The Heavens of Idolatry: Shedding the gods of Perfectionism

It’s coming! My next book is at the publisher being prepared for publication. I’m anticipating it to be out around April, but with publishing there’s really no telling how long it will take. It really is a fun and interesting process. My publisher this time is WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson, one of the most respected names in Christian publishing.

Let me give you a tiny glimpse.  The title of this post is the title of the book. Here is the write up for the back cover.

So you say you’re not a perfectionist. Your idea of a perfectionist is someone who is well on their way to being perfect, and that does NOT describe you. Maybe you’re “just” a fixer, an overachiever, organizer, a people pleaser, or control freak. Perhaps you find yourself submerged in depression, workaholism, addiction, or failed relationships and career pursuits. Believe it or not, every one of these labels can describe a perfectionist. Perfectionism is so cleverly disguised by its symptoms and ripple effects, but the problem is the same at the heart – idolatry.

The Heavens of Idolatry challenges Christ followers to consider the possibility that other gods may have set up a throne in their heart. As believers we may find ourselves living to please these gods with our identity and worth hanging in the balance of acceptance. Or, being the diligent Christians that we are, we may have elevated ourselves by setting impossible standards for someone else. It is the striving and confusion which ensues that causes big problems in a person’s life.

Lisa Stough writes to fellow perfectionists as well as all Christians who are tired of hiding inside their Sunday clothes, who have given up on God all together, or who might be wondering what the big deal is about perfectionism. She brings Scripture, insight and personal experience together into a journey you can call your own.

 

Please stay tuned for new release specials!

The Hardest Thing Jesus Ever Did

I teach children of divorce about forgiveness. To demonstrate the burden and weight of unforgiveness, we put a sack of gravel in backpacks and have the children consider a time when they found it difficult to forgive someone or something in their life. When the children have something in mind, they are given a backpack of gravel and they have to carry it on their backs the rest of the session (about 1 ½ hours) and are not allowed to take it off. Throughout the session they consider various aspects about the load they bear. Sometimes it feels lighter.  Sometimes they find rest but the burden is still there. Some loads are heavier than others. And doing regular things is more difficult with this burden on their back; everything seems more labored than without it. They definitely feel weighed down by this baggage of unforgiveness.

Last night, we were teaching the kids this lesson when something very profound stood out to me. I recalled the tremendous offenses I have forgiven in my life and considered all that Christ forgave of me. I couldn’t think of a way to emphasize to the kids just how difficult forgiveness is and what all it involves. These kids won’t even fully realize the depth of injury some people have caused until they are adults and see the unforgiveness they still harbor handicapping their everyday lives. I wanted to assure the kids that Jesus knows it may be the hardest thing they’ll ever do. That’s when the Spirit shed a new light on the Truth.

Of all the persecution, heartache, fatigue, humanness, compassion, and teaching Jesus did, the very hardest, most grueling and excruciating experience He ever went through was FORGIVENESS. The forgiveness process required Him to accept the sins of every man and pay the price for each and every one, to bear the burden sinners should have carried. Forgiving others was by far the hardest thing Jesus ever did. The sins of others changed His life forever and the lives of everyone around Him. Every sin you can think of and then some impacted Jesus. He absorbed the impact of everyone else’s sins.  Then He made the incomprehensible decision to forgive!

Have you been impacted by someone else’s sins?  Have you bore the burden of unforgiveness when the offender was long gone and clueless of their impact in your life?  Is the weight of stones that have been hurled at you weighing you down and keeping you from living the life you’ve longed for?  We are not God. We can’t take on someone else’s sins in an attempt to save that person. We mustn’t try to hang onto offenses in hopes to somehow control the other person. What we can do however, is realize what the children of divorce are learning, that Jesus completely understands that forgiving is likely the hardest thing they’ll ever have to do, but it MUST be done if we are to experience the true freedom found in Christ alone.

The kids made a list last night of all the reasons why they need to forgive others. When they took off their backpacks, they placed them on the floor under the name “Jesus” written on the chalkboard. They were told to think about who or what they needed to forgive and some of the kids chose to say it aloud. Most of the kids who did said, “My dad,” and off came the baggage of unforgiveness at the feet of Jesus. How about you? Why do you need to forgive? Who do you need to forgive? It’s a process that begins with a decision. What will your forgiveness look like? Begin to catch the vision for it today!

A Closer Look at Cain and Abel

We all know the classic rendition from children’s literature.  Two brothers get in a fight and one kills the other and is punished by God, right?  Well, I’d like to protest that if this is the story you believe, then it’s not the same story that’s in the Bible.  The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 lays the outline of our two heart attitude choices and merely uses the first two human births of all time to illustrate this.  Let me explain.

First Cain was born.  The first person ever to be born of a woman.  Adam and Eve had no nursery rhymes or legends to tell their sweet bundle of joy.  While I’m sure they sang to Cain and the animals offered plenty of entertainment, the stories they knew to be true all came from Eden.  We know Cain was well acquainted with The Garden (Genesis 4:16).  It was in plain view at the time, they just couldn’t go in it.  Imagine telling your toddler, “There’s the closest thing to heaven we’ll ever know and you can’t have it.”  Imagine the questions about God’s goodness Cain must have had swimming around in his formative mind! And the blame!  (E.g. “Why would You withhold something You know is good for me, Lord?  Haven’t we paid our penalty?  Can’t we come back now?  You’re just mean, God!  You just wanted to get rid of us not redeem us.  If You loved us, You would let us come back home.”) 

From the start Cain lived in God’s presence (again, see Gen. 4:16).  God was not a well-disguised secret.  We know Cain harbored bitterness and strife in his heart.  We don’t know what it was or why.  How much of that came from his parents, we’ll never know.  However, he had a choice of what he could do with those ideas and misconceptions and experiences.  We know it was a choice because of what we see in Able and what transpired between them.  Abel had the same parents and heard the same stories and he too saw Eden only from the outside with the fiery angels forbidding them to enter.  I don’t know about you, but my four year old boy is really into superheroes right now.  He flies around the house and off the couch in his undies and cape and swoops in to rescue his beloved big sister from his evil big brother.  He loves being the hero!  What must childhood have been like for Cain and Abel?  Do you suppose maybe they felt a little defeated knowing there were certain things no rescuer could accomplish?  Considering their options will help us all when considering our own.  All of our choices in life come down to the two choices Cain and Abel made. 

“So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground” Gen. 4:3.  “In the course of time” could mean that eventually Cain got around to it, or it could mean that they didn’t make offerings at first but at some point they got the idea to do so. I will adhere to the former since God was sure to mention that Abel’s offering was from “the firstlings of his flock” but not Cain’s.  Cain probably waited until there was a surplus of vegetation in his garden and then gave God a portion. 

“Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.  And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard” vs. 4-5a.  Why?  For many years, I asked myself this question.  My husband and I observe the biblical feast days, one of which is the Feast of Firstfruits, which occurs on the Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread.  Firstfruits is when the Jews offer up the very first of their harvest.  No other harvest can be made until the first in the land has been offered up.  In the timeline of history, Firstfruits later became the day when God’s first and only Son was raised as our perfect atonement and only acceptable sacrifice thereafter.  Mainstream Christianity calls it Easter or Resurrection Sunday, losing the emphasis on the FIRST fruits.  God is all about taking FIRST place in our lives.  He doesn’t give us His leftovers and He doesn’t want ours! 

There is a chapter in my new book, which is still in the making, about faith in Hebrews 11:6, which says without faith it is impossible to please God.  In the same chapter, verse one, God says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Offering the FIRST of the fruits of our lives – money (i.e. tithe), time, labor, possessions, etc. – is an act of faith based on what we have yet to see.  Abraham offered Isaac by faith alone, faith in God, not in what he saw (his only son) but what he didn’t see (the promise of many nations).  Abraham didn’t wait for many children to come from his elderly wife before he made an offering.  Faith, anything done in faith, is what pleases God.  Without it, nothing else will please Him.

God was not pleased with Cain’s offering.  Cain’s offering “came about in the course of time.”  It wasn’t from the first of his harvest.  It was from the surplus.  Some have theorized that the problem God had with Cain’s offering was that it was produce and not livestock, not requiring blood.  In Mosaic Law, grain offerings and blood offerings served different purposes, but never was a grain (produce) offering used for atonement.  Not that the Law was instituted yet, but before Adam and Eve left Eden, a distinction was made (Genesis 3:7,21).  Part of the problem with how Cain brought his offering however, is that it’s ok to thank God by giving above and beyond according to our surplus, but it is not an act of faith at that point, merely a generous deed to show praise and gratitude.  It was as if Cain thought any old offering would do, as if he could just bring a hostess gift as he approached the Throne of the Creator of the Universe.  Proud, irreverent, ungrateful, distrusting, careless.  Maybe those adjectives fit Cain.  God knew Cain’s heart attitude was not right and that it needed to be dealt with.  He brought Cain face to face with his own heart and gave him another chance to deal with it.  God didn’t create a situation.  He knew in time Cain would make the mess for himself.  We know that, for whatever reason, Cain brought an offering.

The second part of verse 5 is where the heart problems become relational problems and get things rolling.  “So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.  Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?”  It’s not like God didn’t know the answer, but being the good counselor that He is, He wanted Cain to think about the answer to the question and sit with it in his own heart.  It wouldn’t have lost any meaning to say, “Why are you really angry?  What is the real reason for your anger?  It’s not really about your brother, is it?”  There are two separate questions posed, “Why are you angry?  And why has your countenance fallen?”  A fallen countenance makes me think of feelings of shame, hanging one’s head, tucking tail for something more than disappointment or feeling unable to look your victim or accuser in the eye.  I think the two questions God asked were to say 1) you’re not really mad at Abel, and 2) you’re ashamed of your heart attitude towards me; you’re embarrassed that I pointed it out by not accepting your offering (public humiliation).

Then God goes on to say, “Do well and your countenance will be lifted.  Don’t do well and sin will consume you.”  God didn’t say “Satan will consume you.”  Satan is an outside force.  Sin is an inside choice.  Also, God used the word “well” as in wellness as in things that make people well or a state of good health.  He didn’t say “do good” because again, that’s a superficial response, doing good things.  But “do well” implies making right choices out of a healthy, well place inside. 

You can walk around being angry at everyone around you who triggers your hurtful place with God so that you feel better for a moment, or you can choose to make healthy choices that will lift the burden of shame and regret from sin and offer an acceptable sacrifice to God.  God didn’t ridicule Cain’s offering so much as He shot straight to the heart of the problem.  Cain didn’t have faith.  He thought God was a harsh task master unworthy of his very best.  Abel believed in God’s deep down goodness, that God had a bigger plan than what they could see, that God was worthy of the first and quite trustworthy for the rest.  Cain harbored bitterness towards God and all these other things followed.  “Cain told Abel his brother.  And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”  It never was about Abel but Cain couldn’t kill God so he killed the trigger instead.** 

We all have a choice.  Will we make an acceptable offering of faith believing that God is good even when things around us don’t particularly look that way?  Or will we give to Him only when we see evidence that He has given to us?  The elders had to step into the floodwaters of the Jordan before the waters would dry up and they could cross.  The Israelites had to put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts before their deliverance.  Job was given an ultimatum to “curse God and die” or “hold fast your integrity.” How will you live?  Cain was given the choice, “Do well and your countenance will be lifted up.  Do not do well and sin is crouching at the door.”  What choice have you made?  Will you master sin or has sin become your master?

Adam and Eve lost their first two children to sin.  Cain went on to build a city because he was cursed at farming.  Sin did prevail in the land until Adam and Eve’s son Seth had Enosh.  “Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (v. 26, emphasis mine). It took 235 years before people turned back to God.  Even then, society still went astray over the next several hundred years and God wished He’d never made humans.  One man’s choice.  One man’s bitterness.  It wasn’t just Eve to blame for sin in the world.  Cain proved it was every person’s choices after her even to this day.

 

 

 

** Notice, Abel was in right standing with God.  Do you wonder why the good people die and the bad people live?  Consider this: God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  The unrepentant can’t repent if they’re dead.  The repentant are saved, but the unrepentant are not.  They need to live so they CAN repent.  For the saved, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  For the unsaved, to die is to die eternally and God doesn’t wish that for anyone.

 

Super Man, Super God

My husband and I got to go on a date last night, just the two of us.  Our youngest boy just celebrated his birthday with a Superman themed party, and this week we’re going to Metropolis, IL, to see the giant statue of the man of steel.  So, on our date we saw the new movie Man of Steel.  The movie has too much violence for a child and uses the “F” word a handful of times, but there is no sex or innuendos and the story line is captivating.  My husband and I have been so wrapped up in our little world of parenting that we failed to see, hear, and read all the talk about the allegory of Jesus vs. Superman.  So we walked into this movie as unbiased jurors. 

In our declining world of relativism, this movie sticks with the original message that good can and will prevail over evil in the end.  It was every bit the story of Jesus told in a modern day film.  How refreshing to hear the basic truth that is so adamantly being destroyed by an obnoxious minority seeking to push a worldly agenda as their blood sacrifice to the gods of this age.  In college, I had a professor in the education department who was red in the face and virtually in tears speaking passionately against the existence of absolutes.  “There are no absolutes!!!!” he cried out from the cinder block walls.  My Christian friend, business man, and football linebacker stood up in the non-offensive stance of Superman and said, “Absolutely!!” and he sat back down having proven his point to the rest of the class but still not convincing the impassioned professor.   

In this movie, the Man of Steel embodies every Kryptonian who would ever live.  His father wove them into every cell of his son’s body before sending him to Earth as the only chance to save the only race worth saving.  He is given a heavenly name and an earthly name and spends his childhood wrestling with his identity in relation to his superhuman capabilities.  Like Jesus, his earthly father died before him and his mother after him.  How agonizing that must have been for Jesus to know he had the power to stop his father’s death but have to sit back and let nature run its course!  Like Jesus, his parents loved him as their own but knew from the beginning that he did not fully belong to them though he was as ordinary as ordinary could get since he showed up on earth as a baby.  At 12 years old, it was becoming more obvious to those around him that he was not “normal.”  The people of his time could not handle knowing they existed on earth with something larger than life.  Hello, Pharisees!

At one point in the movie, Kal-El (“from the house of El,” as in El-ohim?), aka Superman, says to the Army General, “You don’t like me because you can’t control me.  But just because I have more power than you doesn’t mean I’m your enemy.”  Doesn’t that capture the essence of our fear? It’s the idea that power that big can’t be trusted.  Something we can’t control can’t be trusted.  Hence a person’s fear of big dogs, for example.  Our confidence in our ability to control the outcome of a situation determines our level of fear about it.  A firefighter has a healthy respect for fire, but his job is to bring it under control.  However, the person being consumed by the flames is also consumed by fear. 

Think about it! I come back to the gun control debate for a brief comment.  Why is it that the President of the United States wants to take guns away from law abiding citizens who merely want to protect their homes and children while he gets to have his own house and family protected by heavy artillery?  This hypocrisy is born from fear, fear of the citizens he is supposed to serve, fear because he is outnumbered in pushing this unpopular agenda. Perhaps he thinks we are the enemy since he wants to make our power smaller than his.  Yet, all leaders, whether they like it or know it or not, serve God’s purpose.  All of us do.  It is not weapons we need to fear.  It is not the power of something bigger than us.  It is a bigger battle than that.  A strategy that is out of this world, and we know the end of the story.  I saw an argument against the allegory of Jesus vs. Superman “because Superman was violent and Jesus wasn’t.”  Granted, “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” but they are mighty and my frequent visits to the books of prophesy and Revelation don’t exactly paint the picture of a Pacifist. Throwing merchants’ tables, breaking open the gates of Hell, destroying heaven and earth and making new ones.  Seriously, it’s all the work of a very impassioned God whose single minded goal is to claim the lives of those He loves so we can live for all eternity with Him and without fear.  Hell was not made for man.  Hell was made for one enemy only, but man is given the choice.  It takes a more powerful God to give a man a choice than it does to force His will upon a man.

One alien in the movie very surely told Kal-El, “Evolution always wins!” but of course it became obvious in the fight to save the human race or obliterate it that those who chose a life of freedom and truth and justice could not be explained away by evolution, that there was more to the code than what the enemy realized.  The captain of anarchy from the utopian planet of the motherland Krypton told Kal-El, “The problem with you is that you care about these people!  If you care so much about them then suffer with them!”  The power that is so big that people would fear it is the same power it took for a mighty God to suffer with the human race, the only race worth saving. 

Just because God is bigger and more powerful than anything we can control, doesn’t make Him our enemy.  Imagine if you could live fully surrendered to that power in your life.  You can never use it for your own gain.  It just doesn’t work that way.  You can only submit to its will in you for His purpose in your circumstances.  That’s some serious power unleashed, folks!!!  Do you feel powerless or helpless because of atrocities that have happened to you?  Sometimes even all at once?  The world loves Superman because he saves the day when the earth is threatened.  There is a Savior greater than any superhero and He will return to Earth. 

This Fourth of July weekend, my family will celebrate religious and political freedom in America.  But throughout the year, we also recognize our own liberation day.  Mine was October 18, 1992.  When was yours?  When did you begin your commitment to live in full surrender to true Freedom and Power found in Christ alone?

 

 

***By the way, I find it interesting that the comic book creators of Superman were two Jewish men who were oblivious to the messianic message that emerged from their own creation until people started seeing it for themselves. 

Checking In

Praise the Lord for all he has done and is doing in my life and in yours!  His mercy endures forever and for that I am eternally grateful.  It has been a long while since my last post, but any regular visitors know that this is not unusual for me to have gaps between posts.  I sure wish I could hear all the praise reports of what God has done in your lives since my last post.  I know it would be volumes if I were to write just my part of the story. 

One thing I can share with you is that the Lord has called me to write another book.  I will not yet disclose the title as it is not copyrighted yet (but the publisher and my husband think it's a "very awesome" title :-)).  Suffice it to say, this composition is an alarm to the seriousness of the trouble with perfectionism from a scriptural standpoint.  This book will take a little longer to write than Healing Letters took.  I wrote Healing Letters in 3 months.  This one requires much more research and caution in my studies.  I suspect it will take at least a year to get it to the publisher. 

This book project comes at a time when God is growing my faith.  I'm currently participating in Beth Moore's bible study called Believing God. In my 20 year walk with God, I have never experienced faith like I am now.  I hope to make a post on that subject soon.  Just before beginning this formal Bible study, I did my own study on Job.  I feel like the Believing God study is just the conclusion to that personal study. 

Well, I just wanted to drop in and touch base with my readers.  It's been a while and I felt like I owed an explanation.  May God bless you all!

Shalom!