Apostle Paul Archives - Jodie Berndt

No Quahogging

06.21.2016

Why is it that when somebody tells us we “can’t” do something, that becomes the very thing we want to do?

Like, I didn’t even know what “quahogging” was, but when I saw this sign near the water in Martha’s Vineyard, I found myself inexplicably eager to try it. Was it a forbidden dance move? A locals-only term for shacking up on the beach? Something having to do with a boat?

As it turns out (and maybe I am the only person who didn’t already know), a quahog is just a fancy name for a clam, and when you put it that way – “No Clamming” – it doesn’t sound nearly as illicit or adventurous. But still. Quahogs or clams, what’s the allure?

Bible brainiac Warren Weirsbe says, in his commentary on Romans, “Something in human nature wants to rebel whenever a law is given.” No kidding. Truth be told, though, resisting the call of the quahog isn’t really my biggest problem. For me, it’s more about things like letting worry steal my joy. Or coveting my neighbor’s shoes. Or, when Robbie is out of town, pairing a batch of chocolate chip cookies with a nice chardonnay and calling it Dinner.

I know all of these things are bad and, time and again, I resolve not to do them. But at the end of the day, I am no different from the Apostle Paul. He’s the guy who wrote to the Romans and confessed, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.“

And, every time I blow it – every time my ears perk up at a choice bit of gossip, or I let loose with some sarcastic remark that isn’t nearly as funny coming out of my mouth as it was in my head – I find myself echoing Paul’s despair: “What a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?”

Who indeed?

I’d be sunk, except for the fact that Paul solves his own riddle: “Thank God!” he writes. “The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The answer, in other words, is that we can’t save ourselves. I can’t even get rid of my bad habits – how much more would I fail at cleaning up my act enough to warrant a ticket to heaven? But, thanks be to God, the same Lord who covered my capital-S Sin Problem can also be counted on to conquer my daily challenges, those oops-I-did-it-again moments when I look at God and say, “Ugh. I can’t do it. I stink.” and he says, “It’s okay. I’ll help you. I love you.”

If you’re like me and you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, doing the things you know, deep down, that you really don’t want to do, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, admit your weaknesses and failings to God – and ask him to help you. And then read the next part of Paul’s letter: “There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus…nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God.”

(Even if we sometimes accidentally go quahogging.)

Scripture quotations in this post are from Romans 7:18-25 and 8:1 & 39, NLT

Friday Prayer for Every Season

11.06.2015

If you knew you were about to die and wanted to get a message to someone you loved, what would you write?

The Apostle Paul was in prison when he wrote his second letter to Timothy, the young man he loved as a son. The letter is full of warnings and encouragements; reading it, you get the idea that Paul knew his end was near (and, in fact, he was martyred not long afterwards), and that he wanted to equip Timothy to hang in there, and finish strong.

There is a lot here that we could borrow in order to live our own lives well, but as Paul talks about the fickleness of people – people who reject truth and sound doctrine in favor of “what their itching ears want to hear” – let’s use his words about being prepared as the basis for our Friday Prayer. Pray this for yourself today, or for someone you love:

Heavenly Father,

Help _____ to preach your Word. Let _____ be prepared in season and out of season, and show _____ how to correct, rebuke, and encourage others with great patience and careful instruction. (2 Timothy 4:2)

Amen.

The Semi-Colon Life

10.20.2015

I saw this sign in a shop in Duck, North Carolina, and I loved it.

For one thing, the semi-colon is my favorite punctuation mark. It’s more than a comma, but not quite a period; honestly, I think it offers the best of both worlds. The semi-colon lets a writer coordinate two independent sentences that could stand alone, but are just better when paired. Think of it as the grammatical equivalent of wine and cheese.

And what a terrific message: My story isn’t over yet.

I don’t know how the Apostle Paul felt about semi-colons, but if he were on my Christmas list, I’d be getting him one of these signs. I just finished re-reading about his life in Acts, and if ever anyone had a two-part story, it was this guy. Part One had Paul trying to destroy the early church, going house-to-house and dragging out Christians – men and women (!!) – to be beaten and thrown into prison; in Part Two, we find him tromping all over the place, building that same church through personal visits and powerful letters, and proclaiming the good news about Jesus from his own jail cell! Hooray for the semi-colon!

I don’t know about you, but if I had been in Paul’s shoes (and given his fondness for athletic metaphors, maybe I should say cleats), I think I would have benched myself, once I realized how awful I had been. Sure, I would have wanted to be on God’s team, but given my past “mistakes” (things like stoning people who talked about God’s goodness), I might have tried to live life in the shadows, leaving the contest to the “varsity” Christians who didn’t seem to be such big screw-ups.

But not Paul! He knew what he had done was bad (horrific, even) but he wasn’t gonna let his past influence his present or his future. He understood God’s grace. He received it. He knew his story wasn’t over yet – and that changed everything.

How many of us really believe that? How many of us really believe the message of grace: that, thanks to Christ’s triumph on the cross, nothing that we’ve ever said or done or even thought has the power to disqualify us for a spot on God’s team? His varsity team? How many of us can say, as Paul did in Philippians 3, “Forgetting what is behind and staining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”?

I checked a few commentaries, and the word “forgetting” doesn’t mean that Paul had some sort of convenient amnesia, or that he just blocked out all the yucky stuff he had done. Instead, the idea is that these things no longer shaped or defined Paul. They couldn’t rob him of his salvation or his fitness for service; instead, Paul knew that God could (and would!) work in and through all of these failings to bring about good in his life and in the lives of others (and, although he couldn’t have known it at the time, in the lives of billions more people who would one day read his story).

If you have a past (and who doesn’t?), don’t let it steal your purpose or your joy. Don’t believe the lie that says, “You stink; how could God ever use or love someone like you?” Instead, take hold of the truth: You do stink (as Tim Keller puts it, we are all “more wicked than we ever dared believe”), but in Christ, you are (Keller again) “more loved and accepted” than you ever dared hope! Like Paul, you really can “forget what is behind” and “press on toward the goal,” because God adores you – and he is still writing your story.

And by the same token, if you’re praying for a friend or loved one whose life seems to have gone off the rails, remember that their story isn’t over yet. As one sweet mama said when I asked her how her teenaged daughter was doing, “Well, she’s still working on her testimony.” This gal understood the real life application of verses like Romans 8:28; she knew that, in God’s hands, all of the stuff to the left of the semi-colon would one day be used on the right – and that the sentence, once completed, would be glorious.

Love Letters

02.11.2015

Almost nobody writes letters anymore.

But a mom can hope, right?

When we sent our youngest child, Robbie, off to college last fall, I bagged up the usual assortment of dorm room must-haves: a desk lamp, twin XL sheets, laundry detergent (again, hope), and whatever random paper clips and pens I found in our junk drawer (the fourth child has no idea that there is such a thing as new school supplies). I also sent two self-addressed, stamped envelopes, along with a brief encouragement to him to write home: “Go ahead. Make my day.”

Why? I don’t know. I didn’t really expect to get a letter. But then yesterday, nearly six months after Robbie Sr. and I hid behind our sunglasses (Tears? What tears?), trying not to be the very last parents to vacate the Sewanee campus (it’s not a big school so lurking parents tend to stand out and yes, I was pretty much “that mom”), I got one.

And I was blown away.

Robbie has no idea that this is Valentine’s week. For one thing, he’s a college freshman. For another, he’s a guy. (Note to any men who are reading this post: Heads up. SATURDAY.) And I’m certain Robbie didn’t think about writing a love letter. He was probably just rooting around in his desk drawer and saw the envelope under an empty Gatorade bottle and some dirty socks and thought: Why not?

But as I held Robbie’s letter in my hand – treating it like a rare artifact that could crumble if grasped too tightly – it hit me just how powerful a simple letter can be. The fact that nobody writes them anymore makes them even more precious. In an age of texting and emails (and snap chats; I have begged my kids to set theirs so that they don’t expire for 15 seconds since it takes me at least that long to figure out what I am looking at, and if you think I could just take a screen shot then you clearly have no idea where my technological boundaries lie), getting an actual memento that you can hold – that you can clasp to your bosom the way that I imagine Magellan’s mother did when she unsealed the wax and read, “Hey Mom! It’s round!” – is just huge.

All of this is simply to say: Write someone a letter.

You don’t have to have a valentine to take advantage of the opportunity to share the love. Tell a former teacher or coach how much he or she meant in your life. Boost a neighbor’s spirits with an encouraging note. Tell your mom you love her, or even just that you appreciate how many times she got the grass stains out of your jersey. Go ahead. Make her day.

If you need a little inspiration, why not rip off the Apostle Paul? Here’s how he starts his letter to the Philippians: “I thank my God every time I remember you.”

Who wouldn’t want to open an envelope and read that?

The Bible is full of awesome little nuggets just like that, notes of hope and grace that you can tuck into your own writing, words that can speak life into the bleakest winter day. The whole thing, in fact, is really just one giant love letter, written from God’s heart to ours.

Looking for a little something to read with your morning coffee this week? Check out 1 John…right in the back, near Revelation. It’s not a long letter – just five short chapters – but it packs a whole lotta love.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1)