Monday, November 29, 2010

A Clearer Focus


LAtimes.com offers its readers breaking news on a variety of topics from Local News to Sports and Entertainment. Headlines today in the Business section? How to avoid losing money during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Entertainment? “Winter’s Bone” receives the top prize in Gotham Film Awards. In the Living section, readers can post pictures and compete for who has reached the most impressive travel destination in 2010. And this is only a taste. Our culture has focused in on one objective: being the best. Having the most money. Winning the most prestigious awards. Even being recognized as the most well-traveled LA Times reader.

Even the virtues we teach our kids is saturated with this message: You can do anything you set your mind to; Nothing is impossible; Reach for the stars; You are a winner, never forget that. These messages may seem harmless and even necessary to building a self-confident young American. I believe they are necessary for that goal. But is that—a self-confident American—really what I want to be?

I’m wrapping up my semester of focusing on 1 Peter and have to recite it for my final project in just a few days. The temptation is to memorize it well, get every word perfect, so that I can say that I did it. I memorized an entire book of the Bible. What a great achievement!—Or, is it? The very words I’m memorizing challenge this inclination. In Peter's final words, the last several sentences that I’m still struggling to get down, Peter gives specific instructions to the elders, then to the younger Christians and, finally, to all the believers. “Clothe yourselves, all of you,” Peter exhorts, “with humility towards one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5). With this understanding of God’s stance towards the proud versus the humble, Peter continues with another imperative: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:6). That he may exalt me. Those are attractive, easy words for an American like myself. But I can’t forget (I literally cannot forget) the beginning of that verse. Humble myself? Try to find that on your newspaper’s website: Staying Humble while you Await Future Exaltation. But that’s exactly the point: God’s ways are not the world’s ways. This difference is a theme in 1 Peter and it is emphasized countless times throughout the Bible.

As I finish off the semester and prepare for my final few months as a student, this verse needs to stick with me. I'm living in the world and I am constantly under pressure to present myself as: the top student who has earned the “A”, the most hardworking student employee who deserves a raise, the most qualified individual for that high-paying dream job. How am I supposed to “humble myself” as I construct my last essays, work my last hours, and carefully craft my resume and cover letters that are all supposed to reflect a high and exalted “me”? 

It has to be a constant, daily surrender. It has to be a heart-realization of my identity. Not as perfect student, best worker, or most employable college graduate, but as part of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession.” My purpose, then? Not to be the best and reach the top, but to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called [me] out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). 

God has me in this stage of life where, yes, I do have to try to present myself well and reach some high goals. But that doesn’t change my identity and consequential purpose; rather, it gives me all the more opportunity to move into that purpose. Through school, through work, and definitely through my future career, God can (and will) use me to proclaim his excellencies—to make Him known to a world that is out of focus.
 

Monday, November 8, 2010

Out of the Swamp


I've been thinking a lot lately about—my hair. I really need to get it cut. And maybe I should start curling certain those annoying parts that don’t curl naturally. I want to look professional for my job. And around campus because I am constantly passing potential employers, so nice hair is important. And so are nice clothes. And necklaces. I have some of those, but I wear them a lot. Maybe I should get some new ones, or is that a waste of money? Clothes are much more important. And I’m sure Blake would like to see me in some nice new clothes. He’d probably also like it if my hair looked better…

Welcome to my brain. I could go on, but I'll spare you.

Sadly, unless I am actively reigning in my thoughts, this is the materialistic, trivial swamp I often let myself fall into. God has convicted me about my over focus on my external appearance many times, but it wasn’t until my study through 1 Peter that the specifics of my problem really made sense to me.
In his letter to the dispersed church, Paul exhorts women specifically. He writes:

 “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the wearing of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” 
1 Peter 3:3

At least I can be affirmed of one thing from this: as a woman, I’m not alone in my preoccupation with how I look. It appears that, for centuries, women have been spending so much time adorning their outer shell, that the actual person is often neglected. We have to be told to remember we are more than our shells.

I recently heard a saying: “Your inner beauty never needs makeup.” While this is very true, I think it gives off the impression that inner beauty is easier to maintain than our appearances. What a lie that is! It would be much less painful for me to spend a weekend shopping and getting a haircut than it would be to cultivate a “gentle and quiet spirit” from my stubborn and defensive one. Thankfully, God has grace and He will help me. 

As I think about preparing for my upcoming marriage, I couldn’t be more thankful for this passage. Peter continues his message to women when he encourages them to imitate the “holy women who hoped in God” in the Old Testament. He gives the example of Sarah through whom we receive the simple, yet extraordinarily difficult, exhortation to submit to our husbands. Submission is an extremely beautiful thing in God’s eyes that takes no small amount of “adorning” to achieve. Yet, the slew of wedding magazines, websites, and even input from friends is screaming the message that the wedding, the onset of my marriage, has to be beautiful—on the outside. Let’s perfect my dress, my hair, my make-up; the flowers, the linens, the lighting. While I the want the appearance of my wedding to reflect the underlying beauty of this covenant relationship, appearance should not be the focus. Yet, unless I can reign in those thoughts [how long do I want my hair to be for the wedding? I don't have a necklace nice enough for the big day...] outer appearance will become my focus. 

And so I pray for grace and for help from the Holy Spirit to climb out of the swamp of pointless thoughts and adorn myself with a quiet and gentle spirit.

 

Beauty in a Barn and a Blanket of Snow

Beauty in a Barn and a Blanket of Snow