A New Life

Have you ever awaken in the morning and lingered in bed mulling over the day ahead, the things weighing you down, or people you know who are "messed up"?  Have you ever laid there and come to the conclusion "Ugh, I wish I could just go back to sleep."  But for whatever reason, you find the motivation to get up--maybe the job awaits, the tummy starts to grumble or the bladder just won't hold out any longer.  Have you ever experienced a morning like that?

I have.  I've had more of them than I would like to have.  In fact, I'd be happy to have them no more.

Tomorrow is Easter.  This morning as I sat over my bowl of oatmeal, I pondered the full day of "mulling" that I'd already had.  I pondered the Easter message.  I pondered what Easter means to the Christian.  I pondered what Easter means to me--specifically me; given all I've been through, all that seems unfair, all that is unjust, all that I've lost, all the fears for what lies ahead, and all the frustrations it's not possible to simply walk away from no matter how much I want to.  I brought the Easter story I've heard so much--so much that it's almost become like a fairy tale cast of characters--into my own little world full of irritations that drive my mind off course.

There was no sign in my oatmeal like a word pattern in the raisins.  Oh how I wish!  There were no butterflies that mysteriously appeared on my window on this 40 degree morning bringing some revelation about life.  There was nothing but a message that materialized in my heart.  A game changer message.  Certainly not a natural conclusion from my mulling or pondering.  It's a quiet message from the Spirit.

Easter is when everything changed.  Easter is when everything for me can change.  The message of God's grace is that we don't have to be perfect.  He loves us no matter what.  He will receive us no matter what.  That's a great place to start for those who need to totally shed their poor choices, for those who need a total life change, for those who have been separated from Him and whose choices without Him have been repeated failures.

But what about those of us who aren't totally separated from Him?  What is the message of Easter for the rest of us who already know He loves us, who already believe that His ways are higher than our ways?  What about those of us who still wake up occasionally mulling over fears, frustrations, unfair situations, and mildly dreading the day we have not even begun?  I don't know about you, but I'm tired of those F-things F'ing with my life--fears, frustrations, unfairness (there was a time when my piety and "Christian propriety" would have stopped me from writing that.  But, Friends, if you read that, and you really get what I'm saying then you're meant to read this today).

We know He loves us.  We believe in Him.  We want to follow Him.  But, doggone it, things just aren't working out!  Perhaps, we suffer the same infirmity as the unbeliever, but to a different degree.  All those F-thoughts (fears, frustrations, failures, unfairness) are symptoms of a greater problem.  We haven't truly learned how to trust him T-O-T-A-L-L-Y.  We haven't truly learned how to follow Him C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y.

There's an old hymn whose words have strangely popped into my head lately "Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to Trust and Obey."

Game Changer
Easter is when everything for me (yes, that means you, the reader) can change.  The resurrection signified radical change!  The Bible says even the Earth moaned and shook at His crucifiction!  The sky got dark.  The Earth quaked.  The curtain in the temple was torn.  Remember the day the towers came down?  Remember how you felt?  You KNEW this was a game changer.  Remember that moment in your life when everything you knew changed?  A moment before, your reality was different.  One moment later, nothing would ever be the same.  Remember that moment in YOUR life?

Easter IS the game changer that came BEFORE everything we know in our reality today ever existed.  Long before our struggles, God delivered the antidote.  No, I'm not going to launch into some typical Easter message about how Jesus came to Earth to save us, died on the cross for our sins and miraculously rose again 3 days later.  That's all true.  We've heard it lots before, and it IS a very good message.  But the message I want to get across to you and to me today is HOW that changes everything in our momentary existence today.

One phrase.  Enviable joy.

How would you like to wake up every morning with the kind of joy and satisfaction that so permeates all of your cells that other people are envious of it? 

Gateway to Joy
In Jesus' agruably most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, he started by telling the masses that their low position, their tragedies, their circumstances were the gateway to enviable joy.  Here's what he said:

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,

   for they will be comforted.

⁵ Blessed are the meek,

   for they will inherit the earth.

 

And back to the application to yours and my life today.  Here's how I read this:

Blessed are you, Heather, who has endured life altering tragedy. 

Blessed are you, Heather, who has been subjected to shameful unfairness. 

Blessed are you, Heather, who has suffered the consequences of the selfish desires, confusion and misdirected lives of others.  You poor thing.  You will be rewarded someday.

If I stop there, and sometimes we do, I have every right to throw myself a pity party.  Even Jesus says that I am blessed because of the crap (Yes, I have no problem calling it as I see it.  If that word offends you then praise God right now that you probably haven't been acquainted with circumstances for which that word is sugar coating it ) I've been through.  But hold the balloons and party hats a second.  I don't FEEL blessed for what I've been through.  That's because the message didn't end there.

Before I go on.  It's worth noting that the Amplified version of the Bible expands on the word "Blessed" in this way:  "happy with life.  A joy and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation, to be envied."  So, He said that when we go through crappy circumstances in our lives, we are blessed with enviable joy.

Huh?!  Well, Lord, I mean no disrespect, but my feeble human mind is not getting it.  Crappy circumstances, check.  Enviable joy, well, that box ain't checked.  The F boxes, check.  Enviable joy, nothing.

And this is where I think we disconnect from the message.  It's a "fairy tale", an ancient story that I believe, but I don't embrace.  And I go back to my F-ful life.  The message doesn't penetrate my circumstances and my life.  But the message isn't meant to fuel our pity party.  Yes, our circumstances are painful, wrong, unjust, etc.  They truly are.  But it doesn't end there.

The sermon goes on for a couple more chapters.  Jesus goes into specific directives--do's and don'ts--about how we are to act in regard to things like worry, divorce, judging others, murder, adultery, and many other specific things.  But every directive does two things 1) it does not contradict the law of Moses--meaning what's right is still right and what's wrong is still wrong and 2) it tells us to act totally countercultural, totally against our natural notions as He directs us.  Our reactions to the rights and wrongs in the circumstances of our lives unquestionably show who we follow.  Do we follow our own blind perspective or His all-knowing, all-seeing, time-less perspective.

Strong Foundation 
He sums up the sermon with an illustration, and as with any good speech, message or teaching, the end brings the whole thing back around.  If you follow this teaching, your life will be built on a strong foundation that can withstand any hurricane, disaster, flood or circumstance that anyone subjects you to--the bad parent, the bad spouse, the unfair boss, the job you keep getting looked over for, the disease that has a hold on you or one you love, that selfish neighbor . . .  None of these people or things can make you crumble ever again because your foundation is indestructible.  You can withstand any storm with enviable joy.  Others are left with rubble.  You are solid, full of enviable joy.  Do you know anyone like this?  Jesus said in the Sermon that this life of enviable joy is a narrow path and only few find it.  So it's likely that it might be hard to identify very many people with lives of enviable joy--even among Christians.  Yet, isn't that what we are all chasing after?  Deep joy and satisfaction in our lives no matter what happens to come, what we are dealing with today or what has happened in the past.  It is actually His will--not merely our desire--that we live with enviable joy in our circumstances.  Not survival--endurance and joy.  Not whining--patience and joy.  Not a bad attitude--perseverance and joy.

Colossians 1: 11 AMP  
"¹¹[We pray] that you may be invigorated and strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, [to exercise] every kind of endurance and patience (perseverance and forbearance) with joy,

The Secret
There is one "secret" about all of this that I haven't yet shared with you.  It is the secret that underlies everything here.  It is the secret of the Sermon on the Mount.  As I said, Jesus knew our human minds needed some do's and don'ts, some concrete guidelines to follow so he illustrated some of them in his sermon.  But Jesus also said in another verse that people will hear him and not understand the message.

Matthew 13:13 

“Though seeing, they do not see;
   though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

So here's the secret.  This is the key to unlocking the message of the Sermon on the Mount.  This is the understanding that takes the hearing further.  This is the key to the narrow gate.  This is the way to life with enviable joy.  And this is the message of Easter that gives each of us a fresh start again.  We know if we believe in him and confess our sins we are forgiven--grace.  He paid a heavy price for that.  Check.  We know that he loves us no matter what, and we can't earn or buy more of it.  Check.  And now, the firm foundation, the source of enviable joy, the antidote to our circumstances, the thing that breaks through our F-ing circumstances, and the end to dreadful mornings of mulling over life is this:  Regardless of what society says, regardless of your natural reactions, trust the One who made everything including your very life and the Earth you walk on, and follow Him first, last and totally.  This isn't encapsulated in a verse.  It's encapsulated in every verse, every story, every teaching of Jesus, every old Testament story.  Does every circumstance in your life illustrate your total trust in and obedience of Him? 

If we back up in Colossians by one verse, we learn the things that preceed the patience, endurance and joy.

Colossians 1:10

¹⁰ that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

A life of enviable joy is the story of us following Him T-O-T-A-L-L-Y every single time.  Following him in every circumstance, trusting every word of instruction, every do, every don't in the Bible AND the ones he lays specifically on our hearts by the leading of the Holy Spirit.  It's doing good work and continually understanding more about Him.

Boo!
Does that scare you?  Well, the way I worded it even scares me a little.  I know before I begin that I can't be that perfect!  I know how strong my will is.  I know how tempting the things I shouldn't do are.  I'm not talking the big things like murder or stealing.  I'm talking about the less dramatic, but still important things like gossip, worry, emotional eating, fear, carrying a big gunny sack of burdens every day or a chip on my shoulder.  Thankfully, it all circles back around to grace.  While we are here we are to continually seek Him and maintain a relationship with Him.  "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you." Listen to these words in Galatians from The Message version.

"What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.” Galatians 2:20 MSG "

Fresh Start 
Easter is when everything changes.  For the Christian, it can be like New Years.  Instead of setting resolutions that give us a fresh start on the path of satisfying ourselves, we can commit ourselves to trusting him T-O-T-A-L-L-Y, following him C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y and building the foundation of our lives on His radical, counter-cultural ways.  What F-ing things do we have to lose?  Easter is when every circumstance changes for (insert your name here).  You and I are going to trust Him totally with our lives and circumstances, follow Him completely in every circumstance and situation.  We are called blessed in our circumstances because they bring us to Him, and He promises he will never leave us or forsake us.  That means he will never abandon or disown us in our circumstances--whether we've created it or someone else has.  There is joy and satisfaction in His saving us from our sins and from our circumstances.  And God will grant us his favor just like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, and we will know an unshakable, enviable joy that has nothing to do with our circumstances.

Time to Get Real
Name a circumstance that has you burdened right now, or, heck, name all of them!  Imagine for a minute what it would look like to replace how you feel about it right now with enviable joy!  Can you imagine it?  I'm not talking about a result that makes you joyful.  I'm talking about the very same circumstances, but a different you.  How do you do that?  Nothing changed?  Unlike a resolution that has you working for months or years, this change can happen almost immediately.  In the next post, let's go backwards through this while you keep your mind focused on at least one of your circumstances.

We know we desire enviable joy in our lives (or maybe you just desire a little enviable peace in your life.  There are several verses that say the peace of God will be with you when you follow Him.  See Phillipians 4:8-9)  Next time, I will illustrate this with a personal example.  You won't want to miss this one!