by MeredithNMills | Sep 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
The secret is out. This is the real me.
A few weeks ago, we joined a homeschool co-op. I prepped my kids ahead of time…reminding them to be friendly, to be interested in others, to introduce themselves. You know, basic friend-making stuff. But inwardly, I was a bit anxious myself. I’m not naturally outgoing. Being the first to introduce myself is not exactly in my comfort zone. I, too, was hoping to make connections that would lead to new friendships.
I guess I was hoping to impress people, to make them like me.
You can imagine my embarrassment when, at the end of the first day, I had to search for my misplaced phone. I found it in the office. Assuming someone had turned it in, I asked where it had been found. The sweet lady gave me a puzzled look and told me it had been sitting on the desk all morning. Only then did I remember that I had come to the office first thing that morning in search of name tags. Hmmm….well, she’s not going to think of me as the most organized person in the group.
But really, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Anyone can misplace their phone. (I just happen to do it all the time!)
However, when this same person locks her keys in the car the very next week…Well, the secret is out. This is the real me.
I spent nearly the entire final period in the parking lot waiting for a locksmith. The locksmith, of course, showed up in a huge conspicuous tow truck, just as classes were letting out and people were coming to their cars. He was a jolly fellow – asked how my day was going, as if locking oneself out of one’s car adds humor and excitement to the day.
I guess I should have smiled about it, laughed it off. But I was too worried about what people were thinking.
Ah, people pleasing. I know it well.
It can be paralyzing at times. I spend so much time trying to keep everyone happy. I work hard to make people think well of me – even when it means hiding my quirks and imperfections.
It’s an exhausting way to live, and God is teaching me that we were never designed to live this way.
Can I share with you what I’m learning? Because maybe, just maybe, I’m not alone in this people-pleasing craziness.
First, a person’s value lies not in what we do (or don’t do), but in who we are. Our Maker says we are “remarkably and wonderfully made” (Ps 139:14 HCSB). We bear the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). We are infinitely loved and valued – not because of our own merit or loveliness, but because God has set His love upon us (Eph 2:4-5).
Second, we all have emotional needs that God alone can satisfy. The longing for acceptance is a God-given desire. Its purpose is to lead us to Him. When we look to Him in faith, we find that we are relentlessly adored, unconditionally accepted, and even greatly liked – quirks and all. (See Hos 2:14-19, Eph 3:12, Zeph 3:17.) On the other hand, looking to people to meet this need will lead to disappointment and conflict.
Third, another person’s opinion does not define us. This may seem obvious, but I have many times internalized a rejection (real or perceived), as if it were true of me. When our identity is built on who God says we are, we can come back to that reality every time we begin to feel otherwise.
Finally, true friendships are based on transparency and acceptance. If we keep our shortcomings hidden, the relationship will not be genuine. We’ll wear ourselves out trying to keep up the charade.
This is, of course, not a “blanket excuse” for hurtful behavior. We shouldn’t excuse sin or selfishness under the guise of “just being myself.” In living authentically, we should never lose sight of grace.
But oh, the freedom of walking confidently in faith. When those shackles of fear start to fall off – what a glorious new beginning! It’s taking place in my life. How about you? How has God helped you overcome people-pleasing? I’d love to learn from your journey!
“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says, ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength…’” (Is 30:15).
by MeredithNMills | Sep 22, 2015 | Uncategorized
I “played hookie” on Sunday.
Oh, I went to church. I dropped my family off and then sat in the parking lot during Sunday School. I just couldn’t bring myself to go in. My heart was in turmoil. I was upset about how the morning was going. Actually, I was upset about how life is going right now. Sometimes our burdens just grow so heavy.
Sometimes weariness wins.
I didn’t want to put on my happy face and pretend everything was fine. But neither did I want to get real and admit to my brothers and sisters how I was truly doing.
So Jesus and I, we just sat in the car together and I told Him all about it.
I told Him that I don’t understand why I feel so weak. Everyone else seems to have it together. They seem to handle stress and parenting and Christian living and everything else with ease. So I wonder, what’s wrong with me? I mean, it’s not like I’m suffering for Jesus, or facing a life-threatening disease, or something “big.” Why can’t I handle life better?
I’m ever so grateful that Jesus is compassionate and welcoming. That He listens and then gently sheds His light on things.
After spending time with Him, I realized several things. First, someone else’s struggle does not invalidate mine. Yes, Christians are being martyred. Precious young moms are fighting cancer. Families nearby have no idea where their next meal will come from. Yes, their struggle is real and huge and heartbreaking.
But just as Jesus is “there” for them in their need, so He is “here” for me in mine.
Denial is not God’s way of dealing with problems. Rationalizing that “this shouldn’t be a big deal” is not how God works. My struggle, be it “big” or “small” – it’s real and it matters to God.
The fact is, life is hard. It wasn’t meant to be this way. Conflict, disappointment, sickness, heartbreak…those were never part of His original design. And Jesus felt our pain when He walked this earth. He’s not disappointed by our frailty, our emotional ups and downs. On the contrary. He sympathizes with us and longs to draw us near (Heb 4:15).
The invitation to come boldly to His throne of grace is open to all. He doesn’t say, “Take a look around and compare your struggle with others to see if yours is big enough to bother Me with.” Nope. He just says, “Come confidently to Me in your time of need. I’ve got grace and mercy just waiting to be lavished on you” (Heb 4:16).
A second truth He reminded me of is this. God’s grace comes out in dazzling splendor against the backdrop of our weakness. He shines most brightly through a life that is completely in need of Him. (See 2 Cor 12.)
“Why am I not stronger? Why can’t I handle this?” – those questions reveal my own self confidence and self sufficiency. Boil it all down, and I’m disappointed because I thought better of myself than this.
Maybe that’s part of why God allows life to get unmanageable. So that our confidence will be in Him and not in ourselves. So that we will glory in Christ and boast in His power.
Our weaknesses and struggles, our feelings and thoughts – they matter to God. He wants to take us, frailties and all, and breathe life into our weary souls. He is really good at taking jagged, broken pieces and making a mosaic masterpiece.
Our God is not looking for strong people, but for those whose hearts are set on Him.
How has God put His power on display in your life?
“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him…” (2 Chron 16:9a). See also Ps 91:14.
by MeredithNMills | Aug 13, 2015 | Uncategorized
What’s so bad about sin?
I’ve been pondering that question for a while. As Christians we are “under grace,” recipients of mercy and forever favored by God. Through faith in Jesus, we have become God’s kids. A great exchange has taken place – Jesus took our sin and gave us His righteousness. And that is how God sees us now – righteous, loved, welcomed, joint-heirs with His Son. It’s who we are. Nothing we do can change this reality.
So what’s the big deal about sin, if it has no effect on our standing before God?
Apparently, the Romans were wondering this, too. In his letter to them, Paul says, “…should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? For sin will not rule over you because you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:1-2, 14).
The logical result of being under grace is that we are now free from sin, not free to sin.
Sin used to be our master. But no longer! When we are saved by grace through faith, sin’s dominion is forever broken. It has no more claim upon us. (“A person who has died is free from sin’s claims“ Rom 6:7.) In regard to sin, we are dead.
But we are not merely dead to sin. By faith, we are alive to God (Rom 6:11). We have been raised from spiritual death in order to experience new life (Rom 6:4). A friend of mine once said, “Sin doesn’t make sense for a Christian.”
Why would we submit to our cruel old master, when we have tasted and seen that our new Master is good (Ps 34:8)? Why would we live according to our old nature, when we’ve been given a new one (Eph 2:10, 4:24)? We have been saved for more than that!
You, child of God, are free. Free to walk with God. Free to rest in His love. Free to say “no” to the things that once mastered you.
But…what about those times when you don’t feel free? When the allure of sin seems irresistible? When you feel powerless to withstand temptation? If you’re like me, there are some well-worn paths to sin in your heart. Habits, besetting sins, idols, addictions…How do you get “out of the rut” and create new paths, new habits?
A number of years ago, I found myself in great bondage to food. It was my god. I lived to eat, and regularly overate. It became so bad that I felt powerless to resist. That area had become completely unmanageable, so I cried out (quite literally) to God for deliverance. And God came through.
He taught me that, though I am powerless in my own strength, Christ in me is greater than any sin struggle I face. When I surrendered this area to Him, He began retraining my mind. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is…” He showed me what His Word says about gluttony and about self-control, and about listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice in my heart.
He trained me to walk in the victory that was mine all along.
On this earth, sin will continue to be a menace. But it need not be our master. I still struggle with overeating at times (and plenty of other sins). But it is not my master. Jesus is my Master, and He is oh, so good. When I fail, He is ever-ready to pick me up, put me back on my feet and continue teaching me to walk in freedom.
This is what salvation is all about. The gospel that saved you, child of God, is the same gospel that sanctifies you. We come to Him for salvation empty-handed, with nothing to recommend ourselves to Him. And that’s how we must keep coming back to Him. With no power or goodness of our own, embracing all that He is and all that He’s done on our behalf.
He Himself has set you free.
Will you let Him work out the gospel in the deepest recesses of your heart? He wants you to walk with Him in freedom, unencumbered by the shackles of sin. He wants you to know the abundant life He lived and died to give you.
Let’s keep this conversation going – what are your thoughts on sin in a Christian’s life? How have you experienced freedom from sin? Stay tuned for more on this topic!
by MeredithNMills | Jul 15, 2015 | Uncategorized
Like dry, parched ground – that’s how my heart has felt lately.
It’s been a while since I blogged. The reason? I haven’t had much to say. I haven’t known what to write about.
Last weekend, I went to a Beth Moore conference and that’s when I realized how very parched my soul has been. I have been catching snippets of time with God, but honestly, I’ve been lazy in my pursuit of Him. During the conference, I was reminded of the magnetism of Jesus. He is relentlessly pursuing my heart, even when I’m not pursuing Him.
Beth talked about the concept of gravity, which she defined as “a force of attraction between two objects; that which pulls an object of lesser mass toward an object of greater mass.” She gave the following acronym to illustrate what she called “divine gravity” – God Revealing A Vast Intensity Toward You.
God, the far greater “mass,” is constantly pulling this lesser “mass” (me) toward Himself. How awesome is that? He doesn’t wait for me to initiate. He doesn’t demand that I meet Him halfway. His heart of vastly intense love never stops loving, never stops drawing. I am so grateful.
When I lived in a performance mindset, I was pretty disciplined in reading Scripture and in prayer. But I often did it because it was the right thing, the spiritual thing, to do. As God is setting me free from performance-based living, I’ve wrestled with the why behind what I am called to do. If all things are lawful for me in Christ (1 Cor 6:12, 10:23), if I am fully accepted in Him regardless of what I do (Rom 8:1), then what motivates me to seek and obey God? What should compel me to “discipline myself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim 4:7)? I’d like to take the next few blog posts to share what I’m learning on this subject.
We often think of eternal life as something we get when we die. But in reality, eternal life begins the moment we are born again through faith in Jesus. (“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” 1 Jn 5:11. And “…I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” Gal 2:19-20.)
When we come to faith in Christ, we are given more than “fire insurance,” more than a key to heaven, more than a future inheritance. We are adopted into a new family, with a Father who longs to relate to us.
To view salvation as simply a future event would be like a street child adopted by the richest man in town, who then continues to live on the streets, content with the promise of an inheritance. Or like a prostitute wooed, loved and wed, only to continue in her former occupation, knowing her husband’s wealth will one day be hers. How short-sighted, how vastly inferior, would such a life be!
Such are our lives if we do not walk in relationship with the God who has saved us. He has revealed Himself in His Word. He has deposited His Spirit into our hearts. He has invited us to His throne room. He holds out the offer of eternal, abundant life here and now. How much we miss if we do not throw ourselves into walking with Him!
I do not have to read my Bible or pray or abide in Him to keep being His child or make Him like me. But I do have to read the Word and pray and abide in Him to experience the life that He’s given me. His Word and His presence are the Source of spiritual life and freedom. As a plant needs sun, water and food to bear fruit, so I need the Light of the World, the Giver of living water, and the Bread of life to bear spiritual fruit. I cannot produce it on my own.
If you are God’s child, you were adopted into His family for the purpose of a relationship with Him. (If you’d like to know more about becoming His child, click here.) You are vastly loved, constantly pursued, and infinitely supplied by the God who gave His life to make you His own. His Word is not a book of rules, but your very life. In His presence is fullness of joy.
So let us press on to know Him more. Let us throw off the sin that masquerades as our life. Let us persevere in this walk of faith. How? By fixing our hearts’ eyes on Jesus – the Source, Sustainer and Sanctifier of our faith (Heb 12:1-2).
If Jesus is the Source of our daily eternal life, how does that affect you in the moment-by-moment dailyness of life?
by MeredithNMills | Jun 24, 2015 | Uncategorized
It’s not enough to simply “not hate.” Racial reconciliation is going to take more than that.
Dylaan Roof claims he attempted to start a “race war.” But his shooting rampage in Charleston last Wednesday night set off a much different response. It has inspired a movement against hatred, spread not with human weapons, but with supernatural love.
“A lot of people expected us to do something strange and break out in a riot. Well, they just don’t know us. We are people of faith,” said Rev. Goff, interim pastor of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston (USA Today news report on Sunday, June 21, 2015).
A people of faith. Faith prompted the victims to welcome Dylaan into their prayer circle Wednesday night. Faith enabled their families to extend forgiveness as they looked into his unmoved eyes on a monitor at the bail hearing. Faith gives them hope for the future as they walk through the agony of the present.
Faith inspires supernatural love. We can love because we are loved by God. We can forgive because we have been forgiven through the blood of Jesus. This is what the victims’ families in Charleston modeled to a watching nation.
We are all, every human being, made in the image of God (Gen 1:27). We’re all descendants of the first human couple (Gen 3:20). We are all under the curse of sin (Rom 3:23). We’re all greatly loved by God (John 3:16). He is redeeming as His own those from every tribe, tongue, people and nation (Rev 5:9). In the eyes of our Creator, all men and women are deeply loved and are created equal.
There are really only two kinds of people in this world.
There are those without saving faith in Jesus – we’re commissioned to share His good news of salvation with them in love (Mk 16:15). And there are our brothers and sisters in Christ – fellow believers from all different nations, different cultures, different skin colors. Love is to characterize His family. In fact, Jesus said that the world will know we are His by our love for one another (Jn 13:34-35).
So there really is no room for hatred. Not for those outside God’s family. Not for our brothers and sisters in God’s family. Only supernatural love will overcome the evils of racial prejudice.
Supernatural love is an active love. It’s not just choosing not to hate. It goes beyond that into actively welcoming others into our lives – those like us, those different than us.
This love involves seeing others through the eyes of Christ and investing time, energy and compassion into their lives. It embraces humility, realizing that my own life is enriched by experiencing other cultures and by learning from the people around me.
Faith is the foundation for supernatural love. Faith in the Word of God is the basis for how we interact with others. Faith in the love of God is the motivation for how we live our lives. Faith in the promises of God is the hope for enduring pain and choosing love.
As Christians, we know that this world is not our home. Heaven is. One day we will take up residence there in the presence of Jesus with no more tears, no more hate, no more violence, no more racial prejudice.
As Christians, our primary identity is not our nationality or race or denomination. We are members of the household of faith – a family that spans the globe and reaches through time.
As Christians, we have a purpose to fulfill during our time here. We are called to show God to the world by living out His sacrificial love (1 John 4:12).
So let us join with our brothers and sisters in Charleston and choose love. Let us be tools in the hand of God to bring good out of this evil. And may many come to faith in Christ as they see our unity and love for one another.
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” Gen 50:20.
How do you express the love of God in your daily life? In what ways have you been enriched by opening your heart to learn from others?
