Beginning
Kovacks,Let us make a comitment right now that we will use this forum for gut-level honest talk. And not for any agenda-ridden arguments. (That declaration is more for me than for you). Let me make that statement more clear: my hope is that we will use this blog for growth.
Supposing that God is in fact good (good like pleasure), let us pursue the process of repenting (actual word means to rethink something) and changing our ideas on who He is and what He is about.
This is a process that has really liberated me into a whole new way of being Josh.
So, I guess what I'm hoping is that you guys can help Megan and I grow better. And that we can do the same for you.
Very Best,
Josh
posted by Josh @ 9:50 AM
3 Comments:
Hey guys,
I just read Josh's letter to Jill. Josh, I have written bits and pieces of my story to you and Megan, and you have always encouraged me to write more, but I have never read your own personal, powerful story. My story is quite different, yet has many of the same elements. I am amazed that you are so sure that it was God who specifically spoke to you on two separate occassions. I also know that Jenny has an experience where God spoke to her. I cannot say that I have. Not long ago, that would have really bothered me. It would have left me doubting myself and God. It would have made me think that perhaps I am not valued in His eyes or that my relationship with him was phoney. My personal testimony today is that it hasn't made me doubt myself or God. In fact, I am just so happy for the both of you. I am so happy that you had such geniune, personal moments with God. To tell you the truth, the biggest weight in my life was lifted the moment I read the section on grace in Blue Like Jazz. I never accepted His grace. Let me repeat that. Never. Never. Never. My entire life up until a few months ago was spent swimming in guilt, regret, confessions, doubt, and hoplessness. I would mentally beat the crap out of myself daily. I have finally accepted God's grace. I think it was divine, only because I tried to accept it myself so many times before. It had to be empowered by God.
Since the very moment I accepted His grace I began to grow towards Him. This is on a completely different level than ever before.
Let me explain. Two years ago, I joined a bible study at church. We called it Mom's Group. We were doing a study about being the Exellent Wife. It was a great study. I really poured my heart into it and gave it my best effort to be the best wife possible. I was happy, I learned about giving and self-sacrifice. As I obeyed all of the rules, I felt better about myself. I thought I really growing by leaps and bounds, then Christmas break came and then things came up and I couldn't go, then I missed so much that I was ashamed to go. Then Henna went through this horrible nursury phase where she screamed the whole time, so then I was so embarrassed when I went to class because I knew that all of these Christian mom's dissapproved of Henna's outrageous behavior. So I stopped going and I felt like crap. I was an outsider in church before mom's group and maybe even more so after mom's group. Now I can see that the reason I was so happy and "close to God" at the time was because I thought I was doing what every Christian wife is supposed to do. I was following all of the rules and I looked pretty good in everyone's eyes. It had been a long time since I'd looked good in anyone's eyes, so it felt great. Jason liked it, but he really thought it was to extreme, and that's coming from the husband's perspective. He didn't have to say that, he could have kept on kicking back and reaping the benefits of being served and treated like royalty, but he cares about me too much. Anyway, then Jenny bought me this book that Josh reccommended. I finished it in a few days. Those few days are liberating. They are sacred to me. God somehow opened my heart and my understanding. He allowed me to see His true character. He is just not sitting there pointing His huge finger at me. I accept that Jesus was sent as a sacrifice because it is not possible for me to be the perfect christian. I accepted his Grace, his forgiveness. I am forgiven. Out of this came my want to please him. My desire to do good things. I don't feel like I HAVE to so these things. I want to. I think I am still an outcast in my church for the time-being, but I don't really care. I trust that God with shine through me and show my true colors just by living in me. Another liberating moment also happened to me very recently. I listen to K-Love all of the time in the car. One night I was coming home from work and there was a song about our sins being forgotten. They're on the bottom of the ocean floor. I was never able to accept the fact that my sins would be forgotten after asking for forgiveness, so I would think that certain things in my life were punishments from God because of a past sin, or I would confess the same thing two hundred thousand times... but when I heard that song, my understanding was finally opened again. God really throws our sins out. They are forgotten. I am still kindof working this issue out, as I am researching the Bible about judgement day. I am just wondering what excactly happens that day, you know, if we are jusged for every sin we ever committed, or if we are just judged for the good we did because Jesus' blood washes our sins completely away, forever and ever and ever.
Anyway guys, thanks for reading.. I gotta get the kids to bed.
Love, Jorie
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
[I deleted my former post because it needed a good spell-checking]
Dear Jorie,
Your response broke my heart. Because somewhere deep inside of me I war with myself against self-righteous, judgmental belief systems. I immediately think of all the times I was so hard on you... particularly when you were pregnant with Brynn, and I tried to force you into making certain decisions. Not because I wanted to control you, or because I was trying to save you from the fires of hell or judgment, or anything like that, but because of a strange mix of behaviors that are hard for me to kick. The most obvious one is simply passion. I am so very passionate about the things (and people) I love, but also because of assumptions about you, and who you are.
C.S. Lewis says that we cannot judge a person simply because there is absolutely no way of knowing where they have come from and what they have "achieved" or how they have changed. I think your response makes this so very clear. I find myself to be a fool.
It was hard for me to hear you say that you were unsure about who God was that terrible night I spoke with you after we found out you were pregnant, but it all makes sense now. And I can see how my assumptions about who you were made things so much worse. I guess that's why love hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things, and NEVER fails. Because love is the only action that is completely non-judgmental.
I have been hearing a lot of rhetoric these days about how God's entire plan is summed up in Jesus. It's funny how I've never seen it before in the Bible. I CORINTHIANS 15 outlines a huge portion of this quite clearly, and I'm beginning to see it everywhere in the Bible. It's madness.
Dudley Hall has always said that Abraham and Moses and Joshua, etc would have recognized Jesus. He says that they whole of history, past and present point inward to 30AD, when climax of the story of the fall and redemption of man reaches its climax.
NT Wright puts it this way: imagine an hour glass. Imagine all the sand in the top of the hour glass, being held up by, and simultaneously POINTING TO a single grain of sand--a single grain of sand in the skinniest part of the hour glass. The part of the hour glass through which everything must go in order to fall to the bottom. But the sand does not fall, because of this single grain of sand. And that single grain of sand is Jesus.
NT Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham, and a PHD'd first century scholar. And also a (very)spirit filled believer. His point is that all of the past and the present and the future points to the climax of history--which is in fact Jesus.
With this in mind, I was pondering the moment at which grace was achieved: Jesus on the cross. And, to my utter shock and amazement, what we find, in that very definitive moment, is God, dying, while his fallen, arrogant, fragile, needy, delusional creation roams about him with spears--about to "finish him off," and he says the very thing that defines the heart of our God concerning grace: "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."
His words are the defining moment of GRACE--a permanent and integral aspect of WHO GOD IS. Love is not Love without Grace. This is God's permanent status concerning how he feels toward us.
It seems that this statement in fact, "converted" a soldier nearby when he responded by saying, "this man WAS the son of God"... and we would do well to learn from Jesus, in fact, it is now our very nature to emulate him. And so we find the conversion "tactics" of Jesus to simply be the demonstration of God's heart for all of humanity: Grace. No questions asked.
I don't know if this means anything to you or not. I just wanted you to know that I am sorry for being overbearing, Jorie. I love you so much. It is my intention to be the hands of Jesus, and provide healing and Grace. Rather than arrogant advice, or judgmental behavior. I hate that part of me, and I'm doing better all the time. It is a family heirloom that I intend to destroy as utterly as possible. Just a note, a little book called "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Henry Nuowen REALLY helped me with this.
Concerning the judgment: there is so much to say on this. But rather than getting into it at this very moment, why don't you and I read another book together. One that I have not read. I'm currently trying to find out the title from a friend, but the point is that it deals with eschatology (the study of the End Times). I think you will be shocked (as I have been) to discover just how poorly conceived our current paradigms are constructed. I am discovering that Pastor Don had some of the worst eschatological views ever conceived. Just a taster's note: Matthew 25 is not about the end times--at all! It is about the destruction of Jerusalem. It happened, just like Jesus said, in approximately 70AD. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Not one stone was left upon another.
Another note: I think our concern to understand "what happens at the judgment" is often so important simply because we were taught to believe in the type of God that offers Grace free--accept for the fine print. Free like a pop-up add. Free like a telemarketer who says you have won a free vacation... Yeah right. Trickery, I say. Trickery. In other words, we are taught to believe in a God who says amazing things, but lets us down big time when we attempt to live it out. A God who is "good"--i.e. almost bearable.
If, on the other had, God is good like chocolate. Like happiness. Like adventure and liberty. Like Narnia. If God is, in fact, all of your wildest dreams come true, then consider how much less we might fear whatever "the judgment" is.
If we taste and see that he is Good... then what kind of fearlessness might we discover (in our hearts) concerning the future interpretation of all the scary corners of faith that we have drilled into our heads. By religious people.
I think Jesus was hardest on the religious leaders of his day because they were the ones who had "brainwashed" his people into lies concerning the very character of God. How can one fulfill the first and greatest commandment (to love the Lord your God with all your mind, soul, and strength) if you believe that God is mean and cruel?
Looking forward to the breaking off these rusty chains with you,
Love,
Josh
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