My Neighbor's Glory

As Iron Sharpens Iron...

I have been so blessed to have certain people in my life be completely honest with me. The Lord reveals wisdom in the inmost places (psalm 51) and for me, He is gracious enough to use the words of people in my life - whether they are people I've known forever, people I will know forever, or people I'll never see again. The truths I've been told are what penetrate the heart, they've peeled away the layers, exposed the charms of this world that wrap tightly around our hands and tongues. The words that I've been told have cut deeply, and sometimes tears of frustration come flowing out. I've been shocked before by the weight of sin, I've been shocked at my ugliness shown in the light. I've been defensive and utterly repulsed by accusations that later smoothed into beautiful grace and redemption. Oh. Has. My. Pride. Been. Broken. Over. And. Over. Again.

And it's times like these that I cannot believe how loved I am. By an invincible love - and a perfect love that is spilled out into His adopted children by the blood of Christ! Just when this life begins to break, we are reminded that the power, authority, and love of Christ is hidden in all who believe through the Spirit. There is hope in Christ, and we see a small sliver of that love and a small reflection of who God is in one another...
"And while God does not ask any of us to bring Christ into the world as literally as did Mary, God calls each of us to become a God bearer through whom God may enter the world again and again."
- The Godbearing Life

The friends that have told me the hard truths have been those that genuinely care about my spiritual growth. A friend once told me, "it's the painful growing that gets us there." Whether it was phone calls late into the night, stubborn resistance to God's sovereignty, notes when I wake that urge me to have confidence and not fear, or just tears and surrendering to shame - I have felt the cool, sharp reality that says, "it's not about you." These friends have taught me to have reverence in a Gracious God, and that His passion is for the zeal of His name, His glory. My friends have pointed me to the gospel, and they cared enough to press me down with the truth. These believers were firm in living out these realities of Christ and stood by their words beautifully, even if they sounded harsh to everyone else.

I came to realize, in absolute horror, that I am 100% a pacifist. In realizing this, I've come to understand that it is due to a lack of true compassion. In a lot of modern churches today, we have forgotten the fear of the Lord. Growing up, I did not know that God disciplined me because He loved me (Rev. 3:19). I did not know much about discipline at all, for that matter. In fact, you could say I was a free spirit (not to offend any free spirits out there, but I say 'was' because I've been given true freedom). So the thought of anyone telling me what biblical truths were or telling me that my interpretations were incorrect, or that my life was not producing the fruit of the gospel because I was centered around my own world and living in sin, I would have said 'screw you, you're stifling my creativity, go tell some other mindless follower.' What I failed to realize was that I was too wrapped up in the idea of individuality and 'I do what I want when I want' to know that I was actually living for approval, and being like-minded, submissive, living in humility and love was true strength and came with a peace this world could not offer me.

"If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."
- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory


What might be even harder to grasp, however, is that even with the knowledge of Christ, I fail to boldly proclaim that we exist for His Glory. I fail to clearly express truth in peoples' lives because I am either a.) not confident in His assurances or b.) afraid I'll hurt their feelings which actually leads me back to a.) and my knowledge of that confidence.

I've been truly frustrated that I cannot seem to love and care for some of the people in my life in the way that others have for me. I've had people tell me before, "look, I need you to tell me when I'm wrong. I need you to tell me to look to Jesus. I need to know I'm loved." And Oh, Father, I rejoice in your mercies that I can say these weaknesses of mine freely, because my faith was a free gift, and it is not mine to cover up. He has all ready paid for my sin in full, and I can rejoice in that freedom.

In Him, you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
- Ephesians 1:13-14

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned...
- Romans 12:1-6
And so I can rest in the fact that I was bought at a price, and that I can freely offer my sacrifices to God, a broken and contrite heart, (psalm 51) knowing that His love never fails.

I am repelling downward into this sinful area of my life, praying that the Lord will continue to confront me with these areas that need transformation and reveal Himself to me, and I've discovered this FEAR OF MAN is, quite simply, a heart issue. For some reason, I have this preconceived notion that I have to sugar coat the gospel. I've realized that you can't walk on egg shells when it comes to the gospel.

But I guess you can - but when I say it's a heart issue - I mean, why would you want to? If you knew the reality of sin, and the knowledge of Christ that surpasses all understanding, and that that authority was within you, WHY would we want to?!
If we really believed that:
Christ abides in us through the Holy Spirit
That He was coming back
That faith is a free gift
The Lord is sovereign
Our Christian neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses because Jesus dwells within them
On a DAY to DAY basis...

think about how rich the gospel would become to us!
think about the reverence and honor our Lord would delight in!

I think about these things and I am truly humbled. Please read the following passage from C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory. One of the most beautiful passages on fellowship and community I have ever read. I know it is a little bit long, confusing or may seem out of context, but do read it; it is unbelievable..

The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked with practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hearafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. And day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

You knit me together in my mother's womb

Chantelle radiates light.

If you have felt the binding of an old book, crinkled at the pages

If you have danced in the sand and remembered an old conversation

If you have heard the sound of crickets and angels singing in the dark and open fields

If you have layed on a roof top and watched the stars break into a m i l l i o n pieces

If you have left in the middle of the night to be with a friend

If you have seen the skinny rim of daylight creep over the spilling mass of open water

If you have stood in the bed of a truck going through a tunnel just to feel infinite

or spun around in circles to be in two places at once

If you have walked along the railroad tracks to find their secret's end

If you have read words that make you laugh and music that makes you cry

If you have befriended the silent and promised to make the mundane beautiful

If you have seen that light

Then you have seen a little piece of her.

There is no one like her. Not one.




Since she told me the news, there was heartbreak, fear, and tears, but through it all - strength evaded the surface. I have seen her grow in her faith, her love, and her tummy. I have stayed up late listening to her beautiful mind try to reconstruct what was so often like broken glass - small reflections of what was true because of the sin and muck of our world, but pieces that could not fit together. Pieces that she tried to mold into justice, identity, and comfort, but what for so long remained little holes and cuts of an open wound.

Prayer became like breathing. I will never forget the little reminders of Christ, his perfect love reaching out in the back of Hooters where she sat, reading in awe of the reconciliation of the Lord when he said, Come. I won't forget her words, sitting at the dinning room table in the middle of the day after grocery shopping, rolling out of her mouth like heavy paper the words of her past, her mother's past, ancient past. The look in her eyes was desperate and relieved at the same time.

Waiting in those dark rooms for the picture to ingrain a figure, or outline a map to a new world. Waiting for the picture to envelop the essence of life inside blood cells, little blue veins, and a daughter. We saw her little spine curve and bend, we saw her hands praying. Praying and breathing.

Oh Lord, You crown us with Your steadfast love. You call out the starry host, one by one. You are the great divider, from present past to future eternity. You knew the depths of our hearts before You even flung the universe into existence. You knew the depths, and yet You made us Your children. How great is Your love! How great is Your name! God, You gave me this friend, to cherish her life dearly. And although You didn't have to, You gave me the peace that when I couldn't be there, when we couldn't be there, You were there. When I failed her, You were still pursuing her and giving her wisdom. Thank You for allowing me to see the moment: Sitting in her chair, reading Your Word with her hand on her stomach, cradling her child with Your presence while the whole room filled with other people's noise. When we didn't see the glory of what You were doing, You still gathered Your child and her child to Yourself.

When I hold this baby, I will praise Your name.

God, because You created life out of desolation. I cannot wait to watch this baby grow up to know her story. Your story. Your beautiful story of redemption, and I pray that she is so much like her mother. That music and words move her deeply, that she desires to feel infinite and loved. That she sits on top of a roof overlooking your splendor, talking with an old friend, and knowing, this is it. That You are light.



Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
- psalm 51:5-6


O Lord, You have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where sall I go from Your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

For You formed my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was one of them.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with You.......
[psalm 139]