To trust or not to trust

One of the things that holds me back from fully surrendering to God is the question of trust.  I grew up in a family where I was taught that God would meet all my needs.  You know, there's that verse that says that, "And God shall supply all your needs, according to his riches in glory."

Really, that's the way that our family justified the choices we made.  We made a lot of sacrifices so that my parents could be "in ministry."  And we walked forward into difficult things believing that God would meet needs that maybe we were leaving behind.

There's a comfort in that belief--that God will somehow pick up the slack and take care of the things that we can't or won't do.  Because, after all, that's what he's supposed to do.  That's what he said he would do.

But then there have been times where my needs were most assuredly not being met.  There were times that I didn't have the things or the people that I needed in my life.  I was hurt and I simply legitimately needed things that weren't available to me.

And even though I rationally kind of made it through those issues--I somehow came to a place where I rationally understood that (only God knows why) God chooses to work through people, and we screw things up all the time, so that at least the possibility exists that God wants to meet needs through his people, he even asks or burdens people to be there and do those things, and they're just not listening.

But at the end of the day, that didn't really solve my problem.  Because if I was going to take risks in my life and step out by faith and have to trust that God would take care of me, how could I really do that?  The system is messed up.  Either God doesn't actually meet every need, or his people aren't paying attention and it's not getting done.  It's much easier (safer, more comfortable) to just make sure that my own needs are met.

So how do you make it through to the other side?  How do you actually have faith to take a risk?  For me, that issue was an emotional issue, not a rational one.  I could rationalize an answer just fine, but that didn't actually answer the issue I had in my heart.  No matter what I thought about it, it wasn't until I was able to confront those fears, those accusations against God, even, that I could move forward and walk in faith and trust again.  I had to go through this process, a relational, emotional process, of working through those emotions.  First I had to own them, which meant I had to admit them to myself.  And then I had to take the risk of actually talking about them with God, and really surrendering them to him.  It was then that I could hear the truth from Scripture about who God really is.

One of the things that I've learned these last few years about recognizing a person's barriers to faith is that they're not much different from my own barriers to faith.  Learning the skill of seeing into another person's heart starts with being brave enough and honest enough to see into my own heart.  And then, having confronted my own barriers and walked down that scary road, I can recognize and then have compassion and empathy for those who are making their own way through.

Just a day in the life...

I’m typing this from the middle of a prison classroom.  All the students were called back to their cells for some kind of count, so I’m sitting here passing the time until they’re able to come back.

For the most part, prisons are a gross waste of humanity.  I know that it’s popular to be all “law and order-- you do the crime, you do the time.”  It seems sometimes like that’s the only thing that all the political parties agree about.  But I spend about 80 hours a year right now teaching prisoners, and I see that they have so much potential.

Yes, they’ve made some bad choices.  Most of the guys I’m teaching right now are in for murder, actually (shh... don’t tell my mom).  They’ve taken human life in a way that’s not justified.  The victims of their crimes probably believe that they will not be in here long enough.

But these men have minds.  They have souls.  They have a creative spirit that longs for freedom in the same way that yours or mine does.  They can be kind.  They have unique and individual personality, hopes, dreams, and needs.

What does it mean to love these men the way that Christ would?  What does it mean to walk with them in this world, or to visit them in prison the way that Jesus talked about them in Matthew 25? 

The gospel is that not even murder can separate us from the love of Christ.  The gospel story is that, in that mysterious, cosmic way, Jesus took the penalty that these men deserve for their absolute violation of morality and human value. 

The government still has to figure out what to do with them, how to maintain order, how to protect future victims from coming to harm in the same way.  I get that.  But the truth of the gospel frees me up to treat them with dignity and respect and with the love of Christ.

If God has already judged their conduct and offered up his own son to pay whatever penalty, then who am I to condemn them?  Who am I to look at them and say they have no value or worth in this world?

When I treat them like they’re valuable human beings instead of some thrown-away prisoner-number, I think that has the power to transform.  That’s the power of the gospel, in living, breathing form, and it has the power to soften and to heal and to spark a desire for good and for positive change.  And for God.  What God can do with that, maybe I’ll never know.  But I trust that he’s able to work through it and in it.  And I’m trusting that he is.

The blurry lenses of culture

When I was 13 years old, my family moved overseas, to Singapore, to live.  It was a really interesting time to leave my home country and find myself plopped down into a whole new world.

I was a pretty contemplative, observant kid, and so I just soaked in the culture.  I watched what people did.  I listened to what people said.  I began to separate culture from beliefs, from worldview, and from values.  I remember learning about the parlimentary system there, and how there are multiple parties, but only one ever has been (and probably ever will be) in power.  I remember asking to use the bathroom and having a lady lead me back to her bedroom suite, the only bathroom that had a bathtub.  I remember reading American magazines that were painting dark skin as desirable, and then hanging out with my Singaporean friends who were jealous because of how pale I was (yes, really!).

I think it was about then that I realized how we so often want exactly what we don't have.  And our whole culture values something that is scarce to us, but could be abundant somewhere else.  And I think it made me look at everything differently.  It made me question which of my beliefs were truly true, and which we just held on to because they were comfortable to our culture.  It made me wonder whether what my culture told me about beauty was really true.

Similarly, when I went to church in Singapore, I found that they focused on different "truths" than we did here.  What they were totally concerned about was in the Bible, but we just didn't pay as much attention to it as they did.  That made me wonder how we decide what is the most important.  Everyone says that they are taking what they believe straight out of the Bible.  But my life experience caused me to question which really came first... did my church really look at the Bible and then allow it to form our culture and beliefs?  Or did my culture and cultural beliefs form what my church thought was important and worth emphasizing?

This experience forced me to conclude that we really do read a lot into what we believe is "truth."  Based on our culture, our experiences, our lives, our values... we take those things with us when we read.  If I come from a culture that values community over individualism (like Singapore), I'm going to read about the call to Christian community with totally different expectations than I will as a Westerner. The Westerners that I know can't even conceive of the reality of living 12 people to a 3-bedroom flat, and all the cooperation that entails.

Technology has made the world smaller.  One of the consequences of that is that people are confronted with different ways of living and believing and existing at a really young age.  For me that experience was a shock to the system - I was thrust into another culture where I couldn't help but recognize the differences.  Today's generations are growing up exposed to all different worldviews and tolerating those is fairly natural.  I think this probably contributes to the skepticism about "absolute truth."  As I've said before, I think it's less an issue of people believing there is no absolute truth, and more an issue of thinking there's no way to know what that is.  How can I really separate myself so utterly and completely from my own life experience, values, and culture to be able to say that I know for sure what that passage really means?  And if you try to tell me that  you are completely separating yourself, I'll probably laugh at you.

So what does all this mean?  I think the beginning of every conversation about truth has to be the admission that I see through my own experiences and culture.  If we can agree about that, then maybe we can begin to talk about our different perceptions and how to figure out what the truth is, even though we know that we can't find it perfectly.  Until then, I think that modernists and post-modern, post-Christian people are just going to keep talking past each other.

Why would you do something like that?

Inevitably, I get the question "How can you be a defense attorney?"  Or, "How can you defend someone you know is guilty?"

I give a standard answer.  The defense attorney is there to check the power of the police and the prosecutors.  The defense attorney is there to make sure that the constitution is followed, so that the defendant's rights are protected.  If the defendant's rights are violated today, the police are going to be walking into my house without a warrant tomorrow.  Those are important ideals--definitely worth working for.

But I have a deeper reason for the representation too.  It comes from my belief that all people are made in God's image and are therefore valuable.  No matter what someone has done, that person is valued by God enough that Jesus came and lived and died for them.  So they are worth treating with dignity and respect.  Often the system is an inhuman and inhumane system that steamrolls over people.  I can be the touch of humanity that allows the defendant to be listened to, if not always understood.

My job is really about mitigating the damages that the client has caused in his own life.  Very rarely is it possible to "get someone off" scot-free.  But it is possible to tell the client's story to the people who have power over his future because of his bad decisions.  In every case, I'm the only person who's shouting from the rooftops the mitigating circumstances.  Not everyone who commits a crime actually does it with malice and should have the book thrown at him.  In fact, a surprising percentage of my clients turn out to have mental disabilities.  They desperately need protection and advocacy.

Maybe this will change for me if and when I'm representing someone who has given himself or herself over to evil.  I know those people exist; they just haven't come my way yet.  I'm sure that I'll have to work through that when that day comes.

But for now I'm left with that picture from Matthew 25, where Jesus is talking about how we will know at the end of time who his followers actually are: 

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

I think that my clients are "the least of these" in our society, and it's really a privilege to be able to love them, minister to them, and advocate for them in a very real, very practical way. 

From Bitterness to Peace

I have a friend, we'll call him Joe, who has had kind of a rough history with his family.  A few years back, Joe said some hard things about the spouse of one of his sisters, mostly because of the way the guy was treating the rest of the family, and there's been a rift in the family ever since.  Joe's sister barely speaks to him now.  And Joe's sister's husband is usually as mean and cruel to Joe as he can possibly be.

A while back, Joe had a major verbal argument with his sister and her husband, stemming from all the water under the bridge.  He came to see me that evening, and we talked about how to handle the situation.  Joe was understandably angry.  He was furious.  But it was clear to me (the objective outsider... ah yes, how easy it is to see things when you're not right in the middle of it) that the anger had already begun to turn to bitterness.  I let Joe vent for a couple of minutes, and then I simply said.  "Joe, I think this is an opportunity for you.  I think you need to pray that God would give you love for your sister and brother-in-law again."

Cue the chirping crickets.  It was dead silent for at least 10 seconds.  And then Joe protested.  And I just said, "Joe, the anger and bitterness has the power to destroy your soul, if you let it.  You've got to surrender that to God, and let him transform you.  This is the opportunity to see God at work in your heart and your life, to remake you to be more like Jesus."

I left that evening not knowing whether Joe would follow through.  Two paths were clearly in front of him.  One to death and destruction--of relationships, of the ability to love and find joy, of many things.  The other was the path toward life and wholeness and healing.

It's been a long year.  But when I talk to Joe now about his sister & her husband, he's different.  He has a softness and a gentleness toward them.  He sees a little more where they're coming from and can look past some of their offenses against him and the rest of his family.  He clearly took the path toward life, and now he's reaping the benefit of peace in his soul.

This is just an amazing story to me.  It's the gospel--the story of how God transforms people from the inside out.  We can make ourselves conform to spiritual expectations on the outside.  We can do all the right things, and say all the right things.  But transformation of who we are on the inside and what we naturally want to do--to lash out in anger or frustration or hatred--that's only changed by the power of the Spirit living inside of us.  And that change only happens when we surrender.

Transformation to being a people of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control--that is the fruit of a surrendered, spirit-filled life.  The surrender part is difficult.  It's scary.  It's counter-intuitive. 

But the fruit is something you can live with, that you can live in, that gives you rest.

So Joe, if you want to know how to know that you're a follower of Christ, this is your answer.  It's clear that you are.  Not because of everything you're doing on the outside.  But because you've given God permission to transform you from the inside out.  It's such a privilege to be your friend and to be able to walk beside you on this journey.

One Skin, Many Worlds

One thing I always struggle with is how to live in the same skin in all kinds of situations.

It's really easy to separate the spiritual from the rest of life, and we get lots of encouragement to do that from both the church and our culture.  In church, it's like if you just do this list of things, that's enough.  Just read your Bible, pray, go to church, volunteer, and that's it.  We're not always encouraged to allow those things we know about who God is to transform every area of our life.  It's so much easier not to.

And outside the church, in the regular world, being a spiritual person is just fine, as long as it doesn't impinge on conversations or another person's freedom.  Spirituality is mostly viewed like something that should be a private thing--not really to be talked about or shared with just anyone.

So I probably err on the side of not sharing much at first about that part of my life.  But because it's so central to everything I am and everything I do, that basically means that I do a lot of listening and not a lot of talking at first.  I guess that's normal for me anyway, being an introvert.

Many times that means that people don't ever really get to know me.  But once in a while, I actually make a real friend.  It's usually someone who takes an interest in my life too.  And we get to talking.  Maybe it's some justice issue that we're both passionate about.  Maybe it's how taxing law school and legal work is.  Maybe it's something entirely different.  But in that situation, talking about my spirituality becomes normal.  It's not always comfortable.  Sometimes it feels like a can of worms is being opened, because I never know where people are at and what their experience with God and the church has been in the past.  But as we talk about life and how we approach it (yeah, I think most of my friends have a semi-philosophical bent), without fail I have to talk about my faith and what it means to me. 

What I've learned is that, in this context, it usually doesn't drive people away.  It usually doesn't have any of that hostility or skepticism you'd find if you were talking to a stranger.  It's just a normal part of sharing my heart and my life with the people around me. 

And sometimes it actually means something.  If I'm living my life as a "good" person, sometimes it gives credibility to the message of God.  Sometimes it can begin to undo hostility that's been caused by other people who call themselves Christ-followers who have unintentionally caused harm.  But sometimes it just is.  And most times I never know whether it means something or not.  My prayer is that I'm never one of those Christ-followers who causes another person harm.

Surrender

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of "surrender."  The word itself conjures up pictures of a battlefield and a white flag waving in the breeze.  But in the context of faith, I think that's the one word I would say could define what I believe relationship with God is all about.

This idea of surrender has been coming up in conversations I've had with a close friend about measuring spirituality.  Both of us grew up in a church culture that taught us to measure spirituality by the external things we did to conform to that culture - maybe it was reading the Bible or praying, or maybe it was wearing dresses and acting respectfully in church.  But I see a lot more in Jesus's teachings about our inner attitudes of the heart and being open to allowing him to move in and through us.  The Pharisees were pretty excited about external measures of faith too... and Jesus was always challenging them that they were "whitewashed tombs" - dead on the inside but looking pretty good on the outside.

Romans 12 talks about offering yourself as a living sacrifice to God, and the Old Testament is filled with pictures of holiness, or the idea that God's people are to be set apart and consecrated to the service of God.

If that's the heart of what it means to walk with God, then I think that this attitude of surrender is really relevant to how to walk through barriers to faith.  If we see faith as a relationship with a being, then barriers are an opportunity to be vulnerable and real and honest about where we are.  Once we identify these barriers, we can offer them to God and invite him to work in them and through them to bring us into closer relationship with him and to make us more like him.

The constant challenge is to abide Christ.  Jesus spoke about this in John 15.  The life that he describes in that passage sounds wonderful, yet so undefined.  The picture he gives is of a vine, giving life to its branches.  The branches have to stay rooted and fed and watered through that vine, or they will die.

I think barriers to faith are an opportunity to choose to abide.  We can allow those barriers to choke out the life and nourishment of the Vine, or we can use them as opportunities to return to the Vine and to ask the hard questions.  With emotional barriers in particular, it's important to give voice to the emotion and the pain that has created the barrier.  It's only when we recognize and give voice to those things that the Vine, who is also the Truth, is able to speak to and minister to and nurture our growth.

It's always a leap of faith--this surrender, this choice to abide.  But until we are willing to daily take that leap in our own lives, it's really hard to be the voice of encouragement and support to those around us who are struggling with their own barriers to relationship with God.