What Do You Call Your Calling? (...On Seeing Foam)

I set out this morning on a quick run to the farm store.  I needed carrots to make some slaw.  That's all.

But I found myself instead driving to the place I often take walks. And almost as if some mystical invitation had prompted me, I thought, "Why not a walk? For once, I have the time to do something spontaneous." I parked the car and set out.

I was wearing flip-flops, so I took them off and walked the trail barefoot.  (I read somewhere that's good for you.) I simply walked and marveled at the wonder of walking comfortably barefoot in October.  And, I breathed deeply, smelling the mixed aroma of living things in their spicy submission to the onslaught of the season of decay.
I thought about how hard the last few days have been for me.

 Though the selfless love of my husband is a deep and abiding presence in my life, there are others who are not so loyal to me. There are those who for whatever reason choose to believe that any goodness or value they see in me must surely rest on some secret foundation that is selfish, even devious and malicious in its driving force. One of those people--one I had considered a friend in ministry--approached me with harsh accusations. Life had interrupted our ministry together for the last month or so, and this--our first time to serve together again--was painfully cold and standoffish. I was shocked, devastated by the change in her toward me. With almost involuntary vulnerability, I burst into tears. Then it was my friend's turn to be shocked and dismayed. While she had refused to speak to me of our ministry together before she'd unleashed her accusations, nevertheless she stopped me then, before I could run out the door weeping; and she finally let me talk a bit about my own heart, too.  Eventually, we considered (delicately) the possibility that a third-party jealousy was attempting to intrude, maybe even to ruin my reputation with her, my friend. We talked of Gospel parables making themselves "real" in this instance and in our not-so-little little circle. We left the moment friends yet again, praying that God would protect our unity.

But, her suspiciousness of my motives drove me to the throne of God anyway.  Was I deceiving myself? Did I covet influence with powerful people? I thought I was content with the approval of God alone, that He had no competition in terms of setting the parameters of my value. I won't say I haven't been tested in this.  I have. But I have passed that test every time it presents. Am I to be condemned for even taking the test? Still...was I lying to myself in all this?
So I opened myself to that glaring scrutiny. I steeled myself for desolation, plucked up my courage lest I should hear that He found me lacking.  Then He came with words of love and comfort. Instruction, yes; but not scathing condemnation. Not like humans often seem to try to assign to me. He was God that way.

Then I read the September 30 entry in My Utmost for His Highest, and these words felt penned for me:
"...He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be his call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say 'Here am I! Send me..."

(That was the second of three times that particular verse from Isaiah has come across my path from diverse sources over the past four days.)

Chambers continues: "This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us..." But, O God, my friend? Did You have to crush me with my friend? "We must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed--you can not drink grapes..." Thy will be done...

I walked, finally at rest again after those hard days. I enjoyed the peace of clarity, like fresh air after a sudden violent storm.

Then, I saw a path down to the water's edge, and I felt a beckoning.  So I went down, and I saw this:

Like being struck by a bolt of lightning, I remembered the dream...

I had it a long time ago. I thought I was finished with it.
I wasn't.

In this dream, God sent me on assignment. I visited many churches, specifically to check the level of soapy foam on the floor. (Surely I've spoken of this dream here before.) I did as I was assigned. And eventually, I reported back to God. I was able to tell Him that while the foam was still present, it was dissipating. And this was good news. When I first had it, the dream made me chuckle.

Some days after that dream, I came across this verse in Jude, in a section about recognizing false teachers and false teaching. The verse is one in a series that defines the characteristics of false teachers. They are marked as ones who are like "wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame..." (vs. 13) One commentary I read described this as a type of storminess that lifted a shame that false teachers could not even recognize within themselves.

This...this is what I was sent out to assess in the churches.  It was nothing to chuckle at anymore.
And so, I did as I was assigned. Not so much intentionally.  We entered a phase of life in which visiting a variety of churches happened naturally. Not until we were months into it did we realize that we--my husband and I--were walking out the dream assignment. Eventually, we asked God to give us rest from the wandering. We were growing weary so we asked to be planted somewhere. He sent us to a place where we could abide, and we've been there a good year.

I assumed that planting meant the assignment was finished, but it wasn't.  I simply didn't realize I was still on duty until He took me down to the water today and showed me the foam again.
But my friend and I had already found a measure of restoration.

And I had grown in my understanding of my own calling by vast measure in these last few days. I still don't know who was the source of those ugly waves. I only saw the froth that floats in to shore, giving evidence of this violent work. It doesn't matter. What might have been meant for my condemnation, what might still mean my martyrdom in the place where I am now, this only clarified my calling and highlighted His defense of my value to Him.  He was God to me that way.

As far as the state of things between my friend and me, I am thankful I can say the dream proves true all the way to its ending.
Yes, the foam was there...but it is dissipating.

What Do You Call a Liberal Christian?

"The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD'S throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids test, the children of men."  Psalm 11:4

What do we do with our breaches? When the enthroned Lord beholds in us a thing that makes Him show us His eyelids, testing our hearts while His eyes are veiled, what do we display?  What should we do?  He tests, but not how we gather up in our similarities.  He tests how well we navigate our differences.

And so, this post is written for a very specific group of readers.
It is for those who cannot conceive how a person can be a political liberal and still call himself a Christian.  But, it is written for them only if they genuinely want to understand these brothers in Christ and not just hate them.

So...what forms the political mind of the liberal Christian? 

This post is long but rather narrow, be forewarned.
It quotes Scripture.
It reveals hearts, but it leaves much as yet unexamined.  A large breach in a fort's wall can't be closed all at once. It is repaired a brick at a time; therefore while it is typical to argue specifics concerning the various platforms on the liberal's shopping list of philosophical postures, I share here ones that are hopefully a little different.  These have the potential to be actual bricks in the hole.  These are the high points, the staples on the Christian liberal's list that keep him embracing the liberal label.  Even at that, these high points are honed down to a specific few.  They touch primarily the spiritual implications of the economic policy of the liberal.  It is very important to keep this in mind in order to achieve understanding.  Touch and consider this one element first, and then move on to ones more inscrutable.  This one is very straightforward.  But if understanding is not your goal, you should stop reading.  If you're feeling argumentative and are looking for temples to topple, you should stop reading. 
The following is meant to be breach repair. 

Liberals and Conservatives both have told me behind closed doors in whispered tones that they aren't completely comfortable with everything they're told they must believe in order to wear their chosen label, but they dare not share that chink of disloyalty publicly.  For them, this post explains one of those things that is not a shadowy "wish we felt different about that" point.  This is foundational to why the Liberal feels his is even yet the political position that offers certain soul-things to his society that do not appear to sufficiently significant in Conservative policy; and why, by embracing this position, he believes he can stand clean before God even when God shows His eyelids over certain Biblical passages.  Passages like the following. 

Oh...and they take this very seriously: (italics mine)

True and False Worship

1 “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.

Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.

Tell my people Israel [fn1] of their sins!

2 Yet they act so pious!

They come to the Temple every day

and seem delighted to learn all about me.

They act like a righteous nation

that would never abandon the laws of its God.

They ask me to take action on their behalf,

pretending they want to be near me.

3 ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.

‘Why aren’t you impressed?

We have been very hard on ourselves,

and you don’t even notice it!’

“I will tell you why!” I respond.

“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.

Even while you fast,

you keep oppressing your workers.

4 What good is fasting

when you keep on fighting and quarreling?

This kind of fasting

will never get you anywhere with me.

5 You humble yourselves

by going through the motions of penance,

bowing your heads

like reeds bending in the wind.

You dress in burlap

and cover yourselves with ashes.

Is this what you call fasting?

Do you really think this will please the LORD?

6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;

lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free,

and remove the chains that bind people.

7 Share your food with the hungry,

and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them,

and do not hide from relatives who need your help.

8 “Then your salvation will come like the dawn,

and your wounds will quickly heal.

Your godliness will lead you forward,

and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind.

9 Then when you call, the LORD will answer.

‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.

Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!

10 Feed the hungry,

and help those in trouble.

Then your light will shine out from the darkness,

and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.

11 The LORD will guide you continually,

giving you water when you are dry

and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like an ever-flowing spring.

12 Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.

Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls

and a restorer of homes.

13 “Keep the Sabbath day holy.

Don’t pursue your own interests on that day,

but enjoy the Sabbath

and speak of it with delight as the LORD’s holy day.

Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day,

and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly.

14 Then the LORD will be your delight.

I will give you great honor

and satisfy you with the inheritance I promised to your ancestor Jacob.

I, the LORD, have spoken!”

--Isaiah 58, NLT

The things in italics above, the Liberal does not feel the Conservative party adequately addresses.  To the Liberal Christian, it is not enough to say: "Well, those are private matters between a person and his God.  Those are things for individuals and churches to cover."  But the talk of oppression of workers points the finger too obviouslyat the attitude of the infamous One Percent and their level of seriousness about their societal responsibility.  Liberal Christians do not fear addressing these verses communally.  As this passage above introduces itself: if you're going to promote yourselves as a righteous nation, certain things are required of you...But the things of this passage are not the ones Liberals hear pressed as significant by our society's religious right.  We are a righteous nation in some respects, the Liberal feels, but we are electively blind in the things of this passage.  We say we are the Body of Christ, but in these matters we far prefer to be a collection of body parts that hopefully function as a whole to get the job of a body done.  More than anything, the Liberal Christian feels the hatred of the Conservative because the Liberal displays how hopeless is this expectation of functionality from this dis-embodied, headless heap of limbs and organs.  The Liberal, because he calls for Plan B--a government that gets the job done--may be naive for thinking any comtemporary human government could accomplish this goal, considering none in all history ever has done so and maintained it; still this is not why he is hated by others around him.  He is hated because he reveals how much we as a society have failed at embracing Plan A:  Christ as the Head, love as the goal.

He pokes at the nation's pus pocket of the soul, and here it is: Protect your wealth against the schemes of the lazy.  This is what he hears promoted, and it chafes against passages like the one above for him.  When he must weigh this Conservative policy of personal wealth preservation at all costs against the passage above--especially considering that it concludes with "I, the Lord, have spoken!"--he feels caught in a vise.  Such closure in the Word of God should be sobering to any Christian.

For is it really a truism: that all the poor are lazy and selfish?  Do we really believe what we say when we say that?  Do we even hear ourselves saying that?  Should we not, given we call ourselves a righteous nation, concern ourselves with their needs anyway?  Are we really spiritually exempt from addressing poverty and need corporately?  If so, then what does it mean to be a Christian nation?  Is it really just a credal badge, without any accompanying action?

Jesus often spoke figuratively of groups being called to "rise up and judge" certain segments of His society.  He called up the likes of Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba.  Would He not, in our day, call up the widow with her two mites to answer that philosophical question?  How would she respond to the statement that the poor are lazy and selfish and should be forced to fend for themselves overall?  If you think I go too far with that, then consider how she would judge our policies for addressing the needs of our corporate poor on this presumption of lack of motivation in the poor of our society, again given that we choose to wear the badge "Christian Nation"?  Would she not ask, "How many actual poor have you personally known in order to form this opinion?  Which poor people in your own community can you name who have taught you that this is an overarching truth?"

And so, many a Liberal Christian has stopped going to church and walks in the despair of the reproached.  But, he considers Psalm 73.  He gazes through the lens that defines who is who in our society.  This is where the Liberal Christian's heart goes when he feels ostracized, when he tries to go to Church USA and yet remain true to his understanding of Isaiah 58:

1 Truly God is good to Israel,

to those whose hearts are pure.

2 But as for me, I almost lost my footing.

My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.

3 For I envied the proud

when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.

4 They seem to live such painless lives;

their bodies are so healthy and strong.

5 They don’t have troubles like other people;

they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else.

6 They wear pride like a jeweled necklace

and clothe themselves with cruelty.

7 These fat cats have everything

their hearts could ever wish for!

8 They scoff and speak only evil;

in their pride they seek to crush others.

9 They boast against the very heavens,

and their words strut throughout the earth.

10 And so the people are dismayed and confused,

drinking in all their words.

11 “What does God know?” they ask.

“Does the Most High even know what’s happening?”

12 Look at these wicked people—

enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.

13 Did I keep my heart pure for nothing?

Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?

14 I get nothing but trouble all day long;

every morning brings me pain.

15 If I had really spoken this way to others,

I would have been a traitor to your people.

16 So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper.

But what a difficult task it is!

17 Then I went into your sanctuary, O God,

and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked.

18 Truly, you put them on a slippery path

and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction.

19 In an instant they are destroyed,

completely swept away by terrors.

20 When you arise, O Lord,

you will laugh at their silly ideas

as a person laughs at dreams in the morning.

21 Then I realized that my heart was bitter,

and I was all torn up inside.

22 I was so foolish and ignorant—

I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.

23 Yet I still belong to you;

you hold my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,

leading me to a glorious destiny.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?

I desire you more than anything on earth.

26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,

but God remains the strength of my heart;

he is mine forever.

27 Those who desert him will perish,

for you destroy those who abandon you.

28 But as for me, how good it is to be near God!

I have made the Sovereign LORD my shelter,

and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do.

And so the Liberals are beginning to congeal and find sanctuaries for themselves.  When they are considered senseless beasts by those around them--even taught to call themselves this, they are remembering to say, "And yet I am yours" to their God.  For this they are considered anathema to the "prosperous wicked," who court the most eloquent Conservative pundits against these new gatherings--particularly because of the spiritual side of the authority and power shifting around in all these things.  It is one thing to have to deal with protestors in a chaos of tents.  It is another thing entirely to deal with those who consider themselves God's chosen champions for the poor and the oppressed--especially when they gather together and reflect on the verses that tell them the result of their dedication to His cause.  They may not have it all exactly right, but they are beginning to pay attention to the the apples of God's eye in an orchard long neglected.  The halls of entrenched power respect the lessons of history enough to make great efforts to shroud such things in darkness and disdain, for these are the things of successful revolution.  The Powerful would hide their "let them eat cake" derision in Our Day before it is processed by potential revolutionaries.

Does all this make the Liberal Christian the emblem of perfection?  Hardly, for while the Liberal might bear this verse on his bumper sticker:
Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
he, nevertheless, would hesitate to have his pundits prate over this one any more that the Conservatives would:
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

Indeed.  Here we are stuck.  We love those who love us.  We say we love others but hate their sin, and so God test us in that. And time under God's eyelids proves it:  "...there is none righteous, no not one..."  For now, we are not hating each other's sin.  We are hating each other's beliefs.  We are moving in to the core territory, and love is waning.

But, even as we, hopefully, humble ourselves to accept our falling-short across the board, God does not forget.  Nor does His grace fall insufficient.  One day, we will acknowledge that it is He who sets the intricate balance of human economy, of seed to sower and bread to eater. 
In the day we stop worshiping the work of our hands we will know:

Isa 55:8	For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
Isa 55:9	For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isa 55:10	"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
Isa 55:11	so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Isa 55:12	"For you shall go out in joy, and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isa 55:13	Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off."

What should we say to the closed eyelids?
"I desire you more than anything on earth."  That is what He is waiting to hear.
In as much as it depends on you:  repair the breach, touch His heart.
And ask Him to open His eyes on you and your brother again.