To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice

I've been sloooowly plodding my way through the book of Isaiah for the last few months.  

It's been taking a while because I only do Bible-reading quiet times on weekdays (I have no good reason for this) and I'm reading the book alongside the Matthew Henry commentary, which breaks each chapter into chunks and expounds on each chunk at great length. Plus, sometimes Mr. Henry--or Prophet Isaiah himself--loses me, and I have to reread to get the point.  Although it's been a slow, drawn-out exercise, it's been good overall.  Day to day I don't necessarily feel the words move me, but when I reflect on the span of time since I started studying Isaiah, I do see how my faith in God has deepened through this study of His relationship with His chosen people.

Very occasionally, something either in the text or in the commentary jumps out at me and grabs my attention.  It happened about a week and a half ago, before I went on vacation (oh yeah - I also am very bad about doing Bible reading while on vacation, another habit for which I have no good reason), and again yesterday because I had to reread the section to refresh my memory.  The paragraph that stuck out to me is this:

The exposition of this sign, Isa. 20:3,4.  It was intended to signify that the Egyptians and the Ethiopians should be led away captive by the king of Assyria, thus stripped, or in rags, and very shabby clothing, as Isaiah was.  God calls him his servant Isaiah, because in this matter particularly he had approved himself God's willing, faithful, obedient servant; and for this very thing, which perhaps others laughed at him for, God gloried in him.  To obey is better than sacrifice; it pleases god and praises him more, and shall be more praised by him.  

This always sticks out to me because I often think of sacrifice as a sign of obedience, as a sign that proves that obedience is present.  While this is often accurate, it can be dangerously misleading and lead to an act-centered, self-flagellating life that may not in fact bring any glory to God, or please Him in the least.  The trouble with conflating the cause and effect is that if I simply look at sacrifice as evidence of obedience, then I may very well simply stop listening for God's will or straining to hear His voice, and skip right ahead to a bunch of sacrifices, thinking (erroneously) that I am serving Him at His pleasure.  I run the risk of planting a field of flowers (thinking that toiling in the field is obedience) when my God is actually trying to raise up a farm with crops and livestock that actually feeds people.  

I want to pay better attention.  I need to stop equating sacrifice with obedience.  I need to be willing to sacrifice, but also be ready to take cues for rest or change.  

I think about this mostly in the context of Mr. Squire and his work.  Shortly after we met, he left a cushy job in finance and took up the cause of teaching in the inner city, believing that to be God's true call for his life.  I couldn't be prouder of him and run the risk of being boastful every time I share about what he does and what his story has been.  He is my hero in a way, because I think his choices and sacrifices speak of the goodness of God and His heart for those who have so little.  

The dark side of all of this is that now, four years in, the job is cutting away years of Mr. Squire's life, day by day.  He is a different person during the school year, often mirthless and listless.  There have been periods when I seriously thought he should seek help for depression.  I know he is pretty good with the kids, because I have gone to visit his school, and I see the interactions he has with his students and their parents.  He obviously knows them very well, and has earned the trust of many.  But somehow, despite our daily prayers (and my pleading) that God would please give Mr. Squire the strength and energy and love for the kids that he needs to get through each day, lately Mr. Squire has talked seriously about quitting.  It makes me really sad... sad for the kids who really could use a good male role model.  Sad for Mr. Squire missing out on a chance to impact more lives.  Sad for me, because does this mean my hero is turning in his cape?  (He'll remain my hero in many other ways, but this is a big one to let go of.)

Beyond that, though, I also worry about whether, by leaving teaching, Mr. Squire will be disobeying God.  I worry about this a lot.  God lets us make mistakes, but it's not fun and in general, who wants to disobey their father?  At the same time, I wonder, though, whether my concerns about Mr. Squire's obedience stem more from the fact that I really believe teaching is his calling, or if it's just because he won't be living so sacrificially (to the detriment of his health and to some extent, his relationships) anymore.  This is why I want to commit to praying about what exactly God wants Mr. Squire to do...not what I like to see him doing...not what he even likes to see him doing...and not what costs the most... but what pleases God the best.

Ignoring Slavery

I just finished reading "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Ann Jacobs (Linda Brent).  The book, which was published in 1861, is a first-hand narrative of Jacobs's life as a slave (her freedom was later purchased after she escaped to the North).  Although I read plenty of stories, articles, and texts about slavery as a child and as a student, this is the first time I've read a book that was written by a former slave.

 

It was, at times, riveting.  At others, moving.  But at all times, more or less horrifying.  The history of slavery in this country is a terrible shame, and this book shines a particular light on the resilience of slave children and slave families in the midst of tragic trials, the abhorrent sexual abuses endured by female slaves, the indignities they constantly suffered in being treated as chattel incapable of feeling, and the wrenching pain endemic to a slave's existence as she waited for death and a better life beyond the wretched injustices of this world.  One cannot read this book without feeling the gravitational pull of a millstone in one's conscience...or the weight of embarrassment on behalf of so many who stood by as such grave injustices continued.

Particularly cheek-reddening were passages in which Jacobs commented matter-of-factly that many self-professed Christians stood idly by as slavery persisted in the South.  Many such Christians even defended and promoted slavery, and deemed it a virtue in society to "tame" otherwise wild souls.  I know some might argue that those Christians weren't really true believers in Christ, for if they were, surely God would have convicted their hearts about the evils of slavery, and that God would have convinced each soul that slavery is unjust and sinful.  But I do believe there were likely some sheep among the thick packs of wolves; I believe that some of the folks who were pro-slavery were actually believers in Christ.  And they were terribly, terribly blind and in their blindness, they passed many an opportunity to stop the injustices so prevalent in their society.  That made me very sad, regretful, and disappointed.

It also scared me. 

Lest it appear that I am casting a stone, let me be clear that just as I felt the weight of conscience on behalf of brothers and sisters before me who allowed slavery to persist (and encouraged it, in too many cases), I also felt the weight of my own conscience bearing down on me as I reflected on Jacobs's indictment of the Christians around her in the South.  It is easy for me now--as a 21st century believer, to look down my nose and back on the 1800s with the benefit of 20/20 vision, the Emancipation Proclamation, the progress of the Civil Rights movement, and a liberal education--to conclude that my brothers and sisters of yesteryear should have realized the obvious injustice and adopted a staunch abolitionist stance.  But I am not so naive as to think that I am not vulnerable to the very same the blinders that plagued them years ago.  

That's the part that frightens me:  what injustices as grave as American slavery exist in our society today?  Surely we are not so advanced a society that we aren't prone to equally deplorable, if not similar evils.  But as I sit and ponder and scratch my head, I find that nothing bothers me to such a degree.  In other words, I've got my own blinders up, too, and in my own way, I am ignoring slavery today.  This is a troubling thought, one that ought to make me lose sleep at night.  Centuries from now, what will our great-grandchildren's generation say about how we lived today? What will be so obviously evil to them, that seemed acceptable to us at the time?  

I suspect one culprit may be in the ultra-low prices we pay for products made abroad.  People, including children, work long and hard at backbreaking and heartbreaking labor to produce goods cheaper by the dozen, all so that I can save an extra five dollars to line my pocket and have a bit more to give to others so I can feel good about contributing to the Kingdom of God.  But what if God doesn't want my five dollars?  What if obedience isn't in the giving, but in the identification of injustice and the hatred of slavery, and the refusal to participate in it?  

I admit that to date, I have not been bold enough to seriously research and pursue this hunch.  Part of it is laziness: I'd rather watch Downton Abbey.  But the bigger part of it is fear of what I may find, fear of what it may cost me, fear of what it may require of me.  But that's all wrong.  If I really had a heart of wisdom, I'd see that the correct object of my fear is God and His Holiness, and my falling short of it for the sake of laziness and a few more coins jingling in my pocket.  Micah 6:8 says that what God requires of us, of me, is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.  This sounds so good in theory, so clean and neat and majestic.  And in practice, it sounds impossible... so impossible that I feel weak even in the attempt. 

But if I lived in the 1800s, and my great-great-grandchildren lived in 2013, I'd want them to be able to say that their great-great-grandmother was an abolitionist who fought for the right, just, hard things in life.  I'm not there yet.  Nowhere near close.  But I want to be.

The Worth of a Man's Soul

This morning, as my dad drove Mr. Squire and me to the airport, the word "legion" popped into my mind for no apparent reason.

"Is that phrase, 'We are legion' from the Bible?" I asked.  Together, my dad, Mr. Squire, and I pieced together our collective memory of the Bible story recounted in Mark 5, in which Jesus encountered a man possessed by a legion of demons (hence the phrase tucked in my distant memory).  When Jesus ordered the demons to depart from the man, the demons begged Jesus not to send them out of the area, but to let them take over pigs grazing nearby instead.  Jesus consented, and the demons rushed out of the man and into two thousand pigs, who promptly rushed down a steep bank and drowned in the neighboring lake.  

Mr. Squire commented that as a result of this event, the people in the town begged Jesus to leave the area.  I recalled that they did so because they were afraid of Jesus's power.  Mr. Squire noted that it was also because the pigs comprised the wealth of the town, all of which had been lost due to Jesus's miracle.  This begs the question:  "Is one man's soul worth the whole town's wealth?"

The people of the village obviously thought the answer was no.  Jesus obviously thought the answer was yes.  He proved His position by causing that exchange, at the cost of the livelihood of more than a few people.  But that was just a foretaste of what was to come.  Later, Jesus proved that a man's soul was worth far more than an entire town's wealth; it was worth the giving of Jesus's own life as well.  By dying on the cross and taking on both the accumulated and not-yet-accrued guilt and shame of every soul to ever walk the earth and breathe its air, Jesus spoke to each of us through His sacrifice, saying, "My life is for your life, and you are worth it to me."  

This is astounding to me.  This thought causes me at once to swell with pride, and to bow my soul in humility before so great a God as this.  

It also causes me to reflect on what kind of story I'm telling about my Lord in my life.  In performing a miracle by driving out the legion of demons, Jesus foreshadowed in a small way what His ultimate message would be.  In my daily life, I'm supposed to be reflecting Jesus.  Am I, though?  Do people see through my actions, thoughts, and words, that my Lord loves people and that YES, their souls are worth the wealth of a town, the lifeblood of a perfect Savior?  These are the thoughts that consume me today.

My Testimony: Where I've Been, Where I Am

My faith began with my mom.  I was blessed to be raised by a faith-filled mother whose foremost objective as a parent was to impart to her children a deep-rooted conviction that God is real, following Jesus is everything, and nothing in life matters more.  Obviously, as a result, she sent my brother and I to church and AWANA to receive formal teaching. But the greatest teaching of all, we received from home, through my mom: she was desperate for us to know and follow Christ, and whatever she knew, she passed on to us through Bible studies at home, singing hymns together, praying together, sharing all of her past shames and struggles and God's redemptive power, and constantly involving God in our lives. Now that my brother and I are adults, she continues to enshroud our lives in prayer, knowing that God sees and knows and controls everything. My mom is far from perfect, but she is the most striving Christian I know, and my history with Jesus would look so different without her. Who knows; without her, there may not have been a history to tell.

   

As a result of the foregoing, it's hard to pinpoint exactly when I began to believe in Jesus. But I do know that sometime in the middle of elementary school, the prayers, hymns, and Sunday School lessons started to trickle down from head to heart and I entered into a relationship with God as I gradually realized that Jesus was not just a historical figure to be studied, not just a living hero to be revered, not even just a leader to be followed and obeyed, but a true Savior, Lord, and Friend. Those early years were good: I grew in my prayer life, particularly as I sought comfort from loneliness and problems at home, and healing/relief from a chronic health condition. God also used my church--which placed a heavy emphasis on evangelism and dispatched missionaries throughout the country and world--to instill a deep desire for friends to meet Jesus, which led to prayer and sharing the message of salvation with some kids at school. God also made me more aware of my sins and shortcomings and my great need for His transformation, as well as His ability to deliver such change through His Spirit (most prominent among the many culprits were pride and impatience, which remain to this day, though to a lesser extreme). Thus during these years, I experienced God as Shelter, Sustainer, Lover of People, and Patient Teacher.

In the meantime and beyond, another aspect of my faith developed as I gained awareness that God had called me to a specific profession. Maybe it began innocently enough as a childhood interest, but as the years passed and my relationship with God deepened, I came to know that He had called me to be a lawyer. I have never been able to satisfactorily explain how I arrived at this conclusion. I just knew. It wasn't an easy road, because both of my parents objected to it, and the choice soon came down to The Parents' Way versus God's Way, and as hard as it sometimes was to live with the practical consequences of my decision, the decision itself wasn't that hard to make. And by the time that moment of decision came (sometime in high school, I think) I knew for sure that God was true and right, and His will--as best as I could understand it--should come first, regardless of the consequences. Making that choice was probably the first real test of my faith, and I haven't looked back since. In the years since high school, through college and law school and during my time in New York, I saw God pave clear paths for me upon the most unlikely (yet most wonderful) routes. I felt Him guide me in ways that were so palpable that if there's a such thing as an audible feeling, that's what I experienced. God also molded my heart and values, tempering the fire for justice with compassion, mercy, and empathy. In this way, for the majority of the last twenty years, with respect to work, I have experienced God as my Pillar of Fire, my clear guide as to where I should go, and how.

This changed recently, and I find myself in uncharted territory. Nowadays, I no longer sense the Pillar of Fire, and I often worry that I am wandering and floundering about in a desert, unfamiliar with my surroundings and unsure of where to turn or go. Sometimes I wonder whether the Pillar of Fire was a mirage, that I have not actually heard God's voice, or followed His call. That perhaps I have not actually known Him as well as I previously believed. And that I have not been walking in obedience, and all of this at the great expense of time, opportunity, heartache for my parents, resources, and worst of all, my spiritual health. Nothing frightens me more. This is where I find myself today. It is incredibly uncomfortable and disconcerting. Yet, deep down (at least on my better days), I trust that God is using this phase to strengthen and grow my faith, to teach me to keep straining to hear His voice, to remind me that we live by faith and not sight, to develop my dependence on Him for each day. In this aspect of the most recent stage in my walk, I am learning to know God as the Owner of Each Day, He who is Present though Silent, and Father to a truly helpless child.

 

On another note, as I look back on my faith journey, I see how much God has used community to grow my faith and develop my understanding of who He is and what He values. It was during an annual youth group retreat in 1997 that I committed to daily devotionals as I came to realize how important they are to one's spiritual health. It was through my law school fellowship in college that I first experienced the value of a prayer and accountability partner; she reflected Christ's love to me in that she knew so much of who I was and what I was struggling with, and she still loved and supported me. It was through my law school fellowship in law school that I experienced the power of a large Christian community: the safety and comfort of the giant web of spiritual friendships, the power of daily corporate prayer (Monday through Friday at 8am!), the sharpening of iron against iron as we challenged each other to pursue God's call despite the costs and to be faithful with all that we had been given, the sense of eternal family and faithfulness that lasts even though we are now spread across many countries and most of the continents. And here, through my church in New York, God has used community to show me how members of a local body can accept, love, teach, forgive, encourage, and nurture each other, and work together to do that which God has called the body to do. Through each of these experiences, God has manifest Himself to me as a Gardener, He who uses many different indirect elements to make this soul grow.

 

Lastly, I'm still sorting through the integration of faith and work, but that aside, I believe that God has placed on my heart the following burdens:

• To walk alongside people in difficult situations and to provide both material and prayer support over long periods of time;
• To provide prayer and financial support to certain missionaries and ministries who share the good news to others, both in the United States and abroad;
• To support certain organizations and groups that are dedicated to social justice, particularly with respect to people who are homeless, the prison population, and urban schools - and to speak and to act against injustice;
• To love those whom God has placed in my life and workplace, to develop deep and lasting relationships with them, and to live an authentic and honest life before them with God's help, and--God willing--to share the good news with them at opportune times; and
• To support the physical, spiritual, and emotional health of my husband; to maintain a marriage that pleases God; and (should God give us children) to raise our children with the foremost objective of imparting to them a deep-rooted conviction that God is real, following Jesus is everything, and nothing in life matters more.

Finishing Well in the Dash

When I was a child, I loved a poem called "The Dash," by Linda Ellis.  It is both lyrical and profound in pointing out that in the end, the years of our lives will be efficiently reduced to a short epitaph on a stone, together with a two numbers--the years of our birth and death--separated by a dash.  Ellis notes that the "dash represents all the time that [we] spent alive on Earth," and only those who loved us will "know what that little line is worth."   I love the reminder that I'm living the dash now, forming it with each day's experiences and choices.  

I'm also living another kind of dash, a spiritual race that God established for me long ago.  Hebrews 12:1-2 reads:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

A law school classmate of mine, with whom I used to attend church, passed away on Ash Wednesday this past week.  He was in his early 30s, and his death was most unexpected, the result of a freak accident that left him in flagging health for two months before God finally called him home.  I know he rests with Jesus now.  His dash is done.

His passing into the next life has gotten me thinking deeply about my own dash.  As I have seen multiple times before and most recently this past week, it could end abruptly, much sooner than expected.  But if God were to call me home today, might I even dare to hope that God would look on me and say, "You finished well"?  I can't answer that question with confidence.  But I'd like to work toward that result.  At the end of my life, whenever that may be, I want to have finished well.  And since I don't know when my time will come, I'd like to live each day, truly, as if it were my last.  Finishing well over the course of years requires finishing well in each and every day. 

Even as I type this, I sense an inner Sarah, laughing in doubt.  I sense an inner Eve, blaming failure on temptation.  I sense an inner Moses, trembling in inadequacy.  But there is hope for even me:  God redeemed each one and used each one to bring forth life and to tell the goodness of who He is and what He does.  May He do the same in me as I seek to finish well in my dash.