Frustrated with the "Normal Guilt"

I happened upon this blog when I was preparing to write my other blog about normal.

She tell the tale of how she and her husband didn't want to live the "normal Christian life" when they were first married, but how marriage, children, and a mortgage changed those aspirations. She continues to say that they soon realized the idol of complacency and comfort in their hearts and decided to change the trajectory of their lives. They sold their home and got involved in full time ministry.

I only skimmed through her writing, but I found the conclusion of her post and one of the comments she received intriguing.

Her conclusion (Underlines added are mine):
They [friends] are displaying the gospel, and there is nothing normal about their lives. And every time I get off the phone with her, all I want is to have nothing normal about our lives. She still bleeds God, and her life is being poured out on the neediest and the most broken. She traded entitlement for surrender, and God took her up on it.
What if heaven and God and forever became our normal?
Wouldn’t that change everything?

One of three comments the post received:
Normal.  Right.  Sometimes I would love to be normal.  Instead, I am a 59-year-old-maid who set aside career plans to care for my mother in her declining years until she passed.  Yes, I have a family, I'm guardian for a disabled brother and uncle.  Yes, I have a house...all 700 square feet of it...in need of new wiring, plumbing and a roof...and no way to pay for them.  Yes, I have a job...actually three of them, but none provide health insurance, and the combined income still leaves me well below the poverty level. Sorry to whine, but when it takes everything to just get by, "doing great things for God" just sort of flies out the window.

My heart grieves for this lady! Her "great thing" seems to have been right under her nose the whole time, but she has chosen bitterness instead.

My response to the comment:
I would like to say that whatever you are doing, when done with the right heart and attitude, can be the "great thing" God Himself has given you to do. (Ephesians 2:10 -- The works that He has prepared for you to walk in.) I struggle to answer how "normal life" can be a great thing for God, but it's not the doing that He cares about, but the relationship of love. It sounds like the Lord has given you "great things" to do in caring for your mother, brother, and uncle while working three jobs (dying to self). I hope that your heart will be comforted and the Lord will show you how He has allowed these things for His glory and your sanctification in Him.

 I was particularly moved because this is my struggle. I have two fears in life:
1) I don't want to be alone for ever. (Without my sisters in particular.)
2) I don't want to live a complacent, comfortable, un-sacrificed life. (I don't want to be "normal".)

I desire to be known for accomplishing a great task (for the Lord). I want to be one who has taken risks and started things. I want to stand up for the rights of the poor and feeble.

As displayed in this woman's blog and the reader's response, we have wrongly connected "not normal" and "heavenly focus." Our eyes are supposed to be fixed on Jesus, not the way to be the most radical. We've then said that service in the slums and/or foreign countries are the best ways to not be normal.

We as a culture, and I know that I in my own heart, need to assess and re-define "normal", "radical", "heavenly focus", and our calling in Jesus.

(Here's the quick answer:
Whatever we have to do -- do it as to Jesus!)

Hating Normal

 Mini: Not Normal (commercial)
 "Normal isn't great. It isn't fantastic. Normal can never be amazing."

The commercial revealed the desperation of mankind to have a glorious identity and a fulfilling purpose.

I started crying before Les Miserables even started.

Most of us are normal. Though it has been said that "the only normal people you know are the ones you don't know well enough," most of us are not above average. Most of us will never not be average. That's why there are "standardized" tests and procedures. We are normal.

And yet, what is the normalcy in which we [the culture of America] have allowed ourselves to be cooked?
Stupidity.
Laziness.
Discontentedness.
Selfishness.

And our hearts are aching.

We, the people, reach for drugs, clubs, music, sex, world travels, coffee, cars, clothes trying to escape the feeling of being normal, complacent, comfortable, average. We (particularly those Americans between 18-34,) are choking to find a purposeful identity, but it's being shoved in our faces as something that we need to go out and buy, or make, or become, or accomplish for the world.

Christians have this problem too. We don't want to be normal. We feel the guilt of enjoying our middle-class luxuries while those "other people" are dying in poverty and biblical ignorance.

And how do we stop up this pain?

Crying.
Mission trips.
Giving money.
Discussing our shock and horror.

Is this the biblical view?

Is being normal (living a comfortable, middle class American lifestyle,) a sin?
--It depends on who we choose to serve. God or money? Do we hold on to our possessions and position with a tight fist? Are we willing to share and give sacrificially when and as the Lord directs?

Was Jesus normal?
--In many ways, yes. Most Bibline heroes were normal people who stepped up when the Lord called. It was not that they cut their own path to be radical -- they just trusted and obeyed when the Lord directed.

Have we forgotten our identity?
--The world dies in their pursuit of "radical" and "anti-normal" because they do not know for Whom they live. But we who have been born again and are purchased by the blood of Jesus in order to share in His inheritance and to be built up as His living temple, have we neglected our calling?

Paul's letters were written to people living normal lives. His letters promoted the idea of normal lives being lived out.
Don't be busybodies.
Work hard as if you were working to Jesus.
If you were saved as a slave, stay a slave.
If you were saved as a free man, stay a free man.
Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.
Live so people will see you and glorify God.

The world is feeding us lies of distraction and death.

"Normalcy" isn't the problem. Forgetfulness is the problem.

The commercial made me cry because I thought about those acting in the commercial and represented by the commercial. All they want is to know that they are important and have a purpose in living, but they refuse to go to the One who satisfies.

Constantly searching for a release from themselves and a salvation from the lives they try to love, but they won't look to Him who is beyond comprehension and who has created them for His eternal purpose.

They want to be valued and identified, but they will not look to the One in whose image they have been created.

I cried for their blindness, for their hopelessness, for their despair. They grasp and consume in vain, when He is near! The glorious One calls out to them, but they will not listen. 

Louder they sing their woeful tunes, higher they punch their clenched fists, faster they drive their cars, and longer they curse their wasted existence.

May those who have their identity in the Beloved not grow hard to the cries of the world, nor be ensnared in the chains of their idles. <- font="font" pun="pun" purposeful="purposeful">

Human Trafficking -- Video Links

Video links for quick-hit information:

To research more: US Trafficking
I highly recommend: Nefarious: Merchant of Souls 
Another highly recommended: The Pink Room

Global Slavery -- Human Trafficking

This June I went with the high school summer trip to Phnom Pehn to work with children who are at high-risk for being trafficked into the sex industry, or who are currently being sold for sex. The trip has made an impact on my thinking and worldview. I have asked more questions and sought to discover more answers about the reality of this industry. I write what I have learned below.

The average age of the children in the sex industry is 12-14, but these are the numbers given by the people who “own” them. In a village in Cambodia, the bloodstained pajama pants of a 7-year-old girl were found in a brothel after a raid. We learn that some children are younger.

What I have realized since my time in Cambodia is that it is not just a “third-world” or Asian problem. Human trafficking is the fastest growing industry in the world. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) And that growth is happening throughout European countries as well as in the United States.

Why is it so successful? Its success comes from the strong mafias controlling the system throughout the world. These are powerful men who are able to payoff taxi drivers, officials at borders, document forgers, and the “slaves’” new owner.

These men also make sure to control their victims through brutal forms of psychological and physical abuse. They don’t want their valuable commodities escaping from their possession.

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Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world. There are many aspects and different pockets to what we call the “human trafficking industry." Generally speaking, human trafficking is when people of any age are forced to work or have sex because they have been tricked, sold, or coerced into this life.

The United Nations estimates that 2.5 million people are trafficked every year. The U.S. State Department estimates an even higher number: about 12.3 million adults and children "in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world."

No less than 55,000 women and children are sex slaves in Cambodia, 35 percent of which are younger than 18 years of age. 

http://www.teamwmi.org/educational-information/human-trafficking-facts-figures/

Human trafficking starts when the traffickers notice those who are vulnerable.

Some are vulnerable because they live in the countryside, their families are poor, and their parents need a way to make money. Much of the time in Cambodia, parents have agreed to sell their children.

Other victims are taken because they are tricked into thinking that there is a chance for a better life in another part of their home country or in another country altogether. When they go with these people, they discover the reality of the horrifying life they have entered.

Others have already been physically abused and think if they can make money to sell themselves, why not do it?

But when you become a slave, you don’t get to keep the money. Traffickers and pimps often keep the money and beat their property until the slaves can no longer hope to ever escape.

This criminal-industry is experiencing rapid growth worldwide because human traffickers are realizing that they can make more money if they sell girls than they can if they were merely selling drugs. Traffickers see that they can only sell drugs once – and then, the sale is finished. But, if you sell girls, they can be sold many times each night they work, and they can continue to work this job for 6-8 years.

Currently, Cambodia’s illegal sex trade generates $500 million a year. In the United States, sex trafficking brings in $9.5 billion annually. According to the United Nations, sex trafficking brings in an estimated $32 billion a year worldwide.

With such a huge problem all around the world – men, women, and children being used as slaves, being bought and sold as if they were a pair of underwear at the market – I want to ask, how am I going to respond to this information?

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

(James, Isaiah, Amos, Habbakuk, etc.) 

Video links for quick-hit information:
To research more: US Trafficking
I highly recommend: Nefarious: Merchant of Souls 
Another highly recommended: The Pink Room
 

Global Slavery

Article in The Atlantic

Slavery's Global Comeback

(Long article -- I post here mainly because I want to be able to refer back to it myself.)

Free the Slaves

A seemingly good resource. I post it here so that I can use it for further exploration.

Addictions of Various Kinds

Interesting websites that some friends brought to my attention:

South Korea "Digital Addiction" -- It's actually pretty crazy how deep this addiction is running.

Fasting from Facebook (school project) -- Interesting idea, but how long will the "mountain top experience" (aka technology-less hype) last?
(I must admit that my time away from Facebook has been nice, though there have also been times -- at this moment, in fact -- when I would like to sign back on to share something and/or to look at a sister's picture that people are commenting on. I see the comments in my email box.)

Argentina Mom Rescues Sex Slaves -- Happens in the States too. I just watched a powerful documentary about the worldwide sex trade. I am about to finish the book, "Not for Sale".
("About finished" meaning -- before I return to the States for Christmas.)

Anti-Aging Creams

I have been on the “Good Housekeeping” website in order to (why??) search for their reviews of point-and-shoot cameras. (I don’t know why I went there to do that.)

As I searched, I kept seeing all these advertisements for “anti-aging” creams. Now I want to know: who was the original marketer of those types of products? Who was the one who coined the phrase “anti-aging cream”?

Then comes my next question: who are the ones that have bought in to such a thing?

Me. My culture. Not that I have ever purchased any of the aforementioned products, but I have never before seen the lie in the phrase.

Anti-aging cream? Really? Yes, yes, I know. It’s against the aging process. It’s trying to ward off the aging process. But guess what? It’s going to happen.

It’s a hopeless case. What you are paying to prevent – what you are “waging war against” is all in vain.

I suppose you couldn’t (and wouldn’t) market your product as the “slowly-aging cream” or the “gracefully-aging cream.” (Maybe I would feel better if that was its name.)

But, I can’t fight off the aging process. If I don’t die before it happens – I know that the affects of aging will overcome me.

Why do we allow ourselves to be tricked? Why do want to be “forever young”? Why do we spend so much time, money, and attention preventing the aging process? It’s going to happen.

I just want to be worthy of my wrinkles.

I know there will come a day when I will pass by a mirror and take a second glance because I can’t believe that the gray, sagging person I see is the person I have become, but why should I fear those days? Why should I build up this anxious need to push those days back with creams and colors?

They may soften my appearance, but it can’t change reality. Sin has come and we wither, decay, grow old, and die.

Of course, don’t believe me yet. Wait until I get there. See what I do when the reality of aging has arrived.

(Just don’t tell me too bluntly that you see the affects of its coming when it does.)

*Disclaimer: I am not against keeping ourselves healthy and “life-ful”. I advocate the use of lotion and staying out of the harmful rays of the sun. I am merely disgusted by the push of the product and the self-focused marketing campaign behind it.*

My New Favorite Animal

In our class we have been studying the rainforest. This week it has been an intense study of the rainforest. We have covered -- anacondas. :) Tomorrow I HOPE we can press on to harpy eagles and sloths. (We were supposed to move on from anacondas/boa constrictors TO sloths today, but I blab on far too long. -- Yesterday we mapped out how anacondas eat and today we measured how many kindergarteners are needed to make an anaconda. Fun.)

To the point of the blog post: as I have been reading and "studying" over the various animals in the rainforest I think I have found a new favorite animal. Well, at least a new SECOND favorite animal. (I think my FIRST favorite animal must still go to the Orca whale.)

Anyways, my new (second) favorite animal is... the ... SLOTH.

I hope this does not reflect on my character. --ha ha--

I just think they are cute. Those long arms, the round eyes, the LONG nails -- cute.

I also started to enjoy them because, guess what? They are highly misunderstood.

Do you realize WHY they go so slow? Do you realize WHY they sleep 12-14 (?) hours a day? It's because of their diet. The stuff (leaves) they eat do not give them enough energy to move a lot and/or to move with speed. We are each created differently and with different/unique gifts and talents. God has made them to be slow and He has limited them to need a lot of sleep. Don't mock. He is glorifying God when he is hanging from the tree and sleeping. (Did you know they have such a strong grip that some remain attached to the tree even after death? They go to the bathroom -- on the rainforest floor -- about once a week because they drink so little water. They are good swimmers.)

I think it's humorous that his hair grows algae because he hangs from the trees for so long.

A video I am thinking about showing to the students tomorrow... in order to "integrate" the teaching of the sloth AND the harpy eagle...

Harpy Eagle Grabs the Sloth

Though it may be a bit too traumatizing, I feel it shows the AWESOMENESS of God's creation, the power and size of the harpy eagle...and the helplessness of the poor sloth, who was chosen to be dinner.

There's also some great videos about sloths crossing the road. (No, they don't get squished.)

God and Life

“Trusting God for what he has done positions our hearts to trust God for what he has promised to do.” – Mike Bullmore

When I am fully trusting God for what he has done, trusting that Christ really did take my sin upon himself, that he really did pay the penalty for it, that I really have been forgiven, that I really am fully and finally reconciled to God—when I trust God in all of this, my heart is now positioned to trust God for what he has promised he will do today and in the future. And what has he promised to do? He has promised to make me holy. He has promised to sanctify me, to help me put sin to death and to replace it with joyful obedience. He has promised that the Holy Spirit is operating within my life to bring me into closer conformity with Jesus Christ. He has promised that the very same power that has saved me is now sanctifying me. Now I have hope and confidence that this really is happening and that this really can happen. I really can put sin to death, I really can grow in holiness, I really can grow in Christ-like character and look more and more like the One who saved me.

--Tim Challies

“...The Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self changed into a Christ self, and that process goes on very far in time.
One’s most private wishes, one’s point of view, are the things that have to be changed...As long as the old self is there it’s taint will be over all we do.
We try to be religious and become pharisees. We try to be kind and become patronizing. Social service ends in red tape of officialdome.
Unselfishness becomes a form of showing off. I don’t mean of course that we’re to stop trying to be good.
We’ve got to do the best we can...The real cure lies far deeper. Out of our self and into Christ we must go.”

 - C.S.Lewis