Allergies, Grace, Fellowship, and Thankfulness

Doug Wilson is a pastor and counselor who recently wrote about allergies, and how "boutique allergies" disrupt fellowship. I've spent the past two months considering his stance, and I have a few thoughts to share. 

First of all, I understand - in a sense - where Pastor Wilson is coming from when he speaks of people with boutique allergies. Obviously they are "out there" in the world. They might jump from one allergy fad to the next, hypochondriac style. They might come to church and have a new dietary restriction each week.

The thing is, though, how are we to know they are faking? I ask this because of my own experience. 

I am a woman riddled with allergies - more than I care to list. I react to various foods in many different ways. Blisters, joint pain, intense agony in my gut, headaches, chills, and depression are some of the things with which I suffer when I eat something I shouldn't. For the past 13 years my life has been a process of figuring out what is best for my body so that I can actually function as a reasonably healthy human being. There are foods that I have avoided for years, now, and other foods that I only recently realized were an issue. Sometimes it seems like I have a new food issue every week. My reaction is not, "Oh yay, another food fad I can follow!". My reaction is: It sucks, pal. 

I know this makes it difficult for the church, and for my friends, whenever food is involved. As Pastor Wilson mentioned, sometimes I want to just "soldier on" and eat foods I shouldn't so that I am not a bother or an inconvenience to anyone. 

However, I'm slowly realizing that this drastically limits Christian fellowship. Let me deal with the idea of "boutique allergies" first, and then I want to share a few other thoughts. 

As I already stated, I'm not sure how anyone can be sure that someone is faking an allergy. But to go further, even if we could prove that someone was faking their allergies, does that mean we should? Is it really in the interest of fellowship to call someone out on their dietary absurdity? What if our attempt at leading them to reality would, in fact, "destroy the one for whom Christ died"? Certainly there may be times when a brother or sister in Christ could lovingly address the issue, and try to point out the facts of the matter. I'm not saying that should never be done. I am just not certain Pastor Wilson's take on the matter is the very best one, or the one most akin to fellowship in Christ. Boutique allergies may disrupt fellowship, but so would callous dismissal of someone's (imagined or real) intolerance. Shaming someone into giving up even their fads is not conducive to grace in Christ Jesus. In either case, the body of Christ should act with grace. Believers should deal kindly with one another. We should always seek to lead people to grace, not to shame. 

Now, a word about the humbling fellowship and grace I have been shown. From the time my church family knew about my (and my family's) allergies, they have always sought to accommodate us. They have extended such accepting fellowship, and have gone out of their way to bring us in. It is enough to bring me to tears, and I thank God for the absolutely wonderful, sincere kindness of the church. They ask about our allergies, and try to find alternatives so that we may share in fellowship, rather than leaving us to fend for ourselves. I have had friends go out of their way to find treats that I can eat. They don't need to do it, but it seems they want to do it out of the kindness of their hearts. This, to me, is a wonderful show of grace and love. I am so thankful for their generosity. 

Trust me, my allergies are a burden and an annoyance; but by the redeeming grace of God they are also an opportunity for grace and love. I am consistently floored by my church family, and by my friends. 

So, to my friends: thank you so much. You have offered such hospitality, and you constantly remind me that there is no form of brokenness that cannot be redeemed and restored through love. 

Personalizing books and bookalizing persons

I love books. They are easy to get along with. Tim Challies wrote about "A Reunion of Old Friends", talking about the greatness that is books. I am comfortable with personalizing books. Giving them "personhood" status, seeing them as friends, old and new, is something that comes fairly naturally to me.

It's more difficult for me to deal with people. I am what some would call a classic introvert. As much as I love people, they wear me out. Conversation saps my energy. Fellowship leaves me drained. That's not to say I don't love it. I love conversation and delight in fellowship. It's just that for some reason, this is the way I am designed. People make me tired. There are times when I want zero interaction. I need to recharge, so I escape from all forms of social circumstances.

If I never allowed myself to do this, I would burn out pretty quick. However, there have been times when I have escaped into solitude because I was too lazy or indifferent to put any effort in to developing friendships. I have to guard myself against this danger. I love getting to know people, so to help myself to fight against my sinful inclination, perhaps I should "bookalize" them:

1) Don't judge by the cover
It's far too easy to write someone off because of this or that reason. In a lot of ways, humans are snooty beings. We like what we like, and we don't like what is different. We feel threatened by change, we're afraid of the unknown, and we all have our own opinions on what is good and right and beautiful.

We need to remember that difference is okay. Variety is beautiful. Contrast adds loveliness. We need to be willing to see beyond our own preference, to look beyond the "cover", and see the difference for what it is - a wonderful opportunity to see beyond self and to grow in grace.

2) Speed read to get the gist
When reading a book, sometimes it's helpful to read through it really quickly, to get the overall story, to see the development and satisfaction of the plot. As human beings, I think we "speed read" one another when we first meet. We get a sense of someone's character and attitude, of their preferences, because we hear what they're saying, we see their body language, and we just get the overall sense of people. Sometimes we walk away thinking, "That person was really great." Other times we think something a bit less positive, but the fact is that first impressions are real, they come fast, and they often stick. It's not a bad thing to have a first impression, but to get a better sense of the "story", I think we need something more.

3) Dig down deep to get the whole story
Friendships take time and effort. Getting to know people is work. It might come naturally to you, or it might not, but if you genuinely want to know someone, you have to dig down deep. You have to spend time and effort. We often hide our innermost selves, either because we're too proud or too afraid to show it. We need more genuineness, more study, more effort if we're going to get to know people. We also need to be more genuine ourselves. In order to develop good relationships, we have to reveal our realities. That brings me to the final point.

4) Let them change and challenge you
A good book will affect you. It will challenge your sensibilities, argue against your preconceptions, and expand your thinking. A good book will take hold of you and keep you captive. I've read books that have kept me glued to the story from first page to last. These are the books that reach the knitted corners of your soul and touch what is most real.

People can be like that. We can challenge others, and change them, affect them, and cause them to grow. We might not even realize what effect we have on others, but when we are genuine, when we are open, when we are not content with the surface, then we can jump into the depths and see what huddles beneath. And, I think, we'll see that it's so worth it.

"Let love be genuine..." (Romans 12:9)

Random thoughts from a Wednesday

Compassion & Trust
Personal disasters may be small in the grand scheme, but they are no less devastating for that. Even the smallest wounds should be tended by loving hands. If you care in the small things, people will trust you with their tragedies.

Love & Joy
Love is sharing of an intimate, unpredictable kind. Its beauty cannot be fully seen. Its worth cannot be fully expressed. It is ultimately selfless and abundantly joyful. Joy is more predictable, though less known. Joy is a constant, unending delight in God - even in sorrow, even in the darkness to be felt. It is there, delight battling despair, coming out victorious, though perhaps bruised and bloodied, but all the purer for its wounds. Joy is marked by maturity, by a "settledness" that comes from love - we have joy because Christ loves us with love incorruptible.

Hope & Light
If Christians share Christ only in the good times, and fall into despair and hopelessness in the bad times, then what are they doing? We are not only lamps in light, but in darkness as well - especially darkness. That is where the world will see us shining, and wonder at the sight. They may look at the world and see nothing but shadowed tragedy, but there is light. Christ is the great Challenger of darkness. He has overcome it. Through Him, we have also overcome it. God is not only God in our joy, but in our sorrow too. He keeps His flame burning in us, and we need not fear the pitch.

What if

What if I began to be mesmerized by beauty? 

What if I adored the adorable? 

What if I loved the lovable? 

In this way what if my love grew more and more, until finally 

it overflowed and I could love the unlovable too?

What would happen if I started with the most lovable and spilled down from there? 

If I watered others with grace and love, flowing down from the Source, from the Spring, from the Fountain -

God? 

God is love. 

What if I start with loving God? 

From there I would have a strong foundation on which to stand. 

From that strong foundation of love to God I would be able to reach out and 

to love even those who do not love me in return; 

because the source of my love is not found in their love for me, 

which can be fickle or nonexistent, 

but in God's love for me, which is infinite and neverending. 

We rely so much on equal parts in a relationship. 

We give only as much as we get, and no more. 

What if I gave more? 

What if I ventured into the unknown?

What if I exhausted myself in loving others, 

poured myself out in showing others the beauty and mercy of 

the Beautiful Merciful One? 

What if I cared nothing for what I received in return, 

only what I could give?

Why am I so afraid? 

I want to grip the hands of my Father in heaven and let him twirl me around, 

lift me into the air and set me down in a different place - 

a place that might even be precarious, were it not for 

his steady hands holding me tight. 

If I stand on the brink. 

If I take a deep breath. 

If I plunge in. 

What then?

The Tip of a Pen

I saw this video over at The Rabbit Room. You can go look at their website, because they have a ton of amazing, wonderful things posted every day.

This video is so very, very worth watching.
Then, if you want to, check out the artist's website. 

John 21:17

According to His great mercy

God's mercy is too great a topic to cover in-depth. If I wrote about God's mercy in every blog post, I could write something new every single day. Truly His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).

My pastor spoke on God's faithfulness yesterday. In God's faithfulness, He is merciful. The two tie in to one another, seen from the beginning. God is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."

God's faithfulness and mercy are seen in the fact that He keeps His promises. He forgives our sin (1 John 1:9). He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He preserves us (John 10:28). He has promised us Heaven and glory (Revelation 21:1ff).

He constantly repeats His promises to His people. He knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust, that we are frail, that we are weak. He remembers that we are bruised reeds.

What about us? How do we act toward one another? I definitely do not always respond in a godly way. More often than not, I am very ungodly. I do not always forgive sin. I sometimes leave and forsake. I forget the weakness of others. Am I merciful? No, not always.

I rely every day upon the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. I cannot live one day, breathe one single breath without needing His grace. According to His great mercy He has caused me to be born again. I would not, could not go so boldly to the throne room without my Saviour.

L.I.S.T.E.N.

I have a love/hate relationship with acrostics. I love them like I love salad. Occasionally you get a salad that is as close to perfect as salad can go. Usually, I am not the one who has made it. The lettuce is delicious and crisp, the tomatoes are juicy and actually have flavour beyond that of cardboard, the olive oil is light, just flavourful enough without being overpowering and bitter. On the flip side, you can get salads where the lettuce is all limp and brown, and there's really nothing good to go on the lettuce. So basically it's not a salad. It's a lettuce. And it's gross.

While I have a slight fascination with acrostics, I'm not very good at making them. Kind of like salad.

I've been thinking lately on what it means to listen. Naturally, I made an acrostic of it.

Listen:

Love

Inquire

Sympathize

Turn

Encourage/Exhort

Nurture

Love

The whole law of God is summed up in loving Him with our whole being, and loving our neighbour as ourselves. I would not imagine listening to anyone without love being the foundation of the interaction. Often we find ourselves listening to things that we do not necessarily wholly agree with, and therefore the definition of love from 1 Corinthians 13 is applicable to listening as much as to every other situation. I would say that patience is especially important when listening.

All too often I'd prefer not to listen. I'd sooner jump in with my own conclusions, or the solution to the problem, even if I don't really know what the problem actually is. I want to fix things. I want to connect the dots. Love means taking the time to truly listen, to patiently hear, to understand. God truly listens to us, because He loves us. We know that when we pray to God, He hears our cry. He inclines to us. Do we incline to others?

Inquire

I would suggest that listening often leads to questions. When you are listening, questions spring up to help you delve deeper into the issue, to get at the root of the problem. In order to do that, you have to pay attention. Listening means you do not let your attention wander. You focus, so that you can understand all the particulars, and inquire as to the things that you don't quite understand. Jesus always asked the important questions. He got down to the bottom of things. He remained focused on the true issue, not on the rabbit trails that could develop through the conversation.

Sympathize

If you truly listen, you do not remain aloof and indifferent to the struggles of others. You feel, as best you can, what they do. You put yourself in their place in order to grasp the truth of the situation. Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses. He knows us. He is tender and gentle with us. He knows our frame. He is so careful, in every sense of the word. Are we careful with others?

Turn

Turn the conversation back to what is most important: Christ Jesus. As you listen, keep your mind on the gospel, on how God has spoken His healing (and admonishment) upon a given situation. Remind the hurting of the hope in Jesus. Remind the joyful of the ultimate source of their joy. Give praise to God, cry out to God, lead to God even as you listen. Point back to the Beloved Son. Listen to Him.

Encourage/Exhort

Listening is an encouragement all by itself. For the person relating their struggles, it is an encouragement to know that someone is hearing them, walking with them. Don't leave them to flounder in self-pity. Be there. Speak the truth. I find so much comfort when I pour out my heart to my Saviour, because I know that He listens and hears every word by His grace. I have nothing special or spectacular to say. My words are often small, weak, and pitiful. I repeat myself, carry on with the same old, same old. Yet, God never tires of my repetition. He speaks His words of love, His words of rebuke, His good news over and over to my heart, spreading the balm of grace all over my wounded soul.

Sometimes, when you are listening, there comes a time for you to speak up and admonish, to rebuke. This, too, should be done in love, with a mind toward a deeper understanding of the truth. People tend to share so that you will communicate. Now, this is not always the case - sometimes people merely want you to listen - but be prepared to respond. This also requires you to focus on what they are saying.

Nurture

Cultivate your relationship through communication. Seek something deeper. Point to Christ. Seek a furtherance of trust and understanding, of wisdom and resting together in the grace of God. Jump in. Go deep. Jesus never stayed on the surface. He went straight to the heart. He was always refreshingly real. He always listened, and He always will listen.

O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.

Daniel 9:18

Chainless

Do you know what Christ did for you?

Do you know the cross He bore?

Do you know you are forgiven;

Purified, redeemed, restored?

Do you know why Jesus did that?

Why He came down from above?

Well, there is a simple answer:

He did it all because of love.

For love He took the many beatings

In love He wore the crown of thorns

For love He faced the hilltop, meeting

Wrath and separation; scorn

From men who did not understand

That He was dying in their stead.

In love He took the nails through hands

That healed the lame and raised the dead.

In love He cried, "Father, forgive them!"

In love He died and rose again.

So we come forward as His children

For He saved us from our sin.

Jesus Christ is Love Incarnate

Living Mercy, Mighty Grace

Apparently He thinks we're worth it;

Meager us! Finding a place

Adopted as the Father's children,

Washed and cleansed by Jesus! Free

From former stains and sin's destruction;

Chainless. Called to purity.

Teaching Myself 1 Timothy 1:5

"The aim of our charge is love that issues from

a pure heart and

a good conscience and

a sincere faith."

Every so often I read something that jumps out at me in a way it never has before, even though I have read it thousands of times. This verse seemed to split itself into sections right before my eyes.

The aim of our charge is love...

Do you know how often faith, hope, and love are mentioned in the Bible? And Paul tells us the greatest of these is love. (1Corinthians 13:13) Love is expounded, commanded, explained and considered time and again from the beginning of the Old Testament through to the New.

Why?

Well, God is love (1 John 4:8), and He commands that we ought to love one another, even as He loves us. Love is from God (1 John 4:7), and so we are to love one another if we are to be like Him.

What is love?

Love is more than just a feeling. It's more than saying "I love you". It's all about action. God is love, and God reached out with sacrifice and salvation. He gave Himself up for us. We're called to love like that.

So, that's my preliminary thought on love itself. But what really stood out to me was the next part of the verse.

So, the aim of our charge is love...

1) That issues from a pure heart

In reading this, two questions popped into my head.

- How can we be pure?

- From where does purity come?

Purity is an interesting thing. To be pure means to be unsullied, undefiled, innocent. Set apart.

In Scripture we are commanded to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16) Doves are a symbol of innocence. They're white; spotless; unstained. So should we be.

When I think about this, though, I realize how impossible it is to have a pure heart. I do not. If anything, I have a vile, black, infected heart full of twisted and deranged thoughts and expressions. I am a sinner. The outpouring of my heart is filthy. I bear a heart of stone.

And yet, there's hope.

In Psalm 51:10 it says this:

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

Do you know what is the greatest part about this verse? God answers that prayer.

Ezekiel 36:26 says this:

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

When Christ died for me, He took on my filthy heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh, a heart that loves Him, a heart that desires to please Him. He gave me a heart that can obey. He gave me a heart that is pure and unsullied. God looks at me and sees a pure child, because Christ paid the price for my sins.

2) That issues from a good conscience

- How can we have a good conscience?

- What can we do to strengthen and protect our conscience?

My conscience is seared and darkened with sin. In many ways I do not have a good conscience. However, with Christ's sacrifice and redemption, I am created anew, and I have a conscience that is able to see and choose what is good. By Christ's death and resurrection, I have a renewed mind.

Now, by God's grace I am called to continue renewing my mind, and be transformed by this (Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23). God enables us by His grace to have a good conscience, so that we can discern what His will is, and choose to obey and so please and glorify Him.

We strengthen and protect our conscience by fleeing what is evil, and pursuing what is good.

How often in Scripture are we commanded to put off the old, and put on the new? How often are we told to flee sin and pursue righteousness? Having a good conscience means, in part, being able to say "by God's grace I have not fallen in this area of sin to which I am prone." Having a good conscience means, in part, being able to stand before the presence of those who would seek to condemn you, and being able to say "I have followed God." If you fall into sin, your conscience condemns you. If you flee from sin and do not fall, God is glorified because no one can accuse you.

A good conscience places you above reproach. Christ's sacrifice placed His righteousness - including His good conscience - upon us. We should therefore seek to live up to what we have been given. For the sake of God's glory, let us pursue a good conscience.

3) That issues from a sincere faith

- What does it mean to have a sincere faith?

- How can I make my faith sincere?

Sincere faith is a faith that proves itself to be true. It's a faith without blemish; a faith that really believes what it says it believes.

Do we believe what we say we believe? How do we know?

James says "show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works." (James 2:18)

Sincere faith proves itself by an outpouring of activity. We believe that God is real, so we seek to go out into the world and proclaim His gospel (Mark 16:15). We believe that God is love, so we seek to glorify Him by showing the love of Christ to broken, messed up humanity. We believe that we can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13), so we "attempt great things for God, and expect great things from God." (William Carey said it better than that, but you know.)

Head knowledge and merely saying "I believe," don't mean you have sincere faith. If God is truly working in you and sanctifying you, your faith will abound more and more in good works.

So, all of these things - a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith - are tied up together. If you have these things, you will have an outpouring of love. You won't be able to help it.