The Human Condition (Pt. 1)

Hey friends!

Just to preface, I’ve had this topic on my heart for a year now.  I can’t seem to shake it, even after writing in vain about it 7-8 times.

So here is my *crossed-fingers* final attempt.  I’ve divvied it up into three segments for easier reading.  I hope you enjoy it & learn something like I did :)

~Summer

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One day, I was laughing with my coworkers about the mysterious “Human Condition”.  We thought it hilarious that we could apply the phrase to anything:

“Getting on the subway is The Human Condition.  Dealing with incompetent jerks on the road is The Human Condition.  Having to slave all day to earn a paycheck is The Human Condition. Eating crappy tacos is The Human Condition.”

It was very funny and thought-provoking.  We hear so often about this part of our lives, yet none of us can define it.

Thankfully… God has given us a peek into our condition to help us understand!

We learn from His Word that we face 3 common enemies in life: Our rebellious nature (the “flesh”), Satan, and the world.  We could say, then, that The Human Condition is battling all three in our quest to know & emulate God.

But two of these threats are external (Satan & the world) – two things largely beyond our control.

Let’s focus on the one we do have authority over, with God’s help: The inward battle with our flesh.

What does God say about our flesh nature, or our “condition”?

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.

Like the partridge that gathers a brood that she did not hatch,
so is he who gets riches but not by justice;
in the midst of his days they will leave him,
and at his end he will be a fool.

A glorious throne set on high from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary.
O Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake You shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from You shall be written in the earth,
for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.”

~Jeremiah 17

Our hearts are wicked!  I’ve found that many people spend their entire lives running from this truth.

Why don’t we like to believe this?  Why do so many people explain away ‘bad behavior’ with paltry excuses?

Because we can’t fix our sinful hearts ourselves… and by accepting this, we’d have to give up doing whatever we want and give up proving our “goodness”, which many find unthinkable.

So instead, when we’re faced with mass shooting sprees, child molestation, & corporate fraud, we are quick to blame things that have no control over crime (guns, knives, medications, our mental state, moms & dads, lack of education) – instead of the perpetrators.

But bad childhoods don’t hurt, rob, and kill people - PEOPLE DO.

We can’t blame “politicians”, “corporations”, “gang members”, “black people”, “feminists” or “creepy old men”.  We, and our fellow humanity as a whole, are to blame.

Can we accept the fact that we’ve done wrong?  Maybe not to the level of some people, but no honest person can say they’ve always chosen good over bad.  Even as adults, we must discipline ourselves to do the right thing (& it doesn’t always happen).  It doesn’t come – dare I say it – naturally!  It goes against the grain of our natural state, the condition we’re all in.

We gain great FREEDOM and wisdom when we admit this about ourselves & about each other, and when we quit running from reality.

Many educational programs require ethics courses.  My question is, can you force people’s moral behavior?  These classes have their place, no doubt, but *at best* they encourage people to do right by threatening consequences for unethical behavior (or promising benefits when we abstain from it).

Ethics classes don’t make people more ethical, any more than bribing kids with cookies keeps them from throwing future tantrums.  They simply entice people to play nice for a reward/to prevent punishment.  A class can’t change people’s desires – or the condition of their hearts.

As they say, You don’t have to teach kids to be bad. You have to teach them to be GOOD. 

So why are we surprised when kids grow up to be adults who continue being bad?  And why are we surprised when we find OURSELVES behaving badly?

Many people talk about seeing the “good” in everyone, which was my default mode growing up.  I loved my rose-colored glasses because it made my world a much happier place. “You see what you wanna see,” I’d think about pessimists.

Then life comes along & clobbers you in the face. The people you trust backstab you. You go into business with a person of ill repute, ignore the raging red flags, and are surprised when you’re ripped off.

“A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on & suffers the consequences.” ~Prov. 27

“The prudent sees the evil and hides himself, But the naive go on, and are punished for it.” ~Prov. 22

There are inconvenient truths I don’t wanna face about people and MYSELF every day.  I can turn a blind eye, but that would make me a fool and an easy target.  There are people in the world who do not have our best interests at heart.  Sometimes we don’t have their best interests at heart either.  If we refuse to believe this, we will walk a rocky road of consequences.

There’s no need to be skeptical of everyone, but to continue skipping through the meadows with people bent on doing evil is to invite destruction into our lives.

We need to be cautious when we see warning flags about other people, and we must acknowledge that we aren’t above any temptation or sin either so that we can be on guard against falling into their behavior ourselves.

I’d like to leave us with two action items:

1. Accept that we share a common enemy: Ourselves.  If you need help overcoming something, seek God’s help and other people’s assistance to overcome it – don’t try to do it on your own!  There’s a reason you haven’t overcome it alone: You need someone stronger than yourself.
2. Accept that some people choose to NOT restrain themselves and do evil things!  Heed any “red flags” you see in other people’s lives, and guard yourself accordingly.

I’ll post Part Two soon.

Settle It Today

A most excellent post–one of the best I’ve read in a long time (author Regi Campbell).

I want to implement this principle in my life: Always settle it today.  I hope you will, too.

xoxoxox,
Summer

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What’s Down In The Well

October 10, 2011 in blog with 0 Comments

What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.

One of my young executives taught me a principle years ago that I’ve never forgotten. It was cathartic for me as a leader….and as a husband.

He said, “When something one of your employees does bothers you, confront them with it before that day ends. No matter how petty…how trivial…how embarrassing, confront it.”  Don’t go home; don’t let them go home without talking it out.

For years, I harbored grudges against my wife. “She’s not this”, “She’s not that” I’d complain to my friends (and anyone who would listen). Ultimately, my deceptive little heart used these judgements to pull away from her. I became even more critical…..more caustic. I used her “failings” to justify all kinds of failings on my end. It ended in disaster, with her leaving me and my life in shambles.

What would have happened if I had dealt with all that stuff? What if I had gone to an older, wiser friend and told him about my feelings and my judgements of her? What if I’d talked those things out with her IMMEDIATELY after I started feeling them? Who knows.

The reality is that it took her leaving to wake me up to the junk I had hidden down in my “well”. I couldn’t suppress it forever. It was going to come out; if not in the “bucket” of my words, in the “bucket” of my behavior. Like a splinter buried deep in the sole of your foot, it’s gotta’ come out or it’s gonna’ lead to real problems.

God created us for relationships. With Him, His son, His spirit and with other people. He taught us to keep short accounts…like “before dark” short. When we “man up” and deal with what’s lodged in our hearts, we’ll be healthier, “lighter”,  and more lovable.

It’s a discipline worth committing to.

Today.

I have to bring it up today.

I have to settle it today.

I have to talk it through today.

Don’t let yourself off the hook any more.

Deal with it now.

“Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life”  Proverbs 4:23

P.S. My  wife came back and we started over. Married 42 years now, the 28 since she left and came back have been extraordinary, thanks to the grace of Jesus Christ and Miriam Campbell. 

*Read the original post here: http://radicalmentoring.com/2011/10/whats-down-in-the-well/.

Benefits of Wisdom

 

The Benefits of Wisdom

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
   the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
   and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
   nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
   in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are pleasant ways,
   and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;  
   those who lay hold of her will be blessed. 
 
-Proverbs 3:3-18

Jealous for Us

Putting God first (AKA firstfruits).  Remember when I wrote about that last month?  http://youaretheoneiwant.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/first-fruits/

He’s taught me a lot in 30 short days.  Today I opened His word to this passage (a book I’d never paid attention to!).  The passage is a little lengthy but the message, AWESOME.

“Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?  This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you!  You have planted much but harvest little.  You eat but are not satisfied.  You drink but are still thirsty.  You put on clothes but cannot keep warm.  Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you!  Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house.  Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.  You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor.  And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away.  Why?  Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine houses.  It’s because of you that the heavens withhold the dew and the earth produces no crops.  I have called for a drought on your fields and hills—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olive trees and all your other crops, a drought to starve you and your livestock and to ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”

-Haggai 1

Um, whoa.  Harsh much?  Not so fast…

What is God saying here?  His message is: ”Get your priorities straight!  This is why your house is in ruins…. why you have addictions you can’t satisfy…. why you work so hard but it’s never enough!  You are giving what belongs to God – the firstfruits of your heart, your money, your devotion, your time – to another.”

Hasn’t God said He’s jealous for us (Exodus 20)?  He will not sit by while we worship something else, something false.  We are His children!  Like any good father, He shows us when we veer off course, when we chase things that destroy us.

What kind of wife/husband would you be to ignore your spouse dating someone else — or to let your kids wander down a bad path that will cause them pain or even death, without correcting them?  Would you be able to say you truly loved them?

So what did our loving God do to His people, who left His temple unbuilt and thus rendered them unable to worship Him?  He sent disaster upon what they were relying on.

Why - because He hated them? 

No, because He loved them intensely and wanted them to realize they were devoted to the wrong thing.  He wanted to turn their hearts back to Him.  He was crying out for them to love Him back, to return to Him, to rebuild His temple so they could worship Him once more.

THAT IS A PASSIONATE LOVE!

So the people of Judah responded: They started building God’s temple!  And what did God do?  Check out Haggai 2:

“Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple.  When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten.  When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty.  I sent blight and mildew and hail to destroy everything you worked so hard to produce. Even so, you refused to return to me, says the Lord.

Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid.  Think carefully.  I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn.  You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops.  But from this day onward I will bless you.”

He blessed them!!!  For even beginning to walk in obedience, He spoke His blessing over their lives.

The coolest & most exciting part (to me)?  This morning God spoke the same message to my heart: From this day onward I will bless you.

Why?

I believe it’s because we’ve been giving Him our firstfruits, honoring Him with the first of our crops (which we actually have, from our new garden!), our time (our mornings and the beginning of each month), our wealth (the first of our paycheck).

Have we been perfect?  No, but we’ve started plodding the path of putting Him first.  Proverbs 9 says God blesses people who give Him their firstfruits.  We recognized this — that the firstfruits already belong to Him — so when we give Him what’s rightfully His, He blesses the rest.

And He wasn’t kidding: He’s blessing our faces off.  No, we don’t share this to toot our horns.  We share this to demonstrate that the Bible, when applied, changes our lives :)

May God give you grace to do the same!
xoxo Summer

Communication: To HEAL or HURT?

Here’s a question to ask ourselves:

Is my communication helping or hurting this situation?

Is what I’m about to say/write able to bring people up or down?

No, seriously.  Ask yourself this whenever you’re tempted to write a volatile email or spread juicy gossip.  I know it’s juicy.  I know it’s like that itch you MUST scratch.  Put another way:

If they were here, would I say this – the same way? 

Maybe you would.  Maybe you – can I be direct? – struggle with being a jerk.  Then there are others, the less aggressive, who find it hard to confront people directly.  So we go to others when we’re hurt, seeking sympathy, but instead build walls and tear down other people’s relationships.  All to alleviate our own desire for revenge. 

Lately I’ve witnessed the major destruction such words bring to relationships, people slandering each other.  This is the worst kind of insult: Behind your back, when you are defenseless.  As believers in Christ, we need to be mindful of  the incredible power of our words.  Are you building people up or tearing them down?

Jesus has a word for us in this department.  A lot of words.  Hang onto your britches! 

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’  -Matt 18:15-16

Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?’  Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’  -Matt. 18:21-22

If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way.  First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  -Matt 5:23-24

Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  -Matt. 7:1-2

And Solomon:

Hatred stires up strife, but love covers all sins.  -Prov. 10:12

These wise words teach us this:

1. First forgive.  I know it’s hard.  We’ve all been backstabbed, betrayed, used, abused.  But your quality of life hinges on your forgiveness (or lack of).  If you want a joyful life, you must forgive; there’s no other option.  Take it from one who learned the hard way: Grudges only destroy you and your relationships.  If you’re upset with someone, forgive them before approaching them about the issue.
2. If someone’s hurt you, GO TO THEM.  Don’t tell your boyfriend, sister/ aunt/ mother, or cubemate.  Let that person know they hurt  you and give them opportunity to explain, apologize or make amends.  Has someone ever done this for you?  What a relief that they approached you instead of telling half the town or posting angry Facebook statuses!  On the flipside, have you ever had someone do the opposite: tell your entire circle but you that you’ve offended them?  I have.  The result?  Division, misplaced anger, mega damage control.  People, let’s handle conflict responsibly, like adults.  Put your big girl panties on and deal with it head-on. 
3. If someone else is upset with you, go to them.  Do not delay!  Waiting simply gives our enemy time to weave division, hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and gossip/ slander.  God makes it clear He’d rather we reconcile with others than receive our gifts.  Reconciliation first; giving second. 
4. QUIT JUDGING.  You are not your neighbor’s judge – GOD IS.  If you simply must get something off your chest about someone else, aim it at God.  He knows what you’re thinking already, and He’ll likely give you a new perspective.  For me He’s made me aware of my own failures (which He’s forgiven me of constantly) or opened my eyes to their viewpoint, the motivation behind their behavior, and His compassion for them.  Pray to Him - ask Him to help that person grow in the area of their failure.  Ask for His grace to let it go whenever they mess up.  Search scripture for similar incidences.  It is replete with wisdom on how to treat other people, none involving your vengeance!   You will be BLESSED by following this advice!!

If you have a grievance with someone, go to them today.  Refuse to talk behind their back.  People are more reasonable when you open the door for them to share their feelings and perspective with you.  You may gain valuable insight into their heart/ behavior.  If they’re unreasonable, take someone else with you.  If that doesn’t work, brush it off and move forward; you tried your best. 

This works anywhere: Home …. the Workplace …. Church …. Small groups …. Friends.  Quit adding fuel to the fire and backbiting/ gossiping.  Stop attacking and finger-pointing.  Be humble enough to admit your mistakes and give others grace to do the same.  If we’d follow this, it would stop untold amounts of drama in our lives! 

One last benefit:

A gracious woman attains honor  -Prov 11:16

Yes, forgiveness brings you honor!  I’m reminded of Taylor Swift’s gracious response to Kanye at last year’s VMAs.  Hats off to her for controlling herself when many would have reacted less kindly. 

As the Apostle Paul would say, Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And as I would say - Much love.  Go spread it around :)
XOXOX Summer

First Fruits

My husband and I have been reminded numerous times this past month about the Firstfruits principle in Prov. 3:

Honor the LORD with your wealth,
with the firstfruits of all your crops;
then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.

So this month we put this principle to the test… with great success!  If you want God’s blessing  in any area of your life, give your first and best to Him in that area.  The Bible makes it clear that God owns the firstfruits of what we own (in fact He owns it all!), so by giving Him our firstfruits we’re just returning what’s already His.  Things like:

Your mornings – the first part of your day.

The 1st of each month.

The first day of the week (Sunday) – Sabbath day!

The first portion of your paycheck.

Give God the firstfruits of your time, money, relationships, belongings, everything – and open the door in your life for Him to bless the rest!

We tried it with great results.  But we don’t want to give simply because God blesses those who obey Him and put Him first.  We do it because it’s what He desires, and we want to please Him with all that we are.

For more scriptures on firstfruits, check out http://familyofchrist.net/sermons/Sermons2007/discipleship_Aug2007/Tithing1-Tithing_as_First_Fruits.pdf