Leaning Forward

Thursday morning I had a chance to go to LCIW (Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women). I always enjoy listening to the stories of these ladies. To be honest with you, when I leave there it’s a real emotional roller coaster for me. It hurts! It hurts my brain to think about how they got here, but I have  to think about it, because it’s too heavy for my heart not to think about it.

One of things that has struck me about working with offenders is their vernacular. It’s like they have their own prison language. They are quick to tell you that they, “caught a charge”, or “I’m on papers for another 10 months”. One lady at LCIW today told me, “how long and how many times she had “been down”.  That’s inmate talk for the number times and length of stay someone spends inside a correctional facility. When I heard those words, “I’ve been down”, I realized that was the posture of her mind set and the condition of her heart. Unfortunately, unless there is some type of intervention, she will bring that mind set with her into society once she is released. 

Our words reveal a lot of things about us and our belief system. If we speak something long enough, we’ll begin to believe it. Many of these offenders that I work with are setting themselves up for failure, even before they are released. They fail not because of a lack of opportunities or resources, but because of the way they feel and think about themselves. 

I wonder how many of us are guilty of the same thing? How many times have we spoken death over our relationships, finances, children, or circumstances? “I can’t do this or I can’t do that. There’s no hope for me.” When we speak these words over our own lives, and the lives of our family members, or our circumstances, we too have set ourselves up for failure. Words are powerful. They can bring blessing or cursing, life or death. There is power in the tongue! Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose. Proverbs 18:21

My personality is one which I do things methodically. I’m very much a routine person. When it comes to organization I tend to lean towards being OCD. Yeah, I know that’s a problem, but I’m working on it.  So earlier this week, things got a little stressful around here, when I couldn’t find my keys. I looked everywhere. … in my pockets, on the ground, between the cushions, in the bed, in the bathroom (I was desperate). I could not find them anywhere. Mom always said to trace my steps right? So I did. I went back out to the car, looked under the seats, between the seats, in the console, on the ground and nothing. As I walked back into the house, I looked up at the door and there they were … in the door. Right where I had last used them. 

When it comes to our spiritual journey, our search for God, we’re a lot like that … we’re frantically looking for God, and He seems to be so aloof. I think that God seems so distant and detached from our lives because we’re looking for answers to the wrong questions. We keep looking for God to reveal Himself in the answers to our prayers. God, what do you want me to do with my life?   Do I buy this house or that house? Do I marry this person or that person?  Do I go to college at this school or some other school? Do you want me to live in the city or the suburbs? Why are you allowing this to happen? God, why don’t you intervene? We use the old cliche a lot , “everything happens for a reason”, but how many of us say that with the shaping of our character in mind.  It’s not that God doesn’t want to answer our prayers, He does, but what He is in essence most concerned with is the person that we are becoming.  God is developing in us the type of person that He can trust with His heart, and that involves process.

I’ve been looking for answers to the wrong questions

In a recent podcast I was listening to, Graham Cooke made this statement, “The circumstances of your life are so incredibly important to person that is developing in your skin.” If we approached life from this perspective the question of God’s will for our life takes an entirely different posture. The truth is though we may not like them, we need the circumstances of life.  Some of you know this more than I do, but God doesn’t always take away the pain, the disappointment, nor does He make things convenient, comfortable, or clear. God allows in His wisdom what he could prevent in his power, but He trust your character to move forward. Whatever life throws at you lean forward, in the direction of God. When we do that, we’ll never fail.

As I’m writing, the Associated Press is reporting that a suicide car bomb has killed four American soldiers and an interpreter in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Last November, I visited Arlington National Cemetery  and just just looking at all the headstones of our fallen HEROES,  left me  with a greater appreciation for the freedom that I have. I know it’s a cliche, but our freedom is not free. It has come with the ultimate sacrifice. 

I always look forward to Tuesday mornings. That’s the day that I go and spend a couple of hours with the men inside East Rouge Parish Prison.  Prison is not the most ideal place for someone to find freedom, but I have discovered just the opposite. Each week when I leave there I’m speechless. Their countenance, their mannerisms, and the genuineness of their heart speaks life and freedom to me. I leave there asking myself, “how is it that people that are in prison are free and people that are free are in prison?” People are in prison to their past,  their addictions, their mistakes, guilt, condemnation, and failure.  Their  conversations always seem to lead back to what happened yesterday, last year, and what this person did to them, and how they’ve been wronged.  I sense that they desperately want to live the life God intended, but they can’t get past their past. None of us are getting out of world without being offended and/or wounded, but there is no freedom in the past. That’s why the Scriptures talk so much (over 120 times) about hope. Hope speaks of something that lies ahead, something fixed in the future.  Hope forces us to live in the present from the future.

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus came to set the captive free, and whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Freedom is birthed out forgiveness. A life filled with purpose, meaning, and yes freedom, begins with the words “I forgive you”. From the cross, Jesus prayed “Father forgive them …”.  Even before any of us realized just how evil the crucifixion  was, Jesus was initiating and interceding for others and their forgiveness. He was asking forgiveness for people that didn’t want to be forgiven. Forgiveness for people that intentionally and falsely placed pain (literally) and condemnation on someone that was completely innocent.

hope calls us to live in the present from the future.

From the cross, I believe that Jesus saw into the future, into that moment whereby we would be wronged, betrayed, and wounded, and He was telling us to follow His example. I believe He was telling us not to get caught up in the injustice that has been done to us; rather, that these moments will be about our need to be released from bitterness so that we can be free. It’s not that He isn’t concerned about us, how we have been wronged, or the pain we’re experiencing, but He is in essence more interested in the person that we are becoming. He knows that forgiveness requires courage and self-denial both of which move us towards wholeness and ultimately freedom. 

Forgiveness is not forgetting or excusing; instead, it’s about canceling the debt. The Apostle Paul said that he carried around the “marks of Christ”. As followers of Christ,   one of the marks that we bear is forgiveness. Forgiveness comes with a cost to us but so does freedom. Freedom is never free.