Faith – Page 5 – Betty's Thoughts

Running Into The Arms of Jesus

IMPORTANT NOTE: This was written over 10 years ago (and originally published May 13, 2012), when certain wounds were fresher and not as healed as they are now. The truth of this blog still holds for me but I am not currently in the middle of this kind of intense pain.

There are times when tears come unexpectedly for me. When my emotions feel close to the surface, ready to spill over. A day feels melancholy. Or I feel knots starting to form in my stomach. I feel particularly lonely. Something pokes at an old wound or something hard looms on the horizon. It feels like the lies I’ve worked so hard to not believe suddenly find new weak points in me to attack. Or maybe I’m suddenly tired – of working full time, or of having to be strong, or of being alone. I woke up this morning realizing it was going to be one of those days.

The unexpected part is that most days these same things could exist and they aren’t a burden, I may barely notice them, and they don’t bring tears to my eyes. I don’t spend my days working up energy to “be strong”. I enjoy my life – it’s not a constant struggle. My normal quietness is peaceful, not melancholic.

So what causes two similar days, in terms of circumstances, to feel so different? I can usually identify possible triggers for the emotions. But why are those triggers no big deal most days, yet seem to get their hooks in me on other occasions?

I don’t know why. I do know I have friends that I can call or ask for prayer. It’s both good and wise to do that. I do know that this will pass. I do know that even on these days, I can have extended periods of good “distraction” – where being with people feels normal and life-giving. But that doesn’t always “solve” the problem and the emotional fragility returns after that time is over.

At the core, sometimes I just need Jesus. Not in my normal quiet times, not in my typical prayer times, not in the wonderful gift of friends. I just need Him.

An old hymn, I Will Arise and Go To Jesus, has this chorus:

I will arise and go to Jesus,

He will embrace me in His arms;

In the arms of my dear Savior,

Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

So I run to Jesus, desperate for His arms around me. Not wanting to talk or think or analyze or take the steps I’ve learned in counseling. Just wanting to be held. And knowing that His arms are my safe place, my best protection from the things that hurt and ultimately where I will find what I need.

Is It Conviction? Or Condemnation?

Revised from an original post on May 6, 2021

I’ve been thinking about the difference between conviction and condemnation – and there is a basic truth I come back to time and time again. This is not a theological treatise. It’s a general rule of thumb that I believe is true.*

The Holy Spirit convicts of sin. We know we’ve done something that needs to be taken care of. Conviction, in my experience, is specific and it relates to the action and not to your identity. You told a particular lie, you cheated a particular person, you were cruel to someone you know. You did a particular thing that you know was wrong.

When we bring this to God and others, and take appropriate actions to make things as right as we can with another person, the relational distance between us and God is taken care of and the Holy Spirit reassures us of that.

The goal of this type of conviction is the restoration of your sense of relationship. It creates closeness and intimacy, freedom and joy. It is based on truth.

Condemnation, on the other hand, is from the enemy. He may try to disguise it as conviction but condemnation tends to be general rather than specific and it attacks who you are rather than what you did. “You’re a liar.” “You always destroy relationships.” “You’re an awful person.”

Attempts to earn your way out of condemnation (“I’ll try to be better”) don’t work. Acceptance (“Everything really is my fault.”) leaves you stuck in despair. And confession can seem to dig the hole deeper – because the enemy has created a scenario that is fundamentally different from conviction. If you confess and nothing seems to change, it can keep the cycle going by seeming to provide proof that you’re the problem and it’s unsolvable.

The goal of condemnation is the destruction of relationship. It creates distance and isolation, bondage and despair. It is based on lies.

So how do we deal with condemnation?

Learn to identify the “voice”, to be able to discern between conviction and condemnation.
Cling to the promise in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Don’t let the lies or the partial truths of the enemy rob you of this reality.
Let the Lord speak truth to your heart, especially about how He sees you. Listen for His still, small voice. Look to scripture. For example, Zephaniah 3:17 says this: “For the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”
Ask the Lord to examine your heart, to bring conviction where appropriate and to give you courage to make things right with Him and with others. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24.
Relax, as much as you can in the midst of your struggles, in His love and trustworthiness. You don’t have to earn it. He wants you to feel securely loved. One of my lifelines has been: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” (1 John 4:16a). I’ve clung to that at times when everything else was falling apart, when attacks were coming non-stop.

So – is it conviction? Or condemnation? Is it truth? Or is it lie? It’s crucial to learn the difference.

*For this, I’m speaking primarily to those already in relationship with Jesus. I’m not talking about the work of the Holy Spirit that initially draws us to Him.

Is It Really Good News?

Originally posted in April 2012. But this has continued to be one of the biggest challenges to me personally as I try to articulate to others what my faith means to me.

I’m struck by a particular detail in the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. It’s not her outcast status or even the fact that Jesus took the unusual step in His culture of having a conversation (a theological one at that!) with a woman.

What I’m struck by is what she says when she runs excitedly back into town. “Come, meet a man who told me everything I ever did.” She goes on to wonder whether He could be the Messiah, but her opening excitement is that He told her everything she had ever done – including that she had had five husbands and was not married to the man she was living with.

And it appears to have been good news to her, freeing news to her, to meet a man like that. The town knew the details of her life and they used them to shame her. Jesus knew the details of her life and He used them to bring her into relationship with Him.

It makes me wonder. When we interact with people, or when we introduce people to Jesus, do they come away feeling they’ve encountered “good news”? News that produces freedom and life and relationship rather than shame and guilt and distance. Do we speak of grace but in reality impose law? Do we exude the abundant life Jesus promises or do we focus on what they have to give up?

Lauren Winner, in her book Real Sex (The Naked Truth About Chastity), says that the church has typically not done a good job of presenting chastity as “good news”. I think it’s a common problem, impacting many areas of our lives. We wrestle with the call to holiness and the good news somehow becomes a list of dos and don’ts.

I’m not talking about tossing truth out the window or not ever addressing the issue of sin. I also know we are called to live holy lives, that we are to be different than the world around us. Discipleship requires us to address thorny issues. Our actions matter. Sin is not to be taken lightly. Jesus Himself told the woman caught in adultery to “go and sin no more” – but He did so after a grace-filled interaction (John 8).

At some point I will probably write about confronting people and speaking the hard truth, about facing consequences of unwise or sinful choices, about setting appropriate boundaries. Scripture tells us we need to do those things and it tells us how to do them. It’s not that I don’t believe those things are important. It’s just that it is not what this post is about.

This is about the good news of encountering a God who knows everything about us – all the ugly parts, all the regrets, all the things we would like to keep hidden – but who speaks good news into that in a way that transforms lives. That makes an outcast woman run into town and invite those who shun her to follow her back to the well because she has encountered someone who changed her life. Jesus was full of grace and truth. His conversations set people free. I want to be like that.

Don’t Settle For Peace – Press On To Joy

[Originally written 4/15/12 but there’s a substantial update in this posting. In the last decade I’ve moved more comfortably into joy and what that looks like in me.]

To be deeply peaceful – no matter what the circumstances – is something I’ve learned in the last decade or so. When I first wrote this, I was coming out of the most painful season of my life. The Lord had worked on the level of fear in my life, I’d been through excruciating grief, I’d wrestled with whether I was lovable. There had been a lot – and recognizing that I can have deep and abiding and sustaining peace in the midst of those things was one of the gifts of that journey. There can be a solid peacefulness that co-exists with intense pain.

Peace came pretty naturally to me in those days – and is still a solid pillar in my life now. When something challenges it, I know the steps to regain it. It takes more than it used to to disturb the peacefulness I feel, and when it does get disturbed it’s not the same struggle to get back there. Jesus promised us that His peace is different from the world’s peace – and I’ve experienced that.

But I was once challenged to not settle just for peace, but to press on to joy. This was earlier in my journey and the advice giver acknowledged that after a long season of pain and anguish, he knew that arriving at a place of peace felt really good. But he encouraged me to press on until I reached joy. For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. (Heb. 12:2)

But what does joy look like in me? Ten years ago, here is what I felt: Despite huge amounts of breaking free from it, I’m still shy in most settings. I don’t have the bubbly personality where joy spills over infectiously. I’m quieter by nature. I don’t spontaneously blurt out the things that indicate joy. Shyness creates unique challenges in this area. The fear of embarrassment is still a struggle for me. It seems as if peacefulness suits my personality better than joy does.

But I had a nagging sense that the Lord had more for me.

It’s not that joy was not present. I did think I had pressed past peace and into joy. It’s that I didn’t know how to make it visible. I often think that if I could change one thing about myself, it most likely would be this. I’d like to be more expressive to those around me – especially in the things that indicate joy and delight. But there I was, still quiet and shy about it.

A few days before writing this ten years ago, something caused a blip in my peacefulness and my joy. It hurt and it was unfair and I spent one evening doing a little bit of grieving. I brought a handful of people alongside me. The peace began to flow back in.

And I realized this at that point – the reminder to press on to joy was coming more automatically those days. It had become an integral extension of peace. Whether or not I would ever be able to express it in a way that others could see, I did know that the joy of the Lord is my strength.

In the decade since then, I have learned to be more comfortable with a quiet joy. My shyness is still there, but not as controlling. I still have times when I wish I could be “the fun one”. But I also am very comfortable with who I am.

I still think I live more comfortably in “peace,” but “joy” is also a fruit of the Spirit and I want my life to be characterized by it as well. The Lord has stretched me in the last decade – and I am bit by bit relaxing into it in new ways.

What I Know For Sure

[Originally published 4/1/12. Still true for me today.]

Oprah often asks her guests – in her TV interviews and in her magazine – this question: “What do you know for sure?”

Of the many ways I could answer that, here is one that remains constant. I know for sure that Jesus understands a woman’s heart.

It started out being “I know that Jesus understands us.” A Palm Sunday sermon when I was in my 30s took that truth from a head knowledge to a more powerful heart connection. The gist of the sermon was that Jesus, during His time on earth, and especially during the events of Holy Week, knew what it felt like to be lonely, to be misunderstood, to have the “system” (both religious and legal) that was supposed to protect people turn against Him, to have friends break promises, betray Him and not be there for Him. The list could go on and on.

The point is – it hit me in a new and powerful way that I was not only forgiven, I was understood. My specifics might not line up with what Jesus experienced, but the comfort of knowing that my emotions were understood became real.

Fast forward a lot of years and I found myself struggling to breathe (metaphorically) because the pain of a marriage that ended was so great, the betrayal so agonizing. In reality, it had been coming for a long time but those early weeks and months after the separation took the pain to a new level.

I found myself reading the gospels and becoming acutely aware of Jesus’ encounters with women. There’s the woman who anointed His feet, the woman at the well, the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, mothers whose children died, women who needed physical or spiritual healing, and the list goes on. Luke even specifically refers to the women who financially supported Jesus’ ministry out of their own means, giving them names – not just referring to them as someone’s wife.

I was a broken-hearted woman reading these stories, someone whose core identity as a wife and a woman had been trampled on. And here’s what I saw – a lot of little details that brought hope to my heart: Jesus looked into their eyes, He praised them in front of the crowd and He took specific steps to restore them to community (i.e., to alleviate their shame and their isolation). He acknowledged and received their faith and their love – and treated both of those as precious gifts. I have journal pages full of the emotions connected to the understanding and comfort that were embedded in those encounters.

The non-stop intensity of the agony passed, the healing began, I could breathe again, do what I needed to do and even thrive. And I knew this for sure: Jesus understands a woman’s heart.

Saying No … to the right things

[This was originally published on 3/26/12 and still resonates with me. For those of us who are “doers”, who are wired to meet needs, it’s hard to say “no” – even when it is the right thing.]

Is it possible that Kingdom work is as much about what we say “No” to as it is about what we say “Yes” to? This is not headed toward a legalistic, moralistic list of “dos” and “don’ts” related primarily to behavior! It’s also not primarily about saying “no” to harmful, unproductive, or wasteful things.

I believe there are times when we need to say “no” to good things, to unmet needs and to Kingdom work.

There are two stories – almost back to back in the gospel of Luke – that have challenged me for years. In Luke 4:14-30, Jesus has just finished His testing in the wilderness and He returns home to Nazareth. He attends the synagogue, reads the Messianic passage from Isaiah 61*, and announces that “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” There’s an exchange with the crowd about no prophet being recognized in his home town and Jesus is driven, by the crowd, out of town to the edge of a hillside where they intend to throw him off the cliff. “But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” (v. 30).

A few verses later (verses 40-44), we find Jesus in Capernaum at the home of Simon. Beginning when the Sabbath ended at sunset, people brought a steady stream of the sick and demon-possessed to Him and He healed them. This continues throughout the night until Jesus retreats to a solitary place at daybreak. The people find Him and try to keep Him from leaving. “But he said, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.’” (verse 43).

So where’s the challenge? For me it comes in several forms.

In the midst of people who know me, who may not think I can do something, am I willing to hold fast and trust my sense of call? To not let their perception of me cloud who God says I am?

For me, a deep rejection which is then followed by an adoring crowd, would make the adoring crowd an enticing place to stay. Do I have the courage – and the sense of call – to move on, not knowing what is ahead in terms of acceptance or rejection?

Can I leave things “undone” or “unfinished” when it is not my role to finish them? As I read this passage, my assumption is that there were needs Jesus did not meet in Capernaum. More sick people. More demon possessed people. More suffering. More people to inspire and nurture. And He walks away from that. He says “No” – not always an easy thing for us to say in Christian circles where we are inundated with requests to meet needs. He says “No” to real ministry opportunities in order to be obedient to His greater calling.

In many ways, this last one is the hardest for me. It doesn’t feel right to see what needs to be done and then not do it. How do I keep my eyes on the bigger picture when the little picture is so immediate and so compelling?

I don’t have a definitive answer. I know it involves listening to the Holy Spirit, growing in intimacy with the Lord so that I recognize His voice, and asking others to help me discern. I know that there are small “yeses” that I’m not supposed to stress over.

But even after 20 years [now 30 years] of being challenged by this, I’m not always sure I can say that I know what I am sent to do. So, even at this stage of my life, I long for increasing pieces of that knowledge and the vision of what that looks like – as well as occasional reminders that I am created and sent for a purpose.

*Isaiah 61:1 – The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.

Why look back now?

[Note: I originally thought I’d hold off on new content – aside from a bit of context/updating – until I had revisted my journey of the last 11 years. But as I’ve looked back at where I’ve been, I find new thoughts stirring. For instance, it feels right to explain what prompted me to do this at this time. It’s a new part of my story. So I have decided to occasionally interject new content. I will generally identify it as new and it will most likely appear as the featured post, pinned to the top of the blog. This will allow new thoughts to be added, and given attention, while still providing a way to retell the other parts of my journey. Those older journey posts will likely come pretty often. If you’ve already followed that part of my story, feel free to ignore those notifications. If my story is new to you, just know that fairly constant posting will only be for this beginning season.]

One of the things I love about Scripture is it’s ability to impact me differently in different seasons of my life. Not that truth changes. But I see things I hadn’t noticed before. My life experiences give me new filters for looking at it and additional context for processing it. In some cases, with elapsed time I’ve stripped away some inappropriate cultural reading of it. Different things jump out at me depending on my level of woundedness or healing. And so on.

Last fall I was part of a Bible study group that looked at the Old Testament book of Joshua. It’s the story of the Israelites settling in the promised land after 40 years of wandering in the desert. I’m familiar with the events. The book contains the first Biblical character I ever identified with as a quiet teenager just trying to faithfully follow the Lord. There’s a lot of richness in the stories – and plenty of things to wrestle with as well.

I was expecting a good study. I was not expecting a strong challenge.

Over and over in Joshua, we see Joshua encouraging the tribes to “fully inherit” the land. They were occupying it. They were raising families there. They were planting crops and tending livestock and making it home. But the instruction still came to “fully inherit” it.

It was that sense of “there’s more” that struck me, that felt like a new observation. They had stopped short of what God had for them. They were missing out – and I believe they were missing out on both the personal level (God wanted to bless them) and on the role God was calling them to in the world.

In my life, I often feel prompted to “spend time with the Lord”, asking Him a particular question or about a particular subject. I don’t believe there’s one set format for doing that. For me, it might be journaling – writing the question and then writing whatever comes to mind, trusting that any necessary sorting out or discernment will happen as part of the process. It might be taking a walk without listening to anything as I do – just talking to myself in my mind while I try to listen to what the Lord might be saying. Or a similar process while driving. It can be more prayer-like, in the way people tend to think of prayer – but with times of quiet so that I can listen.

And how the Lord speaks to me can vary as well. Impressions, thoughts that feel out of character for me, what comes out during journaling, a sense of peace as I think about certain options, things jumping out at me as I read Scripture or other authors. I’ve learned to be honest with myself and that’s part of discerning what I hear – I tend to know when a challenge is good and right for me, even if I’m tentative or fearful. I also have others that I trust and I can turn to them for their wisdom, discernment and confirmation.

During and after the Joshua study, this was the one of the areas I felt prompted to ask the Lord about: What do You have for me that I have not fully stepped into? Where have I stopped short of something you want me to do (or that you want to bless me with)?

That’s where this blog comes in. For a few months I’ve felt the answer was “writing”. When I first started blogging 11 years ago, I was fairly consistent. It faded over the years – 8 posts in the last 5-1/2 years. I still don’t anticipate blogging on a specific schedule – as I say in “About Me” I only share when I think it’s worth sharing. I don’t have plans to grow this through my own efforts – although I love when friends and readers share it with others. I just believe I’m supposed to start writing again – and since the blogging platform at work has been through some substantial changes which make it more inaccessible, it felt like time to launch on a new platform.

I do know that at times my thoughts, my experiences and my journey resonate with others. It has opened up individual conversations at times in ways that I hope bring encouragement. And it has invited challenges from those whose experiences are different from mine. I love that as well.

So once again I’m stepping out in faith as I relaunch my blog.

Fear Not?

Update: This was originally published on 2/23/2012. No longer operating with fear as the largest controlling factor in my life is probably the biggest change of the last 15 years.

I am not, by nature or inclination, a risk taker. Those who knew me years ago would not list that among my traits. Current friends probably wouldn’t either – but there’s a subtle difference and it’s the role that fear plays. For most of my life, fear consistently got in the way. But then an interesting thing began to happen – both before I originally wrote this post and in the years since then.

The grip that fear had on me, the role it played in my decision-making, changed.

As I weathered devastating personal storms, drew closer to Jesus, became more aware of the profound needs and injustices in the world and began in deeper ways to yearn for God’s kingdom to grow on earth, I found myself restless, wanting something “more”. The “more” was not about things, job, security, or leisure time. Instead, I yearned to be fully engaged in the adventure of what God is doing in the world – and in me.

To pursue this meant some big changes. It meant my life could no longer be ruled by fear or by the lies that would derail me. I could no longer be immobilized by a list of “what ifs”.

The outward look of what I do was not what determined this. It was an internal shift that said I would not let fear put constraints on whether I would say ‘yes’ to the Holy Spirit’s nudge, and I would not let complacency set my life’s path.

I originally wrote much of this in early 2011 – as part of my initial fundraising materials. (To be on staff at Adventures in Missions, I must meet a fundraising goal that offsets my salary.) I took significant steps during 2011 and early 2012. The move to Georgia to join the team at Adventures was a huge one. Starting the blog was a smaller step. When this started I not completely overcome fear – and 11 years later I still haven’t – but I’m SO much further along. I still move slowly and cautiously in some things. Part of that slow and cautious approach is okay and it’s part of the value that I can “bring to the table.” But other parts may still need to be broken loose. And as I revisit this journey, I will talk about the process I’ve gone through.

When I started the original blog, there was a lot I didn’t know about what was ahead, but this much I did know – I hoped to spend the rest of my life taking new steps toward fully saying “yes” to Jesus.

Looking Back at the Beginning

In early 2010 I was getting serious about the possibility of a major transition. I had danced around this for years – feeling a restlessness that never completely went away. Do I make a change or not? How do I know if there’s “something else” out there? What’s the wise thing to do? I had lived in Connecticut longer than I had lived anywhere in my whole life. I couldn’t imagine leaving my friends. What if I failed? The list went on and on.

In January of that year, I discovered this prayer and it put into words what I yearned for: Lord, help me now to unclutter my life, to organize myself in the direction of simplicity. Lord, teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it. Lord, I give you these stirrings inside me. I give you my discontent. I give you my restlessness. I give you my doubt. I give you my despair. I give you all the longings I hold inside. Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth; help me to listen seriously and follow where they lead through the breathtaking empty space of an open door. (Prayer for a Major Life Transition, from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne)

In the weeks following this prayer’s entrance into my life, I did move forward. The restlessness and the sense of call to move into a new ministry phase could no longer be ignored. It was time to say “yes” without holding back. Even with the scary parts. So by July I had sold my house, packed my stuff into storage pods, loaded my car and I found myself at Adventures in Missions.

It was the beginning of an amazing journey. About a year into it, however, I felt the Holy Spirit’s nudging toward another leap of faith. That is what this blog was for me. I knew it was a smaller leap of faith than leaving friends and moving 1,000 miles, but I tend to over-analyze things – and that can immobilize me. What do I write about? How often? Is it an update, a devotional, a connecting place? I didn’t know. And that was my leap of faith – starting something that I didn’t have figured out. This much I did know – it was time to leap. And for now, that has to be enough.

[This was my first post, in February of 2012. The next few weeks/months on this blog will largely be revisiting the previous posts I’ve written, editing them and moving them to this new platform. New material may occur from time to time but will largely be after I get everything else transferred.]

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