Speaking the truth in love – Heather C. King

The curtain rose and fell for the last time. The makeup went on and the makeup came off (mostly–there are still streaks of orange along my daughter’s hairline). Costumes were handed in and tucked away for future shows. A crew of folks broke down the set and put the pieces into storage.

My kids finished their summer-long project yesterday, an all-youth production of Willy Wonka Jr. sponsored by our local community theater group. They auditioned the Sunday after school ended, rehearsed every week, and performed this weekend.

Now it’s time to kick back and enjoy a few weeks of rehearsal-free summer before school starts again.

Each night before the show, we arrived two hours early so the kids could climb into costumes and sit still for makeup. This was a particularly involved process because my middle girl was an Oompa Loompa.

The Oompa Loompas are Willy Wonka’s devoted candy factory workers. Refugees from a horrible land, they’ve come to live and work in his factory as loyal servants of their eccentric chocolate-making master.

Transforming into an Oompa Loompa is quite a task. It’s more than just colorful shirts, socks and some overalls with curiously expansive hips.

There’s also a bright green wig covered in curls.

And there’s orange makeup–bright orange.

For these six through nine-year-olds, this was a matter of acting, putting on the outward appearance of another.

In the tradition of Lewis Carroll-like riddles, though, I’ve been wondering: How is a Christian like an Oompa Loompa? (Yes, I know Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What can I say? I’ve got children’s fantasy on the brain . . . )

Peter wrote this description to the church:

^“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9 NLT).

The Oompa Loompas are peculiar. They are “strange creatures,” unmistakably different from the kids and parents who visit Willy Wonka’s factory.

We also are supposed to be “not like that,” not like the world, not able to blend in with the crowd. God has changed us from the inside-out and people should notice the unique qualities of God’s love and righteousness about us.

I never once saw an Oompa Loompa hit the gym for an exercise routine targeted at reducing his hip-size. They didn’t climb onto stilts to increase their height. None of them hid in the bathroom for an hour to dye their hair and they didn’t even try to pass their orange skin off as suntan.

They were comfortable being weird.

Sometimes we’re not. We’re too often trying to hide, transform, pretend, and deny the presence of Christ in us.

There’s freedom, though, in unashamedly being who God called us to be, in raising our hands in worship with abandon, in standing up for what is right with conviction, and not fearing the disapproving looks of those around us.

We’re supposed to be weird, too.

The Oompa Loompas were also refugees. Willy Wonka had pulled them out of a land of fear and disaster and offered them a place of peace.

We’ve similarly been lifted up out of pits and carried to safety. We are God’s “chosen people” and His “very own possession,” who no longer inhabit a hopeless world, facing inevitable death without the promise of a future. He has “called us out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”

So, we respond as the Oompa Loompas did; we cheerfully and faithfully serve our Master.

He has saved us! We are rescued and redeemed!

It’s a little thing, then, to show gratitude and loyalty and to obey Him in every little thing. We work, we love, we give, we minister, we sacrifice, we share, we worship because we are refugees brought to safety by a Savior who loves us.

The Oompa Loompas are also message-bearers. As each Golden Ticket winner inevitably fails, falling to the temptations of immediate satisfaction, selfishness, and greed, the Oompa Loompas take the stage. They clean up the mess. They solve the problem.

They sing their song.

We also “show others the goodness of God,” sometimes by fixing problems and tending to needs, silently ministering grace.

Sometimes we “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), reminding others that God has a plan, purpose, and design. We speak truth and wisdom in a world that desperately needs both, but we do it with love, covered over with grace, never out of judgment or pompous self-righteousness.

The Christian life is a call to be different, to be saved, to be devoted, to be messengers of God’s goodness, all without having to wear a green wig or apply orange makeup.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

For those reading Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, along with my small group, today’s devotional will match up with her fourth chapter: “No Fangs Allowed.”

***********************************************************

Mean girls strike fear into the hearts of moms everywhere. They certainly make this momma drop to her knees.

I’ve begun praying once a week with some other moms for our kids and their school. As we’ve prayed together, I’ve discovered that we moms share the same concerns for our kids. We pray for their academics, sure, but mostly we pray for their hearts.

We pray they will be a light in dark places and that they will choose good friends. We ask that our kids will not be too sensitive and will know how to respond in tough situations.

So when my daughter announced this weekend that there was a girl at her school table that she chose not to play with, I pounced with my mom questions.

“Well,” my daughter said, “when other people don’t do things the way she wants, she always says, ‘You can’t be my friend anymore.’ So, I told her that’s okay if she doesn’t want to be friends with me.”

Wow! Here I was afraid of permanent devastation wrought at the hands of other children and my daughter handled this with calm grace and confidence. She knew that friendship is too valuable to use as manipulative weaponry in the social arsenal.

It was the kind of answer I’ve been praying my daughter is able to give. Praise God that He answers our prayers for our children.

But, it’s not just our kids who need to make decisions about whom to befriend or how to answer detractors, nay-sayers, judgers, and mockers.

In her book, Stumbling Into Grace, Lisa Harper writes:

“I want to recognize the dangerous, potentially biting characters in my story; the people who create constant emotional debris with their destructive personalities or who refuse to shed the skin of deception, the ones who threaten the God-with-me peace in my life. I’m learning to keep my distance and to pray for snakes, but not make a habit of getting down in the dirt to play with them” (p. 47).

In our lives, we’ll face some biting personalities and snakes in the grass ourselves–even when we are simply pursuing righteousness, just like Hannah did in 1 Samuel.

Hannah was a Godly woman. Religious law dictated that men must travel to the tabernacle three times a year to worship and sacrifice, but we see in 1 Samuel 1:7 that “year by year, she went up to the house of the Lord.” She committed to going above and beyond the minimum requirements in order to worship God with her whole heart.

But, this Godly woman had a struggle, a personal pain that cut deep. She was childless while her husband’s second wife, Peninnah, was a bunny rabbit of a breeder. Scripture doesn’t even count all her kids; it just says, “Peninnah . . and . . . all her sons and daughters” (1 Samuel 1:4). Sounds like quite a brood.

The worst part of it is, that Peninnah gloated. She boasted and preened. She set herself up as Hannah’s rival and “provoked her severely, to make her miserable” (1 Samuel 1:6).

Peninnah was a mean girl.

But it wasn’t just Peninnah who was the problem. There was also Hannah’s husband, Elkanah. He truly loved Hannah and he was sad about her distress.

Still, there’s something kind of clueless about Elkanah’s compassion. He said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8).

Seriously? He didn’t tell Peninnah to knock off the nastiness. Instead, he told Hannah, the innocent one, to just get over it. Just be happy with the fact that she shared a home and husband with a woman who had annual baby showers when she herself could not get pregnant. Just shrug off Peninnah’s provoking ways and be happy with her husband’s love.

Elkanah was an unhelpful friend. He didn’t stand up for Hannah, didn’t have her back, and wasn’t concerned with the true depth of her pain.

Then there was Eli, the priest who watched Hannah’s impassioned prayer at the altar. He pounced on her in a second, saying, “How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!” (1 Samuel 1:14).

Eli was the judgmental onlooker. The one with all the opinions who doesn’t even take time to fully understand the situation, just makes accusations and spews forth a diatribe of assumptions and personal attacks.

Beset on every side by those close to her and those in spiritual authority over her, Hannah nevertheless responded with grace.

She spoke “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). She didn’t rebel against Eli, speak badly about him behind his back, or cause a ruckus in the spiritual community, despite the fact that he hurt her. Instead, she answered and said, “No, my lord. I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15).

She trusted God to take care of her. Hannah “was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish” (1 Samuel 1:10). She took all of her pain to the altar and poured her soul out before God.

And after she held the baby boy God gave her, after she nursed him and weaned him and presented him to the tabernacle, she declared, “Talk no more so very proudly; Let no arrogance come from your mouth, For the Lord is the God of knowledge; And by Him actions are weighed” (1 Samuel 1:3).

By Him actions are weighed. God saw Peninnah in her meanness, Elkanah in his cluelessness, Eli in his pompousness and Hannah in her brokenness. Hannah placed the entire situation in God’s hands and trusted in His ability to judge and to bless.

We likewise can trust God to help us when we face mean girls, unhelpful friends, and those who judge us. He will help us know how to love our enemies, pray for those who hurt us, and turn the other cheek, and yet all the while protect us from the venomous bite that comes from stepping too close to the snakes in the grass.

Want to learn more about praying for your kids and their school? Check out Moms In Touch International. There are groups of moms, grandmas, and school staff internationally who meet once a week for one hour to pray for our children. You can find a group in your area by searching their website.