Pre-confession confession: I’ve been mulling over writing this for weeks.

Because I caught myself doing it again weeks ago, and I thought, “I need to blow this open.” When struggles are kept secret, they’re only more destructive.

And for weeks I’ve been talking myself out of it. I’ve convinced myself over and over that it’s not a big deal, and that posting it on the world-wide interwebs would only come off as a plea for pity or an arrogant fishing for compliments. In short, my pride prevented me because I was worried you’d all think I’m … proud. Which, it seems wouldn’t be inaccurate, but I digress.

So here it is: I covet.

The more I’ve been thinking about this over recent weeks, the stranger it seems that our entire society is essentially based on violating one of the Big Ten. Think about that for a minute. We have groups and parties that like to focus on fringe issues, or one specific piece of society that’s violating one specific aspect of God’s character, and those things are important. But our entire system lives or dies on how well we can stick it to commandment number ten.

“You shall not covet … anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Ex 20:17, my paraphrase)

Oxen and donkeys aren’t so much the temptations that they surely used to be, but it was never really about oxen and donkeys, was it?

Sometimes it’s about jobs. Sometimes it’s about weekends. Sometimes it’s about perceived happiness, even if that happiness is based on ignorance.

(Sometimes it’s about beauty.)

And sometimes it’s as easy as clicking on a new picture that just appeared on your Home page, and scrolling through a few after that.

Sometimes it’s hard to notice what’s happening, and sometimes it’s easy to tell yourself that feeling in your chest – that longing – is normal. Because our society has tried to make it normal.

You’re supposed to want to be one of the pretty girls.

But it’s not normal.

And it’s not harmless.

It’s one of those Big Ten for a reason, and that reason is explained in Colossians 3:5,

“… covetousness, which is idolatry.”

I am not supposed to want to be like anyone except the One in Whose image I am made.

You do not need to want to be anyone except who He created you to be.

And what does it do to the heart of a beautiful, loving, perfect God who created  each of us just the way He wanted each of us, when we long to be – even just in part – someone else? What does it do to my heart when I, essentially, set aside my adventure into discovering what He has for me and who He created me to be so that I can want something else, something less?

None of us would be happier if we got what we covet anyway.

Do you covet? Do you need to confess?

Jesus is not, not a pacifist either.

It’s become a popular subject in contemporary Christendom.

I’ve seen bumper stickers that read, “Jesus was a pacifist,” or “Who would Jesus bomb?” A new generation of disciples are trying to push back against the mainstream idea that Christians are necessarily George W.-style republicans. Many young adults hardly remember a political climate void of 9/11 references and stories of American soldiers dying in some forgotten desert, and many are holding open their Bibles, unable to reconcile a King who commands that we pray for those who persecute us and a political system that accepts collateral damage as the necessary cost of reaping vengeance on those who persecute us.

Meanwhile, a mostly older generation of Western evangelicals remind us that the character of God is also one of a righteous Judge, that Abraham had an army, and that when Jesus comes back it will be as a conquering King instead of a sacrificial Lamb.

I have been wrestling with the thing for the better part of a year – instructed in one camp for several years, but unable to ignore the testimony of scripture where it seems to disagree; learning to separate my faith from conservative politics and my American citizenship.

Some like to say that Jesus was a pacifist. Some argue that is a wrong interpretation of His first earthly ministry, and not a pattern for Christian living.

A couple days ago I realized that we may be answering the wrong questions.

It’s not about pacifism vs. self-defense. It’s about love. Jesus’ life wasn’t to show us how to be pacifists as a socio-political strategy; it was to show us how to love.

I think if we can remove both terms – pacifism and self-defense – from our vocabularies we’ll be that much closer to the heart of God. It’s about love.

Jesus didn’t turn the other cheek, or command us to bless those who abuse us, so that we could protest war or talk about whether Christians should own guns. He did it to teach us how to love.

You can be a pacifist and not have love, and completely miss the point.

Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek,” because you don’t hit someone you love.
Jesus said, “Bless those who curse you,” because you don’t curse someone you love.

It’s not about dividing the body of Christ over the issue of pacifism. We should be uniting to be His hands and feet in demonstrating His love to the world.

Let’s stop talking about pacifism and guns, and just stick to talking about love.