hands dirty and choosing to play the game with everyone else, they want to wear the referee’s stripes and blow the whistle at every slight infraction, at every play that doesn’t meet with their approval.

Rather than getting in the mix of things and deciding to play themselves, to be part of the solution, they choose, even if it is through passivity to be part of the problem. In short, these are the people who are a pain in the neck to lead. They are like the goats you have to lead down the road, who dig in their heels and refuse to move. Their stubbornness soaks up large amounts of energy that could be directed in other more positive directions and slows everyone else’s forward movement.

I think it says a lot about a person’s spiritual maturity by how they respond to leadership. Do leaders like to see you coming in to a group, on a team or as part of a project assignment? Do you proactively seek to find your place in a group, figuring out where you can contribute the greatest amount? Do you think about how to benefit the group collectively? Or is your natural bent always figuring out how to protect your personal interests?  Do you make the leader’s job pleasant or are you the thorn in their flesh? In short, are you a joy to lead? Or a pain in the neck?

I’m not talking about blindly following someone, about abdicating all personal initiative or never offering honest feedback when the time is right. And I’m not talking about when the existing leadership is lacking, stepping up and in to lead when the time and circumstance is right. I’m talking about when healthy leadership is in place, when the vision is clear and the direction set – and then voluntarily choosing to work with those over you. I’m talking about willingly putting your needs and wants under the needs and wants of the group as a whole, about choosing to appropriately participate, about encouraging the leaders over you when their job is hard. About getting in and rowing with them. About using words and actions to construct, not destroy.

When the time and circumstances are right, how do you do at that? I think that how one responds to leadership says a lot about someone’s spiritual maturity.

Unconventional Marks of Spiritual Maturity – landing on your feet

Recently I had a dirty, rotten, no good week. Pretty much every sort of conflict you could imagine. Disappointment. Frustration. Fatigue. It all piled up at once and I had good cry. Several actually. A while later however, I remembered I had eaten that day. I was fully clothed with things I got to choose. I knew that even though my circumstances certainly weren’t of my choosing and certainly weren’t bringing me any joy at the present, I could see that good would come in the future. I could even see God’s hand in it rather clearly. It was just taking me a while for my heart to catch up to my head. I was falling in a hole of doubt and insecurity – and after a bit of a free fall, I landed on my feet. Sort of. I still wasn’t especially happy, but at least I was standing.

I’ve seen other people handle their crises with much more grace than I ever could. I see them fall, like we all do, but land on their proverbial feet. Because the ground they stand on is solid. They know who God is, that He loves them, that they are safe in His arms, that nothing happens to them that doesn’t pass through His hands first, that He works all things out for their good.

When difficult things happen – crisis, THE phone call, a break up, a relationship ends, forced conflict or pain…how quickly do you regain your footing, realizing that God is in control, after the initial emotion wears off? I think this a good, albeit unconventional mark of spiritual maturity – how quickly one lands after a significant free fall.

Unconventional Marks Of Spiritual Maturity – Being A Pleasure To Work With

I’ve met a number of people in ministry who, technically were great at their jobs. They could organize, inspire, teach, lead and get lots of things done in Jesus’ name. But personally, they were jerks. Really, unpleasant, fussy, verbally harsh, more concerned with the job than with those people for whom they were doing the job, etc. Ultimately, it didn’t matter how good they were at what they were doing, I didn’t want to work with them. Few others did either.

The really sad thing is that I’ve had whole seasons of my ministry life where I am pretty sure I was that jerk – where I was absolutely miserable to work with. I might have been having daily quiet times and been in the middle of God’s will for my life. I might have been getting done all I was being asked to do. Yet my attitude was… well…I’m ashamed now. I was a jerk. I didn’t control my tongue or even try to consider other’s needs or feelings. I was argumentative. A complainer. Unwilling to cooperate, to submit, to help out…you name it. It wasn’t pretty. In fact, I didn’t even want to work with myself.

Yet I’ve also worked with folks who were just a joy to be with. Who understood that part of being in Christ means being a part of the group, of making it work better, of displaying His character in the quality of our relationships with others. These are the folks who have figured out how to enjoy whatever God sends their way. Who seem to have learned the discipline of joy – and of working with others.

My conclusion is that I think an overlooked aspect of spiritual maturity is the quality of relationships a person has. Especially work relationships. Because we rarely get to choose who we work with I think those relationships can be a sort of barometer for what is going on in our hearts. Selfish or unselfish? Gentle or angry? Kind or cruel? It all shows up in the work environment.

Of course, a relationship involves 2 people, therefore I am not completely in control of how I get along with someone else. It does take two to tango. But my point is, as far as it is up to me, whether other folks want to work with me or want to avoid me says a lot about my spiritual maturity. Therefore, I think that is an unconventional mark of spiritual maturity.

Unconventional Marks of Spiritual Maturity – What Type Of Student Are They?

(Part 2 in the Unconventional Marks of Spiritual Maturity series)

Pr. 10:19 When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.

I remember feeling very disappointed with the men in my church. I had dropped in to a Sunday School class with an excellent teacher. And several men in the class repeatedly interrupted him. Positively, they were obviously engaged in the lesson. They had some great thoughts and insights. It appeared that they were developing teachers, just waiting for their chance to teach.

But they were terrible students. They didn’t know how to listen or how to appropriately participate so that they honored their teacher instead of interrupting him. Their pride and arrogance shut down their hearts so that I’m pretty sure they didn’t hear a thing. They were too busy thinking about what they wanted to say next rather than carefully listening for what God might want to say to them.

Some people think that someone who is a good teacher, who can lead and contribute much to discussions and Bible studies is spiritually mature. That may be, but …

I think you can tell a lot about where a person is spiritually by what type of student they are. How do they learn? Do they listen thoughtfully to the Word of God and think about its implications for their lives before they begin thinking about how to apply it to someone else’s life? Is there a gentleness in their learning style that makes them a pleasure to teach? Do they ask questions and actually listen to the answers? Or are they doing more talking than listening?I’m not saying that people shouldn’t participate or vigorously join in a discussion, but that we should think about how to participate constructively.

We’ve all been in a small groups with the know-it-all, the person who is sure they know more than the teacher. With the non-stop talker, who won’t be quiet long enough to hear what any one else is saying. With the arguer, who wants to debate even the silly things. With the criticizer, who complains incessantly. Frankly, no one wants to see them coming in the door, even if they have a lot of potential as a leader or teacher. Their behavior tells us more about the condition of their heart than their words ever could.

Lord, may I never teach another lesson, if I am not first the type of student that teachers want to have in their classes. Help me to recognize when to keep my mouth closed, my ears wide open and my heart soft.

Unconventional Marks of Spiritual Maturity –the wrong measure

(Part 1 of the Unconventional Marks series.)

(highlights of the incendiary passage of Matt. 23:24-28) You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel….You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence….First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean….you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean….on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness….

I was at a conference once with a bunch of students from a large mid-western Baptist Student Union. And I had to laugh. It was obvious to me that the guys there had some sort of unspoken dress code. They were all wearing t-shirts under plaid button up shirts, baggy cargo shorts and ball caps with the bills curled up tightly. Sandals. Lots of sandals. They all spoke the same language with acronyms for all the different Bible studies and ministries they were involved in. They listened to the same music. Read the same books. They looked just alike. Cute, to be sure, but just alike.

I can’t help but think that many of them mistook conformity, morality, knowledge and attendance for true spirituality. Because they looked the part, behaved a certain way, knew a lot of Bible verses and showed up at the right events, they, and probably everyone else, assumed they were moving towards spiritual maturity. And they may have been. But are those really the things that make someone a mature disciple of Christ?

Generally, the Christian community loves folks who conform, behave, study and attend. When we see these external characteristics, we assume someone is doing ok internally. But one thing I’ve discovered after years of ministry is that what is seen on the outside is not necessarily an indication of the internal condition. There are lots of people out there who are quite beautiful on the outside and incredibly messed up on the inside.

So, is there a better way for us to measure how we are doing spiritually? I want to take a few entries and explore what I’ve found to be some unconventional but often accurate marks of a growing and vital spiritual maturity – a depth in their relationship with God that translates to a changed, Christ-like life.

The Connexxion Women’s Retreat

So, there is something coming up that, if you keep up with me on facebook you know about, but I just haven’t gotten around to blogging about yet. I’m traveling to Germany in to teach at the Connexxion Women’s Retreat – Aug. 5-7th in Berlin. The link to the website is here https://connexxionwomen.wordpress.com/ if you are interested in some details about

Teaching at the Zoom Conference in Braunschweig

what we’ll be covering and some random thoughts in the run up to the weekend.

I can’t express how much it means to me to have the opportunity to return to my beloved Germany and spend time with many of the young women who are so special to me. It is also a tremendous opportunity for me to process out loud many of the thoughts rolling around in my head and the lessons God is planting in my heart during this season of life. Sometimes I feel what Jeremiah did when he wrote, “But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” Jer. 20:9

If I don’t get some of these things out, I just might explode.

I am also grateful for the time to get away, out of my normal context and engage in a series of different, life-giving conversations – a chance to give God my full attention in a way that is more challenging than in the day to day routine around here. And sometimes different scenery just prompts new streams of thought and  new levels of creativity. Jeff and I periodically do this, where we encourage the other go somewhere and do something in order to invest in our soul, spiritual well-being and sanity. Jeff’s trip to Haiti this spring was his time. Mine is just on the horizon.

Plus, Berlin is famous for their currywurst and I’m planning to eat at least one during my stay if I can.

Hot fried yum!

Happy Easter!

I’m writing this, sitting in the dark before the sunrise of Easter morning. I am so thankful sunrise is coming and that the darkness ends. This morning I get to celebrate that Jesus took my sin, my shame, my pain, my place and not only bore it, but conquered it. I get to celebrate a new life that defies all that has preceded it. I get to tell Him thank you and how much I love Him.

Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed. Happy Easter!

Potty Training and Discipleship

I’m in the throes of potty training around here. (Not for me, mind you…) Yeah, and it’s not going so well. It’s not that my little one isn’t capable of using the toilet.  She has in the past. It’s not that she doesn’t grasp the concept of “this goes here”. We’ve read all sorts of books and even conducted quite a few lab experiments, so I know she understands what we are talking about. It’s not that she doesn’t know when she has to go. As with most things in life, timing is everything, and as with most things in life, we always seem to be a few minutes too late.

I was trying to remember what we did with our two oldest kids and I joked, “Well, they turned 16, and it seems like they just figured it out.” That’s not exactly how it happened, but since every kid is different, every experience is different also. A “this is how we’ve always done it” approach will not work in this instance.

No, our problem is that our toddler doesn’t want to. She has made a conscious decision to do things her own way, in her own time. And as every mother will tell you, in this area, the child is in complete control. Rewards, routine, books, videos, threats, shame, bribing, expert teaching, peer pressure, modeling, detailed explanations with diagrams…try whatever you want, but until the child wants to in their own hearts, no one on earth is going to force this on them. They’ve got to own it. And my baby doesn’t just yet.

Over the years in ministry, I’ve discovered that the greatest thing about working with young people is also the worst thing at the same time. Sometimes, you see them make great decisions. They choose to follow God joyfully and wholeheartedly. They choose to study and apply their Bible. They choose to pursue intentional, life-giving relationships that point them towards spiritual depth. They choose to re-orient their finances, schedules and future plans around God-centered priorities. When a young person decides to own their faith, it’s one of the most exciting things you’ll ever see.

The flip side however is that sometimes young people choose not to. They make a conscious decision about the direction of their lives and it doesn’t matter what anyone on the outside does. You can’t force anyone to pursue spiritual growth. It’s not that the role of discipler/mentor is a completely passive one, but if they choose not to own it, there really isn’t much I can do.

This has several interesting/heartbreaking implications:

1. I’m going to lose some women. They just wander off. And it’s not personal.

2. The work of prayer is vitally important. It is the invitation to God to lead and move. And if He doesn’t, then not much is going to happen.

3. The true work and focus of discipleship is about the heart, not a to-do list. God is the only one who can change a heart, so what He does and how He works in the process is the most important part. A discipler/mentor’s role is to facilitate His work in their lives.

So how do I get a toddler to want to use the potty? How do I get a young person to want more of God in their lives?Surprisingly, the two questions aren’t as far apart as one would think.