Once upon a couple months ago, several seemingly random events occurred that came together to wake up a hardened heart.  Namely, mine.  The first occurred as Lukus and I were driving out to Colorado for our ten-year anniversary.  Somehow, it’s become our “driving thing” that I read to him while he drives.  He chose a book that he needed to read (or be read to) for an eighth grade economics class he’ll be teaching in the spring.  It’s a brilliant choice for eighth graders because it’s actually a love story; a romance between a liberal English teacher and a free-market economics teacher who fall in love over discussions of philosophy, the human condition, and of course, economics.  Yeah, it’s a bit silly, but for an eighth grader, it sure beats reading an economics theory textbook.  But this post is not about economics.  This post is about compassion, and ultimately, grace.

There came a point in the story that the free-market economics teacher gave a homeless man some money, and the “bleeding heart” liberal English teacher was stupefied that he would do so – don’t free-market stuff shirts believe that you have to earn a living and not expect a hand-out?  What if the homeless man uses the money to buy drugs or alcohol?  Shouldn’t the teacher buy him a sandwich instead of just giving the man money to ensure it went to proper use?  As I was reading, I was suddenly struck and convicted by my own attitude toward the homeless.  More and more, our street corners are filling up with people holding signs asking for money.  I’d stopped looking at them.  I’d roll up my windows and sometimes even lock my door while sitting at a red light.  I’d think about how they looked healthy enough, how hard could it be to offer to mow lawns using the homeowner’s equipment?  If it was that hard for them to get a job, it must be because they abuse alcohol or drugs and can’t maintain a job.  In all honesty, even though my husband and I had rejected the façade of perfection in the suburbs for the “real life” of the city, I was getting perturbed that our neighborhood corners were being littered with signs, beer bottles, fast food trash, and even dirty people.  And I certainly wasn’t going to encourage begging by giving money to people on the streets who would use it for who knows what.

Then I read the response of the economics teacher when asked by the English teacher, “What if he uses it to buy alcohol?”  The economics teacher replies, “Given his situation, it looks like he could use a drink.”  Certainly not an idealistic response by any stretch, but utterly free of judgment, and quite full of understanding – certainly not the response I would have had.  Not that we should start handing out bottles of Jack Daniels on street corners, but when Christian moralism replaces Christ-like compassion, there’s something deeply wrong.  And there was something wrong with me.

I pondered that story in my mind for a few weeks without doing much about it except trying to adjust my internal thinking toward the people on the corners.  Then another “random” event occurred:  I was talking with my counselor about my depression when he confronted me with my perfectionist mindset.  He talked me through the revelation that I have had no understanding of grace – grace for myself or grace for others.  Grace was a word that I thought that I believed in as a Christian, but it had no fruit in my life because I did not really know anything about it.  And because I hadn’t understood grace, I was angry and depressed inside.  I felt like I was doing my best, doing everything I knew how to do, and yet I wasn’t getting answers from God.  I was putting in, but God wasn’t putting out.  I would have told you straight-faced and in all sincerity that I didn’t believe God was a vending machine, and yet, in reality, I kept putting coins in a slot only to get angry and beat the machine for my bag of chips that was hanging on by a sliver.

It just so happened that as my counselor exposed this for me, my scheduled read in my Bible was the book of Job.  Now here was a man who had credit in his vending machine.  He was a righteous man, he even made sacrifices on behalf of his children after they had parties “in case they sinned against God in their hearts” while drinking it up.  This was a good guy who had every reason to receive blessings from God.  And yet, when everything he cared about was destroyed, yes, he grieved, he tore his clothes, he wept, BUT he still said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Could I say such a thing?  No.  I was angry with God for far less than what happened to Job.  When I read this, I literally wept – not just wept, I did the ugly cry: snot, hyperventilating, choking on my words of repentance.  It was awful.  It was glorious.  For the first time, I realized that what I did didn’t matter.  I didn’t have to put coins in a vending machine because God had prepared a whole banquet for me!  God loved me.  He loved me.  He loved me!  And His love was enough.  I realized that God was no longer judging my actions, and I was free.  Grace had finally revealed herself to me.

So what does this have to do with all that talk on the homeless earlier in this post?  Well, later that week, I was stopped at a red light and there was a broken-looking old man holding a sign asking for help.  For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, my heart was flooded with compassion for a needy person.  I was utterly compelled to give the man some money, so I pulled out a $10 bill and rolled down my window.  The man kindly took the money, and in that brief moment of both of our hands on that bill, I saw a well of desperation, gratitude, hope and pain in that man’s eyes.  He didn’t want to be there.  He didn’t want to beg people for money.  He was already humiliated, but he was just trying to survive.  I didn’t have his same set of problems and circumstances, and yet, I knew how he felt.

As I pulled away, I heard God speak to my heart, “What if he uses it for alcohol or drugs?”  I knew what God was teaching me now, and I responded, “It’s not for me to judge him.  You have given freely to me when I have deserved nothing, and I must give freely to others.  You have loved me without judgment, so I must love others without judgment.”  I felt God say, “Yes.”  I cried the rest of the way home.

Last night, I was on Facebook and read my dear friend Rachel’s story of what happened to her the other night.  She and her mom were headed into a grocery store when they saw a man at the door holding a sign asking for help.  Rachel and her mom have always had such compassionate hearts, and they began to put things in their grocery cart for the man.  Rachel’s mom, though, began to worry that the man would leave before they had a chance to get back to him, so she sent Rachel out to let him know they were getting some things for him.  Rachel went out to the man and asked him if there was anything in particular he needed.  The man looked at Rachel and said, “Do you remember me from a long time ago?”  Rachel took a moment and looked into the man’s eyes, then suddenly, recognition struck her:  this man had been a friend of Rachel’s when they were teenagers.  Even I had remembered her talking about him years ago.  Life had dealt him some hard blows and now he was barely recognizable to an old friend.  Rachel got her mom, and they both hugged him, cried over him and showed him the real love of Jesus.  They gave him some things he needed, and set up a time to meet with him for coffee to find ways they could help him.  Rachel said in her post, “It was the best hug I ever received!”

That’s grace, springing from an awakened heart, reaching out to a need in another, and then being blessed in return for the privilege of meeting that need.  Grace is an unending, ever-increasing cycle of gratitude and joy that cannot help but respond to heal the hurts of others, and in return, be healed.  Grace is the abandonment of self-preservation, and the understanding that the only way to save your life is to lose it.  Grace is knowing, like Job, that nothing is truly ours, it is all God’s, and our only hope is to trust him, come what may.  Grace is the freedom from judgment of others, knowing that we ourselves are free from judgment.  Grace is the story of Christmas, grace is the story of the Cross, grace is the story of the Resurrection – and grace is the story of two women walking into a grocery store, and grace is the story of a man on the corner who pierced my hardened heart.  May grace be your story this season as well.

I don’t have time to write a post today, as we are getting ready to take Eisley to be fitted for leg braces.  I’m a little sad that my munchkin needs leg braces, but I know it will be best for her in the long-run.  In the meantime, I want to leave you all with some happy music for today – reminders of God’s love for us, and reminders for us to love others.

Ever done one of those “read through the Bible in a year” programs?  I think that in general, the reason people use those schedules is because there’s no way they’d ever spontaneously be inspired to read Leviticus or Numbers.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon out of either of those books in my entire life.  No one really enjoys reading all about the how-tos of cleansing oneself from bodily discharges, the various required offerings, or all the laws regarding how to pay a man back if his bull falls into a pit on your property.  It’s not terribly fascinating except to religious extremists who like to use the scriptures on sexual sin as hate messages.

But as I’ve pondered this series on Celebration, I am struck by what a partier God is!  In the midst of all of those laws and detailed regulations, God lays out seven specific feasts, annual holidays for the Israelites to celebrate.  I’ve generally viewed God as joyful and as One who delights in His children, but I’ve never paid much attention to how much emphasis He places on celebration.  Not only are there the seven annual feasts, but the Sabbath is laid out as a mandatory weekly celebration, as well as “sabbatical years” every seven years, and the Year of Jubilee every fifty years.  I’m not going to delve into any of these specific celebrations as I’m totally unqualified to share any kind of insight, except to note the sheer volume of celebration that God has provided for.  If there are that many required feasts and days of rest and fellowship, celebration must be of extraordinary significance to humanity.  Celebration is a great portion of what we were made for.

Another observation I noted was the fact that these celebrations are mixed in with all the other regulatory scriptures and laws.  They were a reward for obedience to God’s laws as well as an act of obedience in and of themselves.  Obedience is an integral part of Celebration.  In Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline, he states that “In the spiritual life only one thing will produce genuine joy, and that is obedience…To elicit genuine celebration, obedience must work itself into the ordinary fabric of our daily lives.  Without that our celebrating carries a hollow sound.”  He also states, “God’s normal means of bringing his joy is by redeeming and sanctifying the ordinary junctures of human life…we will not know genuine joy until there is a transforming work within us.  Many people try to come into joy far too soon.  Often we try to pump up people with joy when in reality nothing has happened in their lives.  God has not broken into the routine experiences of their daily existence.  Celebration comes when the common ventures of life are redeemed.”

Obedience is where we begin the process of celebration.  Obedience is tough.  It seems that we either tend to blindly follow others, be they peers, political authorities or other leaders, or we take the independent route that we are going to “follow our own heart” to ensure that we are not controlled by others.  Obedience to God does not come so naturally.  It is more than a struggle, it is an all-out internal war.  But as someone who struggles with depression, if obedience is truly the key to joy, then it is a battle worth waging with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Last night, I confessed to our small group that I struggle a great deal with being motivated to read the Word on a daily basis, and because my prayers feel like they’ve been falling flat lately, I’ve just given up on prayer as well.  But I know that giving up is not the answer.  These amazing women all came up to me after group was over and said they’d like to get in on a study together.  Strength in numbers, right?  My husband is also starting a 30 day study of his own.  This is one small step toward more obedience being enacted in our lives, even though there’s a much longer journey ahead.

Is there an area in your own life where you feel you need to respond with obedience to God?  It’s not easy, but it is the path to joy, it is the journey of celebration.