Doormats are handy things–dusting off the snow before entering a somewhat-clean floor, wiping off the mud from the now-melted snow, stomping your tennis shoes to get the ever-living sand out of them, especially if you live by the beach. Doormats are weathered. Doormats can be pretty and decorative–that is until the above happens and they become grubby. Doormats are lasting. We usually keep the same doormat by each door until we move, then we finally throw the things out, like old rags.
Sometimes, whether it’s learned behavior, taught behavior or even caught behavior, we decide that Christians must in every way be compliant and, well, doormats to be humble, loving and good.
I know this for I have learned this behavior in various venues. And somewhere along the line, people began to think I was sweet and nice and kind and a doormat. Compliance has become the anchor that I drag around everywhere I go.
Sometimes I feel like a doormat, don’t you?
Then one day, I shifted the lens of perspective, though blurred with the mud wiped across my face and gritty from all that sand, and I began to see that even though it is not all about me–well, it isn’t all about them either. To be humble, I can still be emptied of pride and callousness in my thinking and actions. I can be both humble and not walked upon.
That day, I began to see that the thing I most lacked in my life were boundaries. Oh, I had put up boundaries, but they were like the snow-blown fences that no longer worked. And I realized that I did not have to walk with someone to love them or to pray for them. As my friend Diane said so well, I can stop moving toward them when I encounter them. I can stand still and be loving and humble and kind; yet, I have not moved one single inch. There is no need for me to act like a beaten dog around them and lay my head down pitifully, as if I deserve to be treated that way.
No. Love is not a doormat.
I think perhaps our culture, even our churches may teach it, but Jesus showed it best in his actions. He spoke the truth in love. He had boundaries with others and with some, he let them in close to see more of Him. And then one day, after preparing those closest to Him, He told them that he would submit Himself to being crucified. He was willing. He had strength that could overcome the obstacle and chose to be crucified. And not once, not one single time was my Jesus a doormat.
For He humbled Himself, but never acted like that beaten and pitiful dog. No. The whole time, He was strength under control. He was looking outward and praying for others and loving others and He was killed. But it didn’t last. Three days and He conquered sin and death! And when it was over, He wasn’t thrown out like our old doormats.
He was changed before their eyes and was taken to Heaven to live forever–to continue to intercede on our behalf. For the stuff of which Jesus is made is that which is incorruptible–mud cannot soil Him, fire cannot mar Him, no amount of anything man or this world could bring could take Him. But within the infinite scope of His ability, He took upon Himself the sins of the world and He submitted His material being to death…resurrecting immaterial, immortal, Immanuel–the spotless Lamb of God.
And why did He do this? He did it to change our substance, too. We are being changed from glory to glory, but my sisters, my friends, that never meant we should be debased and walked upon.
Where do you need to set boundaries today? I have been learning lesson after lesson about boundaries the past 4 years. And they are FOR my good and FOR yours. Jesus was born, so that we may not be tossed away like an old doormat, but may become immaterial, immortal and spotless.
God loves us and He IS love. He wants us to love Him and to love others. But His love does not act nor treat us like we or anyone else is a doormat. It acts like this in 1 Corinthians 13.
“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”
Romans 8:37-39 The Message
- Ch…ch…ch…CHANGES Are Coming in 2017 for TMI - December 27, 2016
- What New Thing Are You Ready to See God Do in Your Life in 2017? - December 26, 2016
- Heaviness and Newness - December 23, 2016
