Something Wonderful I Found In Romans

 Something Wonderful I Found In Romans

Whoever has read through the Bible once has only read through the Bible once. When we are in relationship with Jesus and attentive to the Spirit, the Bible becomes a living thing. Every time you open it, it will speak to where you are in life. It always remains the same but what it addresses in you is where you are today. When you approach it as a living word it will astound you every single time.

I always look for direction from the Spirit when I begin again to read the Bible through, from cover to cover. I want him to tell me what I should be paying attention to. One year he had me look at how the Bible is a slow revealing of who Yahweh is and what his relationship is with us. As I moved through the Bible I witnessed how he slowly revealed himself until Jesus showed us his heart and we realized him as Father. He went from Creator, in Genesis, to Father, in the gospels.

Another year he had me look for the importance of relationships, Father with us, us with Father and then us with each other. I can never look at the Bible the same way again after seeing it in this light. We have failed in relationships ever since Eve. It is the single greatest failure that has disgusted and moved Father to action. All of humanity has suffered because of this ongoing failure, right up to this present day. 

I find that Paul’s letter to the church in Rome has one of the greatest explanations of the cause of and the solution to broken relationships. Paul starts off by explaining the condition of humanity outside of Jesus. It is ugly and disastrous and is the natural state of all human beings. No matter how much we try to fix ourselves we can’t. We can see the problem, even name the problem, but we can’t fix the problem because we are incomplete. We were designed for life with Father and without him we just can’t function properly.

Paul names the problem : selfishness. Every single hurtful thing we ever do to each other is found in this foundation of selfishness. Every act of rebellion toward Father is fruit from this selfish nature. And there is nothing we can do to change it. No matter how hard we try to free ourselves from it, it will just suck us back in. The only path of freedom is found in Jesus. But there is a problem here too.

Too often we want to treat it as a “one and done” kind of event when we give ourselves to Jesus, but do you remember what Jesus said we had to do to follow him? Not accept him but to follow him. “Deny yourself”, or better understood as “say no to yourself”. Jesus was addressing our selfish nature. It is a process to grow into the maturity of Jesus. It is a day by day process where the Spirit helps us develop the habit of saying no to ourselves and yes to him.

Paul does describe what proper relationship with each other looks like but he also stated that the only proper way to do this is to die to ourselves and to live in the Spirit. Too often we go with the flow of our human nature. We act on impulse. We do what comes natural and it gets us in a lot of trouble. To live in and by the Spirit takes an attitude of purposeful living. It requires a relationship with Spirit, where we spend all day having conversation with him. It is where he guides us in living according to Father’s heart and not our selfish desires. Without his input, guidance and power we will do what our selfish nature dictates. We cannot succeed in this life without the Spirit of God empowering us to say no to ourselves.

Today it is possible for us to live in relationship with each other in the way Father created us to. Paul summed it up with a single word when he wrote to the church in Corinth : love. It is not about perfectionism but it is about love empowered by grace where we give each other the freedom to live with repentance and forgiveness in our living together. Because I have chosen to live according to Father’s heart it means I have chosen to love you. So when you offend me, and you will, I say no to my right to be offended, lean into the Spirit, and forgive you empowered by grace. Amazing isn’t it? And this same grace empowers me to admit when I am wrong or have done wrong.

So, if we find ourselves being offended by those who we are bound with in the Spirit, we know we are getting it wrong. If we find ourselves trying to make excuses for our offenses instead of confessing them, we know we are getting it wrong. It is so easy to know when we are wrong but is our relationship with Jesus real enough for us to say no to ourselves and choose the Royal Law? The Kingdom is about relationships and only he can empower us to get it right.

Lessons I Learned From My Mom

Recently I had the privilege of staying with my 90 year old mother while my father was in hospital. Aging well has been my constant theme in the last few years so I paid careful attention to my mother’s daily routine and attitude as I helped care for her needs. I want to share with you a few of the lessons she taught me.

Let me start by saying, my mother is no ordinary woman. Married to a navy sailor who was absent for lengthy periods of time, she had to learn to provide for herself and her children. Back in the day when it was not normal for a woman to work outside of her home, she became a very successful business woman. She was extremely active juggling many different activities. Today I think she would have been diagnosed as ADHD, and reflects this even in her activities at 90 years of age.

My mom was a firecracker until she turned eighty-five. That’s when the signal between her brain and her legs broke down. She struggles to walk to the bathroom and must use a walker or even a wheelchair. She went from 200 km/h to 10 km/h overnight. But my mom is not so easily discouraged.

This is what I observed in my stay with her:

First, don’t stop. You have to keep moving. The easiest thing to do is to sit back. “Hey, we have worked all our lives, we deserve some sofa time.” This attitude won’t get us far into our senior years. As we retire what we do will change but the doing shouldn’t stop. My mom dove into her crafting head first, making incredible things to give away to people. My mom and dad traveled, made new friends, pursued new interests, and learned new things. But people were always at the center of everything and my mom spent her days following up with and checking on her friends from all over North America. Some of this changed when the legs stopped working, but there were lessons for me here too.

Second, when you can’t do everything, do something. When my mom’s legs went, my dad had to take over a lot of things, like the cooking and cleaning. But my mom didn’t focus on what she couldn’t do. She let go of those things, for the most part, and turned to what she could do. She loved her puzzles and the crafts. She enjoyed calling friends and family to check on them and give some encouragement. Birthday cards were her passion. I only speak in the past tense because the lack of physical activity started affecting even these activities, and here again were more lessons for me.

Third, when you can’t do the whole thing, do the part you can. One year when I was visiting with my parents I started to clean up after a meal. My father warned me to leave the dishes alone or I would get scolded by mom. That was her job that she jealously protected. She couldn’t cook or bake any more but she could load the dishwasher and no one was going to take that away from her. She can no longer load the dishwasher but I observed that she has the same attitude with other tasks like laundry. She can't physically do the laundry but she insisted on sorting it into the proper groupings for washing. It took her a long time to do it but she did it. This again led to another lesson.

Fourth, fight for the right to live. People like me have the best of intentions when I come to visit. I want my mom to sit back and relax while I take care of her. Good intentions but wrong attitude. I heard a senior addressing other seniors on this topic and she told them not to allow someone to rob them of the things that they can do and that they enjoy doing. The example given was of an 85 year old man who enjoyed and was capable of mowing his lawn. A well intentioned neighbour ended up robbing him of this pleasure. My mom has limited abilities but she has abilities and those things get her up in the morning. They are things she looks forward to doing. They fill her days with a sense of purpose. And here I want to come in and rob her of that, not even knowing I am doing so.

The easiest thing for a caregiver is to take the fast road. I can get my mom to the bathroom in thirty seconds with the wheelchair. With her walker it takes twenty minutes. But the wheelchair robs her of her independence. It also robs her of exercise and will cause her health and abilities to decline just to convenience how I care for her. But my mom fights for herself. She insists on as much independence as she can manage. She also insists on managing those who are there to support her.

On my last night of my stay with her she insisted that she wanted to go shopping. She didn’t need anything but she had come up with a list of “essential” supplies that she said she was low on. My mom was always an avid shopper. She insisted with me that it had been two years since she had been to a store. The truth was she had gone out shopping a couple of weeks ago. But I was exhausted and just wanted an evening to sit with her. She looked at me square in the face and said, “If you take me shopping you will be my hero.” Tell me, what son can refuse that? I loaded her in the car and the wheelchair in the trunk and off we went. My mom and I had a grand adventure exploring the remote recesses of the department store.

The last thing I will mention is the most important. My mom is a woman of faith. She has never been perfect and failed in many ways. She doesn’t have the greatest knowledge of the Bible but she has the most important things. She has never stopped loving Jesus or trusting him. Her prayers have carried her kids through a lot of things. She has never stopped loving people, never stopped forgiving and believing in what Jesus wants to do in them. This is her motivation in all things, her love for God and her love for people. Jesus promised us abundant life and she takes him at his word every day. She has lived a full and productive life.

If you ask me the secret to aging well it is simple : despite the obstacles in your health and circumstance, don’t stop. And don’t let anyone else make you stop. And don’t let anyone rob you of what you can do when you no longer are able to do all things. Live. Love. Laugh. Don’t let go! Hold on. Fight for every inch of life and live it as large as you can for as long as you can.