Fallen Short

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

(Romans 3:23)

Almost everyone recognizes this verse. We teach it to our toddlers. Those of us who have grown up in the church, AWANAs, Sunday School, VBS... we know it by heart.

The teacher in me needs to step out of this indoctrination for a moment and ask a question. Does anyone see anything wrong with this quotation? Yes, Jimmy? That's right: it's not a complete sentence! There is no capital letter, which means there is something that comes before it, and there is no punctuation, which means that there is something that comes after it.

I challenge you, quick, before you grab your Bibles or skip on over to Biblegateway.com, what is the whole idea that this excerpt has been chopped out of the middle of? Don't know off of the top of your head? I didn't either. However, when I was assigned to look up 3:23 and read it, just 23, seeing it in the middle of a paragraph bothered me... so I read the whole thing.

Ladies and gentleman, a paragraph from Romans 3:

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. ²⁰ Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, ²⁶   to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.²⁷ Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

Now, I understand that the whole paragraph is awfully big for a toddler to memorize, but isn't "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" awfully heavy? Especially without the good part of the story? We don't let our kids go to movies with scary scenes, but they can memorize "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." and then follow it up with, "For the wages of sin is death;" (Romans 6:23a) (Yet another verse with suspicious punctuation warning all that we shortened because it was too big, and in turn made it too heavy by cutting out the wordy redemption part. In this one, we didn't just clip a verse out of a paragraph, we clipped a phrase out of a verse!) 

I remember not liking those verses for as long as I have memorized them. I still sigh and roll my eyes as I hear them being taught to the new generation of guilt ridden followers. They only made me feel dirty, shameful. What a horrible use of the Bible. In their entirety, they were supposed to make me feel blessed and treasured.

As adults, we mentally clip scriptures regularly as often as our subconscious feels the need to beat us down. We bask in our failures and forget the parts that glorify God's overcoming them. We need to be focusing on the whole story to be able to battle when our subconscious starts clipping the good parts out. After all, since when did any story lover stop in the middle of the chaos and trial portion of the book, and decide to move on to something else? Never. We cling to the story until the redemption, the rescue, the victory comes through.

We need the whole story.

Romans 6: 21-23 

 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 3:22-23

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  

Because we are all too aware of our sins and falling short. We know without needing to be told that we carry death within us. What we really need to memorize, carry with us, be reminded of regularly is the rest of the story.

"but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. "

As for toddlers memorizing things, if they are not mature enough to handle the size of: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." or all of Romans 3:22-23, then maybe we ought to reconsider whether they are mature enough to handle the weight of, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and "For the wages of sin is death"

It scares us, because rule followers are easier to raise and control, but I truly believe that in a room of adults, we'd rather be locked in with the grace believers than the rule followers. Maybe grace is what needs to be drilled in from toddlerhood, rather than fear and insufficiency.

Because what is the point of learning about death and failure, if we do not learn about life, grace, and the glory of God?

If we do not learn both parts, then by clipping verses and redemption ideas apart, this is an area in which we have truly fallen short for both ourselves and our toddlers.

Is That Supposed to Be a Picket Fence?

(This is not my picture, but when I thought about going to take a picture of a lovely house and picket fence, I realized the neighbors might get creeped out...thanks Google Images)

    Growing up, everyone has a basic idea of what life will be like when they are "grown up." We hear even little children talk about, "When I grow up, I'm gonna marry so-and-so..." and "My house will look like..." It's a natural process for children, and honestly, it's just plain cute. It's interesting how this process starts in everyone so young, this drive to achieve the American middle class dream. I started calling these the "Picket fence" dreams, because a house, a spouse, a dog, some kids, a yard, and a picket fence to keep it all in seems to be the most common picture of middle class success and happiness. It may not be everyone's personal dream picture, but we all know and recognize those picket fence dreams of how we thought our lives were supposed to go, or the pattern we think others expect our lives to follow, way back when  we were solidifying our versions of "right" and "wrong" "good" and "bad" in our childhood psyches. They all lend to the pattern and timeline people feel their lives should follow, if they are doing it right.
     As a whole, picket fence dreams are not necessarily wrong. They can be sweet and positive things. The problem comes when picket fences don't  mesh with someone's personal dreams. Sometimes those two ideals conflict uncompromisingly. Then there is the other, very real issue: Picket fence dreams cannot always be happily accomplished by sheer effort and force of will. Sometimes life does not land that way. Sometimes we are left feeling insufficient.

     The truth of the matter is, I have no picket fence around my yard. I didn't follow a path that led to a yard with a picket fence. I might never live that picket fence life. The hardest truth I had to learn about this is that I like my fence free life. I like the adventure that a less than typical path has allowed me. For the longest time, I felt that I needed to explain, justify, or just feel insufficient and shuffle off to a corner over the fact that I did not marry right out of school, I have no children, I have no house, I did not settle into a career straight out of school, I have no dog in my yard, I have no prospective leads that may lead to that life, and (here's the zinger) I do not have those things because I did not choose those things. I did not choose those things because my priorities were and are different. That last part was the hardest part for me to understand fully.

       I am in the life I am in now not because I am insufficient at life in general, but because it is the life I am best suited to live right now.

      It's like this: In the beginning, we are all given this box of materials with no directions inside.

We grow up, looking around, observing others, listening to other people's descriptions of what they did with their own box of materials. What we see is that everybody used their materials to build picket fences and beautiful lives. Some of us decide those lives and picket fences are so great, that we decide to build similar ones of our own, and this thrills us. Another set of us decide that because that is what everyone did with their box of materials, this must be what that box of materials is for, and so we dutifully decide to build picket fences just like them. As we try to do so, we develop resentment towards our awkward, lopsided, ugly fences and also the people who built beautiful fences.

     For the latter half of us, the main error is assuming that this is what everyone did with their box of materials. The reason we do this is because cute homes and picket fences are the most visible, recognizable constructions from similar boxes of materials. We fail to realize that the people who built zoos, airplanes, boats, bridges, restaurants, hang gliders, museums, and bike paths also started with similar boxes of materials. They just looked into their box, looked at the houses and picket fences around them, and said, "That's cool, but I can't sail to Iceland on a picket fence...and I think I'd rather go sailing."  or, "This would make a fantastic elephant cage! Let's go find an elephant!!!"

     I personally failed to see those things, because first, I didn't realize they started with boxes too, and second, people who decide to build airplanes with their boxes typically do not park their airplanes in the neighborhood for little kids who are trying to decide what to do with this seemingly random box of materials to notice. Third, while the boxes of materials may be similar,  I made the mistake of assuming that everybody's box is identical. They are not. Not at all. It can be very frustrating for a person to try to work a propeller into the creation of a picket fence, but sometimes, they try anyway.
 




   In the end, we all build something. We all get splinters, smash our thumbs, and run into problems, no matter what we end up building. The difference is, the people who really looked at their boxes to see what the materials actually inspire and then look themselves to see what their souls are built for, end up building quality products that they love, and the splinters, smashed thumbs, and broken pieces are just minor details in their stories of success, because they loved building it. The people who take their boxes and try to force them into what they think everyone else thinks they must create, end up with half-hearted excuses for picket fences or airplanes, splinters that fester enough to cause gangrene, an unexplainable sense of shame, and an unshakeable aura of bitterness.

It's not wrong to build a cute home and a picket fence, if that's what your box and your soul agree on.

It's also not wrong, quirky, or absurd to end up building an airplane, zoo, tree house, boat, or whatever, instead, if that's what makes your particular soul dance. What matters is this: Whatever you end up building, will you be happy or bitter about the splinters you suffered while building it?

Quaint, I know, but it has taken a long time for me to reach and fully accept this weird little epiphany of mine.

(Thanks, Google)

Now, I'm off to find a hang-gliding okapi to add to my flying treehouse zoo-restaurant thing, but I'll leave you with this sticky note:

What's in your box? What's in your soul? What are you building? Are your splinters worth it?

Is your picket fence an airplane?

The monsters behind the closet door.

Monsters in closets are silly.  There is a 99.6% chance that there are no monsters in that closet, however, that 0.4% probability still worries me.  For the most part, I am talking about figurative closets and figurative monsters. I do not generally approach my own real closet with caution. Mostly, I just fling it open, rummage through my clothes, and wonder where my favorite shirt went.

Those closets of possibility, however, might hold all sorts of scary monsters.  If I open those doors just a crack, Failure might shred into me, slashing straight across my heart.  If not Failure, then Unknown will surely wrap its tentacles around me, engulfing me before I can scream. Ineptitude may lash out and break my legs. No-Undo might just latch his fingers around my ankles and jerk me deep into a place from which I may never return, never be able to go back and stare fearfully at the doors of this particular closet, never again get the option not to open those doors.

I have a tendency to stand, paralyzed, in front of these doors, reaching forward slowly, before jerking back and shuddering.  I know that I have a good possibility of opening the doors and finding success, that I was sufficiently prepared and able to learn what I need to overcome such monsters, and that the Unknown is often a shy, but harmless beast.  I may find that I have no desire to undo a decision, or that making a decision, even if it has poor results, is better than gaping at a door of possibilities, trembling and making up excuses to not open the door.  The small chance that there really is a full grown Failure in that closet, or that I may have to exchange the small comfort of knowing every grain in that closet door for the intimidating, shapeless Unknown, is enough to keep me standing there.  There I stand, memorizing the grain, imagining growling noises, and likely, losing my favorite shirt to the hungry, but probably harmless Unknown while I delay.

It is admittedly stupid. I miss out on so many opportunities, losing so many shirts, by trying to out wait the monsters, or hoping that the closet disintegrates on its own so I don't have to make the decision.  I see it. I recognize the other monster for what it is: Cowardice.  The problem is, this one isn't in the closet with the opportunity. Cowardice is outside the closet, leaning into my heart, whispering horrible word pictures into my ear, and running chills through my gut.  It sneaks up and masquerades as caution and common sense, but oversteps its bounds.  At first, it seemed like a good compromise, but I am beginning to realize it is a foolish choice.  Standing still promises that Failure will find me anyway. I would rather face Failure than idle with Cowardice any longer.

I may not be ready to fling open those closet doors and leap full speed at Failure, but I may be ready to quietly slide the doors open, grab a hold of some monster treats, and a good whack-um stick, poke my way into that closet, and find out what is in store.  If the risk of Failure didn't exist, success would be unimpressive, and if nothing was scary, bravery would be a flippant word.  I have been staring at closed doors for far too long.  It's time to get my whack'um stick.