Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!”
John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
I know a group of people who benefit from extreme privilege that enhances their lives with a long list of advantages. This group is not only in the United States, but can be found in all nations of the world. Their numbers include people of all races, languages, ethnic backgrounds, levels of education, and positions in society. And none of them are worthy of their privilege.
I must confess I am one of them.
But this post isn’t about me. Instead, I will expose the privilege of a woman I’ve known for a very long time: my wife, Dawn. Without exaggeration (and readers who know her will concur), Dawn is among the most talented, hospitable, creative, generous, and kindhearted human beings on the face of the earth. She is a gifted painter, chef, event planner, ER nurse, pediatric oncology expert, elementary art teacher, and creator of welcoming, comfortable, and beautiful living environments. She has traveled the world several times over: North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia. She is well-educated up to the graduate level. She has a family that adores her.
How did Dawn come into her vast set of privileges? Well, had you met her as a child, you might not have seen her potential. The daughter of parents who barely graduated from high school, she was born in Oregon on her father’s twentieth birthday. For a crib, her mother placed her in a dresser drawer. She lived in a variety of habitations, never for more than a year at a time, in rustbelt towns scattered across Ohio and Pennsylvania. Her father never held a job for long and her mother followed his roamings, finding toil for herself on the night shift in factories and hospitals. Education was an afterthought for Dawn and her siblings since her father frequently changed jobs in the middle of a school year, prompting yet another move to another hick town.
Frequent moves meant that Dawn never formed lasting friendships and her social anxieties caused a severe stutter. But she could always rely on her immediate family for companionship, and they meant the world to her. Early in Dawn’s teenage years, however, her father’s fall into unfaithfulness put the family on the verge of collapse. Her mother packed up and moved across the state with the her younger brother and sister, while Dawn, just fourteen, tried to keep things together by staying with her dad. It worked because her mother eventually took him back after she’d found employment as a farmhand on an orchard in northern Ohio. This began a new phase of survival.
Dawn’s dad, now depressed, remained in a dark room while his wife, elder daughter (Dawn), and son worked the farm. Dawn’s primary job was to press cider from apples that didn’t make the grade. This required working after school until dark in a closed and unheated shed, shivering and sticky, tormented by wasps, and completely alone. Whatever she earned she gave to her mother to help with expenses. She had only a few changes of clothes. When her father would emerge occasionally to hunt squirrel and rabbit, Dawn helped him skin and prepare the animals for cooking. She and her brother harvested salmon trapped in a Vermilion River tributary by clubbing them with sticks before scooping the stunned creatures into a sack. For years, Dawn loathed the taste of salmon because it reminded her of being desperate and poor.
I could go on, but I won’t. You get the picture. So what happened? How did this girl destined for a life of scarcity and low expectations, of ignorance, of stunted dreams – how did this girl escape into such a good life? The unexpected transformation began on a hot July Sunday in 1979 (that same summer of the family calamity), just weeks before Dawn’s fifteenth birthday. Visiting a church by herself, she heard the Good News and offered her life to Jesus. That day marked the beginning of her entry into Christ privilege, a life God promises to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
Dawn’s life didn’t magically transform on the outside right away, but God completely changed her trajectory. His Spirit began to work in her as she followed him. She grew hungry to know God, to learn what he wrote in the Bible, to obey his teachings. Even in that cell-like room where she pressed apples, day after day she discovered her newfound connection with the Creator of the Universe. She learned to pray and memorize Scripture. She cried out to God in her loneliness and out of her fears, and he met her there in that cramped space. She emerged a new person, vibrant with life. She grew wise and took on stretching challenges under her Creator’s careful guidance, learning to develop her God-given gifts that had lain dormant, gaining confidence as God’s beloved child, and connecting with others on the same life quest. In short, the outcome of her faith-driven transformation was (and is) life as God designed for Dawn to live.
A person who truly lives for Christ finds that this kind of privilege becomes systemic, permeating and improving every area of life. In Dawn’s case it can be seen in her marriage, it is evidenced in her children and their spouses, and now this life is being inculcated in her grandchildren. I have observed Systemic Christ Privilege – transformed lives – all around the world, even among those who suffer terribly for following Christ. Just being a Christian is not sufficient to enter this life. It takes full surrender to living the way God designed human beings to live. It doesn’t mean a trouble-free life, but God promises a full and satisfying life brimming with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Father, What can I say except thank you for Dawn, for giving her a transformed life, and for giving it freely to me, too. We are completely undeserving of the privilege of knowing you and of living the way you intended life to be lived. I praise you because you offer this privilege to anyone and everyone who is willing to receive it.
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This week: Consider this contrast between life lived without God and life lived for God:
Galatians 5:19-25 “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
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