E-Letters

This e-Letter is written by my friend Jeff Shane. Many people who receive this know what Jeff means to me. For those who don't, he has been everything from Samwise to John Wayne in my life. His friendship is the wisdom of God. Jeff is always the first one I call. He is my Head Wrangler.

Atmosphere

By Jeff Shane
Jun 25, 2009

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advanced for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

This used to be one of my life verses. I even have it on a t-shirt. This is the way I read it: "God made you to do the right things. Do those things. When the list is done, you will be holy. Don't screw it up, or you'll mess up the plan. So perfect yourself. Be disciplined. Work hard." When I saw myself as "a Doer", with a certain "to do" list, I was at the center of my Personal Perfection Project. God gives me the list. I do it. Or kill myself (and everybody else) trying.

How we look at our lives will shape what we do and think and how we read verses. If I see my life as one long perfection project or a "to do" list, and I am a Doer, then my enthusiasm will be drained by the tediousness of life and the pressure to do it. Seeing life like this has a subtle, but deadly problem--it is based on Fear. Fear that I won't "get it done" or won't get it right, or ever "get perfect." Fear that I will lose my job, my house, my health. Worry over anything and everything. So I am left biting my nails and getting ulcers through anxiety and depression because the to do list is never done. It is as if the atmosphere of life is Fear. It permeates everything in life. And so we see this verse and God through the same fog of fear--that we better act right or else, that we are accountable for every careless word, and we surely will be called on the carpet in the end. Fear God or else!

Many of us are starting to see our lives as a story being played out in the midst of battle and adventure with a hero and a villain and a beauty. This stirs something deeper than "life is a list so get it done." Things start to make a little more sense when we see that the hero of our story is Jesus. He is the Hero of History, coming at just the right moment and rescuing us, His Beauty. This is THE grand and great and good news underneath the Gospels. All our individual stories have in them the same elements and themes. This good news of "God entering the Story" is in your story; it is in mine. You are part of a great story. Your part is vital and needed.

Now Ephesians 2:10 has a different atmosphere:

"Your life is a Story written by God. You are not the hero, but you are the Hero's masterpiece (Master's piece). He has rescued you, and now you walk together. He sings over you along the way and He promises to never leave your side. Everything that happens was prepared in advance and will be for good. He loves you beyond anything you can imagine, and He is better than you could possibly dream. The atmosphere, the very air you breathe in this story is Love. There is nothing to Fear."

Jeff Shane