Redefined

People are incredibly difficult to define and categorize. A sociologist might say that a person is defined by the roles he or she plays in society—that a person might be defined as a co-worker, an employee, a brother, a friend, a college student, as being a middle child or in the middle class. A linguist would add that the way a person speaks—his or her accent and vocabulary and language-related culture—that this further defines an individual.

Singer and songwriter Matthew West has a single out on Christian radio stations right now about the struggle Christians face when they seek to define themselves as both living for God and living within this world. Each verse begins with the ways that we are defined by the world: “Hello my name is regret. I’m pretty sure that we’ve met,” and “Hello my name is defeat. I know you recognize me.” But then the chorus goes like this:

Hello, my name is child of the One True King
I've been saved, I've been changed
I have been set free
Amazing Grace is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the One True King

But what does it mean to live as a “child of the One True King”? Does it mean that we are no longer defined by our regrets and our defeats? In some distant, cognitive way, we know that we are no longer defined by the chaos of this world, but that doesn’t make me feel much better when I’m staring regret and defeat in the face. When I forget to send a meal to a family at church (sorry, Matt and Erin) or when I continually forget to follow through on the promise of passing along some baby items (sorry to Troy, Jodi, Jeanne, and many others) I don’t feel much like a changed and freed child of the One True King.

The message at Encounter Church this past Sunday was about the work of God through a defeated and regret-filled individual named Esther. Esther had compromised herself in every way that one can be compromised, and she was beyond defeated. She was a shell of her true self, she was living a lie, and she was living out a worldly identity she had constructed for herself. She had renounced God and had shut religion out of her life.

In the end, however, she chose to acknowledge the one true God, but not because she had some spiritual awakening or because the Holy Spirit miraculously prompted her to do so. No, it was literally a life-and-death situation. It took the promise of certain death to force her hand. And in the end, she is not reprimanded for her regrettable decisions, but rather, she is celebrated for returning to God. She is celebrated, despite her wayward spirit and misguided intentions, she is celebrated for choosing the way of God and the way of life.

Every time we make another decision to choose the way of God, it is truly cause for celebration, for one does not make a decision to follow Christ and then start on an entirely new life path. Your old life is still there, and changing those patterns and those habits and those people is hard work. Choosing God is a daily task—it’s choosing not to come late to work or to leave early. It’s choosing not to gossip about co-workers or roommates or sisters-in-law. It’s choosing to forgive your friend or your spouse or your son. It’s choosing to actually read the entire reading assignment for your English Lit class. Living as a child of the One True King does me that we are set free from our regrets and defeats, but it also means that no matter how dire our situation becomes, we can always choose to return to God and to leave our regrets at the cross. 

[Kristin vanEyk attends Encounter Church. You can read more from her at http://noaphorismsplease.blogspot.com/]