50 Shades of.......LOVE

The best Halloween costumes are those costumes that look effortless to make, no one has to ask who you are and everyone chuckles when they see it.  Every year I am amazed on what people can come up with.  This year is no surprise! Slap on a pair of gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, snatch fifty gray paint samples from your local Home Depot or Lowe store and pin them all over your body and you have the best seller book costume 50 Shades of Grey.  I have to admit when I saw this that I did chuckle. However, I am NOT recommending the book, nor have I read it, nor do I have any plans to read it.  But, the costume was funny and creative!  Despite practically knowing nothing about this book, I was able to recognize the costume immediately. What if love toward others worked this way?  No one has to say anything but when they see it, they recognize it immediately. John writes in 1 John 3:18 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” How clearly do your actions say that you love others? I’ve recently realized that if your love action needs an explanation, it probably wasn’t done in love. I want to love others like Jesus but it is hard. I let my judgmental, biased attitude interfere with the work of the Spirit and in the end what comes out was a nice favor but not true love.

 One of the poorest ways we express love to others is by seeking something in return. Love is not expressed in the concept “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” mindset.  The irony is that we tell ourselves that we are seeking nothing in return, but secretly…. a little thank you or recognition would be nice…. a little favor down the road would be nice…. a little blessing from above would be nice.  To serve others with the thought of TRULY receiving nothing in return is hard. I do not want my love action to be interpreted as a favor but as genuine love.  I want nothing in return but want to sacrifice as much as I can.

 I recently cleaned out my closet and bagged up some clothes to donate.  Drove down to the donation center, dropped my big bag of outdated clothes and thought I am supposed to feel good about myself.  I just did a wonderful thing. WRONG!  What did I sacrifice? 30 minutes of my time to bag some clothes and drive down the street. If anything, the donation center did ME favor.  Now please understand, I am not saying that donating clothes or things you no longer use is a bad thing. (I love hand me downs!) We need to continue to do these things because some people need these items and it does show that you are being thoughtful.  However, this is not an expression of true love but again a nice deed. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” John 15:13.  Ultimately, I ask myself, what did I sacrifice? Jesus sacrificed is life to show love. How can a bag of outdated clothes compare?  I remind myself again “I want nothing in return but want to sacrifice as much as I can. “ If we could show love in this capacity, 50 Shades of love would be a best seller!

What a privilege!

This week I’ve uttered a phrase to my daughter that has surprised me.  Many times this week, I’ve asked my 4 year old princess to “watch” her brother while mommy runs to the laundry room or “watch” her brother while mommy changes her clothes or “watch” her brother while mommy gets lunch ready. Translation, please make sure your brother does not touch any electronic devices, rummage through the trash or decide to spill the dog’s food and water while I am temporarily away for a few minutes.  The gleam in my daughter’s eye is quite amusing. I have just given her dominion and made her ruler of an 18 month old.

 I began to dwell on this experience as I read Psalm 8: 3-8 this week. The psalm states “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.  This verse echoes what is written in Genesis, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

In the end, I’ve always understood these verses to mean that as humans we were created a step up from everything else in creation.  As humans, we have been made special, we’ve been made rulers compared to everything else God created, and He has allowed us to have dominion over his mighty work.  What a privilege! However, there are some negative feelings that tend to creep up when I read these verses. Just like Satan to attack. I can’t help but feel a bit powerful, arrogant and mighty. With an evil chuckle, I think I have been made above everything else….ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

 These feelings are quickly put in check when I compare myself to everything else in God’s creation.   Let’s face it, if I was placed head to head with a lion, I wouldn’t feel like I have dominion over it.  When I compare myself to the beautiful mountains God created and think how many people have died climbing them, I don’t feel so supreme. When I think of a tree planted in the ground and think of its life span and all the wind and weather damage it endures in its lifetime, I do not feel like a strong ruler.  In fact, when I compare myself to God’s creation I feel inferior not supreme.

Having dominion over something, doesn’t mean we are so powerful. When I read these verses, I do not want to feel sense of supremacy, power or mightiness.  When I read these versus, I want to feel special, and honored that God has allowed us to have dominion over what He created. In the end, I’ve never seen a lion tame human, I’ve never seen a tree be able to withstand the axe man uses to cut it down, nor I’ve never seen a mountain conquer anything like man does when he climbs to the top of it.   

With my four year old daughter, that gleam of superiority in her eye quickly changes into despair when her brother starts getting into things. She quickly realizes she is not so powerful and it is not so easy. Being given dominion over God’s creation is something of reverence and awe not superiority and power. Therefore, let us be good care takers of what God has entrusted us and have a healthy view of what having dominion is really about. We were not created above everything else to boast.

Autumn Attire

Cooler weather, leaves changing, pumpkin recipes are some of the things I love about fall season. Another one of my favorite things about fall weather is the clothes I get to wear. Boots, scarfs, sweaters, light jackets are clothes that one  doesn’t  get to wear much living in Texas, but when the temperature remotely drops I quickly pull out those clothes and take advantage of it. I have to admit, I get excited about wearing clothes that I haven’t seen in 9 months. It is like I went on a shopping spree except I didn’t spend any money!

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As I began to try on my fall clothes that were pushed at the back of my closet, I thought about the scripture in Colossians 3:12 which states “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”  I have to say I felt convicted. God wants me to clothe my spirit and I am interested clothing the flesh.  It made me wonder how many of us run around with a naked spirit. We would never leave the house undressed (or at least I hope not) but I feel that we walk out the door without clothing ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

  My daughter is at the stage now that she gets dressed on her own. It is great! One day, I asked her to go and get dress with the clothes I’ve laid out because we needed to run to the store.  She quickly got dressed and off we went.  While we were at the store, I noticed her pants were falling and a tiny piece of skin crept out from the back. I walked over to her and said in a soft, gentle whisper a question I thought I would never say, Sweetheart, where is your underwear? Her response was priceless. “Oh no, I forgot!  I thought something didn’t feel right!”

How you forget to put on underwear is beside me.  Nevertheless, I wish something didn’t feel right when I didn’t clothe myself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. God wants me to put these virtues on daily. It is not natural and certainly not easy but with God all things are possible. God’s Word says to “clothe yourselves.” These are powerful words for a girl who loves fashion.  Without these things, our soul should feel like your wrist feels when you are not wearing a watch or how your ring finger feels when you are not wearing your wedding ring. As beautiful as I think autumn attire is, God has called us to dress our souls with something much more elegant, much more profound and much more humbling.

Go Texans!

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To say that my husband is a Houston Texans fan is an understatement. Therefore, when my son was 17 months old it only seemed logical to teach our son how to cheer for the most important football team by saying Go Texans.  My husband, wanting to pass down his love to sports to our son, was so proud.  Anytime our son would see the Texans emblem he would say Go Texans! It didn’t matter if he saw the emblem on a t-shirt, hat, bumper sticker, or flag; he could recognize it and say Go Texans! It didn’t matter if we were in the car, at the store or at a restaurant. If he saw the emblem, he would point and say Go Texans! This cute expression soon changed when I showed him the cross hanging on our wall and he said…… nothing. The puzzled look on his face as he tried to search for the word of this object was heartbreaking.  I felt awful. I’ve taught my son the Texans emblem before teaching him what the cross was.

You see, my son not only knows when and how to say Go Texans, but he also knows that this symbol is associated with words like football, tackle, and hut-hut just to name a few.  I wonder how many of us see the cross and associate it with love, mercy, grace, sacrifice and forgiveness. I am afraid that we look at the cross with the same puzzled look my son gave me and forget its true meaning. The cross is not just the place where Jesus died but much more.  One of my favorite versus about the cross is Colossians 2:14 which states “having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”  This verse makes me imagine a cross not only with nails at the hands and feet of Christ but the cross filled with nails and strips of paper all over it that marked our judgments and they were cancelled and nailed to it.  The cross is big and enough to hold it all. This is what I want to see every time I look at the cross. This makes me think of love, mercy, grace, sacrifice and forgiveness.