A Messy Pizza & the Cross

Last week, God used a homemade stuffed crust pizza to illustrate my life versus His life. This followed recent conversations in which more than one friend pointed out blind spots of my "perfectionistic tendencies" that were spilling over into relationships and even into church life.

As I was looking at the pizza that I pulled out of the oven, I was struck with how much my focus has shifted away from where it used to be (God). This semester, I've spent more time trying to make my life look like the middle of the pizza...you know, the nice, neat, smooth, evenly cut slices--the kind that just look perfect all the way around! But the truth is, my life is more like the entire right edge of that pizza.

When I made the pizza, I carefully wrapped the string cheese in the crust. It looked semi-professional and promising! Yet ten minutes later, it looked anything but professional. It looked messy as the cheese kept oozing out of the crust.

Oh, how I have felt like that string cheese for the past six weeks because life has taken many unexpected twists and turns and disappointment and discouragement want to be my constant companions. I've tried so hard to stay within this nice, neat little crust of life, but yet I'm just oozing out everywhere! As the cheese oozes further and further, there is no way to control it. It has a life of its own as it slowly covers up all that looks good.

As I compared the contrasting middle slices to the end slices, God reminded me that even though the mess looks messy, it is still full of goodness. The edges may unravel, our cheesy mess may ooze out and cover that which we perfectly crafted, but it doesn't alter the fact that it’s still a pizza and it's still good. The not-so-stuffed crust gives the pizza character, questions, and a story. It's a picture of reality when we try so hard to cover the mess yet it all spills out anyway.

That night, I purposefully didn't eat the edge pieces because I was so desperately craving order and control in my life. I didn't want the mess regardless of how wonderful it would’ve tasted (as if I thought not eating the edge was a way of telling God what I really thought—oh, the totally immature and embarrassing games we play with God).

Since that night, the pizza image kept coming to mind as I've felt stuck in the same place I always get stuck at in life. It’s the same story, different year, different season...surely, there has got to be a different way!

Yet, the way to overcome is one that means looking straight at Christ like never before. It means overcoming all the hang-ups I have about "religion" and seeing that the cross isn't a religion, it's a way of life. It’s turning a lifetime of knowing about God into truly knowing Him. It's taking the things I learned during my first semester at Seminary and running it through the underlying question of every class and every chapel: "How does the gospel inform [fill in the blank with your current situation]?".

That question is a question I've been so afraid of answering and have been trying to run from because the answers scare me. They require letting go of every thought, every action, and every belief that runs contrary to God. It means living into a new identity (rather than continuing to study what our true identity is but failing to claim it). It means letting go of thoughts that keep me stuck in a rut. It means seeing the decision to believe in black and white. Because when anything is held up next to the cross, we see how futile it is. We see where God wants to break in with His love. We see where the power of God that raised Christ from the dead is our power to cling to and to use so we are never alone. We see a love that encompasses every petty thing that is said or done to us so that words no longer matter and our response is to simply love back.

I finally decided to do something about it because warring against God is wasting time, squandering Kingdom opportunities, and keeping me stuck in this same place. It's declaring that I still desire myself over God and if that's the case, it's time to make some decisions to step away from certain ministry roles for it only leaves a path of confusion and disappointment for me and others.  

When I sat down with a new three-subject notebook, God wasted no time in filling up the first page! Last semester, a professor suggested highlighting all the places in the Bible that say something about who God is. So, the first subject area in this notebook is a "God is ______" section where I write down everything that is revealed about God in whatever passage I read that day. It just so happened that it was Romans 8 ... one page later and I wasn't even done writing out who God is from the chapter. Halfway through the list, I'm like, "God, why do I so easily forget who You are? Why do I run away so much when You offer everything I could ever need and want?"

The second subject area is "Lies vs. Truth" -- one column is for the lies I believed today about God, myself, and/or others. The other column is to write out God's truth. It’s to a point where I need to stop dancing around the lies and justifying them and see them for what they are…I just didn’t expect to see the complete pettiness and downright falseness that I entertain in my mind compared to the wholeness of the truth. And it left me crying out to God, "Why do I wallow in lies when it's so obvious they are lies? Why do I remain blind when You’ve given us truth to speak into every situation?”

The last subject area is two parts--"The Gospel & Gratitude". It's where I take situations and/or people and hold them up to the cross and ask, "God, how does the gospel inform this situation? Or, how does the gospel inform the way I am to respond to this person?" And when doing that, it has a way of highlighting hope and purpose. It reminds me of my value and new identity—the overcoming, persevering, victorious one. It reminds me how powerful the cross is and that we are never alone in these situations.

Life can come at us from all different angles, but the reality is that we are secure in the cross and everything we need to face life is found in God. That produces a spirit of thankfulness and positivity that isn't there when we focus on all that is wrong and how much something hurts. There is always goodness to be found!  It's kind of like that pizza--the mess may look messy, but the taste is undeniable goodness!

Leave it to God to use a pizza to illustrate His point!

“You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about Me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from Me the life you say you want.”  John 5:39-40 (Message)

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2

“But if the Spirt of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:11

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Romans 8:15-17  

Go read Romans 8 – it is filled with answers to “God is…” and truths to defeat every lie we tend to believe!

When the Old Becomes New Again

Do you know how you read familiar Bible passages over and over again and then one day, it’s like you are reading that same passage for the first time ever? That happened to me last week. Actually, I was reading through several books of the Bible for my New Testament class and lost track of where I was and ran across this passage:

             

“The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanders, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.”

It’s embarrassing to admit how many times I’ve shared this passage in various women’s groups. But up until now, it’s always been shared as a challenge to older women and how much we, as younger women, need them and their example. We need them to pour into us and to show us how to live godly lives through mentoring. I had it down to a science what they needed to do for us not realizing that time has a way of sneaking upon us causing the tables to turn.

Yet as I read that passage last week, my pen went crazy underlining different parts of it. I began wondering why I had never read these verses before and then checked the reference. My mouth fell open in shock as I discovered it was Titus 2:3-5, the most famous mentoring passage ever! Wait, what?!?! How could that be especially when it's been the basis of several devotionals/lessons I've shared over the years???

It was the first time I ever viewed Titus 2 with “old woman" eyes. I’m no longer that young one craving instruction in these areas (although there will always be women I look to as mentors and will continually glean from), but rather I’m the older woman with younger women in my care…six of them to be exact. Six lively and talented preteens had just spent that morning with me and their faces came to mind as I read these verses.

It suddenly became scary to read some of these things and to see my responsibility to them. They are the younger women wanting an older woman to invest them, to show them the way, and to point them to God in the ways that I was pointed to Him through the lives of many older women in my church. 

The list in Titus 2:3-5 instructs as well as convicts, yet it all boils down to gospel-centered living. Am I living out the gospel every single day of my life so that “the word of God may not be blasphemed”? Because if I’m living out the gospel, it will reflect in the things I do, in the ways I talk to and about others, in the ways I love and care for my own family, and in the ways I act and react to life.

As God keeps using my seminary classes to help me work out what it really means to live out the gospel daily, may He also give me “old woman" eyes so that I can be a part of building the church and building future generations of the church.

"I Will Not Forget You" (#fmfparty)

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.” Isaiah 49:15-16 (NIV)

How perfect this verse is during those moments when you need your family to surround you and uplift you as you go through life-changing events and no one is there either because of distance, relationship, or choice. This week, I’ve been reminded more than once that we are never alone! We are never forgotten! It’s impossible to forget something that is engraved in the palm of your hands for it is a part of you. It also is part of the hand that can either be the most exposed or the most hidden and protected.

John 10:28-29 says, “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I am My Father are one.”

When I was a teenager, many days were spent sitting alone and wondering if I was forgotten. But I’d write my name on one palm and God’s name on the other palm and wonder what it must be like to have my name inscribed in His hand. I would open and close my fingers over my palm trying to soak in the analogy of being remembered, of being wanted and deeply connected to someone, and of being secure. I’d close my eyes and envision what it’d be like to be covered and protected by God’s hand as my name was sitting there in my palm surrounded and protected by my strong fingers. I found great security in John 10 knowing that no one can snatch us out of God’s hands so He is keenly aware of what/who is in His hands and what's happening to them. 

When we are engraved in God’s hands, there is no possible way that we can ever be forgotten…we are forever a part of a compassionate God who will never let us go! That knowledge comforts us when our hearts yearn for comfort and security in the midst of great change. That knowledge compels us to sit in the presence of God until we surrender to the comfort of His hands around us so He can hold us through the chaos and uncertainty. And that knowledge allows us to listen for God's tender and reassuring whispers of "I will never forget you."

* Five Minute Friday (#FMFparty) gives writers a word prompt. We are encouraged to write whatever comes to mind about that word in just five minutes.  No editing, no perfection, only writing from the heart.  To find out more, visit http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/.  This week's word is "FORGET".