You're a hypocrite, I'm a hypocrite, we're all hypocrites

While reading some status updates on Facebook today, I found myself frankly disturbed - AGAIN - by the diatribe launched by a friend against Christians who don't measure up to her invisible yardstick of perfection and who will never suit her needs because they don't intuitively know what they are and rush to meet them.

I am heartsick for her and because of her.

Yes, we live in a troubled world and yes, people do make lots of mistakes in dealing with one another. Some of those mistakes are errors of commission, meaning that a willful act whether mean-spirited or misdirected was committed causing offense. Some of those mistakes are errors of omission, meaning that something good that should have been done was NOT done, leaving the person in need feeling like they are unloved and uncared for within the body of Christ.

I am going to go on record here and say something that will offend. CRAP HAPPENS. Get over yourself because YOU aren't perfect and NEITHER IS ANYONE ELSE!

We mere mortals can hope and pray and strive for perfection, but we will NOT achieve it in our lifetime. We come most near that ideal of perfection when we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us toward Godly and Christlike choices in our interactions with one another.

Even then, having done ALL you can do to make an encounter positive, you have ZERO CONTROL over how your action or lack thereof will be received or ignored or blown up in your face. That is all on the other person and their fullness or lack of grace.

I was so upset, I shared some of my thoughts on the matter and realized after I hit "send" that they were going to be largely ignored because the person in question LOVES TO MARINATE IN MISERY. Doing so means that she is hoping for the sympathy vote that mortal man seeks to create what is demonstrably a flawed mortal construct to replace the pure love of Christ.

This is what I shared:

If we each spent as much time, effort and energy becoming the people we desire OTHERS to become, there would be a positive change that would spread abroad. Asking ourselves honestly if we have ever been guilty of any of the duplicity and hypocrisy we decry in others is a good starting point.

We tend to minimize our own faults and flaws protecting ourselves from the truth of our fallen natures while loudly trumpeting how "we have been failed by those who should have known better" without giving a moment's thought to the pain we have inflicted on tender souls who expected far better from OUR conduct and choices.

We are ALL works in progress and the process of being sanctified by the atoning blood of Christ is an eternal pursuit, not one governed by the construct of man's timing.
Our world is waxing cold in feeling towards one another and hardening of the heart is a real malady that affects our encounters with each other in a most painful way.

Like the prodigals we ALL are, we want to be received and taken care of even in reduced circumstances just so we won't have to truly deal with who WE have become. And like the prodigals we all are who see the fallen in others, we are angry that our supposed righteousness hasn't been shouted from the housetops as an unblemished example of the purity everyone should rightfully aspire to develop.

In both cases, pride has ruled our will and we have forgotten the mercy that has tempered the justice we all so very richly deserve.

I'd love to say that I have always managed to treat everyone around me so tenderly and in such a Christlike manner that their lives have been miraculously altered for the good.

That would be a gross LIE.

I have trampled tender feelings unintentionally - and, truth be told, sometimes very INTENTIONALLY.

I have said unkind things without realizing they were unkind and I have said unkind things that were most certainly not intended in the way in which they were received.

I have not cared for the sheep when they had strayed from the flock and at times through my careless performance as an "under-shepherd", I have made them run further into the wilderness of sin.

But guess what? I've been the recipient of all of those behaviors directed to me or assumed by me to be aimed at me.

In all cases, it isn't what happens that is important. It is how we react to what happens that matters.

Jesus Christ showed us that. Even as he was bleeding and dying on the cross hanging between two thieves, Jesus Christ showed mercy. MERCY - while he was in the act of paying for the very sins that put these men on their crosses of pain.

Jesus Christ never returned railing for railing, never spat back at those who coated Him in their foul and disgusting expectorations, and there was never a time in which He reviled those who mocked, accused and reviled Him.

Yet we - who claim arrogantly to be examples of a Christlike walk - do all of the above literally and figuratively.

The world turns by God's will and pleasure, not ours. And the Atonement of Christ was a gift given to us all even though God and Jesus knew and still know full well that we cannot possibly buy into the gift given to us in any measure but by offering our hearts and spirits unto Him.

Those same broken, trampled, carelessly used, bruised, battered and wounded hearts that we want to attempt to heal on our own are the very hearts we need to offer to Christ.

Our contrite spirit recognizes that for every measure of mortality we would desire to have excused in ourselves, we need The Good Shepherd to not only rescue us from ourselves, but from the world that will only use our failings to further harm us in our efforts to get the very help we so desperately need. We need to be rescued from our selfish desires and actions and the only way is by Christ's Atonement in our behalf.

When we make our life all about "me", we have lost the focus and purpose for why we are here. We are here to do and grow and develop most certainly, but without a Christ-centric focus that sees others before self, we will be only a shell without substance or use.

I am truly sorry for those hurts I have caused and for those times that I have been a poor example, and been a reflection of myself and all that is not of Christ.

But more, I am sorry for those times that my own myopic focus has allowed me to wallow in what was not done for me instead of a broader focus bringing me more to realize what I should and could do to have helped other people.

God forgive us all when we whine for we truly do not understand what we are doing. Help us all to see aright and to make the necessary course corrections to bring us home to Thee.

Observations for today

When making a late night peanut butter and jelly sandwich, make sure you grab the correct container. Strawberry jelly = good.
Ketchup = nasty.

Check the contents of the toilet paper roll BEFORE you are comfortably taking care of business. This is particularly so when you are the only one in the house and no one will hear you screaming for "another roll".

Make sure the air freshener's spray nozzle is pointed AWAY from you before you depress the button.

And finally, make sure your bathrobe actually makes it into the dryer after washing it because wandering around in your altogether is a guarantee that someone will "drop by" to visit you in your scantily clad condition.

I hope these have been helpful to you...

I Promise

I promise.

Powerful words that are a form of contract or covenant between people.

We say it all the time, often without really thinking about what the message conveyed in those two simple words may really mean to the ears and, more importantly, the heart of the person to whom they are said.

Whether the promise is to a group or to a single soul, in every heart it is a one by one commitment.

"I promise we will get ice cream."

"I promise to love, honor, cherish and obey."

"I promise that I will always be here for you."

"I promise that I'm telling the truth."

"I promise it won't hurt a bit."

"I promise."


What is the intent in the words? To have a quick answer to a child who is asking for our time and instead we placate them with a promise of something later when later may never come?

To tell a loved one that we are honest and true and will be faithful and devoted only to discover our own very mortal, very flawed, very broken feet of clay when they need us most?

"I promise."

God has an interesting promise with us. And His part of that bargain, that contract, that covenant is always binding... on His end.

We vacillate, we shuffle our feet, we hedge, we struggle, and we fail. God forgives us, even when we have trouble finding in our heart to forgive ourselves.

God never makes a promise that He forgets about or omits keeping. Some covenants and promises are made contingent on our performance. Others are made simply out of God's love for us.

"I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

"I am constant."

"I love you."

Those don't move. They don't change.

It's not like us mere mortals. We alter our promises to suit our selfish circumstances. We change the meaning and intent of our words, much like a national leader who excused his promise breaking by saying "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is".

Promises made are words. Promises kept reveal who we are as individuals more than those mere words convey. But promises broken reveal so much more of our intent and our meaning as we interact with each other.

To break our word is to show ourselves broken.

It is not any longer about those persons to whom we have brokered our souls in a pledge, but rather it is about the honor and grace that may or may not reside within US as we utter words with no real intent to keep unless it serves our own selfish purposes.

Brokenness revealed is truly a sorrow. Because many people are perfectly content to live in brokenness and have NO desire to be healed. They have become comfortable and resistant to change because it discomfits them. People are like that. All people. Me, too.

Fixing a rent is hard. It hurts sometimes to say "I promised when I shouldn't have" or "I made a vow that I cannot keep" or "I said it but I never really meant it".

Honesty in our promises is the only way a relationship works - between mere mortals and between those same mortals and God.

I promise.

Heart or head

Focus. What is important?

I've been getting it wrong.

The picture has been focused on entirely the wrong things and now I'm out of touch with what really matters.

Brains don't always make the right decision.

Now I am struggling mightily with the reality that I have listened to the brains and been ignoring the heart which should have taken precedence.

Now, I am truly heartbroken.

I have not applied mercy, love, tenderness or compassion.

And my Daddy has taken all the suffering because I couldn't see what was best FOR HIM.

Oh God, will I ever learn to be what Thou would have me to be?

My tears feel like they are an unending internal flow with times of complete external breakout. I am NOT strong enough for this!

My pitiful prayer is that God in His mercy will do for Daddy what I am simply not able to do - be merciful and tender.

The blessing I seek is not for me for I am most undeserving, rather it is for my kind Daddy who has stood between me and disaster all of my life. Now, he needs God to be there FOR HIM.

My alleged intellect has failed me. I let it overtake my heart and now everyone has lost.

Right now, I truly wish I was more like Kari. She is tender of heart and compassionate in every thought.

I really hate being a grown up sometimes. It isn't all that it's advertised to be.