Thursday, August 21, 2008

the motive is love

If today had a theme it would have something to do with morality. And for anybody that's known me for more than about 47 seconds, you know that I, too, struggle with this. But here is what I re-learned today:

The motive is love - love of God, and love of others.

Obedience and morality come only AFTER a relationship is defined. Once you love someone - and you feel as though they love you in return, it is only then that you willfully obey them.

It starts with trust, which is followed by love, and ends with obedience.

As people in the 21st century, we do a great job of making the rules. It is much easier to follow a list of things to do, without ever getting any emotions or feelings involved. I know people who live by their planner. When you ask one of these people to lunch, it's an ordeal - figuring out if you can be squeezed in to a time slot - but only for an hour - because they have another appointment. We feel, in our PDA infested age, that if we could just simply restructure life and the things that come with it as a list of things to check off before 5pm (and not a minute later) we will have had a successful day.

But then I ask, what is the measure of success after all? What about for the rest of us who are relational?

If we go with the theory that we were created to be in a relationship with the One True God, and that nothing else would satisfy, then where do we get the idea that morality checklists are the way to success?

Donald Miller says this:
"Imagine how much a person's life would be changed if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulas of religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit anyway, and he could love people without expecting anything in return."

Basically, it would be beautiful.

I was sitting today in Chick-Fil-A, chillin with my waffle fries, when I noticed an interesting scenario about to take place. I saw a teenage girl - who probably just turned 16 - kinda just hanging out, sort of pacing back and forth. This caught my eye because you don't really see this happen at a fast food restaurant, so I set my book down but still pretended to not be very interested in anything except for my straw. I saw her talk to one of the young workers and the employee darted into the bathroom. He came back almost immediately and said something to this girl. It wasn't more than two minutes later when I saw a semi-tall, pretty lanky teenage boy - probably also 16 - in a Chick-Fil-A uniform and rubber gloves, come out of the bathroom. He had been cleaning. He scuffed his feet when he walked. Right when the young lady saw him she said, "I'm just gonna go ahead and go..."
They're dating!! How cute! She came all the way to his work, just to be with him!
But then my cheesy little grin went away pretty quickly when I saw his face.
His face was crimson with embarrassment, and he barely picked his head up to acknowledge her as he said with a sigh, "ok. i'm sorry." And with that, she was out the door.

I don't know why I was so moved over this. Maybe because I felt so bad for him that his steady girlfriend, of I'm sure about 2 weeks, now got to see him as, not a knight in shining armor, but as a fast food employee in rubber gloves having cleaned the bathroom... he was devastated and it broke my heart.

I say all of that to say that there is a certain freedom in getting our feelings of redemption from God and not other people.

It isn't quite the American dream, but it is DEFINITELY the human dream - the deepest desire and need of our heart and soul.

Anything else is a cheap imitation of a manmade answer to a God sized question.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Sushi and Truth

Heres my revelation I had today at lunch - I guess its ultimately getting back to the basics of things. Regardless, it felt new to me today.

We are wired so that something outside ourselves give us life. So we, in our very nature, would seek a kind of redemption from an outside source... The way the sun provides life to a plant - that sort of thing.

So we begin our search. But what we find in our desire, and ultimately our lack of fulfillment, ever since the separation, and even more close to home - our "Great Sadness" - is for someone, or something that loves us. I can tell you that out of my own story - I have only experienced a love that is a i-love-you-only-when-you-(fill in the blank) type of love. This will always leave you miserable and you will find yourself going through your days feeling like less of a person. You live feeling like all you are is an object - only good for a service you provide. And when you are broken, like a piece of hardware, you will be dismissed... no longer of any use. So what do you do? You force yourself - despite the rust and inability to function properly - to keep performing so that you will not be thrown away. Because not being used at all, would somehow hurt more than the very act of being used improperly.

This makes sense to me.

We need this; we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, or by identifying ourselves by the things that other people tell us we are, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, and by that, of course, I mean the Creator.

Maybe it was just the sushi I had for lunch, but either way, I found this interesting so I thought id share it

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

new beginnings

im the girl that searches for the perfect word.  always.  this will probably take me longer than it should.

let me start by saying this:  my name is carly, and i enjoy getting redos.

golf calls it a mulligan.  but God calls it grace.  and i am currently experiencing it.