"Come here, let me help you up."

This morning as I was driving Emma to school, she said, "Mom where is God?" I said, "He's right here with us." She said, "Is He in the car?" I said, "Yes! and He'll be with you in school all day. He'll never leave your side. If you have the itchies (a sensory thing she gets when she's agitated about something), God is right there to rub your back and love on you. And he's always whispering things in your ear like, "'Emma, I just love you', 'Emma, you are my sweet girl, 'Emma, I'll never leave you'. " She said, "The other day when Lily L. fell on the 'concreak', He whispered to me to help her up and love on her. I said, "What did you do?" She said, "I helped her up and hugged her and brought her to Miss Kim." Wow, my little girl is learning to listen to her Father's voice. God says, "My sheep will hear my voice." Then a thought came to me... When did His voice change? When I used to fall, I felt God say, "Come here, let me help you up."  When did He start saying things to me like, "You fell again? Shame on you, and you call yourself a christian?"
Out back we had a tree with a vine growing up it. Every year I noticed the vine getting bigger. One day I noticed it was actually killing the tree. That tree with the vine choking the life out of it is actually a good metaphor for what I think too often happens to us when religion starts to wrap itself around our relationship with God. What begins as a loving, life-giving relationship with our Father (christianity), can sometimes get the life choked out of it by the deadly vine of religion. It's crazy, we go from being set free from the bondage of sin, straight back into slavery with the bondage of religion. Why do we trade our freedom for slavery again? Religion changes our relationship with God into a bunch of rules taught by men to try to control behavior through manipulation and guilt. The problem with getting people to conform on the outside is that it never really reaches the heart where true transformation occurs. People can learn right behavior without ever changing their hearts. In fact, it does more harm than good because it tempts us to be good actors by putting on display our good behavior, hiding our bad behavior, and judging everyone else's behavior. Jesus came to set the captives free. His intention wasn't to free us just to enslave us again, but to transform us through a loving relationship with Him. He never came to bring another religion, but to reveal the true nature of the Father that religion distorted. When the vine of religion gets wrapped around the true gospel, it disfigures God and the relationship he intended to share with us. Our Creator is not an angry god that needs appeasing. He's a loving Father who came in the flesh so He could be known by His creation, us, His children. His intention? To live along side us every day sharing his love with us, and manifesting that love through us. It's so humbling to realize, God Almighty created us just to have a relationship with us! (Acts 17:24-28) That relationship begins here on earth and carries on throughout eternity. He invites us to dance with him. The dance is better if we let him lead. He promises not only to lead us into "life", but "life to the full" if we let Him. For a long time I thought that I needed to do something to get God's approval. As though a father doesn't adore his children simply because they are his. I looked for ways to please Him. Ya know, "What do you require of me, God?" "What would You have me do for You?" Over time I realized, He isn't asking me to do something for Him, but inviting me in on what He's doing. His will is simply for me to join Him in loving whomever He places before me any given day. (John 13:34).
One day while grocery shopping, I got the opportunity to love the woman behind the counter at the deli. While I waited for my turn, I noticed the exchange between her and the other customers. The woman behind the counter was short and rude to the customers, and they in turn would grab their meat, reflecting her rudeness back to her. Or maybe it was visa-versa... who knows which came first, the chicken or the egg? Anyway, the typical payback game was in full swing... round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. As I stood there waiting my turn, God gave me a glimpse of this woman through His eyes and suddenly I felt compassion for her. When it was my turn I said, "Do you have to stand on your feet all day back there? You must be exhausted!" She looked at me and her look softened. She said, "I have a terrible migraine." I said, "I'm so sorry." Then I noticed when she called the next customer, she said, "Can I help you honey?" It woke me up to how God's love can have a ripple effect. God was inviting me in on loving his daughter, acknowledging her worth, and showing her that she is cared for. He was loving her through me and in turn He could love the other customers through her. It may be simple tasks like that where He invites us to minister with Him to a broken world. It's like a dance, when I let Him lead, it's beautiful. When I try to lead, ugh! Unfortunately, just the other day I was leading and it was not pretty. I was getting a prescription filled and the woman behind the counter said, "Next." I heard her voice, but didn't see her for a minute because I thought there was only one cashier checking people out. Then she said again in a very loud, strong, authoritative tone, "I SAID NEXT!" It made me jump. I felt like a little kid in trouble. I noticed it also alarmed people around me. They were shaking their heads in disapproval and whispering. It fueled my indignation toward her. I stepped up to the counter and gave her the raised eyebrow like, "How dare you talk to me like that!" Although the words never left my lips, it was written all over my face. To be honest, it actually felt good for a moment, like I was putting her in her place with the rest of the crowd. You know how it feels to play the payback game. At first it feels kind of good like, "Ha-ya, take that!" That's how sin is, it always feels good for a moment (there's a reason it's tempting), but it's never worth the pain it causes. You've heard the saying, you may have won the battle, but you've lost the war. That's what happened in that moment. No one ever wins the payback game. That was not a shining moment for me. As I walked away, I realized I missed an opportunity to give this woman grace and perhaps missed out on allowing others to witness the transforming power of grace. What if I responded in love and listened for the spirit's voice, and instead of paying back evil for evil, I payed back evil with good. What if I apologized and said, "Oh, my bad, I didn't even realize you opened up another register." and overlooked the offense. Was God giving me the opportunity to change the coarse of this woman's day by letting Him love her through me? Or maybe he wanted me to help others see that there is another way... a way that breaks the cycle of the payback game. See what I mean, not so pretty when I take the lead.
After all these years, I still remember an incident that happened in forth grade... I was in a crowded hallway and everyone was pushing and shoving to get through. I remember a girl behind me ramming her books into my back. I turned and made a mean face and said, "Cut it out!" She looked at me sincerely and said, "I'm sorry, I was pushed into you. Are you ok?" I remember blushing with embarrassment over my quick anger. I think that seemingly insignificant encounter stuck with me all these years because there was a powerful lesson in it for me. When someone responds to our rudeness or anger with kindness, instead of reflecting it back to us, we don't get to justify our anger. Instead we get a clear look in the mirror at exactly how ugly our behavior is.
Now as I sit here and reflect on all this, I can still hear the voice that says, "Shame on you, will you ever get it right?" But I've learned that that's not the voice of my Father. My Father is not the accuser. So I tune in to the voice that says, "Come here, let me help you up."