God The Maytag Repairman

I'm not sure why, but I tend to analyze things to an extreme, and most often, I do it by fitting the thing into some kind of analogy. I love me some good analogy, if you hadn't noticed.

Not long ago, I had to get my clothes dryer fixed. It was taking me three hours to dry a load of clothes and this is a problem when you have three kids and are basically laundry-challenged to begin with. A dryer that worked would be just about life-changing.

It turned out that the heating element was shot, and when I was having coffee on the patio later, an analogy started weaving itself in my brain.  Fixing my dryer was reminding me a lot of my spiritual walk, and the restrictions I try to put on God when something in my walk needs fixing.

My dryer wasn't dead, it wasn't even necessarily broken. It was functioning. It was spinning, it was tossing the clothes around; it just wasn't accomplishing anything. All of this energy used for nothing was costing me a lot of money and it was having a domino effect in my life; I was getting more and more behind, we never had enough clean clothes and the growing piles were making me crazy.

My faith wasn't dead, it was alive and functioning. There was a lot of activity going on, but there was no growth, no joy, no sense of accomplishment.  A lot of work with no return, really. Just going through the motions.  All of this was costing me something, too. Frustration, feeling like a failure, wondering why I couldn't be the vital, fruit-bearing Christian I was supposed to be. Losing out on seeing God move. 

I realized, too, that the problem with my spiritual life was a lot like the problem with my dryer: they were both having trouble with their heating element.  God's Word, and a lot of Christian teachings, make reference to spiritual fire; that burning, powerful alive-ness inside us that comes from really living our faith and constantly seeking intimacy with God. That spiritual heating element inside us is a lot like the one in our dryers; it requires upkeep and maintenance. You gotta clean the lint out of the filter and keep the hoses clear, you know what I mean?

When the guy came to fix the dryer, I was disappointed that he was going to have to pull the thing out and take it apart to fix it. Somehow, I was hoping he could just kind of reboot it. I had called an expert to come fix it, but I wanted him to fix it in a way that was convenient for me. I do that to God, too.

I find that I have a habit of asking God to fix a problem (usually created by me) and then telling Him how I want Him to fix it. This takes a lot of nerve, when you think about it. I cry out in panic, God comes running, and then I give Him a lot of stipulations. "Lord, thank You so much for coming when I called, and I really need You to make this right. But, could you do it without taking my whole life apart, please? Could You do it without making a mess? Would You please fix this part that isn't working without removing any parts I'm okay with?"

What I'm telling God is that I want Him to make the problem go away without actually working on the parts of me that caused the problem.

The thing is, God's not into instruction too much, at least, not from me. His response is something along the lines of, "I not only built this dryer, I created the materials that made it, the atoms and molecules that form the materials, and as a matter of fact-the air it heats. So, would you like me to fix it, or would you like to try?"

When I really gave this some thought, I ended up asking myself what I could possibly be afraid of. So what if God has free reign when He works on me? He invented me. He knows how to keep my heating element working.

Think You’re Too Prodigal For God? Part 2

Every time I’ve wandered away from God, whether a few steps or into a whole new neighborhood, I’ve always eventually noticed that niggling, persistent, “I need to get back where I’m from” feeling. (The Holy Spirit, with His version of, “Hey, Stupid!”) At times, I’ve ignored it, because I didn’t really feel like I’d wandered. At times, I ignored it because I knew that in order to go home, I’d have to give up whatever it was that had caused me to wander. Isn’t it funny how we do that? Rich Mullins (currently hogging the coffee in Heaven, most likely) had a great line in his song, “Hold Me Jesus”. It goes, “I’d rather fight You for something I don’t really want/Than take what You give that I need”. Profoundly true, I think.

Eventually, some times later than others, I’ve reached a place where I KNEW I needed and wanted to go home. That’s when the doubts would kick in. Had I used up all of God’s patience? Had I gone too far, offended Him too deeply? Would God welcome me home, reluctantly allow me home on a legal technicality (the saving grace of Jesus Christ) or turn me away altogether?

I always wanted God to tell me beforehand what His response would be, because I was afraid that the responses He’d already preserved in His word may no longer apply to me. I wanted some sign, some assurance that He still loved me, still wanted me.

I don’t remember ever getting a sign. Not once. I had to go ahead and start on the road home that the prodigal son of the Bible trod. But, I usually only had to take one or two steps before I heard from my Father. Then I got my assurance; then I got my sign. And I got my welcome. Every time.

If you’ve felt like a perpetual prodigal, I know the fears you’re struggling with. Maybe you’ve wandered one time too many. Maybe you’ve wandered too far. Maybe your sins have been too dire, too dark.

I don’t know where you’ve been or what you’ve done, but I do know this: You haven’t out-wandered or out-sinned me. I’ve done things I don’t whisper to myself in the dark. If you felt led to read this, it’s because you can still hear the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit and that means you haven’t managed to wander out of earshot.

If, like me, you’ve wanted some sign from God that He’ll take you back, you’re in luck. You don’t need a burning bush or a white-robed angel backed by a full orchestra. You’ve got me, the Forrest Gump of Christian women, clanking down the prodigal road. And there’s God, down at the gate, yelling, “RUN, Forrest, RUN!”.

Believe me, my friend: If He welcomed me back, He’s going to be all kinds of excited to see you.

The First Ten Things I’ll Thank God For In Heaven

1. His unimaginable grace.

2. Salvation

3. Everyone who’s there

4. That my earthly life is over and my eternal life has begun.

5. Complete and total unity and desegregation….finally!

6. That my ADD is cured!

7. That I can sing and dance.

8. That my lack of time management skills is no longer relevant.

9. That I now have access to the REALLY GOOD COFFEE.

10. That I’m finally at my ideal weight.

Think You’re Too Prodigal For God? Part One

As I’ve said in my previous post, “The Forrest Gump Of Christian Women”, I have been what seems like perpetually prodigal. I walk away, I slink home. I drift away, I crawl home.
Unlike the prodigal son Jesus told about in Luke 15:11-32, I didn’t decide at some point that I wanted to try life elsewhere from my Father’s house. Not once did I intentionally leave His side. It’s more like God and I were at WalMart, I wandered a few steps to look at something shiny and poof, “Where’s my Daddy?”
I did this so many times in my life that you would think I’d learn to stick so close that God Himself would trip over me. But, like I’ve said, I’m a slow learner.
Each time I returned, it was with deep shame and regret. Each time, I was overjoyed that the Lord welcomed me back into His arms. But each time, I was increasingly afraid that I had used up my second chances. Each time, I was more and more worried that God had had enough of my comings and goings.
I clung to verses like Romans 8:38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I hoped on promises like "Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love" and "I will never leave you or forsake you".
I knew these words were real. I knew the promises were true. The problem was, every time I needed to return to God, I became less sure that those promises still applied to me.
Mind you, I’m talking about a pattern I repeated many times over the almost thirty years that I have been a living, breathing, redeemed, paid-for miracle. I’ve got a genius IQ but my common sense is developmentally-disabled. I’ve often wondered, “What’s the point of being so smart if I still have to live the life of an idiot?”, but what I should have been wondering was, “What’s the point of living like an idiot when you’re actually pretty smart?"
Fortunately, God has a habit of loving the dim-witted.

The First Ten Things I’m Going To Do In Heaven

1. Fall on my face before God and Christ in thanksgiving and humility too profound for my small mind to imagine.

2. Touch and stare at the face of my Savior.

3. Crawl into my daddy God’s lap and cry with joy.

4. Find my kids if we’ve been raptured or they’ve gone before me.

5. Find out where God keeps the really good coffee (the stuff the archangels have been drinking all this time) and have about six big cups (four extra shots of espresso, 125 degrees, four raw sugars……….. and full fat, ‘cause WHO CARES!)

6. Find my grandma and love her up one side and down the other.

7. Go find the guys from Third day, thank them, love on them and then jam with them, because in heaven I can SING, praise God!

8. Go find Steven Curtis Chapman, rinse and repeat.

9. Go find Beth Moore and take her back to the coffee shop for another six cups and a laughter-filled, girl to girl yammer. (Come to think of it, I’ll look for her there first. She’s probably already there, looking for her list.)

10. Make a list of my next ten things. I’ve got lots of time.

The Forrest Gump Of Christian Women

I am the Forrest Gump of Christian women; slow to learn, quick to leap, armed with a ton of good intentions and very little judgment.

Like Forrest, I’ve spent a good portion of my life wandering from one misadventure to another and have finally decided to go back home. Home to my Father, home to my faith. I have been a perpetual prodigal and I’m here to tell you-it’ll wear you out.

Like Forrest, I started my (Christian) life with a set of leg braces. His were made of metal, mine were made of sin. Unfortunately, it took me longer to realize that I could chuck ‘em. My braces weren’t made of the sin I bore when I first came to Christ-God yanked those off the moment I said, “Amen”. But, I fashioned myself some new ones, made of every sin I committed thereafter. The really strong parts were made of the sins and mistakes that I just kept repeating.

This would account for the fact that snails zipped right past me on the road to Christian maturity. It’s hard to get anywhere when you’ve got a few hundred pounds of metal attached to your legs. Oh, I tried to ditch the weight. Every time I flattened myself before God, recommitted myself and begged for forgiveness and revival, I’d get my screwdriver out and start to work. More often than not, before I’d even finished muttering, “lefty-loosey, righty-tighty”, I’d commit the same old sins, make the same old mistakes, toss the screwdriver and add a few more pounds to my burden.

As I said, like Forrest, I’m a bit slow to learn. I understood when the Bible said that Christ died to set me free from sin. I got that it meant I wouldn’t pay the price for my sin. I understood that it meant I was no longer a slave to sin, but had the power to escape it. What took me a while was understanding that when I did sin, I didn’t have to drag it around with me forever.

I spent too many years clumping along, not realizing that my legs worked just fine; I just had to ditch the braces.

Maybe you, like me, are a little on the Gumpy side. Don’t worry….God has classes for slow learners, too. He may even have a few things for us to teach.