We Are All Sweaty Messes

James 4:1-10

Ok, let’s talk about the villain in The Help!!  The woman we loathed:  Hilly Holbrook!!  We see that she is controlling, selfish, cruel, more concerned with what people see than what is inside her heart, and covers it all with a covering of spirituality… taking up donations for people far away.  Aren’t we glad we are not like Hilly???  Well, that is what I thought until I truly started looking at myself…Controlling???  Moi???  I like to call it taking care of people but if I really look deep inside, it is because I want things to go my way…always.  Edith Ann, the 70’s little girl in the great big chair said, “I am not bossy…my ideas are just better!”  But there is much more to Hilly than her controlling nature.  Much more…when we see this in us we must begin to ask our selves why we need to have so much control…not only on our situations but on others as well.  Could it be that if she let go, people would see her as she really was? Could it be that she was so doubting of being loved that she wanted to keep others around but used control and fear in doing it?  Could it be she couldn’t trust anyone or anything??  Could it be that she’d rather swim in a sea of denial rather than admit that she needed the other women, too?  Hilly’s problem is one of Pride…and it is the downfall of most of us! Last week we spoke of the woman at the well…I mentioned that there were other women, too…the ones who came in the morning who looked down on her, who lived “above” her and shunned her so as not to “catch” what she had.  I am afraid this is where a great number of us live our lives.  Last week we said that admitting gave freedom…well, denial gives us only bondage and eventually we will discover we never really had control at all; it was an illusion.  

I think one of my favorite lines in the movie, The Help, is when Skeeter’s mother comes onto her front porch to confront a “wet-hen-mad- Hilly “with these words, “Why Hilly, you are just a sweaty mess!!”  The “always in control president of the Junior League" had discovered she was not infallible!! Truth had hit her in the face and her life was falling apart.  She reacted with rage, violence, and threats.  That is what happens when we have built our lives on perception instead of reality!   

Jesus was confronted with lots of Hillys!! People who wanted life to be just the way they wanted it to be…they wanted the honor from the world but wanted to keep their spiritual lives as well. They weren’t the president of the junior league but they were the leaders in the synagogues. We call these people Pharisees. Let’s read what Jesus had to say about them:

Mark 7:1-9. 

They had everything wrapped in a pretty little box and as long as no one came along to disagree with them, they were fine.  They smiled and walked through life with arrogance…swimming in a sea of denial.  But Jesus came along and spoke truth to them…just as He had spoken to the woman at the well.  Instead of being glad someone had finally released them from the ball juggling they had been accustomed, they fought back.  They fought with anger so great that murder and violence was the only thing they could think of to retaliate.  When we don’t want truth and we prefer delusions we find ourselves in a sweaty mess.

I am very familiar with these people for I often refer to myself as a recovering Pharisee.  Being a person like this comes from deep inside…it comes from feeling completely inadequate and empty…to fill that emptiness Pharisees take control…they put burdens on others that they cannot fulfill.  They have all the answers even though they haven’t clearly understood the questions. All that matters is what people perceive…not what is truth.  Women do this through mask wearing!!  I was an expert at putting on the masks…I believed perception was reality until my life fell apart and my masks were cracking all to pieces.  Hilly’s denial led her into a false sense of security and that lead to her downfall and her looking like the sweaty mess she always was.  At the end of the movie…Abilene asked a very important question:  Mrs. Hilly, Aren’t you getting tired??

Maintaining this delusion is tiring.  No, it is exhausting. Jesus asks of us authenticity and that requires admitting the truth and giving up control…control we never really had anyway.  I don’t know how Hilly’s life turned out after the movie but I do know how my life did!! I now know freedom I never knew existed.  I have discovered I can only control me and I freely give that over to the Holy Spirit!!   The masks are thrown far away.  When Jesus said in John 8:31-33:  To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

When we experience this freedom, then we truly can experience the next phase of spiritual life…that Jesus came to give us!

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Or as the KJV says:

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

The thief is the same thief that was there in the garden with Eve…wanting to destroy us.  Do Not allow this in your lives…get rid of pride for it is a delusion.  Accept the truth of what Jesus says about you and live this life abundantly!!  Then you will begin to understand your true purpose and meaning in life…which is what we will discuss next week. 

We Are ALL from Sugar Ditch!

I love the movie The Help…but maybe for different reasons than others do. I see it as a movie about women and how we treat each other. There were all types of personalities and at one time or another, I have taken up all of them. I want to start with Celia Foote, who was from the other side of town!  She was treated badly but instead of becoming bitter she ended up being the better person???  Think about that for just a second…and then look at today’s world.  Mean girls actually grow up to be mean women…exclusionary girls grow up to be exclusionary women…girls who think they are better than other girls grow up to be women who think they are better than other women. The women in The Help did not even realize how they were…they did “charity” work but ignored the needs around them.  Some were so strong others were afraid of disagreeing with them.  Celia, in the beginning tried to be a part…she tried to do all the right things…the most moving scene in the movie was when she was bringing a pie to Hilly and saw all the women hiding and laughing at her.  She left crying, pie in hand.  But by the end of the movie, Celia came to grips with who she was and who the others were resulting in having the love of her husband and her dignity in tact.  

One of the most wonderful passages in scripture to me is found in John 4 and is about a trip Jesus took to the place where the disciples did NOT want to go…In the Bible it is called Samaria but it could also be Sugar Ditch!!  It is a place where people who are “less than the standard” live!  It could be called the other side of the tracks…or where THOSE people live!  It is where some women live who do things we in our comfortable churches would never do and with whom we would never associate.  (After all, our mothers told us not to!!) But if what I said in the last session is true, (and it is!) that all women are the same and desire the same things out of life, then these women are also looking for love and acceptance but in the wrong places.  They are you and me on the inside praying someone will really see them beyond their circumstances!

One of the ploys of satan is to have us confuse “the choices we have made” with “who we are.”  Jesus on the other hand sees us all as daughters of Eve and pursues us with His everlasting, unconditional love to show us what we can be.  That is what we find here in this story. Jesus broke all of man’s rules just to give truth to the soul of one woman. 

Let’s read it:  John 4:4-30;42.

·      Jesus HAD to go….there was someone who needed Him

·      Jesus SPOKE to this outcast and offered her freedom

·      Jesus spoke TRUTH to her.

·      She DIVERTED the truth to talk about spiritual things…trying to cover up who she really was.

·      He offered her HOPE with dignity and no shame.

·      She LEFT where she was and SHARED with others. She was changed.

This woman had sinned outwardly and was an outcast.  It is so easy to look down on people with outward sin but if we look at Celia Foote in The Help…we find a woman who only wanted to belong…to fellowship with other women.  Her heart was pure --even if her body wasn’t…I am going to say that again, her heart was pure even if her body wasn’t, because there are many women in our congregations who understand this…they only want to be loved, accepted and brought into relationships yet because of their poor choices continually find themselves on the outside looking in.  

What about INWARD sins??   You know the ones we can hide from others…the ones that only God knows about???   Bitterness?  Anger?  Lying?  Slander? Malice? Unforgiveness?  Pride.  Pride is the very thing that caused Lucifer, the angel of light, to fall and become the enemy of the daughter’s of Eve and son’s of Adam.  This woman at the well knew who she was and was ready to admit it and take on the new life Christ offered her.  She received freedom.  The point is, when we admit….we receive freedom.  However, denial is deadly.  Next time we will take about the other women at the well…the ones that came in the morning…the ones lead by Mrs. Hilly Holbrook!! 

We Are All Daughter's of Eve!!

We must start this conversation about "mean girls" with an understanding of who we really are as women.   I have been given the wonderful opportunity to travel to different countries to speak and begin to know women from other cultures.  What I have discovered is that--we are all the same on the inside!! For some reason that was a surprise to me.  No matter what skin color, what age, what language, what economic strata, or whatever difference--women have the exact same hopes and desires.  Our needs are: to know that we are loved, to love someone, to believe that we are beautiful (to someone), to know that we are safe, and to understand that we really matter.  An honest look at these needs will reveal that our meanness comes when one or more of these needs are unmet.

The first and probably the most important need is to know that we are loved! It begins as soon as we breath our first! If we go to the book of Genesis we find a world of perfection where God walks daily with His beloved creation.  There was no doubt that He loved the man and the woman we call Adam and Eve.  There was no doubt.  But in chapter 3 that doubt enters the lives of these creatures and causes Eve to listen to the words, "Did God really say???"  Doubt.  Fast forward to today.  Doubt.  Doubt about all the needs we have....does God really love me???  How can He love someone who is___________.  But the fact is, dear ones, God has never changed His mind about loving His precious children..He still loves those whom He made in His own image and breathed the very breathe of life.

The problem is that we have allowed that very same doubt to enter our minds and our hearts.  Doubt is the strongest weapon that our enemy has against us.  Think about it.  What causes you to feel insecure?  What causes jealousy?  What causes envy?  Doubt that you have abilities?  Doubt that someone truly loves only you?  Doubt that what you already have is enough?  I could go on but I think you get the picture.  Closely related to that doubt is fear....and so what we tend to do as women is to try and take control in the situations we find ourselves...tear down another's beauty, try to get others on our side against another, desire what the other woman has and the list goes on. We try to alleviate that fear and doubt on our own...and wasn't that what got us in trouble to start with???  As Dr. Phil often says, "How's that working for you???"  It isn't!!

The answer is simple...believe what God has said about you: that you are His precious child, that He will never leave you or forsake you, that He loves you with an everlasting love...and that He has plans for you that far outshine any plans you have for yourself.

This might be too much for some of us to grasp all at once so we are going to break it down each session to what our enemy tells us and what God has said.  Once we begin to understand His truths in our lives, perhaps the "mean girl" in all of us will disappear.  I hope that God will do a mighty work these next lessons....we need each other!!

Still Thinking About Mean Girls!!

My last post ( a long time ago!!) was about mean girls growing up to be mean women.  When I wrote that I never thought that God would keep that on my heart but He has. Since that post, much has happened to emphasis this attitude within the church of today including some serious issues in my own church.

Women are created to be relational.  We need the fellowship of other women!!  (I am sorry, guys, but as great as you are, sometimes we just need a good girlfriend to talk to!!)  But what happens when we don't have that listening ear??? Or worse what happens when we are intentionally ignored? (that happens...don't pretend it doesn't!!)  What happens is women get hurt and our churches are full of women who have been hurt...Hurt women hurt women.

I saw the movie The Help and even though it is about the civil rights movement of the 60's, there is also a sub-plot of the interaction of women.  There are some personality types I see in every women's group I have been a part of:

• Hilly Holbrook:  The ultimate mean woman who must take charge and doesn't care who she hurts!  In her own mind she is spiritual and right!!!
• Elizabeth Lefolt: The insecure woman who will do anything to please...even if she doesn't think it is right. 
• Celia Foote: The one who has messed up but wants to become a part...and is laughed at and exluded.
• Skeeter and Abilene:  The ones who plot to help out but do it secretly
• The Help: Those who just go along because they don't think anything can change...they live in           their own little world.
• Minnie:  Has a big heart but it has been so beaten down, she has bitterness growing. She will not show weakness.
• Constantine:  The one who see people as they are, sees herself as she is and loves everyone. 

Do you see these women in your circle of friends??  Be honest!!! Which one are you?  I long to be Constantine but I am not sure I am there yet!!  You see, each of these women came to this larger story with their own smaller stories! The fact is, each woman has come to your congregation with her own story (which you probably do NOT know) and it will influence the whole when joined together.

Jesus has come to take our story and change it with His story. That is our only hope!!  For the next weeks, I want to take each of these women, show how they got to where they were...and what Jesus can do about it!! Perhaps you will see your own story...I know I did!!  

The Other Women at the Well...or Who are You excluding???

The older I get the more I realize people have not changed very much the last couple of thousand of years! We think we have made much progress in the human race but a reality check would prove otherwise.  I was studying the passage in the Bible we often refer to as "The Woman at the Well" (John 4)  and a stray thought hit me....what about the other women...you know the ones who came early and excluded this one.  In order for this woman in our story to feel so left out, they must have been pretty mean to her because women are relational!! Think about that for just a second...and then look at today's world.  Mean girls actually grow up to be mean women...exclusionary girls grow up to be exclusionary women...girls who think they are better than other girls grow up to be women who think they are better than other women.  

I am in women's ministry!! ( I pleaded with God to give me a group of 5th grade boys instead but...)  Women are not easy...(as Jerry Clower used to say, "If I'm lying...I'm dying!!)  Just this past week some "friends" of a girl in our youth group had a party but exclued this girl!  The girl was devastated.  The comments I heard from the grown-ups were: " I hate junior high!  Girls are so mean!!  I wouldn't go back if I had to!!"    Well, the reason we wouldn't go back is we don't have to...we still live that way.  In our churches the junior high girls have grown up to be "junior high" women!!  I hear from women all over about how they are not included.  Just this weekend a woman said to me when I asked her if she was active in her women's ministry that she has been a member of her church for several years but there is a small group of women who don't want any new women to become a part....If this had been an isolated case I would have been tempted to believe she was just paranoid but it is not.  I hear it all over.  You see these mean girls  who were in junior high then are now the mothers (AND grandmothers) of junior high girls now.  This is a legacy we need to stop!!  

I am really NOT trying to beat up on women. (I am one!)  I am just trying to say that this is wrong in every sense of the word.  We are to be drawing women into fellowship instead of excluding them.  How is it we will go across the world to do "mission work" but will not invite someone who doesn't fit her particular standard to a get together. We especially exclude those who have sinned!  We just have forgotten that ALLL of us are sinners...there is not one of us who hasn't. 

Those other women....the ones who came to the well in the early morning...I imagine them walking and fellowshiping all the way to the well.  I see the woman in our story watching from a distance...wanting and needing just one friend to include her.  The happy ending of this story, however, is that the one who was exluded found Jesus!!  He knew everything about her, yet did not shame her but encouraged her to live differently.  The first thing she did was to go back and tell everyone about Him....I am thinking that included the other women.  Wow!  See when we encounter Jesus, He removes barriers in our lives. She had become complete in His love and therefore no longer needed to protect herself from the glares of others and was free to encounter them from that freedom.  

My prayer for the women in our churches (for many times we are the worst!) is to look at every woman as a "Daughter of Eve"  who needs friendship....who needs to feel included...but most of all who needs to know the unconditional love of Jesus.  I also pray for our mean women who exclude, to meet Jesus and discover His security and love.  That love brings freedom!!  Freedom to open our arms wide to even include that one who lives differently.  

We can be the difference in our church...in our town...and eventually in our world but we must be willing to quit excluding.  We need to be teaching our daughters and granddaugthers how important it is to include even the ones that don't fit our list of requirements!!  Jesus did.  He did for you and He wants to for all.  Let our legacy be:  She loved everybody!!!

Share your thoughts on this!!!

Un Belizable!

It has been awhile since I have written because I have yet to be able to put into words what this summer has meant to me.  I was able to go to Belize and do a series of Ladies Conferences, complete with gift bags and door prizes!!  I was overwhelmed with the response of the women there in this very, very poor country.

When we landed and were on our way to the camp that was to be our home for 10 days, I began to see the "homes" of the people to whom I would be ministering.  It was then that God spoke loudly to my spirit these words, "Don't you dare treat these women like they are poor!  Treat them just as you would any woman in the US!  They don't need your pity, they need ME!!"  I almost lost my breath as physically these words came alive.  I knew it was God and I knew I had to change my attitude if He was to be glorified.  Through the Holy Spirit, I was able to look beyond the situations and relate to the hearts of these women.  I discovered once again that ALL women are alike...as C.S. Lewis names us in the Chronicles of Narnia...the daughters of Eve!  We all have the same hopes, needs and desires and yes, many of the same insecurities.  We want our kids to turn out ok and we blame ourselves if they don't.  We all want to be beautiful.  We all have dreams.  And most of all, we all want to be loved and cherished.  The Belizian women I encountered wanted all the same things and it was there I began.

I didn't go and "talk" to them.  I began "sharing" with them my own dreams and little by little they opened their lives to me so I could pour in what Jesus had done for me.  By the end of our time, they became girlfriends.  We shared cooking tips, teenage problems, and life in general.  Those who were not believers began to ask questions and by the end of our time, came to salvation.

Had I treated them with pity because they were poor, I would not have gotten to know these wonderful women.  I learned from them so much.   At the end of our time, they brought me gifts: a piece of ribbon, handmade pictures, plastic flowers and notes expressing how they felt about the time we spent together.  The last was a gift from all of them.  A butterfly.  As they gave this to me, their words were, "These are the wings that will bring you back to us."  New life...for them but new perspective for me!

Please pray for Lydia and Stephanie as they struggle to live their new lives!!  It was a most UnBelizable trip.

Finish well

(Recently, I wrote a series of lessons on Colossians and wanted to share one with you.)

While reading Colossians 3, verse 17 stood out to me, “Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord.”  Tears steamed down my face as I read that for I am a great “starter”!  I begin a hobby at full force buying everything I will ever need and I spend much time learning how to hone my craft making! Somewhere along the way, however, I just quit.  Right now in the craft closet are 3 unfinished scrapbooks, and cardstock, stamps and punches enough to make valentines for my whole city…left there because I just quit.  Obviously, quitting a hobby is not life shattering, but quitting in my Christian life can be detrimental.

Satan doesn’t mind the starting; it is the finishing with which he is most concerned. He was constantly trying to convince Jesus to quit…to go another way.  We see satan’s ploys while Jesus was in the desert, through people’s rejection, and finally in the garden; satan always encouraged an “easier” way. Jesus, however, was given a work from His Father and upon the cross we hear His final words, “It is finished!!!”

There have been times I have just wanted to give up…my cry was, “This is too hard and I am not strong enough!”  Maybe you have been there, too. Paul had been there and I believe in verses 2-6 he is giving the way to finish and finish well. 

The first thing we are to do is “devote ourselves to prayer!”  In the Greek the words, “devote yourselves” mean, “to adhere to or to be to be in constant readiness.”  This is the major key to finishing.  Jesus finished because He demonstrated that His power came through constant prayer! Why do we think we can do the work with less than this?  We often tell people that we are going to pray for them, but do we?   When others are too distraught to pray, we are to stand in the gap for them.  While in a very dark time several years ago, had it not been for fellow Christians on their knees for me, I probably would have quit! Are you devoted to prayer as your major source of strength?

The next thing Paul says we are to do is to “be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.” (NIV) Outsiders, obviously, were those who did not know Christ.  A major result of being devoted to prayer is the discernment gained of what to do in worldly situations. Often we make things harder on ourselves because we speak without His wisdom-- choosing instead to speak what we think is right and using the excuse of “just calling it as it is!” I have a speaker friend, Page Hughes, who offers t-shirts with “Job 13:5” imprinted on it. In looking up this scripture you find the words, “If only you would shut up and let that be your wisdom!” (HCSB) I have had to be reminded of this more times than I care to! Paul had to deal with outsiders all the time, and yet we see those outsiders coming to faith.  Are you walking in wisdom when it comes to those who do not know Christ?

Finally, Paul says that our conversations (NIV) or speech (HCSB) should be full of grace while seasoned with salt. Another way of saying this is “speak truth with love!”  Jesus modeled that for us to everyone he met and while some did not respond well, the world was changed by His very words.  What words comes from your mouth? Are you speaking truth but with love and compassion?  Are people drawn to Christ because of what you have said?

These powerful precepts in living will help us remain faithful and finish well. Yes, the times are hard but consider the words of Augustine:

You say, the times are troublesome, the times are burdensome, the times are miserable.  Live rightly and you will change the times.  The times have never hurt anyone.  Those who are hurt are human beings: those by whom they are hurt are also human beings. So, change human beings and the times will be changed.