My Thoughts on Sandy Hook Elementary

            By nature, I’m a “figure it out” sort of person. I like to find patterns with causes and effects that explain why things happen. To me, cause and effect give meaning to the universe. They give me a framework for understanding why things happen and predicting what will happen next. Unfortunately, the universe doesn’t always conform to my paradigm. Case in point: Sandy Hook Elementary.

            Evil is evil. There’s no accounting for it. There really is no deeper meaning, no rationale. Breaking into an elementary school and gunning down 20 beautiful little children is just evil. And as much as I want to make sense of it, there is no sense to be made. Evil is senseless. I think trying to find a reason cheapens the deaths of those babies, as though something could in any way explain why they had to die. Nothing can explain that. There is no cause equal to the effect of the murder of 26 human beings. There is evil in the world. It is real. Bad things happen for no obvious reason.

            This is why I always come to back to Christianity. I know of no other belief system that can account for the wickedness of human beings and still give me hope. The Bible says that God originally made the world very good, and he made human beings who could love each other and care for the planet. They were free to do that because they trusted that there was a good God in control. But, Satan told them that maybe God wasn’t as good as they thought. That idea appealed to them, and they disobeyed their creator. The fundamental trust that made the world turn was broken. Everything was broken. There was no reason good enough for their disobedience. Nature still holds true to the third law of thermodynamics “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Mankind is the aberration. From the small “respectable” sins of gossip, lying, laziness, or greed to the bigger one of murder, every act of wickedness bears the same stamp of nonsense.

Fortunately, that isn’t the end of the story. While it might account for Adam Lanza, it doesn’t explain Dawn Hochsprung. What is it that causes some people to commit senseless acts of heroism? I can guarantee that none of those children ever did anything for her that was equal to her dying for them. God is still God, and He is still good, even though human beings have totally messed up. He devised the greatest rescue mission the world has ever seen. God went under cover and became a man. He submitted himself to living a life on the planet we deformed. He allowed us to insult him, deceive him, abuse him, and murder him. The same way we insult, deceive, abuse, and murder each other. And then he rose again. Being God meant death could have no power over him. And he invites us; the gossips, the liars, the greedy, and lazy, and the murderers to have that life, too. All he asks is for us to trust what he says about who we are and who he is.

Because he never repaid evil for evil, he disproved our cause and effect paradigm once and for all. All we’ve done to him is evil, and he did the ultimate good for us. His sacrifice frees us up to commit senseless acts of good, too. I don’t have to selfishly watch out for my own interests any more. My God’s got my back. He proved it when he died for me. If I have a sucky life, I don’t have to take it out on a roomful of 5 year olds. I can lie my life down for them instead.  I don’t have to participate in the destruction of the planet and its people. I can build it up instead.

            What happened at Sandy Hook Elementary has no meaning. But Jesus is meaning. Jesus says the world is a messed up place, but he has a plan. One day everything will be okay again.

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

       The Bible is a funny book. The words don't say safely on the page where I can objectively critique them. They keep trying to get inside and change me.

       I was reading the part in Matthew when Jesus says that if we lose our lives, we get them, and if we try to keep our lives we lose them (Mt 16:24-28). Reading this passage really scared me today, so I was praying about why that was. I don't want to give up my life because, although it's not great, I think it's all right. Jesus says that what he offers is better than the whole world, but believing that means admitting that the whole world isn't where it's at. And if that's true, consistent logic demands acknowledging that nothing is this world is good enough to bring me lasting happiness. Which means that I can never be satisfied with life in this world.

       So then, I was wondering. If it's not this world that satisfies, what does and how can I get it? So, I did a short word study on satisfy, and this verse was the first one I found: "Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied..." (Is 53:11) He is Jesus. He didn't have anguish, but he chose to for me. And in that midst of that anguish, he "saw," and he was satisfied. What did he see? He saw me. He had satisfaction in the midst of anguish because it meant he got to be with me. 

      That threw my whole satisfaction paradigm out the window. It's not about me being satisfied. It's all about the fact that Jesus was. I can't even conceive all of the ramifications of that. I gave Jesus a reason to live. I gave him hope and joy in the midst of trial.  It's not just about me finding satisfaction, purpose, and joy in God. It's also about Him having found all that in me. 

Jesus?

A few months ago I started feeling convicted that I wasn’t find joy in my relationship with Jesus. I prayed about why that was, and I realized that I didn’t feel like I knew Him. To remedy that, I decided to read a gospel. I chose Matthew.

Honestly, my expectation in starting this study was to see Jesus as so wonderful and captivating that I wouldn’t be able to help but fall completely in love with Him. My anticipation was to see him as the compassionate healer and the risen king. And that’s all true, but I’m also seeing Him in a completely different way.

Currently, I am in the Sermon on the Mount. I don’t know about you, but when I hear “Sermon on the Mount,” I think about The Beatitudes, and I get warm fuzzies. The Beatitudes, though, are only 10 verses out of the 110 in the sermon. After that, the tone changes. It’s no longer “Blessed are you.” It changes to “Woe.” He reminds the people of what true righteousness really is. Jesus tells us just how fall short we’ve fallen of perfection. He calls me out on lowering the standard. “You think you’re not sinner because you haven’t killed anyone? Perfection means you always love people and seek their best. You think you’re not a sinner because you never cheated on anyone? Sinlessness means making a covenant with your eyes never to look on a person besides your spouse. You think you’re not a sinner because you’ve never broken an oath? True righteousness means you’ve never spoken anything but God’s honest truth.”

I’ve felt like I just keeping slammed with “You’re not good enough. You can’t do it.” This Jesus is a strict pedant with high expectations that I can never meet. What do you do with that? If you’re me, you argue for a while. I’ve never found that I could win any argument with the Almighty, though, so then you repent of that and try harder to be what God says you have to be to be righteous. Then you fail. And then you get pissed off and argue some more. Eventually you get sick of the merry-go-round. Then you jump off and admit defeat. I can’t do it. I’m not perfect.

The weird thing is, it doesn’t feel too bad. I fight against admitting I’m not perfect because I expect that the admission will come with despair and depression. If I’m depressed and despairing, though, I haven’t really surrendered. The depression and despair are there because deep down, I still feel like I have to measure up. Truly admitting how wicked I am cancels that out. I, Emily Hunt, am a wicked sinner. I am hateful, deceitful, and cruel. How can that possibly be a joyful admission?

To be honest, I’m not at the joy yet. I’m still angry because I want to be self-righteous. But I can see the joy. The joy is Jesus. I’m not perfect, but He was and is. My righteousness is bankrupt, but He says he’ll cover my debt. The only way I can stand before God is by claiming my big brother.

Jesus met every single one of his impossibly high standards. He loved selflessly, recklessly, without hope of return. His love comes from His own goodness, not the goodness of those He loves.

Jesus’ perfection is so complete I find it off-putting. His righteousness exposes my own as false. And I hate him for that. He shows me that I am horrid and will not allow the possibility of pretending otherwise. I do not want to come to his light because I know that truly seen, I must be recognized as bad. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it. But here He is. Jesus came into my life, disrupted my sense of self, and I can never go back. Pretending I’m good is no longer an option for me.

All this “You suck” business has turned out to be the thing that makes Jesus captivating. I must fall in love with Him because He is the only way. Outside of Him is Nothing.

God is good?

                God is good. It’s one those things that I hear a lot. I even say it a lot. But I’m learning that I don’t really believe it. My unbelief crops up a million ways, each one more insidious and deep-rooted than the last.

                I’m not going to go into detail, but recently I was very specifically convicted about some things. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I didn’t want to do them, but I did anyway. Yay me! I thought it was very holy of me to follow the prompting of the Spirit, even though I was, honestly, pissed about it. Jesus, you’re welcome. Where’s the problem?

                The problem is that I was totally missing the whole point. God is good. If I believed that, I would have gone to Him. I would have asked Him why I needed to do those things. I would have trusted that He had a reason other than “because I say so.”  My God knows me. My God loves me. Anything He asks me to do, He asks because it’s the best thing for me. Obedience to Him is my highest pleasure, not because I’m holy for obeying Him, but because the things He calls me to are glorious.

                Obeying with an attitude prompted the question: Why? If it’s not to bring me joy, what is my motivation? My response to that exposed an ugliness in my heart that I did not expect. I obeyed because if I didn’t, I knew I could no longer make any claim to being righteous. I obeyed to maintain an image of myself as “good.”

                Ultimately, my attitude revealed a false view of God. I was seeing him as a judge. He was looking at me, evaluating my deeds, deciding if I was worthy to be his kid or not. This is so wrong! How could I think that? This is my God. My God, who humbled himself to live life as a human being. My God, who endured being mocked, taken advantage of, murdered. My God, who never had a selfish thought in His life. He did it all for love of me.

                For 25 years I lived my life trying to be my own righteousness. My view of myself swung as widely as my moods. I looked to my emotions, my deeds, and others’ opinions to determine if I was “good enough.” And all the time, there was Jesus standing right there offering me Himself. Whispering so sweetly that I didn’t have to try so hard any more.

                 This time, Lord, when you convicted me, I blew it. Thank you that Jesus’ sacrifice is enough to cover that, too. When I get to heaven, if I am asked why they should let me in, I will never be able to say, “Well, you know, I was just so perfect and obedient.” The only answer I will ever be able to give is, “Ummm, Jesus said I could be here.”

Confession

Well, people, I am going to come clean. I’ve been harboring bitterness lately. I’ve been an angry, judgmental, confused mess. And no matter who or what I confessed to, how often I’ve prayed forgiveness, or tried to just move on, my angry, judgmental heart has stuck with me. So, after exhausting all my efforts, I decided to dig in to scripture to see what I was really dealing with (I know, I know. I should have started there). The word “bitter” is mentioned 46 times in the Bible. Four of those times are in the book of Job.

If you’ve never read the book of Job, the basic summary is this: Job is an upstanding servant of Jehovah. He’s a wealthy civic leader with a whole passel of kids (he sounds a lot Michelle Bachman, now that I think about it). Satan comes to God,  and God brags about him to Satan. Satan counters with “He only serves you for the stuff.” God says, “Fine, then. Take away his stuff and see what happens.” So Satan takes away all Job’s stuff: his kids, his wealth, his health. He loses his reputation when friends come over and tell him he must be in sin, or God wouldn’t be punishing him.

Job is often held up as a model for a patient sufferer because he never curses God or anything. I don’t want to minimize that in any way, but there is a telling verse in Job’s last speech. Job has reached the end of his tether with his friends, and he says:

“As God lives, who has taken away my right,
and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
as long as there is breath in me,
and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
my lips will not speak falsehood,
and my tongue will not utter deceit.”

                The part that stuck out to me was: God has taken away my right. What?! His right? He has no “right.” God gave him everything he had as a blessing (Job says that himself Job 1:21). This whole passage is dripping with disappointment and anger at God. And he blames God for his bitterness. This statement reveals Job’s heart attitude toward the Lord. Job thought that God had blessed him because Job was good, not because God is. He claims that his anger at God is the result of God’s sin. Not his. He thinks God is unjust, capricious, and mean.

                Sounds a lot like me.

                Then God shows up and says: “Just who do you think you are, Job? I am God, and I can do what I want. Tell me to my face, just where do you think I have screwed up?” And Job can’t answer him. Neither can I.

                Now, it’s not like Job went from being completely humble before his God and developed pride through his trials. All that he went through just revealed that deep down, Job had never really believed that God was good. Job thought he had earned his blessings, and he loved the God that recognized his goodness and rewarded it by giving him stuff. Satan was right.

                Job’s sinful beliefs were not a surprise to God. God allowed Satan to do all this, so Job would see what he really believed at the core. At the end of the book Job repents. When God again blesses him with children, wealth, and prestige, I think he was better able to enjoy them freely.  He knew them now for what they were: presents from a good Daddy who loved him. There were not wages that could be docked. Oswald Chambers used to refer to himself as “the Lord’s spoilt bairn.” I like that. We are God’s spoiled children.

                What I learned from all of this is that ultimately, my bitterness reveals nothing about my situation. But it reveals a lot about my heart. Getting mad at God is stupid. Jesus, I want to repent. You loved me so much that you came to earth to die for me. You have promised that You will always be with me. I am sorry that I demanded more from You than Your all. And thank You, that in spite of my sin I still know that we are okay because my acceptance isn't based on my goodness but yours. While my affection for you may wax and wane, your affection for me is a constant. I am forgiven. I am loved. I am chosen. I am Your own little princess.