When Nineveh is a Faith We No Longer Want

 

To each one of us, Nineveh is the place we don’t want to go (but which we know, deep down inside, is where we need to go).

Nineveh can be a metaphor for many situations.

But the context I have specifically in mind is that of someone running from a previous faith in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

In this context, Nineveh is faith that a person no longer wants to have.

For those disassociating themselves from faith, what has often happened is that, having been there once and found some truth, over time, they also experienced some untruth (otherwise understood as legalistic or poorly interpreted doctrine, manmade traditions, culture wars and Christian hypocrisy). 

What happens, however, is that instead of reflecting upon and further testing the truth of their faith, they want out. They want nothing more to do with “any” of it. And so they begin the long slog into anything but.

The tragedy is that what they take with them from the past are the untruths, latching onto them for dear life so as to attempt to disprove what actually is true, so they never have to go back.

It’s guilt by association: 

Something good (their faith in God through the Spirit of Christ) is tainted by something bad, and to “get back at” the bad, they jettison the good. They forget that the good ever existed. 

As the saying goes, they “throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Nineveh, faith, is the "place" that is shunned because the disillusioned are unable or unwilling to separate the good from the bad. 

So in order to “go” to our Nineveh, we must, finally, find a way to separate the good from the bad.

Once we do this, we can study each on its own—the good separate from the bad, and the bad, separate from the good. 

We can be honest in our estimation of how much of our Nineveh was actually bad versus how much was actually good. 

We can look at how the bad impacted the good; how, if it weren’t for the bad, the good could have flourished and been more of a benefit. We can also be realistic about the many ways we did benefit at the time, but have chosen to ignore.

We can examine why the bad existed.

We can look at how each overshadowed the other, at various times and places, and that the "bad" did not always win, and in fact the good scored some big hits!

We can ask ourselves, in a thorough and courageous personal inventory, how running from the faith we once had is working for us. 

Finally, we can listen very closely to hear if the still small voice inside us confesses that we have never really left our faith, and would so love to be able to admit it and have it back.

To return to our Nineveh is to begin again from the place of the good, with the “bad” existing solely as a sober lesson on what not to do and how not to be. The bad actors, actions, ideologies and practices of other human beings in the past and present do not decide our faith in God for us (however, running from God because of them means they still control us).

Upon our return to our faith, we can begin to build—from a place of positive progression, not negative regression—the truth into our lives, cultivating it in Godly wisdom, humility and gratitude. The bad will no longer stunt our conviction, God’s revelation or the joy Christ gives.

In going back to Nineveh, we free our souls from the captivity of the past.

Copyright Barb Harwood

Running From What We Don't Want to be True

 

Sometimes, we investigate in order to convince ourselves that we do not believe what we really believe.

That agendized investigation can go on for days, months, and years, ultimately becoming a lifestyle, worldview and identity, never finding the refutation we are looking for, but hoping beyond conviction that, in the end, we can be right—we can be right that what we truly believe deep within ourselves is wrong and untrue. 

We prioritize this need to be right against the acceptance of what is, actually, right. 

We are Jonah running away from Nineveh and falling into the mouth of futility. All to protect our ego from having to acknowledge it is not, in fact, in charge.

God, who enabled our very person to exist with free will, has planned it so that futility will spit us up, toss us onto dead-ends, and swallow us again and again until we see God's way to Nineveh, and go.  

Copyright Barb Harwood

We Can Choose Easy or Heavy

 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus

What is the opposite of “easy?”

Endless lamenting about the election. 

Going to religious services regularly, but not resting in one’s God.

Viewing everything from “my” perspective, not once considering the legitimacy of the other person in the room, or the other group of people “over there.”

And talking ourselves into—deluding ourselves—that what we say and stand for is so important that everything else comes second, or even further down the priority pipeline. So relationships (even that with God) come second, third, or even further, to “my” conviction on any given cause or topic. And it is expected that the people in our relationships not only graciously accept our taking these prioritized stands, but applaud and admire us for it. 

Why are the above descriptions the opposite of “easy?” 

Because they create a dramatic setting for one’s need for self-importance by fixing one’s Quixotic identity into a forced--but false--realty (to me, that sounds like a lot of work. In fact, it is a lot of work, because I’ve done it!!)

This is indeed a heavy burden: both for the one militantly going about announcing themselves, and for those on the receiving end. 

For the person with tunnel vision, who literally cannot see the common-sense forest for the trees aspect of life, this forcing of one’s interior thought life out into the open and onto others is never enough. In their mind, their blindly striving to be important (more important than the next person) never seems to bring connection with other people and society the way they imagined, so they keep on keeping-on hoping that someday, the world will finally stop and congratulate them on having been so concerned about just about everything!

It’s a heavy burden, too, for the person who must endure, as graciously as they can, episodic mini orations, “should” sessions and low emotional intelligence from the people they interact with. 

The sad fact is that, oftentimes, these projectors of personal passions wonder why they have few, if any, deep connections. While they are blindly intent on pushing their inner world, they inadvertently push others away.

Jesus understands all of this. Nothing surprises him. That’s why he says that the antidote to every earthly burden is to set down our self-imposed ego-yoke and take up his yoke—and learn from Him. But those so entrenched in their fear of “where this world is going” or “how complacent everyone is but me,” can’t set aside their own person long enough to see anyone, much less Jesus Christ. 

But, there he is anyway—Jesus, not shoving himself onto anyone, but simply standing steadily by, ready to give his easy yoke and learning to all. 

I guess, for some, Jesus’ call to rest, to not carry our self-assigned burden, is the very definition of complacency. But don’t let the critics in this matter succeed in guilting. 

Resting in Christ is the very opportunity to arrive at empathy, open-mindedness, the ability to listen (and not feel threatened), and bearing with one another (isn’t that the only way to ever be in a relationship and maintain deep connection—a two-way street?)

Isn’t that an easier way than a constant mindset of self-righteous “me, my and mine”—the groping, clawing, joyless curating of pet peeves into minefields that others must walk through? What stress and strain in the constant fear of coming in second, leading to the obsessive running of a race to be superior, right and on the winning side!

And for those who surrender the white flag and decide to walk away from instigating this type of toxic atmosphere, participating in it or silently abiding it, Jesus is there, too. The weary can take on his easy yoke and learn from Him all that He teaches about long-suffering, being at peace with others, humility, and throwing that first, or last, stone. 

Jesus will carry all of us. 

Will I, as his child, lift up my arms and let him?

Copyright Barb Harwood

 

The Cost of Ignoring, and Even Denying, Progress

 

"Society cannot, in the long run, exist if it is divided into sharply defined groups, each intent on wresting special privileges for its own members, continually on the alert to see that it does not suffer any setback, and prepared, at any moment, to sacrifice the most important political institutions..."

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism in the Classical Tradition (1927)

Justified by Law

 

“You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ…” Galatians 5:4a

Justification by law tends to be interpreted and understood to mean the Old Testament laws of the Jewish faith. 

However, any legalism or non-legalistic self-justification is, I believe, applicable.

And while we tend to easily name all of the usual legalistic suspects—the strict “do’s and don’ts” of any given religious denomination—the self-justifications are more difficult to discern.

Take, for instance, conceit that manifests as thinking more highly of one’s self due to an ascribed sense of “super spirituality” or "refined intelligence." This personal “law" of thinking more highly of one’s self than one ought leads naturally to thinking more highly of one’s self than of other people as well.

To be self-satisfied, spiritually or otherwise, goes against every one of Jesus’ words on humility.

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:

‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’”

Luke 18:9-14

Legalisms in and of themselves, alienate, but so, too, do the haughty, arrogant attitudes they breed.

Copyright Barb Harwood

The Peace of Repentance

 

If we do not understand repentance, then we cannot admit mistakes and faults to God, and if we cannot admit mistakes and faults to God—in private and from our heart, mind and soul—then how can we ever admit our mistakes and faults to another human being?

St. Mark the Ascetic, a fifth century monk and a father in Eastern Christian Orthodoxy, said,

“He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort that cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God.” 

It works the same way with people: repentance—saying “I’m sorry” and “let’s talk about this” and “my bad” and “I stand corrected”—is about making peace with others. And if that attempt at peace is rejected through the other person being defensive in any way towards our outreach, then we can still repent to ourselves and God, and find peace there. 

That is how we can move on from the cloudy and dark aspects of our past, so as not to revisit them in the future, compounding the sin even more. 

In the case of anonymous run-ins with strangers, where we may never have the opportunity to make amends or verbalize our sincere apologies, we can still repent to God and ourselves, and in that way clear the way to agreement that that was no way to act, speak, or even think. That is how sin is washed away by God’s mercy of forgiveness to us, and thus, our being able to show mercy and forgiveness to ourselves.

Repenting to God is alway first and foremost (along with accepting his forgiveness), but I believe we must also then repent to ourselves for having let ourselves down by immature or ignorant behavior or attitude (and gift ourselves our own forgiveness right along with God's).

Only then, having reflected enough to have noticed what kind of person we were in that moment, can we make peace with it, learn from it, grow away from it, and move on, forgiven by both ourselves and God. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

Self-Perpetuation vs Self Overcoming

So much negative stress and struggle in life is due to unresolved inner-personal issues: harms that we fear will happen to us because they happened once—or often—in our past; personal injustices and slights that we self-righteously continue to nurse, things said about us behind our backs that got back to us through a third party, and on it goes. 

Oftentimes, when we were/are the brunt of someone else’s thoughtlessness, jokes or put-downs, we dysfunctionally respect their opinion of us more than the many other friends and family who do not put us down or minimize our person. 

(Why would we fret or feel diminished because of someone’s snarky attitude, gossip or chronic negativity—it is their very coldness and lack of integrity that renders them unworthy of our paying them any mind at all). 

Whether it was how we were raised within our family, our school, our social network, our church/religion, our culture—although all or some of it held sway over us at one time, as adults, that sway is now under our own control. 

We no longer have to be swayed, because we also no longer have to be controlled by it: the pressure  to continue to conform to its mandates is gone because we have removed ourself from its grip. 

Or have we? Have we indeed left it behind physically but continue to grip it mentally and emotionally via resentment, critical sentiments and an over-correcting into behaviors and belief systems motivated by that hurt and residual anger? A sort of getting back at?

In other words, what we haven’t dealt with to the point of final closure (with learned wisdom the sole remainder), will continue to balloon into our life in other manifestations.

Let’s take me, for example:

Raised in an über liberal church with a hard emphasis on community social standing, I fled from this church as an adult when I experienced a spiritual crisis. I realized this church/denomination offered no underpinning truths to draw strength, perseverance and maturity from. 

So when I found Jesus via the conservative church, and my life began to experience worth, courage and joy, I continued to seek and remain in that conservative, evangelical community. Until, that is, that same religious entity began to negate my courage, worth and joy and I began to find myself in the very same boat in which I had begun: peer pressure to be and believe a certain way, all under the guise of “love,” just like the liberal church I grew up in!

Ironically, it was the inner junk of having come to despise the liberal church for its lies and superficiality that had led me right into the arms of the conservative church with its own lies and superficiality. I had merely traded one for the other.

So I quit all church and religion. Instead, I set off with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit to do and accomplish, at long last, the difficult task of dealing with my inner junk.

I came to understand all of this by placing those who still attempted to negatively control me in their own context, and by initiating a hard, long, objective deciphering of why I was still allowing their power over me every time I  obsessed over old or new wounds. How I was living out the emotional and behavioral habits I had developed throughout my lifetime became exposed so that I could begin to behave and think accurately and appropriately--independent of all the junk (theirs and mine). 

I researched books online, ordered them and read them. I did not choose “Christian” books. I selected excellent books that did not promote any agenda or blame-games, but taught me how to discern the contexts of others (who have never dealt with their junk), as well as my own contexts along the way. 

I filled out journals and workbooks, and answered honestly (the benefit of God being right there with me!! He knows anyway, so why lie?)

I didn’t read my Bible all that much. I just focused on the God-given gifts of authors who could explore and progress over rocky ground with me.

And I came out, finally, unscathed, after all these years of feeling scathed!

We’ve all read the interviews with famous folks who say, at the end of the article,

“I am more content now than I’ve ever been.” 

I used to always wonder about how true that statement is for them.

But it can happen. It does happen. 

I won’t say that every once in a while I don't have to check a rising resentment, or an angry inner frustration with one of the usual, unchanging suspects. 

But I quickly go to their context, and the context I was in when I was forced to live and interact with them, and I find compassion for both of us: for them, because they know not what they are suffering from, and for me, because that was myself at one time. 

I thank God for his insight and patience that nudged me time and time again to deal with my junk and then to at last, move on, begin anew and live in an entirely new, empowered manner.

copyright Barb Harwood