10 Commandments

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You Fear You’ve Flunked the First Commandment

August 11, 2013 By Michelle 28 Comments

“So what do you think?” I ask my kids as we eat lunch on the back patio. “Do you love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul?” They both answer without hesitation. Rowan says yes. Noah says no.

“Why not?” I ask Noah. “What’s getting in the way?” He thinks for a minute, chewing thoughtfully on a slice of nectarine. “Well, I think it’s because God’s not right here, right in front of me. It’s much easier to love you and Daddy and Rowan. And Minecraft.” I laugh, because I know exactly what Noah means.

The very first time I read Jesus’ answer to the Pharisee’s question about which is the greatest commandment, I was relieved. “Is that it?” I thought. “Hey, no problem. I can love God.” Later, of course, reality set in. Love is hard – certainly hard enough with our real, live, flesh-and-blood family and friends, but even harder with our amorphous, intangible God.

The more I thought about that verse, the more challenging it became. What does it mean, for instance, to love God with our whole hearts, minds and souls? Like Rowan asked, “What is the soul, anyway? And how do you love with your soul?”

I think I’m pretty good at loving with my mind. I like to wrestle with Scripture and read theology. I like to dig into the Bible, pondering verses and trying to flesh meaning out of the layers. But heart and soul? I’m not so sure. I’m more pragmatic than emotional. I don’t tear up easily; I don’t profess love with abandon. Loving with my whole heart and soul feels a little too over-the-top.

A few months ago when I was writing the 50 Women book I was introduced to Hannah Whitall Smith. Hannah was a leader in the Methodist Holiness movement during the 1850s and ‘60s. A pragmatist like me, she struggled with the movement’s expectation that believers needed to experience an emotional connection with God in order to be fully sanctified. She often approached the altar call with a handful of Kleenex, trying desperately to will herself to tears. But the tears and the overwhelming emotional response never came.

“I am convinced that throughout the Bible the expressions concerning ‘heart’ do not mean emotions, that which we now understand by the word ‘heart,’ but they mean the will, the personality of the man; the man’s own central self,” Hannah later wrote. “It is not the feelings of the man God wants, but the man himself.” (from The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life)

Hannah’s decision to walk by faith, not feelings, was a turning point in her spiritual journey.

The longer I walk this path, the more I realize that there’s not a right or wrong way to love God. It’s not black-and-white. It’s not simple or easy, but neither does it necessarily need to be complicated. Like I told Noah that afternoon on the patio, we just do our best, and that’s good enough for God. Falling short doesn’t mean we flunk the first and greatest commandment, because God meets us exactly where we are. As Hannah said, God doesn’t necessarily want only our feelings. He wants our whole selves.

Questions for Reflection:
Do you love God with your whole heart, mind and soul? Which of those three areas is the most challenging for you?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: It’s Not Pottery Barn…but It’s Perfection

August 4, 2013 By Michelle 31 Comments

I turn the slick pages, one after the other, my feet propped on the metal patio chair, chickadees trilling in the white pine. “Ooooh, that’s nice,” I murmur, gazing at pristine dishware, dazzling fabrics, glass hurricanes and smooth pillar candles.

Noah perches next to me on the arm of the chair. Together we admire the lavishly decorated tables displayed across glossy pages. We stop a moment on page 10, pointing to the sumptuous leather chairs and the rustic but chic chandelier.

“Wow. Now that looks just like perfection to me,” I say to Noah. “A gorgeous table set with beautiful dishes, crisp linens and candles, all ready for an evening dinner party. I don’t think it gets much better than that.”

Noah nods solemnly. I turn more pages as he walks inside.

I’m pining, coveting the opulence orchestrated so perfectly on those pages. I want the monogrammed napkins, the mercury glass votives, the plush throws. I want the Pottery Barn stuff and the Pottery Barn life, the seeming ease that comes with high-class living. I’m sick with envy over the fact that people I know actually own a lot of the furnishings and home décor displayed on these pages. I’m envious because I want to own it, too.

The screen door slams shut, and I look up from the magazine.

“Now you have perfection, too,” Noah tells me, stepping carefully over the acorns strewn across the patio. I lean forward as he places my grandmother’s blue Fiestaware dish on the green metal table. A scattering of scarlet, foil-wrapped Dove chocolates sits in the center of the dish. Delicate stems of burnished Autumn Sedum and golden beech leaves are arranged around the candies just so.

Noah sits next to me on a tipping metal chair, striped cushion faded dull from the burning summer sun. We unwrap the foil and let the smooth sweetness melt in our mouths.

I close the Pottery Barn catalog and lay it on the table, tuck my feet beneath the worn cushion and unwrap another chocolate. I smile at the boy next to me as a gust twirls pine needles from the tree-top to the leaf-cluttered lawn. A squirrel rustles his nest high above us, and acorns plunk onto the patio umbrella like raindrops.

It’s not Pottery Barn … but it’s perfection indeed.

Questions for Reflection:
What do you covet? Have you thought about what might be fueling that coveting? Is it envy? Resentment? Anger? Insecurity?

Edited repost from the archives.

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When Complaining Leads to Coveting

July 28, 2013 By Michelle 29 Comments

For years, every Friday at 2 p.m. you could find me in the exact same place: on the couch with a cup of tea and the phone to my ear, my best friend Andrea on the other line. Those conversations, especially in those first lonely years in Nebraska, were my lifeline.

We talked about everything from potty training to shoe sales to home décor, and often, we talked about our husbands. Or, I should say, we complained about our husbands. We bemoaned. We rolled our eyes. We shook our heads. We commiserated. We didn’t typically complain about big things or important stuff. We simply griped about the everyday annoyances of living day in and day out with the same person.

Finally, during one of those Friday afternoon phone calls, Andrea put a stop to the complaining. She admitted that when her husband got home from work on Fridays, she was often so riled up from picking him apart over the phone, she picked a fight with him in person. Andrea was right – I realized I often did the same. Turns out, what we’d assumed was harmless complaining was actually fueling an undercurrent of negativity and discontent in our marriages.

I was reminded of that lesson as I thought about the reading and sermon for this week on Exodus 20:17: You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

At the heart of coveting is comparison: dissatisfied with our own lot, we want what others have. Complaining about my husband may have seemed innocuous enough, but over time, it began to weave subtle but pervasive threads of dissatisfaction and discontent.

Suddenly, instead of appreciating Brad’s many gifts, I couldn’t get past the damp towel on the bathroom floor or the sneakers left not in but right next to the shoe basket by the door. Instead of celebrating his many fabulous qualities – like the fact that he cooks dinner from scratch every night (and I don’t mean frozen raviolis) and makes my coffee every morning, even though he’s a tea-drinker – I focused on his few flaws.

Coveting and comparison – whether it’s your neighbor’s spouse or your neighbor’s house – can sneak up on you. Before you know it, you’re pining for what you want, rather than grateful for what you have.

I’m grateful Andrea put an end to our husband-griping, but I still fall into my old habits from time to time. Recently, as my sister described the renovation work her husband was doing on their kitchen, I found myself wishing aloud that my husband was handier around the house. “Yeah, but when Brad’s home from work, he’s really home,” Jeanine pointed out. “He’s not working on yet another project.”

Last night, I watched from the window as Brad and the boys engaged in a full-out water-balloon war in the backyard. And instead of focusing on the kind of husband he’s not, I was grateful for the husband he is.

Questions for Reflection:
Do you ever catch yourself complaining about your spouse or partner? Have you ever thought about how complaining might be connected to coveting?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Real Reason I Gossip

July 21, 2013 By Michelle 25 Comments

The perks of working from home are endless: typing in yoga pants all day; moving the laptop to the patio to write outside; stopping to vacuum if I have writer’s block. I could go on and on. And this past weekend I realized another hidden benefit of working from home: with no one else to talk to, there is less temptation to gossip.

Until last weekend I hadn’t engaged in a rip-roaring gossip session in about a year. But I can’t really take any credit for that. The simple fact is, now that I work from home, I’m away from what used to be my gossip hot spot: the office.

Last weekend, though, amid a gaggle of girlfriends, I gossiped. Even worse, I enjoyed it. Worse yet: when I realized I was gossiping, and it occurred to me that I should stop, I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to. Because it was fun. Because I liked the way it made me feel like one of the gang. Because I liked how gossiping made me feel better than someone else.

At the end of the day, though, I didn’t feel better about myself. That night in bed, as I replayed some of the comments I’d made around the table, I cringed. The false high that had accompanied the gossiping crashed into a feeling of self-loathing. I was ashamed.

God isn’t fooling around about gossip. He knows how damaging it is, which is why he made it one of the top ten: “You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16) The real damage of gossip isn’t simply talking trash about your neighbor. The real damage is what lies underneath.

The sin that lurks beneath the sin of gossip is pride – the need to put myself above and ahead of someone else. The need to jockey for a better position. The need to be first … or at least better-than. That, I think, is why gossip – “You shall not testify falsely against your neighbor” — is included in the Ten Commandments: because when I vie for first place at the expense of someone else, not only do I put myself ahead of that person, I put myself ahead of God.

Do you include gossip as part of “testifying falsely,” or do you interpret that commandment differently?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When “Pride Goeth Before the Fall” Gets Personal

July 14, 2013 By Michelle 32 Comments

I knew I was in trouble the moment I slipped the necklace into my pants pocket. I stole it right out of my classmate’s desk during math, and the instant I balled the velvet strand and faux sapphire into my corduroys, I knew I was doomed.

Thou shall not steal.

I was only eight years old at the time, but I knew enough to know that I had committed a mortal sin.

I had an out, of course: the confessional. I could have simply walked into the tiny, dim alcove, drawn the burgundy curtain tight behind me, kneeled before the frosted window and confessed my sin to the priest.

But I couldn’t do it.

Alone in my bedroom I practiced what I would say to the shadowy figure who sat hunched behind the filmy window. But when it came time for the actual confession, I froze. I couldn’t get past the lump of fear in my throat.

The truth was, while I was terrified of eternal damnation, I feared the priest’s judgment more. And worse, I feared what I knew the priest would want me to do.

The penance didn’t scare me. I figured I’d get the standard fare – a handful of Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s on my knees in the quiet church. But I also knew the priest would insist I return the necklace to its rightful owner. I couldn’t bear the thought of the public humiliation. I dreaded my classmate’s disdain and my peers’ ridicule. Word would get out that I had stolen the necklace, and I knew my friends would gossip about me behind my back and mock me.

And so, I chose eternal damnation – and ultimately, estrangement from God – to save face.

I think this is true for a lot of us. While we are vigilant about what we consider the big sins, but we often miss the fact that the smaller, seemingly petty sins can be just as destructive. Coveting led me to steal the necklace in the first place, while pride and fear fueled my refusal to repent. True, I sinned when I stole the necklace. But I sinned again, and kept on sinning, when my pride prevented confession.

In the end, the big, scary, mortal sin wasn’t my biggest problem. Pride, it turned out, was my downfall. It was pride, rather than the theft itself, that severed my relationship with God.

“Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18, NLT)

Questions for Reflection:
What small sins are wreaking destruction in your life? Can you think of a time when a seemingly minor sin served to separate you from God?

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10 Commandments

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