Broken Brains, Holy Souls

Our “broken” brains galvanize our journey to salvation and our divine return home.

Grateful to be broken. Hopeful to be holy.

God allows us to be neurochemically prone to specific struggles, such as sexuality that is incongruent with His design, mental illness, and addiction. He did not merely give us tools to address our struggles to come out on the other side as happy, fixed individuals.
Greater so, He equipped us with armor and weapons to conquer the enemy in order to emerge from the depths of our neurochemically induced misery — from the front lines of the soul battle — as joyful, healed victors in Christ.

Even with our “broken” brains, we can be confident that the Creator graciously ‘knit each of us together in our mothers’ wombs,’ ensuring we would be “fearfully and wonderfully made.” What defines us as such is that we instill fear in the enemy – Satan and his demons. We are a danger to Satan and his army — pathetic and impotent compared with God. And the wonder? That is the marvel we engender in those who witness us mere humans as we step into the supernatural. You see, God’s ways are not our ways. So, yes, what we perceive as God creating in us flawed brains, prone to maladjusted sexuality, mental illness, and addiction, was God’s perfect design for each individual. Our imperfect-by-human-standards brains achieve His love goal: draw close to Him, grow in Him, and return to Him.

Think of Job, who, in his depression, drew close to the Lord, refusing to curse Him. Job lost everything and everyone, only to be blessed with even more.

Consider Jacob’s dark night of the soul, wrestling with the Morning Star. In what can be perceived as Jacob’s madness, he struggled with God, boldly demanding a blessing, and successfully limped away.

And then there was David. He fornicated with Bathsheba, making an adulterer of her. Upon finding out she was pregnant with his child, David sent Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to the front lines to be killed. In time, because of David’s sexual struggles-turned-murder, he grew to be a man after God’s own heart.

God makes no mistakes. He sovereignly designed each soul in love, before time began. In His paradigm, the wisest, wealthiest, healthiest ones aren’t necessarily the winners. You see, all holy souls are invited to the wedding feast, and there’s room enough: Come one, come all, come as you are – impure, unwell, undone. We are the ones most in need of a Savior.

I Gave God the Finger

Just because. That’s why God loves us.

That can be hard to accept. It means our worth is based on nothing we’ve done. Let’s face it. In most of our relationships, we like each other because the other person is nice to us. But the Lord loves us even when we behave in an unlovable way.

I’ll tell you something I haven’t told too many people. In a wildly frustrated moment, when I wasn’t getting my way, I screamed, “F*ck You, God!” while giving Him the finger. But because God loves unconditionally, He loved me even during that blasphemous tirade.

The flip side of not being able to earn the Lord’s love is that we also can’t lose it. That does not mean we have carte blanche to go on murderous rampages or even gossip sprees. Why would we want to hurt the One who loves us so dearly and unreservedly? When we genuinely have a relationship with the Lord, we’re not inclined to behave in ways that displease Him.

Similar to the “we can’t earn His love” truth is that none of our abilities are our own. Crushing, isn’t it? In high school, I thought my cheerleading skills belonged to me. My toe-touch jumps, splits, and back handsprings were a sight to behold. I was so good that the coaches put me on the varsity team when I was only a freshman. It turns out God gave me that talent. All things were created by Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16).

Doing a grab jump, October 1990, as a cheerleader for Toms River High School East. Photo credit: W. T. Wagner

The only thing we can take credit for is accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior. And some argue even that is entirely predestined, a precept of the faith I do not completely subscribe to. I believe we can take credit for being obedient to the Lord, though. But even then, if we pray, “Lord, please help me be obedient to You,” who gets the credit? He does, yes? It’s a prudent idea to give God the glory in all things lest one becomes prideful. After all, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

Now comes the question of motivation. If we don’t have to do anything to garner the Creator’s love, and if we don’t get credit for what we thought were our achievements, why bother with anything? The heart of the problem is ego. It gets no attention! But God is so gracious and judicious that He takes our unquenchable egos out of the equation of life by giving us unearned love and by rightfully taking credit for our talents and accomplishments. (Knowing that we flawed humans cannot handle the kudos that comes with achievement, God wisely advises us to deflect to Him the praise and glory we receive.)

If we are not to spend our lives in pursuit of ego-satisfying goals, what should we do then? Here’s a plan: let’s look upward glorifying God and outward showing gratitude. Let’s pray, fellowship, spread the Good News, work hard, exercise, learn, give, enrich others’ lives with the gifts He’s given us, and celebrate life every day.

Oh, and let’s love each other–just because.

Less Than His Best

Stop settling for, stop striving for, stop aching for less than His best for you.

We must stop our faithless pursuits. He did not create us for mediocrity. He did not create those who will inherit a heavenly kingdom to lust after flesh-satisfying goals. We are holy royalty, ‘chosen in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace’ (Ephesians 1:4 – 6).

Every moment we spend trying in vain to increase our self-esteem, self-confidence, self-awareness is time wasted, time that could have been spent increasing a lost soul’s knowledge of the Savior, increasing someone’s holy confidence and God-esteem. Investing in others is what increases our holy confidence and God-esteem.

Self be damned! He never said to rely on self. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who preached self-reliance — not the Creator, not the Savior, not the Comforter. Have you ever heard of “self-create,” “self-save,” or “self-comfort?” OK, maybe self-comfort. But really — how effective is hugging yourself?

(May 24, 2018)

Wasted Lives

We reach a certain age, and we start to wonder if we’ve wasted our lives, if our lives have had any meaning. We wonder, we fret, if enough time remains to correct course if we have, indeed, wasted the gift of time.

Now consider this: have multitudes passed through this life who absolutely wasted their lives? They were unmotivated/unwell/unsupported non-doers who just took up space, produced nothing — not a healthy child, a garden patch, an improved social condition (markers of success, per Ralph Waldo Emerson). Maybe some non-doers actually made life worse.

Did God not have a plan and purpose for them? What if, at the last moment, those unsaved non-doers accepted the light of Christ and are spending eternity in heaven? Here’s the truth: God’s ways are not our ways. What we see as value, as purposeful, as a redeemed condition, a well-raised child, a garden patch, God sees with holy eyes. We see with the eyes of a child. He sees with omniscience. We do not yet entirely know what He considers good and a well-done job.

Surely, God has welcomed many non-doers at the gate with, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Perhaps we, who seek earnestly, rabidly, to achieve purpose, need to shift focus from judgment of wasted lives to loving through God’s eyes.

You Are a Fat, Ugly Failure

The lie isn’t whether it’s true; the lie is that it matters.

Yes, you are fat. You are ugly. You failed. You did a terrible thing. You are unwell. You ____________ (fill in the blank).

And you are not beyond redemption — because none of the facts define you. How can this be possible? After all, the evidence of your inadequate humanness offends every sense. Yet you are OK because the God of the impossible came to earth in the flesh, hung on a cross, and declared your inadequacies finished.

Bridgepoint Pastor Tyler Crosson , baptizing me on October 22, 2017, a public declaration that Jesus has redeemed me.

He is the one and only risen God, who snatched hell’s keys from Satan’s grip, the keys that also unlock your chains of fear, failure, and, yes, even fat. Proffer your shackled wrists, and allow Him to unlock — nay, smash — your chains. Be free of “not enough,” striving for the ever-moving mark, and wrestling unwellness in vain.

All that matters is that holy God loves you exactly as you are — altogether human and sinful. That is eternity’s empty-grave truth.