Always Ready

We’re going on a month now since my fiancé and I were supposed to get married and over a month since I was going to move overseas. My bags have been (mostly) packed since the beginning of June, and we still don’t know when I’ll be able to move—or get married. In some ways, you would think that a person like me, who loves time to prepare for things, would be relieved at the extra time to make preparations for two such life-altering occurrences, but while it is true that I have been able to do a lot more things to get ready than I initially was going to be able to, I’ve found myself much more angsty from this prolonged “preparation” time largely because it has required me to live in a state of being always ready.

My favorite clothes and other necessities have been in suitcases for weeks. Sometimes I’ve needed to dig something out to use, but then must remember to pack it back in the right suitcase so the carefully measured weight stays the same. I could have waited to pack, had I known how long our plans would be delayed, but the constant unknown of when I’ll be able to travel directs me to be as prepared as I can be to leave at a moment’s notice. These weeks have shown me that being always ready for something you know is coming but know not when is frustrating, wearying, and just plain exhausting.

But as I’ve been thinking about this state of always being ready, the Lord has reminded (and convicted) me that this state is exactly the one He has called me to be in as I wait for His return. This tension that I have been annoyed at of living in some sort of in-between world mirrors the tension I am to embrace spiritually as I live in the already-but-not-yet reality of God’s kingdom.

Before His crucifixion, when Jesus is talking to His disciples about His second coming, He tells them, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. […] Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:36, 44, ESV). He goes on to tell parables about people who were living their lives unprepared—wedding guests unprepared for the arrival of the groom and servants unprepared for their master’s return—and says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13, ESV).

In Mark’s accounting, Jesus commands, “Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake” (Mark 13:33-37). And in Luke, Jesus says, “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks” (Luke 12:35-36, ESV).

All of these passages impress upon the reader a strong sense of active waiting, of constant readiness and relentless alertness. Notice the phrases, “be ready,” “watch,” “be on guard,” “keep awake,” “stay awake,” “stay awake,” “stay awake,” “stay dressed for action,” “keep your lamps burning.” These things all require effort, stamina, and intentional action. Just keeping a lamp burning would require making a plan to have enough oil, including working so that resources would be available to purchase the oil, keeping the lamp clean, and watching the lamp 24/7 to make sure the oil did not run out. Staying awake also takes effort, especially when you are tired and it seems like you’ve been waiting forever already. Yet these things are pictures of what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

Through this temporal waiting period of anticipating my move and marriage, the Lord has given me a glimpse into how I am to live as His Bride. I now have a point of reference for what it looks like to live every day being ready to go. I understand in a more experiential way what it means to live in one place while keeping my ties to it loose, so that I am ready to leave the moment the doors open.

I live in my house in the United States, but in another place I have another house waiting on me—a house that I direct time and attention and affection toward building up with my future husband. In the same way, on a spiritual level, I live in my home on Earth, but in another Place I have another home waiting on me—a home that I should be directing time and attention and affection toward building up with my forever Husband. I am not to completely detach from my current home—I still live here; it is the place where God has put me to invest in for this time. But neither am I to neglect my other home or sit by and snooze because its coming seems so far away.

Exactly how this plays out practically when it comes to our forever home, I am still learning, just as God is still teaching me how to practically (and placidly) live in this active-waiting stage of prolonged engagement. But I think it’s safe to say that, since God desires us to live each day in this state of readiness for His return, His Spirit will provide the strength and guidance we need to do so.

He is coming. We don’t know when, but we know He is. So let’s not wait until the last moment to ready ourselves for His return. In His strength, with His peace and perseverance and wisdom, let’s be always ready for that day and the eternity to come. And, oh, what a glorious day that will be.

I would love to hear from those of you who have studied God’s Word—what do you think it looks like on a day-to-day basis to live always ready for Christ’s return?

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.

PC: Christina Hildreth. Used with permission.

Why Trace Time?

In 2020 America, we are suffering from a great lack of historical knowledge. Perhaps you’ve seen the videos of journalists stopping people on the street to ask them questions about the history of the country in which they were born and raised. They find people who think the Civil War was fought in the 1950s, who can’t recognize or even name the first president, who think that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat, who don’t know how many states there are, the list goes on and on…

Some might think that’s no big deal, that there’s no point in knowing useless facts like names and dates, and that names and dates is all history is about anyway. But an ignorance regarding names and dates is a sign of a greater ignorance. Admittedly, it’s not that important to know the exact date of a given historical event, but if someone can’t even assign the Declaration of Independence or World War II to the right century, then they have no understanding of the larger trajectory of the past that has led us to where we are today. And when it comes to names, we must remember that names are not just names; they are attached to people—people who lived as surely as you and I are living, who influenced the world around them, and whose legacy is still affecting today, whether we see it or not. 

History is not just names and dates. Studying history is essentially studying the story of humanity—what people have done, where they have gone, how they have lived and interacted with one another. It is the means by which we are able to make sense of our current context. A person with no knowledge of history is akin to an alien dropping into our world with absolutely no idea of how things work or how things got to be the way they are. If you’ve ever been to a different country (or in some cases to a different part of the United States), you might have noticed how different customs are based on the historical backgrounds of those places. Without an understanding of the historical background, the customs might seem odd, but with such an understanding, they become clearer.

We understand this on an individual level. We can look back at our own personal histories and see how our past has led to our present, how former experiences have shaped current perspectives, emotions, and actions. If you woke up tomorrow with complete amnesia, you’d struggle to know how to move forward because you would have no context for your life. In extrapolating that idea to a family or society, we can see how a knowledge of collective past experiences provides a grounding from which to approach current realities and step into the future. As we begin to understand the why behind certain customs or situations, we find ourselves becoming more empathetic because our perspective is an informed one. We are closer to knowing the whole story.

And that’s why having a knowledge of history is important and why the current historical ignorance is concerning. Some say the problem is that history is not being taught at all in schools any longer. Perhaps this is true in some cases. In other cases, what is called “history” is actually politicized, agenda-driven indoctrination. The powers-that-be decide what version of the story should be told, and that is the only picture the students receive unless they take the initiative to ask questions and find the answers themselves. In either case, we end up with a woefully ill-equipped citizenry. In the first case, we are left with sheer ignorance; in the latter, we are left with citizens who are only given half of the foundation they need to move forward (if that).    

One of the best antidotes to this lack of education, I believe, is to go to the source. In other words, if you want to know about George Washington or Booker T. Washington, read their own writings. If you want to know about a battle, read the official military accounts as well as diaries of soldiers who fought in it. And when reading what we call “secondary sources,” i.e. sources that are not written by eyewitnesses of an event, be mindful of any biases that the authors might have and see whether they cite their sources, and if so, what sources they cite.

Before we can even get to this point, though, there has to be an interest, a motivation to learn, an understanding that history is important and that—more than that—it’s often fun! And that’s one of the reasons I’ve begun the page Time Tracing: How to Engage with History on Facebook and Instagram. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have picked up on the fact that I love history—like a lot—and have for as long as I can remember. This love of history turned into a more formal pursuit as I majored in history in college and decided to pursue work in the archival field. And it was in these settings that I gained an even greater appreciation of the importance of knowing about the past.

Now that I’m no longer working outside the home, I’ve decided to take my passion for history and my educational and professional training and turn it into something that will hopefully help inspire and equip others to learn more about their family’s and country’s history and motivate those in their circles of influence to do the same. There’s just something about learning about how people lived in different times and places from our own that inspires the imagination and stirs the intellect, especially when we can trace their time directly to our own.

If you’d like to learn more about history and genealogy, including how to learn more on your own, I invite you to like/follow Time Tracing on Facebook and Instagram: @time.tracing. I look forward to continuing to learn alongside you all!

PC: Keri-Lynn Paulson. Used with permission.

Apologies: When They Are Warranted and When They Aren’t

We are hearing a lot about apologies these days—calls for them, balks at them, praises and rejections of them. And that’s had me thinking a lot about apologies. As we looked at last time, it’s important to distinguish what we mean by the words we use, so before we get into the meat of this post, it will be helpful to define “apology.”

It seems to be a common belief that to apologize for something means merely saying, “I’m sorry.” A quick internet search will show the definition as being to “express regret for something that one has done wrong.” But as I learned from my parents growing up, a true apology is much more than saying “I’m sorry” or feeling bad for doing something wrong. To apologize, I was taught to say, “I did [this thing], and it was wrong because of [this reason]. I am sorry I did [that]. Will you please forgive me?” In other words, a full apology involves stating what you did that was wrong, showing that you understand why it was wrong, rejecting that wrong behavior, and asking for forgiveness.

Notice that inherent in this conception of an apology is the fact that the person apologizing has personally committed the offense. On a practical level, then, it is actually impossible to apologize for something someone else has done. We can express sadness over the actions of someone else and sympathy with those who were acted against; we can even work to combat the negative effects of someone else’s actions and to prevent such actions from happening again, but we are not able to literally apologize.

With this understanding of what constitutes an apology, we can move forward in looking at whether an apology is warranted in certain situations. The headliner in our current days is calls for people with light skin color to apologize to people of dark skin color because light-skinned ancestors enslaved dark-skinned ancestors in the United States. Based on the definition of an apology that hinges on personal responsibility for one’s own actions, we can see immediately that it is impossible for 21^st-century Americans of Anglo-European descent to apologize for things that their ancestors did to the ancestors of people of African descent. The ancestors are the only ones who can apologize for their actions, and they are dead.

This is (one reason) why I do not ask the people of Salisbury, North Carolina, to apologize for the imprisonment and mistreatment of my Union soldier great-great-great-grandfather Vasa in the Confederate prison camp that existed in their town. This is why I do not demand (or even ask or wish for) an apology from my Japanese friends for Pearl Harbor, nor do they demand one of me for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is why I do not need an apology from my British friends for their 17^th-century countrymen’s fighting against my ancestor Edward in the War for Independence, nor do they ask for one from me for the defeat their county suffered at the hands of mine.

“But slavery is different,” some might argue, “The effects of slavery are still being felt today.” I would not disagree that slavery’s nasty effects are still lurking among us, but I would also suggest that so are the effects of every other situation just mentioned. Families were forever changed by these events that altered the paths their descendants would take and have affected each of our lives today in ways some of which we can see and some of which we are unaware. So if 21^st-century individuals should (and were able to) apologize for slavery of Africans in the United States, there are a host of other groups that should be apologizing to a host of other people as well.

For the sake of discussion, though, let’s say for a moment that these apologies were possible. If apologies by descendants of offenders are warranted to descendants of the offended (and by offended I mean those who had a wrong act committed against them, not those whose feelings are bruised), it is still logically unworkable for this to take place. First, to know who should apologize and to whom, it would require every person to trace their entire ancestral tree to find every possible person who was an offender/offended. As someone who studies and practices genealogy, I can tell you this is possible in some cases but is extremely difficult and time consuming even in those cases where it is possible.  

The next problem arises when it is discovered (as is the case in many situations) that a single person is the descendant of both an offender and an offended. Taking slavery in the United States as an example, one person may be descended from both an enslaved person and an enslaver, either in the most well-known cases of white men impregnating black women they had enslaved or in lesser-well-known cases of black men enslaving other black men. Or one person may be a descendant of both an offender and an anti-offender, such as those who are descended from both an enslaver and an abolitionist. Using the Civil War as an example, there are countless dual-descendants like me who had ancestors on both sides of that bloody conflict. There are also many, like me, who have both Native American ancestors and colonizing ancestors.

Not only does this reality of mixed heritage—which is much more common than people seem to like to admit—make it difficult to identify who should apologize to whom, it reveals that pitting ancestral sides against each other literally pits individuals against themselves. We can see, then, that apologies from 21^st-century individuals to other 21^st-century individuals for actions in which they had no part are literally impossible, and even if possible, are unrealistic.

But—it does not then follow that 21^st-century individuals have nothing to apologize for.

Each of us alive today should be careful that we do not take the unreasonableness of unwarranted apologies and use it as an excuse to avoid examining our own hearts, minds, and behavior for wrong attitudes, thoughts, and actions. Just because we have not enslaved our fellow humans does not mean that we are automatically guiltless toward them, and we would do well to spend time before the Lord in humility, asking Him to shine His spotlight in our hearts and reveal to us anything we need to apologize for and repent of (i.e. forsake and turn the other way from).

For example, we need to ask ourselves: Do I think less of people because of the color of their skin? Do I think less of people because of the way they talk? Do I think less of people because of their level of education? Do I think less of people because of their beliefs? And do I treat them differently as a result? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then repentance is in order.

Or to get a little more specific . . . As a person with light skin, do I assume when I hear about a certain crime that it was committed by a person with dark skin? Do I assume dark-skinned people all have the same political views? When I see negative behavior, do I think, “Well, of course they did that—they’re black”?  Do I think that dark skin is an indicator of a low work ethic? Do I think that dark-skinned people don’t value family? Do I think that a dark-skinned person must hate me because they’re “black” and I’m “white”? Do I think that people who live in poor communities, regardless of their skin color, are necessarily lazy and less intelligent? Do I think that people who have more wealth than I do, regardless of their skin color, are necessarily stodgy, conceited, out-of-touch, or corrupt?    

As I have been examining my own life, the Lord has shown me how often my first reaction to someone I do not know is to put them in a stereotyped box and then be pleasantly surprised if they show themselves to be different from those negative stereotypes, or similarly, to have low expectations of a person I do not know because of the color of their skin, the way they dress, or because of their socioeconomic status (either lower or higher than mine). This is wrong because it assumes the negative about a person and does not look for their individuality; it evaluates someone based on (often incorrect) generalizations rather than on a person’s unique merits; it defeats a person before they even have a chance to prove themselves; it places more value on a surface-level feature of a person than it does on their character and heart.

I have asked the Lord to forgive me for ever having this view of His image-bearing created beings and have begun to check myself as soon as negative assumptions pop into my head. In His grace, the Lord is helping me change, and I pray that we are all willing to admit where we are wrong, to see the ugliness inside of us (because we all have it), to truly apologize, and to submit to the Lord’s redeeming work in our lives.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, let’s not let preoccupation with apologies we shouldn’t or can’t give blind us to the apologies we should and can. Let’s not try to avoid the refining work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as He sifts out the dross and makes us more pure that we may better bring Him glory and be more winsome in pointing others to the goodness of His forgiveness and grace. Regardless of the color of our skin, we all have this one thing in common. To paraphrase John Newton, former slave trader and author of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” we are great sinners, against God and against each other, but—praise God—in Christ we have a great Savior who redeems and restores us and makes us one. 

PC: Pam Galagan. Used with permission.

Words: How They Matter and How They Don’t

These past couple of weeks have brought a weight with them—a weight that many have already been feeling and that many are just beginning to feel for the first time. We have seen a man murdered by those who were sworn to protect their communities; we have seen other men murdered by opportunists who have taken advantage of communities at this time of deep pain. The brokenness of our world is apparent for all to see.

There are so many angles to the current issues that have been brought once again to the forefront in recent days that it is difficult to know where to begin. But in order for positive change to occur, begin we must. It is possible that I will write more posts on different aspects of the situation our country finds itself in, but to lay the foundation for any further topics, it seems that one theme must be addressed first that has arisen across the entire spectrum of responses to the injustices we have all witnessed.

In our world of social media where everyone has a platform from which to speak to hundreds, thousands, or even millions, it becomes dizzying to navigate the messages that are being sent. I have seen people be shamed for posting and others be shamed for not posting. I have seen criticisms of people’s silence yet also criticisms of the words people use when they choose not to be silent. I’ve seen people be applauded for asking how they can help and people criticized for asking rather than trying to figure it out on their own. In short, I have seen an obsession with words and a disregard for human beings. And this has been coming from all “sides” of the issues.

We know that words are powerful. Scripture contains numerous references to the importance of words and their capacity to do both good and harm. As just a couple of examples, we see in Proverbs 15:1 that “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (ESV).  And James, speaking of the tongue, writes, “It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:8b-10, ESV). Words matter. They have the power to build up or to tear down. And choice of words matters. But are the words themselves all that should be considered?

I’d like to suggest that they are not, for one simple reason: two people can use the same words and mean very different things. To use a silly example, let’s say you were planning two trips, one to Vermont and one to Florida. Your friends in each place tell you to pack appropriately because “It’s been cold here lately.” If you’d never been to either place before and were basing your choice of clothes only on your friends’ words, you might pack similarly for both trips, not realizing that “cold” to a Vermonter is well below freezing, while “cold” to a Floridian is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. To better understand how you should act in response to their statements, you might ask, “What do you consider cold?” or “What exactly is the temperature?”

As we apply this same idea to other situations, we find that we must look beyond the words a person says to the person speaking them and seek to understand the perspective and intent behind the words, looking at each speaker within the unique context that he or she is speaking from rather than lumping that speaker into a homogenous group with everyone else who uses the same words.

Perhaps the greatest example of this in our recent weeks is the argument between use of the phrases “Black lives matter” and “all lives matter.” I have seen people—and sadly even Christian people—criticize, even excoriate, others for using each of these phrases, and wrapped up in each criticism is an assumption about the other person’s intended meaning in using these specific words. For example, some look at anyone who says that “Black lives matter” as a full-on supporter of the BLM organization and all of its leftist (to be distinguished from liberal) political agendas. On the flip side, some look at anyone who says that “all lives matter” as an insensitive white supremacist who refuses to see the injustices that have been committed against people with dark skin much less feel badly about them.

What such a generalizing response to these words does is shut down conversation before it even begins. It lumps people into labels and inhibits asking questions because the answers are already assumed. This is not a problem if we think we have nothing to learn (which is a dangerous place to be, by the way). But it is a huge problem if we truly want to relate to others, to grow in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. For followers of Jesus it is an even bigger problem, since we are called to become more like Him, which includes growing in humility and in the fruit of His Spirit.

So while words are important, they are not all-important. Studying communication in college, I learned that breakdowns in communication occur when what is sent is received differently than how it is meant. Successful communicators on the sending end are able to explain what they mean by the words they say to better ensure that they are understood correctly by the hearer. The message is the meaning, while the words are the vehicles used to transport the meaning to the receiver. What is important, then, for successful communication as a hearer, is to root out the meaning (i.e. intended definition) of the words being sent.

There is a counter argument circulating, however, against the idea that intended meaning of words is more relevant than how they are received. I have seen some assert that intent is irrelevant and impact (i.e. perception) is what matters. In other words, it doesn’t matter if someone means well in what they say; if the person hearing it feels badly as a result of what was said, then what was said is morally wrong. Or, to give an example, it doesn’t matter if the sender does not harbor hate or prejudice in his heart; if the receiver feels hated or discriminated against, it was wrong for the sender to say what he said.

In many ways this viewpoint is a reflection of the postmodern worldview that is so prevalent in our culture, the view that sees meaning as relative and something which is determined by the reader/receiver rather than by the author/sender. In this view, reality for receivers is determined solely by their subjective feelings rather than by a more objective understanding of the original message. Rather than responding to what was actually meant, then, the receivers respond to what they assume was meant. And this constitutes a textbook breakdown of communication.

Certainly as senders, we have the responsibility to choose our words wisely, i.e. to choose the vehicle that will best express our actual intent, and to be mindful of how our words will affect others. But sometimes senders don’t have access to the full range of vehicles that exist. Sometimes they are unaware that the vehicle they have chosen won’t get them where they want to go. So as hearers, we must show grace. We must give the benefit of the doubt. We must assume positive intent and become partners with the sender rather than adversaries as we work to communicate clearly for the betterment of both parties.

If we truly want to make a difference, if we truly want to be agents of positive change, if we truly want to build relationships, if we truly want to learn, then we must practice active listening, i.e. we must not assume we are receiving the accurate message and must ask for context and clarification. When someone says something that makes us feel offended or skeptical or hurt, instead of assuming negative intent, we should try responding with, “When you said such-and-such, this is what it sounded/felt like you meant:______.  Is that really what you meant?” And if we don’t have the opportunity to start that conversation, rather than assuming negative intent, let’s try assuming positive intent.

As with all of my posts, this one also serves as a reminder to myself; I am not exempt from my own critiques and challenges. Several years ago the Lord used a sister in Christ to teach me the importance of assuming the best of others, particularly when it comes to what they say and do (or don’t say and don’t do) and it is something I have been intentionally mindful of ever since, although it is a lesson I am still learning. Here is what I have found so far:

When we assume negative intent, we become offended and hurt; we think lowlier of the offender; we take the first step toward bitterness; we harm ourselves by nurturing negative feelings; we do not glorify Christ. When we assume positive intent, we turn the magnifying glass on ourselves; we discover why we react to certain things in certain ways and discover areas of our own lives that need to be brought under submission to God; we take the first step toward showing grace to others; we benefit ourselves through release of negative feelings; we glorify Christ.

I’ll close with a quotation I first heard in a family psychology class I took in college. It has stuck with me ever since I heard it, and it has served as an excellent guide as I interact with others. “Seek to understand, before you seek to be understood.” If we take the focus off of ourselves and our feelings and instead seek to serve others by striving to understand where they are coming from, I daresay we will find we have a lot more in common with each other than perhaps we originally thought. And maybe, just maybe, we can take steps toward each other and then move forward together rather than speaking past each other and moving nowhere.

PC: Pamela Hollis. Used with permission.

The Lady from Lodge

Part of my job as an archives assistant is processing oral history interviews, which involves listening to them, writing a summary, and identifying key words to assign as what we call “subject headings” that let listeners find other interviews relating to similar topics. Recently, I’ve been processing a batch of sixteen interviews with the founder of the university where I work, Bonnie Cone.

I never met Bonnie Cone; she died ten years before I even moved to Charlotte. But I feel like I’ve gotten to know her a little bit from listening to over sixteen hours of her conversations. And her legacy has affected not only the city of Charlotte but hundreds of thousands of lives—including mine.

Born in the small rural town of Lodge, South Carolina in 1907, Bonnie Cone set out to be a teacher and eventually found her way to a teaching job at Central High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Soon after, however, she was called upon to direct a college center that met in the high school and had been created to meet the educational needs of returning veterans after World War II. Although the Charlotte College Center of the University of North Carolina was only intended to be a temporary institution, Ms. Bonnie quickly developed a vision for a permanent school that would grow into a full-fledged university and serve the largest urban area in the state, an area that up to that point did not have a publicly funded co-ed university within the entire region.

Through her hard work, tenacity, strategic networking with business leaders and politicians, and tireless advocacy, Bonnie Cone saw the night-school college center through threats of closure in 1949 and ushered it into permanent junior college status as Charlotte College, then on to becoming a four-year school in 1963, and finally to becoming the fourth campus of the University of North Carolina, UNC Charlotte, in 1965. What was initially created to provide a college education to Charlotte-area veterans has now grown into a doctoral research university, attracting students from the Charlotte region and around the world.

Fifty years after Ms. Bonnie’s college achieved university status, I stepped on the campus to fulfill my practicum for an archival studies graduate program, and just over a year later I was thrilled to begin working there for my first non-self-employed post-college job. Two years after that, a young man from Palestine would choose UNC Charlotte out of four possible options as the university to which he would journey to earn his master’s degree. So in a very real sense, the fruits of Bonnie Cone (and others’) labor made it possible for me to have my dream job and to meet my future husband.

If Bonnie Cone had given up and let the Charlotte Center die in 1949, if she hadn’t striven to recruit the highest quality professors and jump through all the hoops to gain legal and financial support for the school, if she hadn’t had the vision for a thriving university, I probably would have had to settle for an “okay” job instead of a great one and my fiancé probably wouldn’t have come to Charlotte.

As I’ve been listening to Ms. Bonnie tell the story of how the college survived and grew into a university, I’ve been thinking about how the faithfulness and determination of one person can have exponential—even eternal—effects. Just taking my fiancé’s and my story as one example, the influence of Bonnie Cone’s life has been used by God to provide me a job, to provide my fiancé a furtherance of his education, to bring us to each other, to join two families and two cultures into a beautiful tapestry, and Lord-willing, to lead to the creation of more eternal souls.  

While I think Ms. Bonnie had an idea that many lives would be influenced by the university she envisioned, I doubt she could have known just how many that would be or grasped just how profoundly those lives would be shaped by what she helped to build. This can be an encouragement to us to remember that we don’t know the future whenever we wonder whether our lives are really making a difference. No, we’re not all going to found a giant university, but we all do things each and every day that touch the lives of others, and we never know how God might use our kindness,  perseverance, and faithfulness in things both big and small to accomplish His work for His glory and our and others’ good.

I have a feeling that if Ms. Bonnie were still here, she would tell you that if she could stick to it and accomplish her goals, then you can too. So the next time you feel like giving up on whatever God has lain on your heart to do, remember the story of a feisty little lady from Lodge whose dedication to implementing a vision one step at a time ended up changing the world. 

To see photos of Bonnie Cone, see the Goldmine Repository from Special Collections and University Archives of UNC Charlotte's Atkins Library.

The Gift of Asking

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar to you? So familiar, maybe, that you’ve thought them yourself?

-          I should thank God and praise Him instead of asking Him to give me things or to do things for me.

-          God’s in control of everything, so I don’t need to ask Him for _______. He already knows what I want/need anyway.

-          It’s more important to pray for other people than to pray for myself. Praying for myself is selfish and self-centered.

-          If I do pray for myself, it should only be about “spiritual” things, like praying God will grow me to be more like Jesus.

Confession time: these are all thoughts that have run through my head at one time or another. And some of them I still have to fight against regularly. On the surface, they seem to be correct, right? We know that God is worthy of our praise, that He is all-knowing and sovereign over all things, that our focus should be less on ourselves and more on God and others, and that His will for us is that we be shaped into the image of Jesus Christ. So what’s the problem?

The problem with the thought-statements above is that they take pieces of truth and twist them just enough to produce a misdirected application grounded in an untruth—that it is wrong to make requests of God regarding things that affect us personally. 

How many times have we all heard, “God isn’t a genie in the sky, existing only to grant your wishes”? While that is 100% true, the problem is that the implication—or at least the perception—of that statement is that asking God for something “personal” is tantamount to treating Him like a genie. For those who have a right understanding of who God is—of His supremacy and perfect holiness—the last thing we want to do is denigrate Him by approaching Him as our personal wish-granter. So, if you’re anything like me, this often means that we don’t approach Him at all.

But is this really the proper response to seeing God as holy and supreme? To answer that question, the best (and only) place to find an authoritative answer is God’s own Word. Even spending just a short time in the Bible is enough to show us that this kind of reaction—this hesitation to ask God for things—is completely counter to what God intends for us.

As just one example, in the Old Testament we see Hannah fervently praying, asking God very specifically to give her a child (1 Samuel 1). This was a point of great personal desire for her, since she was childless and regularly suffered the taunting of her husband’s other, fertile wife, adding insult to her pain. Likewise, the Psalms are filled with examples of David’s asking God for healing and protection. These are impassioned pleadings for personal deliverance.  

Even if those instances are looked at as descriptive rather than prescriptive, the New Testament exhorts us “in everything” to “let [our] requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6, ESV). And Jesus Himself tells us to ask (Matthew 7:7-11), teaches us to pray for ourselves (Matthew 6:11-13), and models what it looks like to bring requests to God the Father—yes, even requests for Himself.

In Gethsemane in the hours before His arrest and crucifixion, Jesus makes a very personal request of God—that God would provide a way out of the impending wrath He is about to experience (Matthew 26:36-46, ESV). What is perhaps most striking about this passage in regards to our present topic is that Jesus, being God, knew that what He was about to endure was the only way. He knew that the cup would not be removed from Him. In other words, He knew the answer to His prayer would be “No.”

But He still asked.

That right there should be enough to show us the importance of asking. If Jesus, who knew what the answer to His request would be, still brought it before God, how much more should we! We learn from this example that even if the answer is “No,” there is still value in the asking itself, and one clue into the reason this is the case is found in the preface to Jesus’ request. He began just as He taught His disciples to begin—“My Father” (Matthew 26:39, ESV).

These words remind us that the Holy and Supreme God of the universe is also relational, and for those of us in Christ, He has entered into personal relationship with us—or rather, has brought us into personal relationship with Himself. In the same passage where Jesus speaks of asking, He also makes the connection to God’s fatherhood when He says, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11, ESV). Part of having an intimate relationship with someone is conversing with them, opening up your mind and heart, sharing your thoughts and feelings—even if they already know them. So why, if God is our Father, would we neglect to communicate to Him our desires?

Yes, it is true that the purpose of God’s existence is not to fulfill our every want. But it is also true that God is our Father, and He endured unspeakable pain so that we could have a relationship with Him—a relationship more intimate than any other we will experience, a relationship that includes asking things of Him and then submitting to His will in the answer given. 

Does He depend on us to communicate with Him to fulfill some relational need on His part? No. Does He know what we will say before we say it? Yes. Will He always grant our desires? No. Will He often shape our desires into different ones? Yes. Sometimes He even uses the process of our articulating our desires to perform that transformative work in us, revealing to us the areas of our lives that need to be brought further under submission to Him. But none of these things are reasons we should avoid approaching God’s throne in prayer and bringing specific, personal requests before Him.

I’m afraid that in our zeal to reject the “name-it-and-claim-it” beliefs that all you have to do to get something is ask and that if you ask and don’t receive, then you must have had not enough faith, we’ve made it easy to fall into the other extreme of not asking at all. We’ve forgotten the power of prayer—not only in effecting changed outcomes, but also in cultivating intimacy with our Heavenly Father.  But when we understand that God created us to be in relationship with Him and that it is possible to simultaneously hold Him in highest regard and bring petitions—any petitions—before Him, we can begin to see what a gift the invitation to ask things of God is. The God “who dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16, ESV) welcomes us to approach Him through Jesus Christ and to lay out our requests before Him.

This is something I have to remind myself of on a regular basis. More often than I would like to admit, I have to consciously take the mental step from simply thinking, for example, “I hope this barrier is removed,” to actually praying, “Lord, will you please make a way here where it seems there isn’t one?” Even for things that seem too miniscule, or too massive, or too selfish, or too silly, I have to remember the importance of asking, even while asking God to conform me into the image of Jesus. Because when I open that conversation with God, I also open the door to a deeper and more enriching relationship with Him.

The ability to ask is a gift God has given us. So what do you need to ask Him for today?

PC: Teresa Cantrell. Used with permission.

The Preparing Christ

There are a lot of cool things about being in a cross-cultural relationship and specifically one that involves Middle Eastern culture. One of those things is the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Scripture through growing in understanding of the place in which much of it was played out. Reading the psalmists cry, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” (Ps. 121:1, ESV) has a whole new poignancy after you’ve seen the hills of the Holy Land. Reading about Mary’s surrender to God’s plan for her life becomes all the more real after you’ve stood at her home in Nazareth. But it’s not just the place that enlivens one’s understanding of the Bible; it’s the culture as well.      

Throughout high school and college, learning about the “ANE culture,” i.e. the culture of the Ancient Near East, was part of my curriculum. This helped inform my understanding of Scripture by helping me read it in a fuller context. What I didn’t realize until recently, though, is that there are strains of that ancient culture that exist in modern Middle Eastern culture as well. And through my relationship with my fiancé and the resulting cultural exposure, I am gaining a deeper glimpse into the goodness of God in more ways than one.

If you’ve grown up in church or been to a Christian wedding, you’re likely familiar with the fact that marriage was designed by God to be a picture of the relationship that would exist between Jesus and the Church, i.e. the people He purchased out of bondage through His sacrifice of His own perfect life. You might also be familiar with the passages of Scripture where Jesus is referred to or refers to Himself as the bridegroom (see Matthew 9, Mark 2, Luke 5, and John 3). I was well acquainted with all of those as well, but there’s another familiar passage that I had never connected to Jesus’ identity as our bridegroom—until recently.

In John 14, Jesus is speaking with His disciples, those who were arguably the human beings who had the closest relationship to Him during His time on earth. He is nearing His crucifixion and is spending concentrated time at their last meal together speaking with, praying for, and preparing them for the coming dark days. In the midst of this weighty time, Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:1-3, ESV).

At first glance this does not seem to be a passage about the picture of marriage. From a twenty-first-century American viewpoint, it seems like a straightforward passage about heaven—that Jesus is going to heaven and that eventually we will be there with Him. But now I think there is so much more to this passage than what is initially apparent to our modern American eyes.

You see, my fiancé and I are currently separated by about 6,000 miles, and as it stands right now we will be until days before our wedding. A few months ago, he left to return to his home country, having completed what he came to my home country to do, and is working and making things ready for our future together. In his home culture, unless young men move away from their hometown for school or a job, they typically live with their families until they get married, and once they become engaged they look for a dwelling of their own and begin intentionally preparing it for their bride-to-be. Such is the case with my fiancé.

Sometimes he even uses the phrase “preparing our home” when he speaks, and it was after a few times of hearing this that it hit me how similar it sounded to Jesus’ words in John 14. 

And that’s when I realized the depth of what Jesus was saying to His disciples. In speaking of preparing a place for them, He was using imagery that would have been thoroughly familiar in their culture; He was alluding to Himself as the Bridegroom, preparing an eternal home for His Bride. He was getting ready to complete what He had come to our home to do, and He would then return to His home to make things ready for our future with Him.

The disciples weren’t too happy about the idea, as we can see by Jesus’ explaining to them why He had to leave. The separation was bound to be difficult since they had to adjust to no longer having their Friend and Savior physically with them. In the same way, the separation is difficult for us today. Even though we have the Holy Spirit within us, I’d wager to say we have all had thoughts something akin to, “If only I could just see Him or hear His voice or feel His touch.”

Likewise, the separation my fiancé and I are experiencing is not easy. I know I am going to be with him soon, but it’s still hard not to be physically present with each other.  But as we’ve been talking every day, I hear updates about the preparations my groom is making in our home, and I am constantly reminded of the preparations my Groom is making for me in my heavenly home. And just as I am waiting with confident expectation for the time when my fiancé and I will be together again, I am reminded to wait in the same confident expectation for the time when my Eternal Groom will bring me to be with Him forever.

I don’t know exactly what it looks like for Jesus to be preparing our future home for us, but if the love and care and intentionality I’ve experienced from my earthly bridegroom is even just a small taste of it, I know it’s going to be beyond our wildest dreams.

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.

PC: Jane Morris. Used with permission.