this is what i have understood to be true since my goldfish, Herman the First, floated to the top of his Mason jar when i was four years old. interestingly, those two categories of good and bad (developed by a four-year-old's disillusionment to sadness) are the same two categories i have been filing the events in my life by for the last twenty-one years. "good" has been what makes me happy and comfortable. "bad" has been what makes me unhappy and uncomfortable. if you haven't caught on quite yet, these classes are purely, 100% ego-centric. (psychology degree at work: ego-centrism, not ironically, is the number one symptom of immaturity.) it seems that a couple of months ago, i grew up (at least a little bit).
in life, there pleasant and there is unpleasant. and in life, there is grace and there is evil. "good" and "bad" may have meant more specific things in earlier eras, but today these words lump apples and oranges together. and i believe it has left us all pretty confused about some integral things.
i'm learning that there is definitely evil in the world. and i am learning that evil and "bad" are not the same thing. evil, in fact, is not a created force of its own. it is not the opposite of good. it does not have the measurement, nor the power, nor the motion that "good" has. rather, evil is the absence of grace...the absence of God Himself. "evil" has nothing to do with me or my desires and opinions. "evil" stands all by itself, the void of the spirit. i battle it, not by aiming at pleasant things or changing my attitude, but by accepting and spreading grace. "bad", on the other hand, is simply something i don't like. it is based solely and completely on my emotions and my reactions.
similarly, grace and "good" are not synonymous. even if an attempt were to be made at comparing them (which i believe to be the danger of my last twenty-one years), they would rarely parallel. because "grace", again, does not depend on me or my desires and opinions. "grace" is the movement of God, which appeals only (and more importantly) to my role as His Child in the fabric of His Kingdom and not to my comforts. there will be seasons when the two parallel, but the alignment is not the goal. "good" is what i like...what makes me feel nice. and i have asked God many times if He is "good". i have learned that the answer is "no". He is not always "good". because my definition of "good" changes as often and as violently as my hormones. so, no, He does not always make me feel nice. He is, however, always grace. He is always pure. He is always right(eous). because, of course (how did i not get this sooner?), if evil is the absence of God, He cannot ever be evil.
this may seem elementary, but the repercussions are astounding. in practice, the world looks very different. because somehow, living with grace as the goal changes my very perception of time itself. grace is a present-tense state-of-mind. God is a present-tense being. the Bible says He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the "I AM". His existence supersedes time and is not under its restraints. so it is the present, the now, in which we see Him most clearly. i don't do this. my time with Him is almost always spent in the past or the future. i am, almost without fail, always reliving my shame of the past with Him, or asking for assurances for my fears of the future. these are not bad things, but they are, again, centered on the self. they are not spending time with Him in His element (the now)...they are not seeking to find out more about His character. but this new mind of grace forces me into the now. think about it: fear and regret are not possible if the mind is focused on the present moment. they are past- and future-tensed emotions. there is always peace when the mind is on the moment. because the moment is always taken care of. it is always survivable because it is already being survived.
Luke 12:31 says, "He will give you all you need from day to day if you make the Kingdom of God your primary concern." you know why? because what you "need" changes when your primary concern is His Kingdom. this is another word dichotomy. "need" means something very different in the light of grace than it does otherwise. and again, similar to what i blogged about in "sushi", this does not mean i have license to rate God on how well He's living up to His promise. it doesn't mean that at the end of the day i get to say, "well, i needed such-and-such and He didn't come through, so there's one unfulfilled promise on the tally." it means that at the end of the day, if it was not provided, i did not need it. again, this may seem elementary, but put into practice and assimilated into the every day, it changes everything.
grace, i have also learned (thank you Mary Beth), must be given to the self before it can properly and consistently be given out. the less i offer myself grace (or i should say, accept the grace offered me), the less effectively i am able to offer grace to others. the more i hate myself, the less i am able to pour love on others (or even notice their need for it). again, this comes from ego-centrism. at the end of the day, if i am living in the past and the future, if i am living in shame and fear, if i am living in search of comfort, i am most assuredly living in myself. and i have been for twenty-one years.
the beauty of it is that i don't feel regret or shame about that. (see, the new frame of mind is already kicking in!) instead, i know that i am meant to grow. and if i am to grow, i have to grow from something. which means that the rest of my life, i will be growing and looking back on former ways of thinking and finding them juvenile and ridiculous. it means i am growing. it means "good" (grace) is happening, so shame would be a conflicting reaction (although you can be sure that the vacuum of evil tries to steal the grace from that knowledge).
so in this moment (thank you incubus) i am happy. but beyond the happy, i have discovered joy. and i have discovered the potential of what it is to live beyond the circumstance. because He is in the moments and that is not dependant on circumstance. and if i truly believe Him when He tells me not to worry about tomorrow because it has enough trouble of its own, then circumstances are incidental. there is infinitely (literally) more behind the backdrop of what i have always assumed this world to be. and i'm discovering the freedom of it. running around in it. it means He really is an ally. it means He really is not as offendable as i have assumed Him to be. it means my relationship with Him does not skate on thin ice...that it should and could be the most natural, low-maintenance relationship of my life. because He knows me. He knows the moment-by-moment me, and that one is always the best of me (because i'm always growing). so it means that the checklist is not required. i don't have to read a set amount of scriptures every day. i can, and i want to sometimes, but not because i'm am less acceptable if i don't. and i don't have to schedule ministry events in my life. my life becomes the ministry naturally and without pain and worry on my part. i don't have to make it enough or schedule enough...it is always enough. and i don't have to have the approval of a building with a cross on the top to move in that grace. it is a movement of the Spirit...the same one that moves in every Child...the one that makes us Church... it's the movement of grace and the natural response to that movement! it doesn't mean life gets easier...it doesn't mean there is no effort to be given...it means the motive changes, the perspective changes, and the response changes.
i know that unless this strikes you as it has struck me...sort of randomly and without provocation...these words mean little to you. but i am compelled deep, deep, deep in me to find a way to spread it. life is so different. so different than it ever has been. and i know the misery i have lived in without it. it's not an emotional change. i am still just as emotional as ever...i feel things just as deeply...i still struggle with worry. but the perspective...my world view, i guess...makes all that different somehow. ...i'm sure people had a similar mind-shift when magellan confirmed the world was not flat...it just changes everything. i am compelled now.
ps. many of these thoughts were kick-started because of this book. i'm not a book-recommender. but this one. please read this one. The Shack by William Young.
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