Theology for Women

A friend of mine recently forwarded me an article that appeared in Marie Claire magazine entitled, “Fembots: The New Breed of Woman.” The caption of the article read as follows: “Tired of touchy-feely friendships and being the vulnerable one in romance, a new breed of steely female is beating guys at their own game.”

In this article, the author described a new kind of woman who has emerged upon the dating scene–one who is able to shut off her emotions and simply “play the game,” have casual sex with men without wanting him to call her later. The author labeled this new breed of women as “fembots.”

Now contrary to the negative connotation of the label, the author praised these fembot females, herself aspiring to espouse that same independence. In her mind, this is the evolution of the woman–Darwinistically speaking, it is our future. It’s all about survival of the fittest–the weak will get thrown under the wheels of the dating bus, but the strong fembots are built to survive.

In forwarding this article to me, my friend wanted to know my opinion of it. He was wondering if I found this to be true of the women I work with. Well the answer to that question is both a yes and no. While I know far more non-Christians who have seemingly shut down their hearts when it comes to men, there are Christian women who do the same–in fact, I’ve done it myself! You get to a point at which you are tired of being hurt and used, so you spend time with guys that you know you don’t have a future with. You keep them around to build up your self-esteem, but you don’t get attached because you would never actually date them.

To the outside world, this kind of behavior would look like that of a fembot. Just as the name implies, it would seem that you have removed your heart and you are little more than a hollow shell of a person who cares little for feelings and only seeks physical pleasure. But this is an illusion.

In reality, fembots do not exist. As much as we women try to remove our hearts from the equation, it is impossible. Even Lady Macbeth, who was perhaps the quintessential fembot in literature, eventually took her own life because she couldn’t handle her own moral corruption. Her heart was not immune to her actions. So as hard as we try, we cannot change the way God made us. He hard-wired us to be emotional creatures.

That said, the true stripes of a supposed fembot will be revealed whenever she settles down. Eventually she will meet a man who is able to push through the defense mechanism and get inside her heart, and at that point you will see what the fembot is really made of: insecurity. After years and years of using men and letting men use her, she has planted seeds and seeds of distrust and guardedness, so as soon as she makes herself vulnerable to a man in a real dating relationship, she is going to be absolutely terrified, and have an immense amount of baggage to work through.

In this way, the fembot exterior is only masking a wounded heart. It may seem as if these women are cold and heartless, but it is really quite the opposite–their heart is very much intact, but it’s in desperate need of healing and protection.

So if this lifestyle appeals to you, if you wish you could turn off your emotions and just have fun, remember that at the end of the day, the fembot way of life is an illusion. Albeit a convincing one, but an illusion nonetheless. No woman can kill off her heart altogether, as hard as she may try. She can only bury it. And for that reason I disagree with the author. Fembots are not the future of femininity–they are merely one more way of running away from our problems, leaving them alone to fester. And that kind of escapism is not really new at all.

In case you have your own thoughts on this topic, you can read the article here. (And I apologize for the crudeness) I’d love to hear your input as well!

We had been sitting in the car for awhile, parked outside my young friend’s apartment while she poured her heart out and I scrambled for something to say. The words weren’t coming. I was drawing a blank. This sweet girl felt helpless, and I felt helpless too.

That young friend of mine was a teenage girl named Sara. She is about to turn 17, but I’ve known her since she was 8. We’ve been meeting together every week for the last 7 years, and during that time I’ve watched her grow from an angry, wounded little girl, into an independent young woman who has battled many obstacles to become a successful high school student. Now she even has aspirations of going to college and starting her own business one day. She is a true success story.

In the last 9 years of knowing Sara, I have seen her go through more trials then I can possibly describe. But amidst all the terrible hands that life has dealt her, the one thing I have NEVER seen her do is cry. Not once. She is a very tough girl, after all. And I think that’s why I was so caught of guard this week when she finally broke down in my car. This was a big deal.

What was the cause of her tears? Well it’s actually a combination of things. Not only does she have a variety of learning disabilities, but her home life has recently become more unsettled, which has made it even more difficult to concentrate in school. It’s hard to focus on math when things aren’t well with your family, and she was afraid that all her hard work over the years might begin to slip away. What if she can’t graduate on time? Or what if her grades suffer so much that she can’t get into college? All these questions were looming large in her mind, so I suggested she talk with her teachers about it. Unfortunately she found little sympathy with them. They didn’t want to hear her excuses, and essentially told her to buck up.

I was startled by this response, because Sara has worked her tail off over the past couple years to become a good student. Did the teachers not see that she was a good kid? Did they not sympathize with the learning disabilities and life circumstances that were holding her back? Did they not recognize her cry for help?

As I sat there and listened to her that afternoon, I was reminded of a study I once read about students with behavioral disorders. It explained that if you punish such children for acting out, their misbehavior will actually worsen, because you have increased their feelings of helplessness and defeat, rather than teaching them how to behave correctly. In punishing them, they learn nothing.

You see, kids with behavioral disorders need more than mere discipline, because the problem is not rebelliousness. Instead, the problem is that they don’t possess the skills and mental capacity to respond appropriately to their surroundings. That said, punishing teaches them nothing. What they need is for someone to enter into the situation with them, and teach them those skills, empowering them with the knowledge to change their behavior. They need an outside force to intervene on their behalf.

And that is exactly what Sara needed. She was stuck in a situation that she didn’t know how to get out of, and when she was denied the help she needed, she felt a sense of utter helplessness. It’s not enough to tell these kids to suck it up and work harder. They need outside forces to intervene and show them, to walk beside them, and direct their steps. They need someone to advocate for them, to talk with their parents, to teach them coping mechanisms. Otherwise, these kids really have no hope, and they know it. Hence Sara’s despair.

Now you’re probably wondering what on earth all of this has to do with predestination. Well the reason this story gave me insight into such a difficult doctrine is that Sara’s helplessness, and her need for an outside force to intervene on her behalf, reminded me of the process of salvation.

Like the children I described, all humans are helpless to save themselves. We lack the knowledge and the ability because we are so inherently sinful. And if we try to save ourselves, it will be an exercise in frustration, because we will fall short time and time again. Like Sara, we will eventually find ourselves demoralized by our inability to do what is right. No matter how hard we try, we lack the capacity.

It is for that reason that we need on outside force intervening on our behalf. We need someone to come into our lives and save us from ourselves, give us the wisdom, the knowledge, and the ability to know God and follow Him. We need something to open our eyes to the truth of the Gospel, because we would never recognize its message if left to ourselves. We are too hopelessly self-focused.

And what is that outside force? That power that opens our eyes and teaches us truth? It’s the Holy Spirit.

It is for this reason that I believe in predestination. Not because I think God sits in the clouds and decide who’s in and who’s out, but because it is our only hope. Without God’s primary intervention, we are as incapable of understanding or accepting the Gospel as a blind person trying to see. The ability to understand, to believe and have faith–that is an ability that does not belong to us. It must be given to us.

And if it is given to us, then we cannot choose it–it chooses us. That, in my opinion, is the healthiest way to understand predestination. Rather than view it as a harsh doctrine that makes God into a monster, we should realize that it is our only source of hope. Without God’s help we would be utterly helpless to know Him.

So I praise God that He chose to intervene on my behalf. Otherwise, I would probably feel as helpless as my young friend. Thank you, Lord, that I don’t have to.

I have definitely had my fair share of dating horror stories. At this point in my life I can look back on most of them and laugh, but I have ended more than a few relationships with some major scrapes and bruises that left me feeling very broken at the time.

At the end of many of those train wrecks, I was often left wondering what had happened. After all, the guy had seemed normal when we were dating. Then all of a sudden he turned into a thoughtless jerk who didn’t seem to care a shred about my feelings. How could he call himself a Christian and behave that way? Are all men just dogs, regardless of whether or not they are believers?

I’m fairly certain that most girls have asked those questions at least once before. I am also fairly certain that many guys have as well. Not only have I heard countless women bemoan the lack of solid Christian guys to date, but many men have echoed those sentiments about women.

“It’s so hard to find a nice, Christian ________.” “I just don’t understand _______. They are crazy!” You can fill in those blanks with either “men” or “women,” depending on who you are. But no matter which camp you find yourself in, odds are you find the other gender to be completely mystifying.

I would, however, warn against such generalizations. Yes, I have dated some major jerks. But I am no lily white soul, and I know other girls who have done some pretty under-handed things to guys. And gentlemen, you may think that all girls are completely nuts, but you’d be lying if you said that you didn’t know some slimeball guys. You may have even done some pretty hurtful things yourself.

That said, the reason that dating is so hard has nothing to do with “all women being crazy” or “all guys being jerks.” The reason is two-fold, the first of which being that we are sinners. Unlike God, who loves perfectly, we love conditionally and limitedly. We are selfish and we use people, so when we make ourselves vulnerable to such imperfect love, we risk getting hurt. And this is a tendency that crosses gender lines–most likely we have all done some things we regret, but that reflects less on our sex, and more on our humanity. We are, simply stated, a fallen people.

The second reason dating is so hard is that we tend to throw God’s sovereignty out the window whenever we enter a relationship. Rather than let God determine our peace and happiness, we rely on the other person to do that. As a result, we become controlling, jealous, and we begin to let that person determine our self-worth. We HAVE to make the relationship work, because our contentment depends on it. And if it fails, then we blame the person, rather than resting in the knowledge that God might have been protecting us, and that He probably has someone better.

Now don’t get me wrong–sometimes people will hurt you in ways that are horrible and inexcusable, and we are not called to ignore the pain or belittle the injury simply because God is in control. But the question is what do you DO with that pain? Do you become bitter and jaded about dating, do you begin to generalize an entire gender as being beyond understanding, or do you eventually come to rest in the knowledge that it simply wasn’t meant to be?

The best indicator of where you are in trusting God’s sovereignty is often revealed by how you talk about your exes. If you spew venomous slander whenever their names come up, or accuse them of not being a good Christian or following God’s will, then those are not the words of a person who is waiting on God’s best. Those are the bitter ventings of someone who made their boyfriend an idol, and was devastated when he couldn’t live up to that standard.

Such bitterness also reveals a profound misunderstanding of our own sinfulness. We are all sinners saved by grace, and I for one appreciate having been pardoned for the times that I have hurt people. Far be it from me to withhold such forgiveness from others.

So yes, dating is hard. As a matter of fact, I hate it a lot of the time. But God is still God, which means He is still in control. He has a perfect plan for me, and if the next guy I date is a part of that, then praise be to God. But if he isn’t, then God simply has something better. Either way, I can praise Him.

I realize that, for some of you, this is old news by now, but I went to a Shane and Shane concert over the weekend and was BLOWN AWAY by one of their newest songs. The name of it is “Embracing Accusation,” and it puts an insightful spin on our usual understanding of Satan. Here are the lyrics…

The father of lies, coming to steal, kill and destroy all my hopes of being good enough.
I hear him saying, “Cursed are the ones who can’t abide”…

He’s right.

Alleluia he’s right!

The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed, that I am cursed and gone astray.
I cannot gain salvation embracing accusation.

Could the father of lies be telling the truth of God to me tonight?
If the penalty of sin is death, then death is mine.
I hear him saying, “Cursed are the ones who can’t abide”…

He’s right.

Alleluia he’s right!

Oh the devil’s singing over me an age old song, that I am cursed and gone astray,
Singing the first verse so conveniently, he’s forgotten the refrain:

Jesus saves!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How amazing and true! When Satan speaks to us about our guilt, condemnation, and sentence, he’s right! We are guilty, we are worthy of condemnation, and we do deserve death.

And given those truths, we can praise God ALL THE MORE because He saves us anyways. Rather than wallow in our sin, this knowledge adds increasing depth to our rejoicing. We see with even greater clarity the infinite expanse of God’s goodness and mercy.

So yes, the Devil is correct. We deserve all of which he accuses us. But he is only preaching the first half of the Gospel. The story begins with sin, but it ends in redemption.

So unlike the Devil, we must not stop at that first truth, and we must not be overcome by accusation. However, I would offer that there is a degree to which we should embrace the accusation. It is only when we comprehend the depth of our depravity that we can even begin to understand the meaning of that glorious refrain: Jesus Saves!

What a beautiful reminder. Definitely check out that song if you haven’t already.

To be completely honest with you, my time in the Word has been struggling lately. I have not had consistent, in-depth, intimate time with God in quite some time. But it is not for lack of motivation.

In general, the practice of maintaining a regular quiet time is treated as a matter of sheer discipline. If you don’t have one, it’s because you are lazy. End of story. I would like to propose that this Christian discipline is a bit more complicated than that.

But first, let me give you a little background on my own struggle to have a quiet time. Contrary to expectation, it has little to do with an inability to wake up early in the morning. Rather, it stems from a much bigger picture.

This past year has been a hard one for me on a number of different levels. I have had uncertainty about my future, I have had people betray me whom I trusted. I have lost loved ones unexpectedly. I have been tired, worn out, and overwhelmed by life. Sometimes it has been a challenge to get out of bed in the morning.

Given these struggles, one would think that my time in the Word would be that much sweeter. After all, it is in these valleys that I need God’s refuge and comfort the most. Desperately, even. And yet, I have had to drag myself to open my Bible. It’s not that I can’t remember to make time for it–it’s that I don’t want to. The idea of taking that time to read and pray is almost frightening to me.

But why? Why is my soul having the exact opposite reaction that it should be having? The answer is that I have become terrified of silence. The moment I sit still and eliminate all my distractions is the moment I have to confront everything that is burdening me, hurting me, draining me. And frankly, I don’t want to do that.

So what do I do instead? I fill every waking moment with noise. From the moment I wake up I flip on the television. When I’m in the car I listen to talk radio. Even when I’m in my office I have music playing. I use all of those avenues to escape reality. As long as I can keep myself distracted, then I don’t have to think about the pains of life.

Providentially, I heard a podcast with pastor Rob Bell today, and he addressed this issue in a way that has helped me think through this problem. He began by explaining that when he and his wife first started observing the Sabbath, they found themselves in a full-on depression by the afternoon. The reason, he concluded, was that his body had become addicted to the adrenaline hits of a busy day. He was so trained to go, go, go that his body was almost chemically dependent on it. Without that schedule, his body and mind didn’t know what to do with themselves, so on Sabbath days they simply shut down. It took years before he could wean himself off of that lifestyle.

I can relate. My body has become addicted to the rush of a busy day, not only in a chemical way, but in an emotional way. The distractions of my schedule serve as an emotional crutch, because they allow me to escape my hardships, pretend that they don’t exist. Rather than face my suffering, I hide from it amidst my daily plans.

From this perspective, the discipline of having a quiet time is about more than overcoming laziness. For some of us, it means we must wage an all-out battle–we must wage against our own physiological addiction to busy-ness, and we must wage against our fear of confronting silence and stillness. We will have to overcome both physical and emotional barriers before we can truly engage in the intimacy and vulnerability that a meaningful time with God demands.

Having said that, do not assume that struggling with this discipline means you are simply a bad Christian or that you are just plain lazy (although I’m not gonna lie–some of you are!). What’s more, having a quiet time does not mean you are engaging in real intimacy with God–it is easy to read Scripture quickly and superficially without engaging the heart. When you do this, you are turning your quiet time into just another distraction.

With all those factors in mind, we are wrong to oversimplify this Christian discipline. The truth of the matter is that time alone with God is an overwhelming prospect. For some of us, we are afraid of being that vulnerable, and for others it is a matter of retraining our bodies’ in a fundamentally physical way. But either prospect is daunting, so it is no wonder that many of us struggle with this seemingly simple Christian practice.

For that reason, I challenge you to confront the silence. When you’re driving in your car, turn off the radio. When you are getting ready for bed at night, flip off the tv. Set aside a Sabbath day each week. And most importantly, make time for real, searching, intimate time with God. Embrace the silence, even if that means embracing the fears and harships that you have run from all day long. Even if it is hard to focus and you feel frustrated or inefficient, confront the silence. Why? Because God promises to meet us in that place, as he reminds us in Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” We must simply be still.

As long as we are running, then we are running away from God. As this verse teaches, experiencing God’s love does not entail any kind of running at all. We don’t have to do, do, do, go, go, go, or run, run, run. He is already with us, and He already loves us. We must simply be still.

Several days ago I was feeling a little depressed. The prospect of a lonely Valentine’s Day was looming, I was overwhelmed with work, I was tired, and I was stressed. It was not a good day.

So what did I do to make myself feel better? How did I nurse my wounds after a difficult week? I went to my favorite place of refuge, my one asylum from the burdens and distractions of the world. That’s right, I went to Target.

You see, I have somewhat of an unhealthy love affair with the Target store–I could probably spend hours and hours perusing the aisles of clothes, home decor, and seasonal decorations. And given the nature of my relationship with Target, I knew it would be there to comfort me in my time of need.

So I drove across the street, walked directly into the women’s clothing section, and started trying on outfits until I found a cute little green shirt and some matching earrings that I just had to have.

Then I felt better, and I went home.

I must admit that I feel a little sheepish confessing that I love Target THAT much, but it turns out I’m not the only person like this. Shortly after my therapeutic trip to Target, I read an article about a new study that researched this exact behavior. The findings were as follows: “People’s spending judgment goes out the window when they’re down, especially if they’re a bit self-absorbed.”

Self-absorbed?? Ouch! But in all honesty, the study is actually quite fascinating. Here are a few more excerpts from the article:

The researchers concluded sadness can trigger a chain of emotions leading to extravagant tendencies. Sadness leads people to become more focused on themselves, causing the person to feel that they and their possessions are worth little. That feeling increases willingness to pay more — presumably to feel better about themselves.

“It’s not necessarily that you go to the mall and go on a shopping spree,” said Charlesworth, author of a book on stress management. “It’s often more subtle — you spend a bit more on something than you normally would. But if you magnify that over the course of a year, or a lifetime, those little things add up.”

“But on the back end, I’ve seen buyer’s remorse. This kicks in after they realize that new pair of shoes, or iPod, or whatever, didn’t make them feel better, and then there’s that sense of, ‘Oh my God, why did I spend money on this?”‘

(For the whole article, click here)

What was most interesting about this study is that the behavior was not altogether conscious–it’s not that people went into stores deliberately seeking to make themselves feel better. It was rather a subconscious mechanism. It was written into their lifestyle such that they didn’t even realize they were doing it.

In this sense, materialism has become like an accepted drug for Americans consumers. We depend on it to give us just the high that we need, just the boost we desire to get us through a difficult week. And you can even notice the drug-like behavior–it gets us high, but leaves us low when we realize it didn’t work. Yet we continue to do it anyway…and we never even realize it.

Given that this study represents a worldly way of dealing with sadness and stress, and given that it described me to a T, I read this study as a pretty scathing indictment of my own relationship with God. Shopping therapy is the way that the WORLD deals with sadness, but it should not describe the way that Christians deal with sadness. Of all the places that I should be running when I feel down, Target is the last. Never was there a cheaper idol.

Yet this is something that women struggle with. Even if we don’t drop $500 on designer shoes, we will still be tempted to over-shoot our budgets on tiny splurges. And while that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to buy something nice for yourself from time to time, this study should make us pause and ask, “Why am I buying this, and what does it say about my relationship with God?”

You see, the reason that shopping therapy ultimately fails is that it feeds the problem, rather than quenching it. The problem is self-absorption, and shopping only encourages us to focus on ourselves. But Christianity takes a different approach. Rather than focus on yourself all the time (which CAN get discouraging–you are, after all, a fallen sinner), focus on the God who loves you, died for you, and redeemed your sin. Focus on serving Him, living for Him, loving Him. Run to Him when you are down, and seek Him as your refuge.

Until you discipline yourself to do this, you will forever be returning to your proverbial “Target,” looking for that quick fix. But as long as you deal with your pain the way the rest of the world does, then you will never look any different from the world, and you will never feel better. That is a habit I think I’d like to change.

Sorry, Target, but the love affair has got to end. I’m breaking up with you for a better lover.

Several years ago I attended a convention for religious broadcasters in the United States. I was representing the ministry I worked for at the time, which had a radio segment that aired all over the country. We were at the convention to network, meet other broadcasters, and get the ministry’s name out there.

To my surprise, the convention itself was actually very exciting. I got to meet well-known Christian authors, I saw a pre-screening of The Passion movie, and I had fascinating conversations with ministries from all over the U.S. Overall, it was a great experience.

However, there is one thing about the convention that stands out in my mind, one thing that I will never forget. It serves as a kind of accountability for me in my own ministry today…

Because the convention was for religious broadcasters, there were a number of Christian t.v. shows present, along with their hosts. And let me tell you, the women who hosted those shows were BEAUTIFUL! They walked around that convention hall with perfect hair, perfect make-up and perfect clothes. They were incredibly put together and flawless, these successful Christian women, and that is when the first seed of self-doubt planted itself in my heart.

I looked at those women, who were smart and driven and had already accomplished a lot in ministry, and then I looked at myself–my hair was flat, my clothes were boring, and Lysa, the president of the ministry, had to help me put on my make-up because I was so pathetic at it. I was far from perfect.

So as I observed those flawless women and then compared myself to them, I thought to myself, “If this is what it means to be a successful women’s minister, then I clearly don’t measure up.”

I still find myself thinking that today. I look at women like Beth Moore, who is not only a powerful writer and speaker, but is also drop-dead gorgeous, and I feel as though I fall miserably short. I believe the lie that the perfect Christian woman has got to be the whole package, which poses a problem for me since I bite my finger nails, I can never figure out how to get my hair to look right, and I’m barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel. The whole package? That, I am not.

On a head level, I think we all know how faulty that logic is. Scripture is full of verses about how God looks at the inside and not the outside. That message is clear. But the reason my experience at the convention was so definitive for me as a women’s minister is that it made me pause and wonder–Do I ever make other women feel insecure about themselves? Do I convey the message that looking put together and perfect is an important part of being a Christian woman? Do I spend so much time primping and looking cute that I compromise my witness? While I may tell young women that outward beauty doesn’t matter, do my actions undermine my words?

Well I recently discovered that Paul talks about this very thing in 1 Corinthians 2 when he explains to the Corinthian church the he did not come to them with “eloquence” or “persuasive words.” This point is significant because Paul was extremely educated and well-versed in the art of rhetoric. He was very capable of speaking articulately and persuasively. But he instead chose to keep it simple.

Why? Because he didn’t want the presentation to distract people from the message. He didn’t want his listeners to be so impressed by his rhetorical gifts that they missed out on what he was actually saying.

And Christian women do well to keep this teaching in mind. We must not let the presentation distract people from the message. This principle can play out in any number of ways, but one of the most salient examples is the way we present ourselves outwardly. If we are trying to encourage one another to focus on inward beauty, but we spend excessive amounts of time on our outward beauty, then we will undermine our message. Rather than spurring women toward the Gospel, we’ll be encouraging their insecurities, self-doubt, and vanity.

Now that is not to say that we should wear burlap sacks and stop washing our hair–it’s definitely ok to look nice! God created us to be beautiful and we should celebrate that fact. But I am writing this as a kind of heart check. We need to examine our motives in how much time we spend on our outward beauty. Are you spending time on your outward appearance for the glory of God, or in order to feel better about yourself? And more importantly, do you spend as much time working on your inward beauty as do you your outward beauty?

I, for one, hope that in my time as a women’s minister, I have never misled women into thinking that being the “perfect Christian woman” means looking flawless and put together. If I have, I apologize greatly and ask for forgiveness. But the truth of the matter is that there is no “perfect Christian woman.” By that I mean that there isn’t ONE standard to which we should all strive. God created us to be unique and diverse because each one of us reflects His infinite majesty in our own special way. If we aspire to fit in a cookie cutter mold, then we’ll erase the unique beauty in each one of us, and thereby steal a little bit of glory away from God. The only standard that we should all be seeking is holiness, so if there is any message that I want my life to convey, it is the importance of pursuing Him. Anything else is just a distraction.

I don’t know how this happened, but I managed to get through 27 years of life and 3 years of seminary without ever having attended an Ash Wednesday service. In fact, I didn’t even know what it was until I got to college. I was pretty confused when I saw people walking around campus with black smears on their foreheads. I remember wondering if it was some new cult that I hadn’t heard about.

Well today I experienced my first Ash Wednesday service EVER. It was thoroughly un-Baptist–lots of reciting liturgy and reading excessively long and bleak passages of Scripture. I tried to spice it up a bit by suggesting we add music to the program, but even with my guitar playing and my attempts at being upbeat, it was fairly dark.

It was also very powerful.

Let me tell you why….

If you’re like me, you may not understand what this crazy Ash Wednesday stuff is all about, so I’ll fill you in. What most people do know is that it marks the beginning of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. Traditionally, Christians have used the season of Lent as a time to fast in preparation for Easter. It is a time to reflect on the gravity of our sin, and how that sin resulted in the execution of our Savior. Fasting is a way of focusing our hearts and minds on what is to come–every time we are tempted to partake of the chocolate, soda, sugar, etc. that we’ve decided to give up, we are reminded of Christ and what he sacrificed for us.

But what’s with the ashes? In the course of an Ash Wednesday service, the minister places ash on your forehead in the shape of a cross and then pronounces, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” What’s that about?

Well in my opinion, this is the coolest part about Ash Wednesday. Those ashes are not just random ashes from the minister’s fireplace–they come from a very special source. Traditionally, they are the ashes of the palm leaves used at Palm Sunday the previous year.

Do you see the meaning here?? The very palms that we used to celebrate and exalt our Savior are the same palms we use to acknowledge our tremendous unfaithfulness to him. One minute we are praising God, the next minute we are sinning against Him. That is the searing truth behind those ashes. They remind us of what it is to be human, what it is to be a sinner.

And that is why those words are spoken over us on Ash Wednesday. The ashes of our duplicity are emblazoned on our foreheads, exclaiming to us and the world: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are human, you are fallible, you are a sinner. Think on this, meditate, grieve and repent for you stand unfaithful before a holy God.”

The hymn we sang today was entitled “What Wondrous Love Is This,” and the Episcopal campus minister noticed that one of the stanzas to the song does not appear in the Episcopal hymnal. He also had a sinking suspicion why. The words of the deleted stanza read as follows: “When I was sinking down, beneath God’s righteous frown, Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.” The minister jokingly reasoned that Episcopalians don’t like to think about God frowning, which is probably why that stanza didn’t make it into the hymnal. People don’t like to think about that kind of God, a God who detests our sin.

But that is what Ash Wednesday is all about. We are forced to confront our sin, without excuse. We have to be honest with ourselves, and honest with God. That is indeed a difficult task. But in doing so, we are blessed to discover the magnitude of God’s love. The more seriously we take this season, and the more thoroughly we consider the depths of our sin, the more profoundly we will understand the grace that has been bestowed upon us, and the more jubilantly we will rejoice upon the day of his resurrection. While Ash Wednesday is somber, it is not masochistic–it is actually a means for more fully comprehending our blessedness. If we are willing to embark on this difficult journey for the next 40 days, we will discover it is actually a gateway to fuller joy.

I hope this little Ash Wednesday lesson encourages you to embark on just such a journey.

Even though the Christmas season ended over a month ago, our Christmas tree is still sitting in our front yard. “Why?,” you ask. Well I blame the garbage pick-up people. Apparently there was some sort of miscommunication between us.

A couple weeks after Christmas had passed, we dragged our Christmas tree to the top of our driveway so that the garbage truck could take it away the next morning. Well when my roommates and I came home the following afternoon, we arrived to a startling surprise. Not only had our tree NOT been picked up, but it had been shoved all the way down the hill of our front yard. It was so far away from the curb that it looked like a deliberate and clear rejection. It was like they were sending us the message, “We want absolutely nothing to do with your tree, and we never want to come near it again.” Needless to say, I’m still a little hurt.

Ever since then, our tree has been sitting in our front yard untouched. No one from the road can see it because it’s so far down the hill, which is probably why we haven’t moved it–we don’t have to worry about the neighbors thinking we’re hillbillies who leave our trash in our yard. But we also haven’t moved it because we don’t really know what else to do with it. The garbage people rejected it, so where else does one turn?

(And p.s., if you know the answer to why our tree was rejected–if there’s some kind of North Carolina Christmas tree disposal law about which I am unaware–please inform me)

Now this tale of Christmas tree woe is not the point of my writing today. But seeing that sad, little Christmas tree in our front yard, which browns and withers with every passing day, reminds me of an important spiritual truth.

At the end of the day, a Christmas tree is little more than a tree that is dying. This reality is obvious now that my tree is dried out and brown, but we don’t think about it at Christmastime when the tree is dressed up with ornaments and lights. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I would just sit in front of our tree and stare at it because it was so beautiful, but no matter how much we dressed up that tree, we couldn’t change the reality that this tree had been cut off from its roots, and was now dying a slow and sure death.

Oftentimes, my life feels just like that beautiful Christmas tree. I have covered myself with all kinds of Christian decorations–I have a seminary degree, I’m a writer, a college minister, a Bible study leader, and a mentor to many young women. But at the end of the day, those achievements are all just decorations. They don’t really mean anything, because they do not sustain the Christian life. If you cut yourself off from the Source, then you can be doing all the activities in the world, but still be withering spiritually. And sometimes I feel like I am.

That said, I want you to ask yourself–are you a Christmas Tree Christian? Do you feel as though you are piling on decoration after decoration, yet neglecting the source of your spiritual life? Are your roots firmly planted in an ever-growing relationship with God, or have you cut your roots off by neglecting time in Scripture and prayer?

Like a dying Christmas tree, spiritual death is not readily apparent. It could take months, even years, before the lack of nourishment becomes observable. And that makes it easy for us to ignore this part of our spiritual lives. But if left unfed long enough, the death will inevitably come. Our branches will become too dried out to hold up those ornaments, so they will break and drop them. And eventually, we will look just like that poor little tree that sits in my front yard.

If you are feeling that strain on your branches, or if you feel as though your roots have been cut off from their source, take some time for yourself and God. At the end of the day, your Christian activities are nothing more than cheap ornaments, treasures on earth to be burned away. God cares little for the things that make us look glorious, but He cares greatly for a heart which glorifies Him.