Archive for the Category »The Backward Kingdom «

23
Aug
Blood, Guts, and Authenticity
Susan Gaddis

Around 1,000 years ago, Viking Leif Ericson landed on the east coast of North America and began a colony called Vineland. Although the Vikings were fierce warriors, they had a difficult time with the Native Americans.

The Vikings were confused by the Indians and believed that they were often demons in disguise. The problem of distinguishing a real Indian from a demon was simple: Authenticity was established by blood. A real Indian would bleed when stabbed while a demon would disappear.

We can verify a Christian with a similar test of authenticity. When a Christian is “stabbed,” he bleeds love. This is especially true when wounded by other believers. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34–35 niv).

Love is the core of Christianity. Everything we do must represent the love demonstrated by God towards us. This means that we should be genuine in our relationships. No masks, facades, or pretenses. We are to be authentic with each other.

Authenticity contains the idea of humility and honesty in how we present ourselves and how we respond to others. We are to be people experiencing the ongoing transformation of God’s Spirit, Word, and truth conforming us into His image.

Blood and guts questions:
  1. How does the aspect of bleeding love differ from the way we have been trained by our culture to respond to “stabbings”?
  2. What emotions and attitudes bleed out of you when stabbed emotionally by another? How would the people you live and work with answer this question about you?
  3. How can you authentically bleed love when your attacker needs to be confronted?

I invite you to leave your knives, swords, guns, answers, comments, and insights in the blue comment link below.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

This post is reprinted from my book, “Help, I’m Stuck With These People For the Rest of Eternity!”

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02
Aug
What Hat Will You Be Wearing to the Birthday Party?
Susan Gaddis

Adelaide bounced into my study and announced in her high-spirited 5 year old voice, “Grandma, is that your sparkly hat on the bed—the blue one with all the little shiny things on it? Because if it is, I want you to wear it to all my birthday parties.”

Of course I promised I would, but I wonder if she will find the same pleasure in Grandma’s hat when Grandma wears it to her 16th birthday party?

Now if my 18 year old son had bounced into my study and said the same thing I would have called the doctor. What is it about little kids that melts our hearts? My grandkids can ask my husband for watermelon and he’ll go to the store to buy them watermelon without a second thought.

Maybe that’s the key—not thinking. When I chat with a small child, my thinking goes into fun mode and the heaviness of life slips away. Thinking is cushioned by joy. Possibilities open up and I’m pulled into realms of thinking that are closed to adult minds. Life takes on new sparkle.

Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said, “Unless you become like a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.” The ability to see and enter the Kingdom requires childlike thinking at times—wearing sparkly hats to birthday parties and going to the store for watermelon instead of the more adult things you should be doing.

The Backward Kingdom awaits—what hat will you be wearing to the birthday party?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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05
May
Is God Confused?
Susan Gaddis

Sometimes I think God gets confused. Take a look at King David. The Lord called this king a man after his own heart, yet David committed adultery, lied to his people, murdered one of his men, and didn’t score too high for the Parent of the Year award.

According to God, Abraham stands as a man of unwavering faith, although Abraham looks pretty wavering to me—he fathered a son born of doubt, lied about his wife, and played the master deceiver when it suited his purposes.

Why on earth did Jesus leave the family business to twelve guys who fought among themselves, struggled with pride, and abandoned him when he needed their support the most?

If these guys were around today they would be discounted and disqualified by the rest of us—definitely not “spiritual” people. Yet in God’s book, they rank pretty high.

So what is it about our “people lens” that differs from God’s? Why do we tend to judge and devalue people when God doesn’t do that? Why do we focus on the negative in people rather than the positive? What does God see in people that we don’t? What does God see in us that we don’t?

I think it has a lot to do with love and grace. We value and appreciate these qualities, but we don’t understand them. Not only does God understand grace and love, but he is love and grace. Therefore, his “people lens” reflects who he is.

None of us likes to be on the receiving end of a person’s judgment, yet we do not hesitate to state our negative opinion of others—as if we understand their life and struggles! In the Backward Kingdom, people are viewed through the lens of love and grace, not the lens of how they are measuring up according to our expectations.

What are you missing in people by viewing them through the lens of expectations? What are you missing by viewing yourself this way? What might you see by looking through God’s lens of grace and love?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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05
Apr
Why Flawed People Have It Right
Susan Gaddis

My flaws and bloopers would score high on a weekly sitcom. Like others, my personality lacks many positive traits, yet my defects are what attract the grace of God to my life.

God is not condemning you for your bloopers—he is using your flaws to jump-start his workings of grace in your life. Grace is God’s avenue for transferring all his perfection, power, authority, favor, and forgiveness to you.

This grace was brought to planet earth through Jesus Christ and contains the power to transform and teach you all you need to know to live a godly life (see John 1:17 and Titus 2:11-12).

God’s grace is not earned through any action on your part. It is a gift freely given to flawed folks like you and me. In fact, you can’t even feel the transformation as it happens—but the results are amazing! The parts of you that you are blind to, or unable to fix, change as you live out your days simply because God has infused you with his grace.

“Grace does not demand perfection or provide a measurement for it. It brings perfection—the perfection of the Blood of The Lamb. It invites us to relax in His forgiveness and to assimilate His nature rather than to attempt to perform for others.

Grace releases us from a performance oriented portrayal of perfection, giving us instead, His acceptance as we are. It is a heart thing! The results may be seen by those around us, but in grace we do not see the change as an accomplishment because we are too focused on Him to see ourselves.” –Pastor Dave Fritsch in Dimensions of Grace

The outtakes on your life may advertise your humanity, but they also attract God’s grace. Can you relax in your flaws and know that grace has already made you perfect?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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03
Mar
Really, How Old Are You?
Susan Gaddis
Adelaide Ayers

Adelaide Ayers

Shortly after her birthday, my little granddaughter, Adelaide, asked, “Grandma, are you old?”

Smiling, I replied, “Yes, I am old. I am over 50 years old. How old are you?”

Her answer was swift, sweet, and bouncy like a three year old, “I’m not old. I’m new.”

Life in the Backward Kingdom views its citizens as always new—never young or old—just new. What a freeing thought for those of us encumbered with aging bodies, misplaced memories, or festering wounds that create age lines sooner than expected.

I find it interesting that God calls us “new creatures” in Christ. That conveys two things to me:

First, I’m not old; I’m new. The parts of me that still appear old are in transition as I change from glory to glory in ways I do not comprehend. I am totally new and totally in transition from old to new.

Go figure—if I can’t understand Quantum Physics, I’m never going to grasp this one. That’s the good part. My comprehension is not required for me to be totally new and totally in transition from oldness to newness all at the same time.

Second, I am a new type of being altogether different than I was before this transformation began. I am human, but not in the old sense of being human. I am some type of creature that takes its form and identity from the One who is called the Word and spoke me into being the first time I was created.

This second creation will be complete when I receive a new body to go with the new me inside this old body. Again, most stuff in the Backward Kingdom makes no sense this side of the new heaven and new earth.

My joints groan, my mind forgets, and text messaging confuses me. Yet, I am not really old inside—I’m totally new and growing newer and newer. Like God’s mercy, I’m new every morning. It feels good to recall this principle of the Backward Kingdom and to remember that it was my wise granddaughter who brought it to my attention.

So, here’s today’s question: How old are you? Please share your answer and thoughts in the comment section below.

Connecting Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 5:14-16; Revelation 21:4-6

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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10
Feb
Wanted: Wounded Storyteller
Susan Gaddis

224994_window-frame_iiI loved staying at Grandma Bessie’s house. She had the best bedtime stories. Tales of raising two children during the Great Depression, running a day care in her home, and baking pastries for the local restaurants were all told as we sat in her big bed and listened to the night trains go through old San Luis Obispo.

One of my favorite stories concerned my grandfather, a gentle husband and faithful train engineer who romanced the committed spinster, Bessie. Andrew was seventeen years older then Grandma, but he stood out as the love of her life. The story always ended with his death three months before my father entered the world.

That is how I best remember my grandma—through her stories. It was only recently I realized her narratives were actually stories of personal hardship and deep wounds. Though in the telling they were no longer wounds, but stories of how Jesus had walked with her through the dark times of her life.

Hidden behind the adventure of gleaning summer fruit for the ingredients of winter pies sat the heaviness of a hard working, single mom. Grandma identified herself to me by her wounds—tragedies transformed into stories of Jesus, a gospel if you will, written on the heart of an old woman.

God uses two methods for transforming us into the image of Christ. First, there is his own life growing within us. Secondly, he uses the pain, suffering, and trauma of earthly life to kill anything that doesn’t smell holy in us. If handled wisely, the second makes room for the first.

We all know people who are identified by their unhealed wounds. They call themselves victims. Then there are those identified by their healed wounds. They look like Jesus. Grandma Bessie looked like Jesus to me.

Being known by our wounds is just another characteristic of the Backwards Kingdom. In referring to John 20:19-20, Henri Nouwen said, “It is of great spiritual importance that Jesus made himself known to his disciples by showing them his wounds.”

To whom are you showing your wounds?  Are your scars telling a story or a gospel? Will you grow into a wounded storyteller reciting your stories to your grandchildren curled up under a blanket on a cold winter night, or will you just grow old?

Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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03
Feb
5 Things I’ve Learned About Mistakes
Susan Gaddis

1133804_sign_success_and_failureMaking a mistake doesn’t have to define us. Yet, as a counselor, I talk to many people who interpret themselves by their mistakes. Others are quick to hold a spouse, child or co-worker hostage to long ago failures.

Some of us wear mistake-colored glasses that determine the clarity with which we see the world around us. God, however, views us through different lenses. We need to put on our God glasses when it comes to failures. Here are 5 things I’ve learned about making a mistake in the Backward Kingdom.

1.  God never looks at my mistake as though I am the mistake. He has the amazing ability to separate people from their actions. His love for me never ceases and is not altered by my faults.

2.  The stain some mistakes leave on me and others is wiped clean when I seek forgiveness from God and from those involved in my fiascos. The memory of the failure may remain, but the stain is gone from my soul.

3.  Mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth. How can I grow if I don’t fail? How will I know where I need adjusting if I am always faultless? Mistakes become trophies when used to grow me into the person God is calling me to be.

4.  Mistakes are simply missed—takes, which means the next time I face a similar situation, I can take a different response than the one I chose this time.

5.  Every leader has a long track record of mistakes trailing behind him. Apparently it is part of the qualifying process in becoming a leader. Check your Bible for a list of such leaders and join the ranks of those who reign in the Backward Kingdom.

Here are some questions to ponder: What have you learned from your mistakes? What have you learned from your successes? How can something be considered a success unless there is the potential for failure in the mix? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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27
Jan
Please Pass the DNA
Susan Gaddis
Adelaide Ayers
Adelaide Ayers

I have six little grandchildren in my life who carry my DNA. Sometimes I wonder if I am doing enough to pass the baton of faith on to these little people. Good grandmas do things like that.

Shouldn’t I be teaching the Bible and praying with them when they come to visit? How will they acquire the DNA of God unless I cram spiritual truths into their heads and cookies into their mouths?

Usually about that time of feeling like the Grandma from Failureland, I’m caught up short by the Spirit Holy and reminded that it is I who need to accept the baton from their little hands. This is just one more principle of the Backward Kingdom that I am learning.

Jesus told us that unless we become like little children we cannot inherit the kingdom of God—we won’t have the DNA of God infused within. We seem to know the important things of the Kingdom when we are small, but such wisdom seeps out of us as we grow big enough to carry the cares of the world.

Here are three things I’ve observed about little children, but don’t see in adults:

Children don’t worry. I worry. My husband worries. My grandkids don’t worry.

Children dance everywhere they go. I walk or stumble along life’s highways and byways. Children dance across the floor, on top of the couch, under the table, up and down on Grandma’s bed, and into the kitchen where they ask for something to eat since they only ate 15 minutes ago and have used up all their calories dancing.

Children are directly honest with God.  I avoid certain conversations with God. My grandchildren don’t seem to have that problem. One morning while cooking breakfast, my daughter Kati heard her three year old, Adelaide, strongly say, “Jesus!” She heard her again, “Jesus!” Turning around, Kati saw Adelaide looking at the ceiling as she announced a third time, “Jesus! You need to get down here right now! I need to talk to you!”

Maybe Jesus isn’t the only one Adelaide needs to talk to. Perhaps she can teach me to dance again. Anyone care to join us?

In Him Together, Susan Gaddis

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