Persistence That Heals

It’s hard to stay focused. There is so much to distract our attention. Even when you set your mind to a task, there seem to be ever increasing temptations to stray. Whether with personal goals, workplace initiatives, or community aspirations, it takes enormous efforts to persist.

Sometimes what undermines our persistence is the unpreparedness for the distractions or obstacles. We knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but we weren’t ready for how hard or how long it would take. Other times our desires get diluted for the goal we had set to achieve. Or, we question the worthiness of the original goal we set.

Persistence is the secret sauce of success. Seneca defined it as “constancy of purpose.” To persist is not sexy or convenient. It often makes you unpopular because you always have to say “no” to others who mean well but would otherwise undermine your commitment. Or it wears you out, especially fighting the temptation to take the wider road more often taken. To persist is grinding it out, feet on the ground, every day showing up, resolving to stay at it.

Jesus had to persist. Sometimes we think that because Jesus was God, everything was easy for him. That somehow because God is all-powerful, Jesus effortlessly stayed the course. In the gospel according to Mark, we have a story of Jesus hiding in a house across the Israelite border in Syrian-Phoenicia. He had confronted the Pharisees and convicted the crowds and felt the need to get out of the country and let things cool off for a bit. Persisting in his mission led to conflict and the need to get away to reflect on what to do next.

Jesus came as the King of Israel with a mission to deliver his people from slavery, to proclaim forgiveness of their sins to those that would repent of their rebellion towards God. Jesus came with the power of God to bring about the salvation of God’s people, to bring healing to their broken hearts and hope to their sin-wrecked lives.

So when a Greek woman from Syrian-Phonecia discovers him hiding in her village, she seeks him out and asks him to heal her demon-possessed daughter. Jesus essentially says no. That’s not what he came to do – he came first to set Israel free from the evil one. She was asking him to deviate from his mission, and he resisted her request. But nevertheless, she persisted. She didn’t take no for an answer from the King of Israel. As a mother, she couldn’t do anything else but persist for a yes. Jesus was deeply moved by her persistence and healed her daughter.

The persistence of Jesus in his mission almost caused him to say no to a healing opportunity of a little girl from an enemy nation. The persistence of a distraught mother overcame Jesus’ resistance to deviate from his mission to Israel. Jesus didn’t heal many non-Israelites. He rarely left Israel. But to those that asked, he would say yes. Why? The mission of Jesus was to restore the mission of Israel: to be a people that leverage their power in the world for the healing of the nations. As God’s people, they were to persevere in the ways of justice and mercy, a source of light amidst the dark empires of the world.

Her persistence expanded Jesus mission of healing. Jesus persisted in his mission of healing, including women, the poor, outcasts, and outsiders. And now Jesus persists with you. There are more mothers out there pleading for their daughters to be healed due to the ravages of evil. There are more fathers begging for their sons to be rescued from death. And Jesus is calling you to leverage your power, the power of our community, the power of your workplace to persist in the healing of the wounded.

What’s your purpose in the world? What is God calling you to do? May you join in with the expanded mission of Jesus to heal what has been maimed, abused, neglected, and corrupted. The world needs more healers who persist.

Love From The Center Of Who You Are

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. [NIV]
-St. Paul of Tarsus, Letter to the Romans, 12:9-10

Every generation has challenges to face. The daily news keeps reminding us of that. Global and local events also remind us that there is always darkness, there is always evil, there is always sorrow, there will always be hate. The questions is though: when you face challenging situations in your heart, in your home, in your community, in our nation, will you have enough light, enough good, enough joy, enough love to overcome?

Probably not on your own. We need friends to help us make it through. I believe that we especially need the Lord, who faced the darkest hate in our world – and he overcome it with light and love. He can send us friends, he can send us wisdom and strength, he can be with us as we strive together to overcome our hatred.

In our world we aspire to love others, but often succumb to hating others. As we seek to serve and lead in our homes and communities, may we be empowered by the Spirit of the Lord to let go of hating others. May we love from the center of who we are in Christ, to hate what is evil and cling to what is good, to love our enemies and bless those who curse us.

May these quotes on love and hate inspire you to honest reflection, candid confession, and a lighter tomorrow:

Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
-Anne Lamott

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
-Jonathan Swift

In time we hate that which we often fear.
-William Shakespeare

Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.
-George Bernard Shaw

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love.
This is how the whole scheme of things works.
All good things are difficult to achieve;
and bad things are very easy to get.
-Rene Descartes

Hate is too great a burden to bear.
It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
-Coretta Scott King

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.
What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
-Herman Hesse

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
-Henry Emerson Fosdick

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
-James Baldwin

When we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves.
-Chuck Palahniuk

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why Trying To Be A Good Person Is Bad For You

I’ve always tried to be a good person. I’m a pleaser, so often my attempts to do good are driven by my desire to make others happy. I certainly try to be a good person as a way to love God and love my family and friends.  I like trying to be a good person.

But if I’m honest, trying to be good can sometimes be bad for me and my community. How?

In my effort to be a good person, and to appear as a good person, guess what typically happens? Yes, that’s correct: lots and lots of denial, rationalizing, defensiveness, and well intentioned but maybe naive help.

My desire to be good can undermine my acceptance of the not-good within me or coming from me.

In one of the stories that Mark tells about Jesus, the religious lawyers confronted him about why his disciples ate with unwashed hands. Jesus, it seemed to them, was okay with lawbreaking. He, however, turned their questions around on them, accusing them of hypocrisy.

It’s ironic, since the Pharisees and religious lawyers were so committed to being good people and devout followers of Israel’s God. So how was it that in their attempts to be good they were bad?

In the teachings of Moses God makes it clear that people are to honor their parents, especially in their old age – and this includes caring for them financially and being a blessing to them (instead of being a negligent or abusive curse).

But the Pharisees had found a way to designate their finances and time to God as a way to both look pious and avoid the expense and difficulty of caring for their aging parents. They found a way to avoid keeping  commands of God by coming up with a way to be devoted to God.

In this case, their attempts to be good people was bad for their parents.

Jesus then goes on to make a bigger point about unclean hands and being good people. He was accused of defiling his body by eating with unwashed hands. But Jesus points out that it’s not what goes in that defiles the body, but what comes out. Don’t worry about the food that goes in to the stomach, pay attention to what comes out of your heart.

This is provocative stuff. Jesus describes twelve inter-connected evils that are already in our heart: immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, pride, and folly.

My first instinct, and probably yours too is to scan the list and see which ones apply. As an act of humility we might pick a few we all struggle with. But this is where our addiction to being good corrupts our judgment. Jesus is saying that all of these evil thoughts are in our hearts.

And if we’re always looking for ways we’re not guilty of them, we’ll be blind to the ways we are guilty. And if we’re never convicted, there’s nothing to confess and repent.

Everyone agrees Jesus was a good man. So how was it that Jesus was crucified for being seditious (a law-breaker and a political threat) and for blasphemy (slandering against God). He was put to death by men and women who thought of themselves as good people seeking to be devout followers of God.

The irony? In trying to be good and devout people they killed God.

Hypocrisy is undermined by humility. It takes humility to confess the evil thoughts within our heart. It takes humility to hear from others how we have wronged them, even though we thought we were doing the right thing.

Being good can become a vague assertion that can prevents us from being honest and humble about the bad that is really in us. And that’s bad for us.

Who then can be good? Only God is good. The rest of us, well, maybe we should give up on trying to be good and work to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

This is, ironically, what Jesus strives for us to become and do.