James is Moving Up into my Zip code

A few years ago we took a group of youth to the Disciple NOW weekend.  I thought the band was pretty good, though the lead singer was suffering some with a sinus infection.  I thought it was well organized, I thought the facility was nice, I thought the volunteers were friendly and welcoming.  But my favorite part, honestly, was the young man from Memphis who was speaking.  I am telling you, he was the highlight of the two days for me.

I can't really remember anything he taught.  I don't think I remember what he looked like.  I vaguely remember that he seemed awfully young to be married and have children, but that was an "off to the side" response. What I loved about this guy was all of the euphemisms he used to describe people getting into his personal space.  He talked about staying out of his zip code, getting out of his sweet tea, dropping into his mailbox.  The more he said, the more I lost track of the message, trying frantically to get all of these expressions down so I could remember them forever!  What fun to sit in meetings and listen to others respond and say to myself, " uh uh, you get out of my sweet tea", even though I don't drink sweet tea.  Actually, not drinking sweet tea makes the whole thing a lot more amusing.

Here I am studying James.  I have always liked James, such a challenging couple of chapters.  For some reason though, this time through, James is all up in my zip code, moving straight through my sweet tea to deliver a letter to my mailbox.  Why do you suppose this is the case?!  He is pretty forthright, of course.  He must work the word deceive into every other sentence.  He says we have to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.  I will say that since I was a teenager, and was confronted with this verse for the first time, I have improved significantly in the listening department.  I have spent the last year practicing being the un-anxious presence, so I am better at not getting all hot and bothered quickly.  But that slow to speak thing, never have gotten a handle on that.  I continue to try, I have all kinds of behaviour modification practices that I occasionally remember to practice, but I am not good at this.  Still, generally, James and I muddle through okay.

The part about being tossed by every wave sometimes gets under my skin, because I routinely am.  I remind myself in the midst of my doubts, being blown and tossed, how on earth will I receive anything from God if I can't stand still, and sometimes that works and I even stand still.  Sometimes it doesn't, and I am forced to go back to the Psalms to remind God that he knew me in my mothers womb, and knew what a wind blown girl I was prone to be.  When I actually stand still in the midst of the storm, when the wind blows and the waves threaten,  with knocking knees and pure terror, I repeat to myself over and over again: I will put my trust in the Lord.  It isn't triumph I typically feel, just the awareness that if God isn't faithful, trustworthy, and true, I am sunk.  Somehow or another, so far anyway, he has always been all of those things.  Not that I haven't gotten soaked,  battered and bruised, but somehow I survive.  In survival, I find that at other times I can remember the previous battle, and once in a great while, I can do it again.

It is this part that is bothering me to no end: But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does.   The perfect law that gives freedom.  The perfect law...love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind,  love your neighbor as you love yourself. ...gives freedom.  Then why am I not living free?  Paul says in Galatians that we have been called to freedom, and  because we are free we can love one another humbly.  So why is it again, that I am not doing that?

You can see why I am feeling a little like my sweet tea has been invaded.  Its a rather challenging thought as I ponder the lack of freedom in my soul.  Why the external has so much impact on the internal, where peace is quickly consumed by anxiety, where the behavior of others, like a remote control, can change my own.  Listen people. if we can be free, and are called to be free, why would we trade it in for the slavery of this mess?  John 8 tells us if the Son sets us free, we are free indeed.  I said yes to Jesus and stayed in bondage?  Here's a letter for my mailbox, I don't think so!  Galatians 5 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

I have heard that yokes are definitely out in the fashion world, and honestly, we are all about standing firm.  So lets pull up our big people panties, and look into the law that gives freedom, and what do you say we live like people who know what we are all about.  Can you imagine what that kind of freedom might do to the world we live in?  Transformation in my zip code - that's what I am talking about!