Scandal in the Senate

A Christian Response to the Craig Crisis

In June, Idaho Senator Larry Craig was arrested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and charged with soliciting sex from a plainclothes police officer in a public men’s restroom. Obviously, the story is a bizarre one, and its ramifications haven’t fully unfolded. As of this post, Senator Craig is protesting his innocence, though he has resigned his committee posts in the Senate and may even resign his seat entirely.

What makes the story especially thorny is that he signed a plea agreement in August admitting his guilt, though for only one of the two charges against him. Adding to the scandal, Senator Craig is a third-term Republican who has been a strong supporter of family values and has consistently voted against legislation favoring same-sex relationships.

Though I don’t often blog on politics, I think this sad situation offers the opportunity for a thoughtful response from the Christian community… a uniquely Christian response. By “uniquely Christian,” I mean a response that is more than just politically expedient or commensurate with traditional family values. I’m after a response that only believers in the gospel could give.

What does the gospel say about this sort of scandal? Does the message that “Jesus died for our sins” demand that we think or do anything in particular?

First, we should pray. The gospel tells us that sin matters most, not because it costs us political support or personal success, but because it offends the God who created us and will someday judge us. So we should pray that this event will bring about some spiritual good in Senator Craig’s life. When God arranges events such that we get caught in our sins, it is His mercy to us (even though it feels more like judgment). Sin corrupts, and left unchecked, it can destroy. But when our sin is exposed, its advance is halted and the impending disaster is avoided… IF we awaken to the danger, turn, and seek help to change. So we should pray that God’s mercy at work in these circumstances helps Senator Craig to awaken, turn, and avoid greater destruction.

Second, we should fight hypocrisy. Our own, not Senator Craig’s. Of course, in his case, the political cartoonists and late-night TV hosts have had a heyday working the hypocrisy shtick. But once again, the gospel changes our viewpoint and reminds us that we are all sinners in need of a Savior. The cross reminds us that when we speak of sin, we need cast the problem in terms of “we/us” rather than “they/them.” Only a blatant liar or a self-deceived fool would lambast Senator Craig for hypocrisy and not admit the same despicable hypocrisy in his/her own heart. Who among us has a perfectly pure heart? Which of us does not know the shadows and distortions of sexual perversion in our own depraved soul, at least at some level? “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” (Jn 8:7). One of the things that makes Christianity (and conservative politics) so objectionable to many people is the hypocrisy that so often characterizes those claiming to be its adherents. This is a criticism we can deflect, not by being perfect through our own self-righteousness, but by admitting that we are not perfect, casting ourselves on God’s mercy, and directing attention to the only Perfect One who ever lived.

Finally, we should love each other. If Senator Craig wanted to find a safe place to retreat this weekend, a place where he would be loved and not laugh at, helped and not harangued, do you think he should come to your church? I would suggest that if we were loving each other as Jesus intended (cf. Jn 13:35), then scandalous, self-conscious sinners would know that they are welcome among us. What a great reputation to have! We might actually start hearing the sorts of accusations Jesus heard: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (Lk 5:30)

So next time Larry Craig’s face is paraded across your TV, let it be your reminder to pray, to be real, and to love.

New Mercies, Take Two

Another Perspective

NOTE: My good friend Brad, who lives in Michigan, emailed me his response to my post from yesterday. It's very funny, but that's not the only reason I'm posting it. I'm posting it mainly because it makes the same point I was endeavoring to make, but from a much different perspective. Enjoy!

My morning goes more like this…Alarm goes off and I am already tired – oh wait, that wasn’t the alarm…it was my daughter kicking me in the ribs while she, still asleep, rolls for the 100th time in our bed. I jump out of bed (no…I am still half asleep and only imagine jumping out of bed). My back hurts far too much to jump, so I rise slowly, trying to straighten the kinks. As I head to the shower, I see the framework of the sun rising outside the bathroom window, desperately trying to fight its way through many layers of clouds. After stepping from the shower, I see myself in all my natural glory, marveling at the 30 pounds I put on over night…thought about riding a bike a few years ago. As I lumber out into the room to try to cover my flabbiness, I hear the crisscross of small feet in the rafters of the bedroom ceiling - not my sons, but some other denizen of this fallen world seeking the destruction of my home. I too see light coming from downstairs, only to discover that it is emanating from the basement. This particular light reminds me of a trick candle – no matter how many times I turn it off, it comes back on within a few minutes (I have a similar one in the garage). Eventually, I make it to the garage, glass of cold water and box of dry cereal in hand (my creative breakfast most days). I trip over the bike I thought of a few years back, then trip a few more times over kid’s bikes, a rusting pitchback, and a few other items. I gingerly attempt to make my way through the minefield I call my garage. In the process I spill some water on my computer bag (carrying that in my third arm) and hope it doesn’t make it to the computer. I hop in the car and start driving, shaking to the familiar wobble in a tire or some other part of the drivetrain that is refusing to be diagnosed and repaired properly. Another day has begun.

Strangely I have the same thought as you…

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

Thanks, Brad, for the great reminder that it's not the glory of the morning but the glory of our God that satisfies our soul!

New Mercies

The Beginnings of Another Day

Alarm sounds. Snooze. A voice in my head: “It’s too dark to ride.” Alarm. Snooze. Another voice: “The whole day goes better when it begins on time.”

My wife stirs, my eyes open, and my feet slide over the side of the bed. With contacts in, riding gear on, and Zune in hand, I head for the garage. My three-year-old son stands in the doorway as I stretch by the van: “Hi, Dad.” He rubs his eyes and yawns as I turn him around and head him back toward his bunk.

It’s a cool morning, and wet. I stand on the pedals, letting the wind awaken my body and mind as I coast downhill. The sky is brightening, but the full moon is still visible above the mountains to the west, streaked with a few thin clouds. As I turn uphill to the north, the long incline burns my lungs and legs. The mountain air is invigorating, and I savor the smells: fresh rain and wet lumber. Two of my favorites.

I stray from my normal route and turn east to watch the sun rise as I climb another hill. Cresting the ridge, I see the thumbnail of fire breaking the horizon and scattering the darkness from the forests and fields around me.

Three miles out I turn and head for home. The downhill ride makes my ears ache with the wind, but it gives me the chance to relax a bit and coast. A yellow spray of wildflowers covers the hills. A snake moves on the pavement. Two bucks bound across the road in front of me; a doe lags behind.

Braking slowly, my bike glides to rest next to my wife’s. I slip quietly back into the house and notice that lights are on in the bathroom, the kitchen, and the hallway. Apparently my attempt to delay my son’s waking failed, and his quest for breakfast is fully underway. After making sure he’s all set, I grab my journal and Bible and head for the couch. Another day has begun.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

A Reminder of Home

...In the Death of a Friend

I miss my brother-in-law. It’s weird. Sometimes I sort of forget that he’s gone, and I have this spontaneous urge to call him up. About six months ago during a time of extreme mental and emotional fatigue, I even had a fleeting moment driving home one day where I picked up my phone and actually started looking for his number. I remember having a vague notion that he had left and gone to a place where I hadn’t been able to talk to him for a while, but strangely, my weary mind suggested: “Oh! I could just call him!” And a half-second later I remembered that that number had been disconnected for months, and the quiet ache settled in all over again…

I wish I had some profound thing to say about all this, but I don’t. But that figures, because raw emotion is usually ineffable anyway. The closest emotional category I know to put it in is longing, but even that isn’t quite right. It’s deeper than normal longing, and heavier, but with tiny flecks of gratefulness and joy here and there, too.

There is a positive in all this, a silver lining around this dark cloud that has lingered on my horizon for so long. It always reminds me that I’m not home. I think C.S. Lewis is probably right when he says, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” (Mere Christianity)

Ed’s death is God’s reminder to me that something is dreadfully wrong here, but that thankfully, “here” is not my main address. I’m a traveler, one who has lost a dear companion on the journey, but one who knows that he’s not lost or fallen behind. He just beat me home.

His memorial service was 13 months ago today. My sister asked me to speak, and so, reluctantly, I did. These were my closing two paragraphs:

I recently read of a man whose wife passed away from an incredibly painful disease. Her suffering had been especially intense in her final days, and a few hours after it ended, her husband said to their pastor, “Pastor John, I think my wife suffered as much as Jesus did.” To which the pastor tenderly responded: “Perhaps. And if so, when their eyes met three hours ago, they didn't have to say much.”

That’s how I’ve imaged Ed’s home going. Face to face with Jesus, one of those broad Ed-Horn smiles, but not many words. One look said it all. And during their strong embrace, I have no doubt that Jesus put his lips to Ed’s ear and whispered: “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Welcome home."

I think I started this post out wrong. I put a period on that first sentence a little prematurely. After thinking about it a little more here, I guess it would have been more accurate to say, “I miss my brother-in-law… because he reminds me of home.”

Sir Justin the Bold

To Justin, my adventurous and chivalrous son
From Dad
On your 6th birthday: October 27, 2006

NOTE: I love to write goofy little poems for people. Usually I just stick them in birthday cards for friends or scratch them on the front porch at home with sidewalk chalk. But a few weeks ago, my wife challenged me to undertake to write a special poem for my kids on their birthday each year, and I agreed to give it a try. The boys have been studying the Middle Ages in school. Added to Justin’s well-established love for swordplay and his gentlemanly spirit toward ladies, I was all set for a fitting tribute to my second son. Enjoy!

In these fair lands the tale is told
Of a young knight—Justin the Bold,
The bravest hero in the West,
Who set out on a daring quest
To save a princess from her fate
Of landing on a dragon’s plate!

Sir Justin braved the mountains cold
And mighty seas where high waves rolled;
Across the desert without rest,
He came upon his greatest test—
The dragon’s castle, black as slate
And there behind the iron gate
He saw, with princess in his hold,
The dragon on a heap of gold.

Hot flame spewed from the evil pest
And blazed upon the royal crest
Of Justin’s shield. And with a great
Charge Justin slew the beast of hate,
Thrusting his spear into a fold
Between the dragon’s armor old.
And catching up the maiden lest
She fall, he smiled and did his best
To get her home and not be late
So they could go on their first date!

Sabbatical

An Explanation

After 366 days of complete silence, I figured an explanation was in order. I am currently in my final semester of seminary and, if all goes as planned, will be free to write again in January. I'm hoping to find a nice rhythm of posting new Waltzian Heresies a couple times a week, if my priorities shake down as I expect they will. See you in 2007!

The 1994 I Never Knew

Reflections on Hotel Rwanda

I remember the summer of 1994 very clearly. I spent 12 weeks traveling the western United States with 6 friends, singing, acting, and just having an all around great time. We spent a day at Disneyland. We surfed at Pismo Beach. We crisscrossed the Rockies. We spent a night buried in sand on top of Soldier Mountain in the Mojave Desert. We visited the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. We got all we could of San Francisco: Alcatraz, Chinatown, Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera, even clam chowder out of a sourdough bread bowl at Fisherman’s Wharf.

I made two of the best friendships of my life that summer: Josh, who loosened me up in more ways than I can count, who stood up in my wedding, who still calls every couple months just to see how I’m doing even though he’s a major player for an internationally known and massively influential youth ministry; and Aundrea, whom it was the greatest honor of my life (knowing God excepted) to marry.

Yeah, my summer of ’94 was absolutely incredible.

Not so on the other side of the world. In April-July of 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were massacred by their own countrymen in less than 100 days.

I just watched Hotel Rwanda. “Watched” is hardly the right verb, but my numbed mind can’t command a more fitting one right now. I was able to restrain most of my emotion during the film, but when the final image froze and the credits began to roll, the dam broke and the hard sobbing began.

Just last night I spoke to some teens of my experiences in Kenya the summer before The Great ’94. In 1993 I fulfilled one of my life’s dreams: to visit Africa. For 6 weeks we worked among the Kenyan people and a bond was forged in my soul.

I love Africa. My first gift to Aundrea was a cherished “Kenya” sweatshirt that I purchased on the streets of Nairobi. The clock in my office is a brass map of the continent, complete with country outlines and a few animal figurines. My shelves and walls are covered with African carvings and musical instruments and keepsakes. Basically, I’d love to end up there for good someday cuz I… love… Africa.

Thankfully, Director Terry George spares viewers most of the gore and unimaginable horror of those months in Rwanda. But my imagination fills in the gaps with horrible effectiveness. And when I turn my thoughts back home, back to me and my own life, this movie helps me to see some things I really, really hate.

I hate my ignorance. I was living large and partying on while Rwandans were fleeing and falling from machetes. And I had no idea.

I hate my apathy. The little snippets I heard about Rwanda failed to produce any marked effect in my soul. That was over 10 years ago, but similar things are happening today on a much smaller scale in Myanmar, Sudan, Uganda, etc., etc., etc. Yet I tend to stress more over the price of gas than these atrocities.

And I hate my sin. When the rolling credits were reflecting off my tear-drenched cheeks, I heard myself crying out, “Oh, God… Oh, God, why?” And the only answer I know is "sin." Sin does this to us. Satan brought us this Pandora’s Box. The nearest rival in the universe to the height of God’s love for humanity is the depth of Satan’s hate. And every time I bite into the fruit he offers me, I’m feeding from the hand that soaked Africa in Rwandan blood.

I’m sure there’s more to say about Hotel Rwanda and even more to say about the horror of genocide. I suppose I should add “I hate my lack of skill to evoke compassion in readers” to the list above. But I don’t imagine that God brought me this movie tonight for your benefit, my good readers. He brought it to me for mine. And I thank Him for it. I’ll never look at the summer of 1994 the same way again.

Getting Glad in God

My New Blogging Venture

If you're interested, I've begun a second weblog. As you'll read from the description at the top of the page, it's basically my devotional journal.

My goal for my own devos is to get my heart happy in God, and so that's the intent of publishing these thoughts to the web—to stir up joy in God in your own heart.

I also have a couple secondary purposes: 1) to offer you something of a pattern, though an admittedly weak one, for your own reading and meditating on the Scriptures; 2) to offer me a little public accountability for writing something worth reading in my devo journal.

So check it out at your leisure. I hope you’re delighted by what you see of God there.

Math vs. The Creative Writer

The Christian Priority Of Language

Math is so round
As I lay on the ground
Trees call me

Baffled? I was, too, the first time I heard those lines. We were in pre-calc, sitting in the back row, struggling with some new math thing, when my friend leaned his head back on the chalkboard and spontaneously expressed his bewilderment with that three-line poem. Go figure…

Crazy as it is, this little bit of poetry sets me right up for what I want to say in this post. By bursting forth into verse, my buddy showed me something about himself at that moment—that math wasn’t his natural territory; language was. He was a pretty decent logical-mathematical thinker, but his “primary intelligence” was linguistic.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a little educational psychology. About 20 years ago Howard Gardner, an education professor at Harvard, recognized that different people seem to show intelligence in different areas. Some people are really good with words, others are good with numbers, others are musical, others are relational, others are visual, etc. His theory of multiple intelligences laid out eight different types of intelligence, eight different ways people receive and process information.

The result? Well-trained teachers don’t restrict themselves to the “I-talk-and-you-listen” method of instruction anymore. Thanks to Gardner, now we’ve got hands-on projects, music, group cooperation, art activities, role play, multimedia, inner reflection, and all kinds of other teaching techniques being used in the classroom for just about every subject. If you’re a visual learner who likes pictures more than words, that’s OK: we’ll teach you your way. If you’re more musical than logical, no worries. We won’t press you into our mold.

So far so good. In my last post I mentioned that I’m teaching math to my boys this year. In our first lesson, we played with blocks. We drew pictures. I talked; they listened. I demonstrated; they followed. I queried; they answered. I applied all the diverse methods I could. Why? Cuz I took ed psych in college, and I believe Gardner was right: different intelligences warrant different teaching methods.

Gardner’s influence doesn’t stop with schools these days. He’s also begun to shape how we do church, too, most noticeably in how we preach. A song inserted into the sermon helps drive home the point for musical learners. A video clip or a drama sets things up nicely for those who are visually oriented. Giving each worshipper a little item to represent the topic of the sermon offers those bodily-kinesthetic learners something to touch and manipulate.

But here is where I get a little more cautious. Here’s where I want to inject a little bit of sober reflection into our unrestrained enthusiasm for multiple intelligence theory. It’s not a matter of propriety or tradition or association. None of these reasons makes me balk at the new approaches to public sermon delivery. What makes me uncomfortable is the apparent assumption that all intelligences are equally valuable, equally helpful, equally desirable, and equally Christian.

I disagree. Christianity, it seems to me, places a clear preference upon linguistic learning. Why do I say that? Two main reasons:

1. God revealed Himself in a book, more precisely, a book of words and not pictures. Presumably, He could have waited until DVD technology was available; after all, He waited at least until paper was around. But His choice to reveal Himself in a book says something important about what sort of learning best suits Christian instruction. Historically, Christians have always recognized this, demonstrated by the phenomenon that where Christianity increased, literacy also increased.

2. God can be known most accurately and completely through words. No visual representation of Him could ever convey His glory completely. Subjectivity and ambiguity render images unsuitable for teaching us the most important things we need to know about God. This is the whole point about general vs. special revelation. We need words from God, not just images. In fact, the Second Commandment actually prohibits us from trying to depict Him visually, a clear argument for the priority of language in communicating about God.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me point out that Christian worship appropriately incorporates every one of Gardner’s intelligences in some way or another: cultivating relationships, observing the ordinances (baptism and the communion), singing, self-examination, etc. All of these are integral to Christianity. But there’s a clear priority on verbal, propositional instruction.

So what’s the point?

The minor point is that Christianity doesn't view all the intelligences as equal. We must hear words from God, and I think pastors would do well to uphold that understanding by prioritizing the spoken word over all other forms of communication when they bring the word of God to their people.

The major point is this: cultivate your aptitude for verbal thought. Read. Write. Listen. Work very hard to make your mind more receptive to logical, propositional thought. To my little math students I say, "Devin and Justin, learn your math well; but know that in the end, numbers serve words. We do math in order to do language better. And we do language in order to know God."

No matter what kind of learner you are, cultivate your ability to receive and process words. Why? Because Christianity would survive without pictures or music or numbers. But not without words.

Adding Up To A Promising Tomorrow

What’s At Stake In Your Everyday Math Class

Everything changed today. As I drove away from home, I had that feeling that we were on the brink of something really big and there's no going back. See, about two weeks ago my wife and I made the very, very tough decision to educate our boys at home this year, and so now Dad, the math major, has a math date with the little dudes at 7:45 at the dining room table every morning.

Today was the first day of school. Just like that I’m back in the educational scene again, but this time I’m on the teacher’s side of the desk for the first time since I left teaching to become a youth pastor back in 1997.

We don't know how long we're going to keep this educational arrangement. We’re taking it one step at a time. Might be just this year; might be quite a while. Our expectation is that we’ll keep it this way until all five of our children complete 8th grade. That’s a long time. Devin is 8 years away from high school, but Julia Grace won’t be there for 13-14 years. And like I said, that is a looong time.

And so as I drove away from home, I had the distinct feeling that we were talking about an arrangement that could last for quite a while. My mind immediately zoomed out into panoramic, big picture mode. My thoughts raced ahead several years to some future day when we’ll have spent literally thousands of hours on math alone. Five days a week, nine months a year, for eight long years, we’ll meet, and we’ll work over some mathematical concept. What do I want my little dudes to take away from all this?

A gazillion ideas came to answer the question I posed to myself. Two of them—two reasons for all this expenditure of time, money, and mental energy—caught my attention and dominated my thoughts for the rest of my drive to the office. I’ll treat one in this post and the other in the next (which is when I’ll finally get to the importance of language, which I promised I’d write about in my last post ages and ages ago…)

Math is worth the effort, not so much because of what it puts in our mind, but because of what it does to our mind. In my opinion, math is less about content and more about effect.

Here’s what I mean. When we learn that 1 + 1 = 2, we are given an indispensable element of a successful future in math. It’s also a relatively helpful bit of knowledge for everyday life.

But when we nail down this little 1st grade mathematical concept, there are much bigger things at work in our brain. We’re actually learning far more than the mere sum of 1 and 1. For example, learning that 1 plus 1 equals 2 also teaches us:

• to assume the existence of universals and absolutes. No one proposes that 1 + 1 can be whatever you’d like it to be. It’s always 2 for every person everywhere.
• to rely on logic rather than observation or intuition as the standard of truth. A child’s intuition might lead him/her to believe that 1 + 1 = 1, following the pattern of ones in the left half of the equation; but logic demonstrates that things are not always as they appear.
• to follow deliberate, objective steps in moving toward a conclusion. Math forces us to follow rules of thought, sometimes self-consciously, thus sharpening our ability to think clearly and properly.
• to think creatively in solving problems we don’t remember seeing before. The problem-solving skills we develop in math class have far broader effects than just getting 4 credits toward a high school diploma.
• to work with symbols, thus enhancing our ability to handle abstraction. The black marks on the page that appear to us as 1 + 1 = 2 are actually universal symbols that we use to represent a specific proposition: any 1 thing coupled with any other 1 thing nets you 2 things.

I suppose a real mathematician could go on and on with the list. My point is this: math does something to our mind. All those multiplication tables in 4th grade and word problems in 7th grade and geometric proofs in 10th grade actually shape our brain to work in certain ways. They are like the forms that construction workers put in place when they pour concrete, getting our mind ready to handle abstract, propositional thought with accuracy and fluency. Years and years of math ready us for a future of careful, productive cognition in every other discipline: theology, ethics, history, the languages, the arts, all of them.

So here we are, with thousands of hours of math before us. And what do I see? As a math teacher, I see myself shaping little brains, training ready minds, raising young thinkers… and wearing out a whole lot of pencil lead and erasers along the way!

Got a math class this semester? Great! Need some motivation? How about this: working hard at math gets you a thousand intellectual benefits later in life.

All this time you’ve been complaining about that confusing, irritating y = mx + b stuff… all the fears that it might keep you from a high SAT, a top-notch college, and that great career… Actually, the exact opposite is true! The way I see it, today’s Slope-Intercept Form is tomorrow’s irrefutable argument or well-reasoned decision or creative solution!

So there you have it. Math: today’s ticket to a promising tomorrow!

When Words Won’t Work

What We Learn When Life Leaves Us Speechless

Sometimes I wonder if words get in the way of what our heart really wants to share. Ever feel like that? You’re speechless, not for lack of something to say but because words can’t quite capture it.

I’ve seen that happen to lots of people as they try to describe their feelings about God or a struggle they’re dealing with or the reason they made the decision they made. Our feelings often surpass our ability to communicate them.

Just thinking about it takes my mind in lots of different directions. (How ironic that there’s so much to say about being speechless!) Here are some of the questions that come to mind…

I wonder if this what the Bible means when it talks about the groanings of our spirit or when it says things like “we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom 8:26).

I wonder if, when the words are working for us, we tend to hold back a little bit in our effort to communicate. I mean, those moments when words fail us, we usually get all animated and start using gestures and sounds (like when “talking” to someone who doesn’t speak very much English). We put everything we’ve got into our attempt to share our message. But when the words are there, we just kind of blurt out the first phrase that comes to mind, expecting the listeners to understand it just like we meant it.

I wonder if, when we are the listener and not the speaker, we content ourselves with hearing only the words and miss the meaning. Perhaps we’re too quick to assume that if we hear their words, we’ve understood their heart.

And I wonder if there’s a way to talk and a way to listen that makes those wordless moments workable anyway. I wonder if we can train ourselves to listen to someone’s heart so well that the words kind of fade into the background and we actually hear a person instead of just some words.

Anyway, I’ve come to a conclusion from all this talk about being speechless. It’s certainly true that God has graciously given human beings the capacity for language, and we are foolish to neglect it (more about that in the next post…). But we are even more foolish to suppose that mere verbalizing equals communicating.

In our relationships with other people, I think we would do really well NOT to assume that simply saying our piece or listening to theirs means that we’ve reached an understanding. Human beings are not mere minds that think with mouths that talk. We have a body that directly encounters our world and a soul that filters and sorts and shapes and is shaped by what we experience. And sometimes those experiences go beyond what we are able to put into words.

I think God does that to us on purpose. Why? To remind us that we aren’t God, first of all. Only He has infinite capacity for Self-expression. But there’s probably another reason. Perhaps God gives us those speechless moments just so we’ll remember that real communication goes way beyond words and phrases and clauses. Real communication happens heart to heart, soul to soul, person to person. It’s beyond logic and deeper than emotion. When you experience it—when you really connect with someone—it’s… it’s…

To Teach Us To Love

Reflecting on Terri Schiavo’s Case

I see at least two angles from which to approach Terry Schiavo’s situation. The first is the moral/legal angle: is what is happening to her right or wrong? In my opinion, the answer is pretty straightforward: passive euthanasia is as indefensible as active euthanasia.

The second angle is the personal one: should her situation affect me personally? There’s probably a whole lot we could say here, but what follows gets to the very heart of the matter. My sister wrote these reflections on Terri’s case in her journal yesterday. Her entry affected me so deeply, I asked her if I could republish it here. (For those who are concerned about such things, I changed the names.) Here’s her post…

The Terri Schiavo case seems to drag on and on, pushing into the numb areas of our brains til we no longer want to hear any more about it. Til we no longer care, really. That’s just human nature—it doesn’t affect me personally, and until it does, please just shut up about it. I went to the website that tells her story, and I felt it begin to affect me personally. So I thought I'd tell why.

I used to work in a huge 24-hour care hospice for mentally retarded, physically handicapped, often self-abusive people. I worked in the children’s ward. Each CNA was assigned a group of 4 to 6 children, often separated by gender. I was assigned the boy’s group more often than not because of my age and physical strength. I grew to love those boys in a way that has never left me.

Brandon -- autistic and mentally retarded. He would play for hours with difficult toys, holding them just out of his vision and operating them perfectly. He walked with gigantic, jerky steps. He was tall for 16, and his autism ran him into a mental and emotional cave. I discovered that he would let me hug him from behind, digging my chin into his right shoulder and humming. He would not only let me, he would actually giggle.

Brent -- he was my first grand mal seizure. I cried. I'd never seen a human form reduced to such helplessness. When it was over, he was limp. It was the only time Brent was ever able to be limp. His muscles were normally stretched taut, poisoned by rigidity. He was sweet and precious in his coos and smiles and huge eyes. He was 14.

Marky -- what a challenge. Tiny, soooo tiny. He was 17, but I could carry him as easily as I carry my 4-year-old today. He would slam any area of his body into his large, pointed teeth. He had sores and green infection all over from his self-abuse. He was born with no eyes. He had the highest cognitive ability of any of our residents. He could feed himself, walk unassisted, bathe himself, drink, use the bathroom. He would go into fits of rage and throw himself around his room, damaging his body horribly. I was afraid of him. Then I found out how much he loved his baths. I had to lay entire blankets into the tub, lining the hard sides, before filling it with water, but every single night I'd go through the ritual for him. He'd let me undress him and put him in, and then he'd grope about, trying to find the hard surface he knew was there. He wanted to bash his face into it, repeatedly. I'd gently redirect him, guiding his hand to the surface of the warm water, hoping he'd relax and begin to pat it with his boney hand, like he loved to do. I'd sing to him, and I'd tell him that I loved him. After his bath, I'd cuddle him on his bed, rocking him and singing to him. He'd relax into me and breathe in a humming fashion to himself. His destructive fits began to take on a personal pain for me. His parents, unlike most of the others, lived just down the street. They never visited. Not once in the three years I was there. They sent a card for his birthday one time, and I don't believe what he did to it had anything at all to do with chance. I read him the card and helped him feel the fuzzy animals on it. He held it, sat still, and slowly ejected a large wad of spit onto it. I felt the same way.

Kendall -- my little doll. He was born normal, but he had a drop seizure at age two. He was forever two, at 16 years old. He would grab his pillow and yell, "BED!!!" Or he'd point at a picture and grin madly while hollering, "BALL!!!!" He had to wear a football helmet because of his drop seizures, but you could always see his grin and big brown eyes through the face. Everyone was
"mommy" to him.

There were so many others. But the one that I think of when I think of Terri Schiavo is a girl named Anna. She was most often in my co-worker Becca's group. I would help Becca with Anna because Anna required large blocks velcroed between her legs and arms/body every night. And a diaper, of course. Everyone wore diapers. Anna was one of our tube feeders. The other was Chelsea, a responsive, smiley little girl. Anna was the daughter of a couple who had died in a house fire. She survived, but barely. She did nothing; she was capable of absolutely nothing. I never understood why she was even alive. Chelsea's tube feedings were three times a day, administered by us with the nurse on duty. She knew she was eating and would even lick her lips as we filled the tube in her tummy. Anna's tube feeding was constant, like an IV drip. One night, fully expecting Becca's ready agreement, I said in a cutting tone, "I don't even understand why Anna is alive or even here. She is practically comatose." Becca dropped what she was doing, and her eyes met mine, rather shocked and horrified. "Do you really feel that way, Danna?" "Well, not to be mean, but yeah, she never responds, never moves, is capable of NOTHING, yet she lives on through the tube feeding and all our administrations." Becca set her jaw, and asked me to follow her. When we reached Anna's bedside, Becca motioned for me to be quiet. She leaned down to Anna, looking full in her face. "Hi, Sunshine," she cooed at her. "How are you tonight? Do you know I love you, Sunshine?" Anna's body made a shifty move and she smiled a wide, contorted, toothy smile, her fingers flexing jerkily. I felt stabbed. With guilt . . . with total regret. I was red-faced as I walked out next to Becca, and I thanked her for setting me straight.

Anna became one of my biggest blessings after that. She changed my life. She would be described as "no quality of life" and maybe even "persistive vegetative state" incorrectly like Terri Schiavo. But sometimes it's not for us to decide quality by our own subjective standards. Sometimes it's just our responsibility to love and care for our weaker brothers.

I have two daughters. I suffered from an eating disorder. I relate to Terri Schiavo on a couple levels, and I relate to her parents on a universal level. I don't understand why Terri's husband will not relinquish his control, allowing the people who are the reason he is WITH Terri to have her back as their child, their responsibility. Terri is not on life support. She is tube fed. Just like Chelsea and Anna. She is loved and her life is valued.

Why is our justice system bent on protecting a man who does not have the best interests of all involved at heart? Eating disorders don't come from nowhere; my suspicions are ALL on him. He has made two children with his current girlfriend. None of this adds up to "loving" his wife. Why can't he let her go to the ones who want to spend their lives caring for their daughter? I think I would pull a "John Q" if I were them, if either of my daughters was being tormented by her husband like Terri Schiavo is. She left no will, he puts words into her mouth, and from her history, it would appear it's not the first time.

I believe Terri's life is worth protecting. As much I believe the lives of my own children are. Anna taught me that. And I believe that's why God allows Anna and people like her to live: to teach us to love.

Scolding Squirrels and Pesky Parents

How Life Doesn’t Come Naturally to Humans

As I was walking out to my car today, a squirrel hopped down from one of our trees, bounced across the lawn, and scurried up one of our neighbor’s trees. He found a perch to his liking on a limb about 20 feet up where he hunkered down and scolded me with all his little might. I noticed that about ⅔ of his tail was missing, which really got my attention and started me to thinking: “Wow, you’re in a bad mood! What’s with the attitude? And what in the world happened to your poor tail?”

Driving away, I kept thinking about my little woodland critter-criticizer. But now I was thinking in broader categories: “Squirrels use their tail for all kinds of stuff. He must be quite a survivor to live with the little stubby one he’s got. How did he do it? I wonder if he had a tail-loss support group for a while…” And then my train of thought derailed entirely and careened off in a direction that can probably happen only my randomly wired mind…

I started marveling at all the amazing things animals do without any training whatsoever. Little birds leave the nest without ever learning how to build one. Squirrels just know that it’s time to gather food in the fall. Salmon swimming upstream, beavers building dams, bees making honey, whales singing their song… who teaches them this stuff? Sure, some animal species do a little more “child-training” than others, but for the most part, life just comes naturally to animals.

Not so for people, though. We don’t “do life” very well if we’re left to ourselves. Infant human beings have a very limited repertoire of innate abilities: sucking, the falling reflex, stuff like that. And it’s true that a normal, healthy child has incredible potential for development, some of which happens naturally: motor skill progression, language acquisition, and all the other cool stuff you study in developmental psychology. But generally speaking, human beings require purposeful care and training to live, or at least, to live well.

Think about it… Imagine if you had to approach life entirely on your own, no teachers, no models, nothing. You’re given all the raw materials of life but no instruction for how to use them. So you start in on teaching yourself the skills of childhood—tying shoes, adding numbers, telling time, reading words. It’s conceivable that you could eventually learn to do it all on your own; after all, somewhere back there in history some pioneering mathematician worked out 2 + 2 all by himself. But can you imagine the inefficiency, the repeated failures, the frustration, the wasted time and energy?

And then you come to the skills of adolescence and young adulthood—choosing friends, making major decisions, developing your own views of right and wrong, learning to handle your own emotions and desires. Once again, it’s conceivable that you could eventually learn to do it all on your own. But just imagine the inefficiency, the repeated failures, the frustration, the wasted time and energy. Our instincts don’t serve us very well when it comes to this stuff; for our species, life goes better with a teacher.

But here’s where it gets a little sticky… For some strange reason, somewhere along the way to adolescence, we get the idea that we’re ready to go it on our own. We come to believe we’re ready to live by our own instincts. We’re convinced that life comes naturally to us, and we don’t need the help of models or teachers anymore. Hmmm… how strange. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself a bit…

Ever think about what God could have done? He didn’t have to set up our world this way, right? I mean, He created this world; He wrote the rules; He could have set it up any way He wanted. He could have created us to be just like squirrels, where everything just comes naturally and we negotiate through life perfectly well from start to finish with very few dependencies or needs. But He didn’t do it that way. He created us with built-in deficiencies, a need for careful training, an irremediable lack if left to ourselves. God made us this way on purpose.

And then He gave us some built-in, batteries-included, complete package, personal tutors to help us learn what we need to live well. Any idea what I’m talking about? Think it’s your school? Nope. The internet? Not really. Angels who come down and help every new generation? Not quite. God’s solution for our inability to live well on our own is our own parents.

These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Dt 6:6-7)

God commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. (Ps 78:5-7)

Why all this strange contrasting of human development with squirrels? Cuz I want you to take full advantage of the access God has given you to your own personal life coaches. Here’s what I mean…

If you’re still living at home or simply away at college, realize that God gave you parents for a reason. Don’t be so foolish or so arrogant as to assume that you’ll do perfectly fine negotiating through life on your own, thank you very much. Remember how nice it was to have parents who could help you learn your multiplication tables? Well, why not ask them for help with that problem at your lunch table… or with that really huge question you’ve been afraid to ask… or with that temptation you’re struggling with… or with that relationship that you’re mulling over… or whatever else it is. God gave you parents; use ’em!

But not everyone has that option cuz their situation is different. Know what? The family is still the answer even for people with really dysfunctional parents… or only one parent… or none at all. How is that true? Well, that’s where the church comes in as the “family of God.” What your own parents lack in character or wisdom or influence, God intends for you to get from a church family. Even when you’re out of the house and on your own, God still wants you in a family. He gave you the church; use it!

So here’s the deal… You might as well give up on the idea that you’re ready to tackle life on your own. It’s not gonna happen. Ever. Life doesn’t come naturally to humans. We need instructors, teachers, models, and friends. In short, we need family. So quit acting like you’re some squirrel. It’s time to quit reading this blog, get off the internet, and get talking to your parents!

Get Real, Part 2

Making It Happen

Nick asked a really good question after reading the post “Get Real” below: “How can we fight the easy but disappointing tendency to keep to ourselves?” I thought a lot about it, wrote out ¾ of my answer a couple days later, and then tucked it away with all my other unfinished posts. Until now…

How can we fight for community? My answer falls into two parts, a two-directional approach that targets our own heart first and then our approach to relationships second.

In our original created state, complete openness extended all the way to our physical forms: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Gen 2:25) The point here is not nudity; it’s community. They had absolutely nothing to hide. Total openness, nothing concealed. But obviously that state of perfect community didn’t last beyond the first recorded human meal. The first two things they did after their dinner of forbidden fruit were to get dressed and to hide from God. The lesson is pretty clear: sin destroys community.

This realization is a pretty important part of the answer in and of itself, because we don’t usually fear sin for what it will do to our relationships with others. Typically we fear sin because we like a clean conscience or we want to stay out of jail or we want to keep up our image in the eyes of other people. Rarely do we fear sin because we love being so close to people and we know sin will pull us apart. But the simple realization that sin ruins relationships—even sin that is not inherently related to the relationship itself—this awareness heightens the stakes considerably. Temptation loses lots of luster when I realize that even my secret sins or my little problems like greed and pride and laziness ruin the intimacy in my marriage, my friendships, and my community.

So the first way to fight for community is to fight sin in our own lives. My own sin is the biggest obstacle to intimacy in any of my relationships. Peter makes this point when he writes: “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” (1 Pt 1:22) In other words, we can’t connect when we’re covered with crud. It’s like trying to hook up a trailer that’s been sitting with its hitch in the mud: the connection isn’t possible until you get the gook out.

The second way to fight for community is to develop a cross-centered approach to our relationships. Put most simply, a cross-centered mindset works like this: “I’m completely forgiven and accepted by God because of Jesus. So how does that impact this friendship?”

For example, genuine community demands openness: no secrets, no façade, no desire to impress. False pretenses make pretend friendships. The alternative, of course, is to be who we really are, but yikes! What if we open up and we get rejected? Ouch! What a risk!

Enter the gospel… The cross minimizes risk in a couple ways. First, since the most important Person in the universe accepts us, it matters a lot less if other people don’t. Second, the cross means that the crud people might see when we let them in isn’t our permanent crud. We’re actually a guest on God’s “Complete Makeover: Soul Edition.” People are a lot more forgiving when they realize there’s a transformation going on, like when they see those “Please Excuse Our Mess” signs at the mall when they’re remodeling a store.

The need to be cross-centered is pretty obvious, if we think about it. After all, the cross fixed what the Fall ruined. If we understand that the Fall ruined community, we can intuit that the cross restores it.

One of clearest examples of people living in really close community, sharing their stuff, and enjoying intimate relationships is the Jerusalem church. “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” (Acts 4:32) Where did that kind of community come from? The very next verse says, “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” I take that to mean, among other things, that this was a group profoundly centered on the gospel. The gospel is the garden where real community grows.

So, that’s my answer. The first step is directed inward; the second is outward. Fight sin in your own life; live the gospel with others. There’s probably a whole lot more to it that these two things, but I am pretty sure that these two are at the very heart of the matter.

One more thing… I think we’re going to need some very powerful motivation if we’re going to break out of our comfortable but uninspiring habits and pursue community like this. We need more than technique; we need inspiration. So how about this…

John takes up the theme of community in his first letter, and he hits it pretty hard. He’s arguing with all his might for close fellowship, extolling our love for each other, commending forgiveness, going on and on. But just a couple verses into the subject, he gives us his motive for writing: “we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 Jn 1:4). Catch it? He’s stirring them up to pursue community so that his joy and theirs will be full, perfect, complete. So there you go…

Want to be fully, perfectly, completely happy? Get real.

Hi!

...And A Quick Update

Hey all you Waltzian Heretics out there! Just a quick post to let you know I’m still alive and I intend to keep writing. BUT… I have to figure out when.

Things have been crazybusy lately (to use a term coined by another blogger). If you were to check the date on my last post, you’d have the exact moment my life hit warp speed. My seminary classes started up again that second week in January, and things haven’t been the same since. In fact, even as I write this post I’m spooning soup into my mouth between sentences, opting for a working lunch instead of the preferable “lunch break.” (Reminds me of Jesus’ situation in Mark 6:31: “many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” Yep, that’s me – just like Jesus!)

So anyway, please check back occasionally. I think I’m getting a little better handle on things. And thanks to those of you who have continued to check and have even asked me what’s up. Life is what’s up.

Get Real

Secrecy, Authenticity and Community

A discussion came up in class today about a question I’ve been pondering for the last month or two. It’s a pretty straightforward issue: living with authenticity, being who you really are, taking “what you see is what you get” as a motto for life. The tough part is gauging how rigorously to apply this value to our daily lives. I’m not talking about speaking your mind, a virtue only virtuous in the eyes of those tactless enough to practice it. I’m talking about how we live, especially how we present ourselves to other people. To what extent should transparency characterize our lives? Here’s the answer I’m inclined toward: more than it usually does.

We all appreciate authenticity in others, and most of us value it as an abstract virtue. But it seems that we all tend more toward secrecy than openness, at least in areas or with people that really matter. It’s like a gloomy gravity of the soul, this pull toward isolation that is universal among us. And since we weren’t made to be alone, we hate it. But often our drift apart is so subtle and happens at such a deep level in our soul, we can’t even put our finger on the problem. Sometimes our whole life just feels wrong, even though most what we can see (family, career, etc.) looks like it should make us pretty happy.

Perhaps this partly explains the burgeoning phenomenon of internet friendships: a feeling of community without the risks of authenticity. I have heard that genuine friendships really can be formed on the Web, and so I don’t want to speak in universal terms here. But I can’t help but suspect that the internet offers an environment that fosters an insincere and contrived kind of connectedness, a mere shadow of the real thing our hearts were made to know. It seems like it would be far too easy to hide the most painful, embarrassing parts of ourselves and thus to forfeit the sense of community that comes from true authenticity. Or, when we’ve been totally honest about who we are, we can just disregard the more critical responses from our internet “friends,” because they don’t really matter to us anyway.

Anyway, as I’ve already implied, I think authenticity is vital because genuine community is impossible without it, and we were made to be in community with other people. One of the most significant parts of the Creation story is what it teaches us about how our souls work. It’s a really cool story, too. God creates Adam and gives him his marching orders: have lots of kids, manage the creation, watch out for that one tree. For the earliest hours of human existence though, Adam is entirely on his own. God comments on the problem first: “It is not good for this guy to be alone.” But before He brings Eve along, He gives Adam his first creation-management responsibility: name all the animals. As every species of bird and critter saunters by, Adam comes up with a label that fits: “OK, those are hyenas. Um… we’ll call you guys ‘elephants.’ Those really slow ones are sloths.” Here’s the actual account from the Bible: “The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” (Gen 2:20)

Did you notice that last sentence? It’s significant. “For Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” Since God already commented on that point a couple verses earlier, I think this verse describes Adam’s realization of it. Remember that thing about naming all the animals? Imagine the scene. Adam has seen every critter in the garden, and every one of them trotted or slithered or soared or crawled by... in couples! Every animal had a companion, a perfect match. And so he’s like, “Dude! Where’s mine?” One nap later, he’s laying eyes on Eve for the first time. Isn’t it awesome that the first recorded human words are a love poem?! He sings out: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen 2:23)

Interestingly, medieval art depicting the Fall has Adam on one side of the tree with Eve on the other. It’s a poignant illustration of the isolation sin always causes. God created us to be in open, honest relationships; Satan seeks to get us hidden and alone. In fact, even God isn’t secret in any of His ways since He exists eternally as three persons in one. Nothing hidden; perfect community. Maybe the doctrine of the Trinity actually has some application to our lives after all!

Listen to this evaluation from author and Christian counselor Larry Crabb: “I have come to believe that the root of all our personal and emotional difficulties is a lack of togetherness, a failure to connect that keeps us from receiving life and prevents the life in us from spilling over onto others. I therefore believe that the surest route to overcoming problems and becoming the people we were meant to be is reconnecting with God and with our community.” (Connecting) Those are some pretty lofty promises, but I’m coming to believe that he just might be correct.

To what extent should transparency characterize our lives? More than it usually does. Take a hard look at your own life. How much energy do you exert maintaining a façade? Do you have secrets that you’d be mortified for your most respected friends to learn? Are you two or three or four different people, depending on where you are and who you’re with? Does anyone know the real you?

When I saw The Incredibles a few months back, I pondered what superpowers I would like to have. I have a hard time narrowing down the list, but I can promise you one ability that I don’t think any one of us needs: invisibility.

Want to be what God intended? Get real.

A Little Target Practice of My Own

My Resolutions for 2005

OK, I’ve decided to do it. I’m going to go public with my goals for 2005. (Yes, I’m aware that it’s doubtful whether the small readership of this blog can truly be considered “public,” but what else could I say?) Here they are…

1. To orient my heart to Christ’s approval as the strongest and highest motivation for all I do, especially over against approval from others.
2. To demonstrate such a pattern of consistency in prayer in daily life and such a quickness in resorting to prayer in times of need that could truly be called devotion to prayer.
3. To develop a rhythm (2x per week is my tentative goal) of exciting and effective discussions with my two oldest boys to ground them in the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Christian faith.
4. To respect others’ time more by beginning and ending events under my control at the appointed or published times.

That’s it; just four. Every other area of my life is under perfect control. NOT! I have a whole lot of areas beyond just these four that could use some attention. I just don’t want to bite off more than I can chew, and these four are the greatest priorities in my heart right now.

So, why did I put my goals out here for you to read? Three reasons:

1. I want to demonstrate to you that I don’t just dispense advice without attempting to live by it myself. I’ve encouraged you to set goals for this year, and I want you to know that I’ve done it, too.
2. I welcome the accountability that publishing these goals creates for me. It helps me combat the laziness and indifference that inevitably set in after a couple months. After all, God designed the Christian life to be lived in community right alongside fellow strugglers, but the benefits of walking together come only when we walk with transparency and openness. By the way, this means that you can feel free to email or call or talk to me anytime you want about any of these goals. It’s open season, and you have all the ammo.
3. I’m hoping you’ll do the same thing. See that little blue hyperlink “# comments” down there? I want you to use it. I want you to go public with your own resolutions for 2005, at least the ones that aren’t too private. Don’t worry about your grammar or writing style; write however you want. But please write something. I know there are at least a few regular readers out there, most of whom don’t comment. That’s usually perfectly OK with me, but just this once I’m asking you to be brave and go for it. Thanks!

"Crossing" Off Another Year

My Major Lesson from 2004

For me, 2004 was a year defined by relearning the gospel. Its bearing, not its meaning. Its importance in my daily life, not only at the Judgment Day. Its crucial role in my day-to-day Christian life, not just its role as the entry point to my Christian life. The defining lesson of 2004 was this: I need the cross, the gospel of Jesus Christ every single moment of every single day.

What do I mean by “the gospel”? Simply this: God sent His Son into the world to live a perfect life and die an atoning death for sinners like you and me. Jesus Christ, holy (and wholly) God, absorbed the unrestrained fury of God’s wrath against us so that you and I, rebellious sinners, could enjoy the unreserved benefits of God’s pleasure in Him.

Through the eye-opening work of the Holy Spirit in His word, the help of several authors, and the fellowship of several close friends, I am learning to live the gospel every day. I’m learning what Jerry Bridges meant when he wrote: “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And you best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” (The Discipline of Grace)

Here are some areas I’m learning to live the gospel:

• Relating to God. The gospel frees us from emotion-driven concern about whether we feel close to God by explaining that Jesus truly has brought us close to Him. When we really understand the gospel, we are released from the fruitless struggle to earn God’s favor with our goodness and the contstant tendency to despair because of our failures.
• Relating to others. The gospel allows us to be who we really are—no secrets, no façade, no desire to impress—with the people we know; after all, Jesus already knows about all our crud and He’s taken care of it. The gospel also causes us to take our sin against others seriously—no rationalizing, no blame shifting, no minimizing; after all, the perfect Son of God had to die to atone for it. And the gospel opens the way for us to forgive their sins against us, since our sin against God will never match what someone else could do to us.
• Reading the Bible. The entire Bible is the story of God’s pursuit of His people—the gospel. Everywhere we read, we should look for pointers to or illustrations of or implications from the gospel.

Casting Crowns’ song “Who Am I?” was the soundtrack of my life in 2004. It seems to have been playing, either audibly or in my mind, at each major experience over the last 12 months. I love the carefully crafted poetry, the God-exalting images, the way the music affects my entire person (heart, mind, body), everything. But what makes the whole song for me is Mark Hall’s answer to the question he poses in the title: “You've told me who I am/I am Yours.” I love that! The question isn’t really “who am I?”; it’s “whose am I?” The gospel tells me that what defines me, the essential answer to the question “who am I?”, is quite simply that I am God’s. No matter what else might be true about me, that’s the main thing. Who am I? Because of the cross, I’m God’s. And that’s the gospel.

Firing First and Painting Later

A Call for Sharpshooters in 2005

You might not realize it, but there are two approaches to expert marksmanship. The first is to train the crosshairs on the exact center of the target, take a deep breath, exhale about halfway and hold it, and slowly squeeze the shot off, holding your aim steady on the bull’s-eye the entire time. The second approach is to forget all that disciplined skill and just shoot the rifle. Then, you just go paint a target around the spot where the slug leaves a hole. Pretty simple, huh?

Wait a second… You don’t believe me? You don't think that second approach would be accepted as “expert marksmanship”?! Well, you’re right. That’s not how sharpshooters are made—by firing first and painting later.

But sometimes that’s how we live our lives, isn’t it? We don’t really aim for much; we just do what comes naturally and then see where we end up. How strange! And how unbiblical!

Ever notice how many people in the Bible purposed to live a certain way or aim for a specific goal? “Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank.” (Dan 1:8). “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1) Even Paul himself: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). These people are sharpshooters! They have an intended target, and they are aiming directly at it.

So here we are, on the brink of a brand new year. Hmmm… I wonder where we’ll be when the holidays roll around again. Will we be more faithful in our devotions? Will we have talked to anyone about Jesus? Will we know God better through prayer and meditation on His word? Will we have given Him our best every day, or will we give only enough to get by?

Here’s what I’d like to suggest… Take the next couple days and evaluate your life—spiritually, socially, educationally, etc. Pray a lot. Think hard. Then write down a few specific “targets” you’re going to aim at during this new year.

After you write down your goals, do one more thing. Read over and pray about them at least weekly. In reviewing them this often, we’ll be following the great example of Jonathan Edwards, who used to read his list of personal resolutions weekly, too (a list that grew to 70 goals by the time he finished!).

Let’s aim for something significant this year, OK? No more firing first and painting later!

Defined by the Details

What the Birth of Jesus Says About You

The trimmings of the season were all around me during my devotions this morning: the massive Christmas tree next to my oversized chair, the glow from the seasonal lights over the fireplace reflecting off the pages of my Bible, mellow carols quietly playing on the stereo in the next room. It seemed a strange setting in which to read the passion narrative, but since that’s where my Bible reading plan has me this time of year, that’s what I read—John 19:16-42.

Surrounded by all these reminders of the birth of Christ, I read and pondered John’s description of the death of Christ. All at once I was struck by the parallel details in the two accounts, similarities I had never put together before. Here’s what I saw…

Both are marked by stunning humiliation. The humiliations of His birth—the social status of His family, the tedious journey to Bethlehem, the rejection at the inn, the manger-bed—these details seem warm and wonderful to us now, all wrapped up in the packaging of Christmas as they are; but they are still humiliations nonetheless. Those of His death are equally well known to us—the nakedness and mockery, the accompaniment by known criminals, the abandonment by His closest friends, the absolute disgrace of execution by crucifixion.

Both offer a special notification to others about who Jesus was. At Christ’s birth the special announcement came to the shepherds via the angels. At His death it was via a sarcastic sign posted above His head by Pontius Pilate.

Both are accented by a high concentration of fulfilled prophecies. The prophesies surrounding His birth (His name, the virginity of His mother, the location in Bethlehem, etc.) and those surrounding His death (the dividing of His garments, His thirst, the piecing of His hands and feet and side, His burial in a borrowed tomb, etc.) make these two periods the most prophesy-intensive of His entire life.

Finally, both offer unusual details about how He was clothed and where He was laid. At both His birth and His death He was wrapped in linen cloths, a peculiar little detail that has always made me curious about why the biblical authors felt inclined to include it. In addition, both accounts are careful, for whatever reason, to tell us exactly where He was laid: in a manger at His birth and in a friend’s tomb at His death.

So what’s the point of it all? Here’s what I think… It seems to me that these details are little hints that we ought to see the birth of Christ in light of the death of Christ. The romantic details of Bethlehem foreshadow the horrific details of Golgotha. In other words, we miss the point of Christ’s birth if we don’t recognize the point of His death.

But just in case we miss these subtle details, there is explicit evidence right in the birth narratives that this event points directly to the cross. For example, the angels told the shepherds that the one born in Bethlehem was “a Savior” (Lk 2:11). And the song sung by the angel choir pointed toward our forgiveness when they sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Lk 2:14) Simeon’s prophecy also foreshadowed the crucifixion when he told Mary: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” (Lk 2:34-35) Clearly, Christ’s birth cannot be separated from His death.

One more point about these similarities between the manger and the cross… Though these details come in similar form at Christ’s birth and at His death, they have directly opposite effects on some people. Some, like the shepherds, receive the announcement of the angels with gladness, but they also, like the Jews, receive the declaration of Pilate’s sign with derision. Some who love the humiliation of His birth scoff at the humiliation of His death. Some who find the linen wrappings around the babe in the manger to be irresistibly romantic also find the burial shroud around the corpse in the tomb to be irreparably repulsive.

So what does all this say about you? These parallels are meant to forge an unbreakable link between Christ’s birth and His death. Do you rejoice at His birth but scoff at His death? Or do you worship at His birth precisely because it points you to His death? How do the details define you?

Oversight or Insight?

Looking Carefully at a “Mistake” in the Bible

In reading through Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth recently, I noticed what appeared to be an embarrassing mistake he made in applying a verse from Isaiah to Jesus’ birth. Here’s the passage:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). Mt 1:18-23

Did you see the mistake? It’s in the names. Look closely. The angel says “you shall call his name Jesus” but Isaiah’s prophecy says, “they shall call his name Immanuel.” And to make matters worse, Matthew clearly says, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken…” If he hadn’t been quite so broad, we might have been able to slip off the hook by arguing that he was only talking about the “born of a virgin” part and not the names part. But he had to go and use that word “all.” Hmmm…

So I pondered and prayed and reread the verses, and then I think I found the answer. It’s in the tiny word “for”—the one followed by the clause “he will save his people from their sins.” But before I explain how that one word solves the problem, we need to think for just a moment about the two names themselves.

Matthew defines the name Immanuel for us right in the verse: “God with us.” The meaning of “Jesus” isn’t quite as explicit, though it is implied. Just like the Hebrew name Joshua, Jesus means “Jehovah saves.”

When the angel told Joseph to name his son Jesus, he was choosing a name that declares the exclusive position of Jehovah as the only savior of His people. But remarkably, he follows the name immediately with “FOR he will save his people from their sins.” In effect, the angel says: “Name your son ‘Jehovah saves,’ because he’s going to save you.” Apparently, this baby is going to do something that previously was done by Jehovah Himself: save His people. The point is unmistakable: this baby must be God!

Thus, when Matthew saw in Isaiah 7:14 that the virgin’s baby was called Immanuel—“God with us,” he saw the perfect fulfillment in the angel’s announcement to Joseph. Since only God can save His people, and since this baby is going to be named “Jehovah saves” precisely because he (the baby) will save His people from their sins, this baby must be God. To say that this infant will be our Savior is just another way of saying that this baby is God with us!

And then, instead of criticizing Matthew for his careless oversight, I was thanking God for his profound insight. Like John Piper says, “Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but sometimes you find diamonds.” Thanks, Matthew, for the Christmas diamond!

From Devastation to Elation

The Journey Back to God

OK, so it’s last Friday, and I am utterly collapsing (or so it feels to me…) under the cumulative weight of a dozen different problems that have added up to become one gargantuan spiritual crisis. Everywhere I turn, things look disastrous: my relationships are in ruins, my responsibilities are overwhelming, my resources are spent, blah blah blah. Fast-forward three days to Monday, and it’s hardly recognizable as the same life. There, see me? Yep, I’m the dude whistling as he trots up the sidewalk to the office. Life is goood! Why the drastic change? Well, it was a combination of causes…

First, I got in the word, because I know that “the law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps 19:7). Moses said it just like I experience it: “it is no empty word for you, but your very life” (Dt. 32:47). If I don’t get in the word when I’m struggling, I’m dead! In fact, most of my struggles start precisely because I’ve been neglecting the word.

Second, people got in my face. Well, not just “people”…rather, people who know me well and love me anyway. And with their God-centered words and God-filled lives, they brought me back to a Godward orientation. Not all of what they said was fun to hear, but I guess that’s because salt usually stings as it cleanses: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Col 4:6).

Third, I surrendered. God had been asking for something, I knew it, and I just wasn’t going there. And so that lead-balloon feeling in my gut began to intensify. I resisted pretty well until the steel girders of my soul—hope and joy and peace—were twisting and cracking from the stress. The inexpressible relief and buoyant feeling when I finally surrendered was like… well, (to alter the image a bit) it was kind of like the pleasure you get when you finally stop smashing your thumb with a hammer.

And fourth, I worshipped. Psalm 73 provides one of my favorite biblical illustrations of the stabilizing power of glimpsing God in worship. Asaph’s soul is reeling from doubt and confusion in the first half of the Psalm, but in the last half he’s all fixed up. The change comes in verses 16-17: “when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God…” And what was significant about entering the sanctuary? It’s where Asaph saw God.

Seeing God has a wonderful way of reorienting your soul. It’s like dropping a massive ballast into the bottom of a tipping ship or drawing all the planets into orbit around the sun (both analogies from John Piper). In fact, I would argue that glimpsing God is at the heart of every one of these corrective influences in my life: the word reveals God, people communicate God, surrender opens the heart to God, worship unveils God…

And so what I conclude from all of this is that the “gargantuan spiritual crisis” of Friday was fundamentally a shortage of God in my life. And that’s the basis for my appeal to you. If you read the description of my Friday and said, “Yep, that’s me,” then take that as a little “heads up” that, in one way or another, you need more of God. So get in the word, talk to your wisest friends, surrender what He’s calling for, worship, or whatever—whatever it takes to reorient your life with God at the center.

So why not get going on your journey back to God? One more thing… For those of you who feel like you have too far to go and you doubt whether you can make it, here’s a promise to spark your hope and steel your resolve: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Can’t beat that for a little assistance along the way!

Standing (and Falling) on Grace

Finding Hope in Being Normal

Am I the only one whose Christian life tends to run in a cycle—up, then down, then back up again? Usually it’s not extreme Jekyll and Hyde shifts here, like some out-of-control rollercoaster ride of the soul. But my desire for God and joy in God definitely ebb and flow. Sometimes a lot. Even my best weeks are hardly a steady climb up the “Jacob’s Ladder” of spiritual bliss.

Chances are, most of you know what I’m talking about. For example, last Friday God seemed light years away, and life was excruciating. Today, life is sweet. I know exactly what caused the change, and when I have an opportunity to write more I’ll explain it and also offer some practical advice for what to do when you’re down. But today, let’s just be encouraged knowing that we’re not the only Christian who faces ups and downs along the way. For example, John Piper writes: “Normal Christian life is a repeated process of restoration and renewal. Our joy is not static. It fluctuates with real life.” (Desiring God)

And Charles Spurgeon wrote from his own experience when he penned: “Fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy.” And lest we think only spiritual weaklings struggle this way, he gives us a great historical example: “The life of Luther might suffice to give a thousand instances, and he was by no means of the weaker sort. His great spirit was often in the seventh heaven of exultation, and as frequently on the borders of despair.” (Lectures to My Students)

The Bible recognizes this struggle, too. “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps 19:7). If all is well all the time, who needs reviving? Even David struggled from time to time, for he wrote: “He restores my soul” (Ps 23:3). Apparently even the man after God’s own heart had bad days.

So what should we do about the fickleness of our own heart? Well, like I mentioned above, I’ll give some more advice in future posts, but for now, here are two thoughts to keep in mind. First, recognize that what you’re experiencing is pretty normal. Strive to stand, but don’t feel like you’re all alone when you fall! Second, whether you’re up or down, realize that grace is your only hope. When we stand, we stand on grace; and when we fall, we fall on grace.

I think the late songwriter Rich Mullins drew a pretty good bead on how to view the ups and downs of life when he sang:

If I stand, let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through
And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you
And if I sing, let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs
And if I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his home.

The Incredibles, Real-Life Style

Our Dependence on Lives Well Lived

One of our church members turned 100 years old today. Her body is frail, but her mind is still as sharp as ever. Best of all, though, is the condition of her soul. For longer than most of us will even live, she has seen and loved and walked with Jesus Christ, and her spiritual legacy abounds with family members and friends whose souls will forever bear her God-bearing fingerprints. The Apostle John gave us a great way to pray for her: “Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well” (3 Jn 1:2).

Her life reminds me of the biblical mandate to have heroes. Not heroes who mean more to us than Jesus, but heroes who give us inspiration and vision and direction by their devotion and discipline, their accomplishments and aspirations, their flaws and failures. And yes, I do think having heroes is not an option; it’s a biblical mandate!

This is implied in the way Scripture is written—most of it is narrative. Apparently, we need more than just the truth in abstract form; we need to see it lived, breathed, broken, loved. “God loved the world” doesn’t hit us with quite the same force as the picture of Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus (Jn 11:35). Kind of like reality TV (which, of course, is hardly deserving of the name), we crave glimpses of real lives. We need heroes.

The writer of Hebrews makes this explicit when he says: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (13:7) This exhortation comes just a few paragraphs after he has named a dozen heroes (11:4-40) and used their lives as an argument for how we ourselves should live (12:1-2).

So here’s my suggestion to you. Sometime in the next few months, read a biography of a great Christian. Implied in this suggestion is one of the criteria I use to select my own heroes: pick somebody who’s dead. Hebrews 13:7 advises us to “consider the outcome of their way of life,” which we can’t quite measure until they’re finished living it. So save yourself the devastation of a fallen hero by restricting your “hero” category to dead dudes only. Or at least pick heroes you can be sure about because they’ve lived faithfully for the last 100 years!

Glimpses of God in the Raking of Leaves

Pondering God’s Glory in Fall Yard Work

Yesterday I finished my annual leaf-raking marathon. We have 3 gargantuan trees in our yard, and our neighbors all have several of their own, which means we relax under great shade in the summer and swim in an ocean of fallen leaves in the fall. We love our trees, but when the sap stops flowing in October or November, we start raking and don’t stop for weeks.

I took a little break yesterday to make a phone call to a couple God-centered young ladies and that’s when the question came: “What of God do you see in leaf-raking?” Hmmm… what a strange question! But it’s the right one to ask, because after all, everything in life exists to bring glory to God. So we should probably consciously consider “What do I learn or see or remember of God in this?” in every single thing we do, learn, see, experience, feel…

How is leaf raking a means to see and savor the glory of God? I came up with 2 answers. First, leaf raking reminds me that everyone has God’s fingerprints all over his/her soul. Everyone, both God-fearers and God-haters, tends to prefer order rather than disorder. A well-tended lawn reminds me of God’s command to our first parents: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28). Why are we this way? Because God is this way, and He created us as a reflection Himself. When your neighbor rakes his leaves, he’s showing the family likeness.

Second, leaf raking reminds me that my heart longs for God and God alone. A few months ago these leaves were a beautiful accent to those gorgeous summer days, but now they’re withered and dry. And once again we’re reminded that all the beauties and joys of earth are transient, fleeting, and contingent. The very temporariness of a leaf’s life reminds us that, not all the splendor of earth, but God Himself is the desire of our soul.

Here’s the application to you… Don’t take a break from what you’re doing to think about God. Ponder Him right there in the midst of whatever you’re doing. Discover God right there in your math homework, your daily commute, your relational issues, the news, the weather, whatever. Your job isn’t to bring Him into these things; He’s there already. Your job is just to see Him there!

So next time you’re raking leaves, look for God. Make your own backyard a place of worship and make the leaves themselves holy articles for seeing and savoring God Himself. Still skeptical that tree leaves can be quite that edifying? Well then, you might need a new glimpse of heaven, where “on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yields its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2).

A Sheep in Need of The Shepherd

A Devotional Journal Entry

I came to the Bible tonight with my cup bone-dry, weary of life and longing for God. I’m a pastor, but tonight I felt more like a sheep than a shepherd. In fact, that very metaphor was simmering on the back burner of my mind, since I had encountered it twice in the last 24 hours: praying through Psalm 23 last night with an anxious church member and meditating on Isaiah 53 this morning during Communion.

My Bible reading schedule has me in Ezekiel right now, and so my expectations were shamefully low. I kind of assumed I’d read the obligatory chapters and then move on to a more helpful portion of Scripture in my quest to hear the gentle voice and feel the tender touch of my Shepherd. And then I came to the middle of chapter 34…

"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…”

I was stunned to hear the Lord God taking the words of Psalm 23 on His own lips and saying them to me: “I myself will search for my sheep… I will bring them out… I will feed them with good pasture… I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep… I myself will make them lie down… I will seek… I will bring back… I will bind… I will strengthen…” And suddenly I was there, hearing His voice, finding good pasture, quenching my thirst…

But Now I See…

Seeing Christianity as a Certain Way of Seeing

I’m nearly convinced that the main struggle in all the Christian life is the struggle to see. Not “to see” in the sense of light waves and optic nerves and brain sensations. “To see” in the sense that Jesus meant: “For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” (Mt 13:15-16)

This language of seeing is all over the place in the Bible. Why are certain people Christians and others not? Because in the latter case, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4). How are people changed into the image of Jesus Christ? By “beholding the glory of the Lord, [thus] being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). What motivates us to endure suffering? The eyesight of Moses, who “endured as seeing him who is invisible” (Heb 11:27).

I doubt if we would be so flippant about how we spend our days if we could see that life is a vapor (James 4:14). I doubt if we would sin so quickly if we could see the deadly poison underneath the candy coating of temptation (James 1:14-16). I doubt if we would be so attached to earth and so apathetic about heaven if we could see the ugliness here compared with the magnificence there (Rev 21:10-27). I doubt if we would treat people with such condescension and disdain if we could see that the priceless blood of Jesus flowed for their forgiveness (Rom 14:15). I doubt if we would be so casual about poor study habits and low grades if we could see that even the way we eat and drink reflects what we think of God (1 Cor 10:31).

So I conclude that another way to describe true Christianity is that it is a certain way of seeing. If you’re not a Christian, ask God to help you see. If you are one, pray and strive and train yourself to see what you really see. In short, Christian living is Christian seeing. Perhaps John Newton was right in more ways than one when he described his conversion: “I once was lost but now am found/Was blind but now I see.”

Seizing the Day vs. Brushing Your Teeth

Living with Passion AND Responsibility

I don’t know if you caught it in the last post, but Jonathan Edwards really raises the bar on what carpe diem means in practical terms. Resolution #7 reads: “Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.” Now that proposition should stir us up to some really serious thinking…

How many of my normal responsibilities would I do if I knew it were the last hour of my life? Would I write this post? …sleep? …brush my teeth? Probably not. And so the tension emerges: how do I reconcile responsible living with passionate living? Am I forced to choose either “be responsible” or “seize the day” as my philosophy of life?

Some might say we ought to find a balance between the two options. They would argue that sometimes we “seize the day” and other times we just do what we have to do. But I don’t like that answer for two reasons. First, it’s subjective, leaving me without a way to tell if I’m balancing the two ideals correctly. There’s no way to tell if I’m too reckless (seizing the day) or too conservative (being responsible).

Second, it leaves most people right where they started, comfortable with their nonchalant, passionless approach to life. If we resolve the tension of Edwards’ resolution by saying, “Well, you can live that way only sometimes, not all the time,” most people will breathe a sigh of relief and flip the TV back on for the rest of the night.

So here’s the solution that I would propose. We need to take a longer view of “seize the day” than just what it means for me right this moment. In other words, we need to keep tomorrow in mind when we ponder how to seize the day today. We might forfeit opportunities to seize the day tomorrow if we don’t seize the day in a certain way today.

For example, I would love to skydive and feel the explosive adrenaline rush of freefalling for several thousand feet. So I carry that little desire with me for what “seize the day” means for me: skydiving first chance I get. But what if I’m standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon someday and “seize the day” comes to mind? Do I have to choose responsible living over passionate living? Do I say either "yes" to my desire (passion) or "yes" to living for another day (responsibility)? Nope. I just need to be more careful about how I define “seizing the day,” realizing that I might have an opportunity to freefall for several thousand feet AND live to tell about it sometime in the future.

So here’s the application to you… If you’re a student, seize the day by studying with all your might so as to maximize your opportunities in the future. If you’re an employee, work with all your might for the same reason. If you’re a parent, disciple and train and pray with all your might so as to maximize both your own and your children’s opportunities in the future. If you’re a Christian, know and make known Jesus Christ with tomorrow in view. If you’re not a Christian, consider well how you seize the day, realizing that your own eternal joy is at stake.

No matter who you are, take Jonathan Edwards’ resolution as your own for every day and everything you do: “I will never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” Wow. What kind of people would we be if we really lived that way?!

Live Like You Were Dying

Is Carpe Diem a Biblical Way to Live?

Occasionally pop culture produces something that echoes the voice of God Himself. Often the voice of God is so mingled with “non-God” voices that the biblical value is nearly eclipsed by the unbiblical ones. But occasionally pop culture produces an echo of God’s voice that is so loud and so true, the biblical value can’t be missed.

About a month ago I heard Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying.” The point of the song is obvious: life is precious; don’t waste it! It reminded me of the movie Dead Poet’s Society, with its compelling theme: Carpe diem! (“Seize the day!”) The song and the movie both inspire us to live with passion, to seize every opportunity, to squeeze every drop of living we can out of life! In our greatest dreams, we long for a life marked by fervor and intensity and exhilaration. Our souls resonate with Thoreau’s fear: “not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Walden).

But does this approach to life find its original expression in the Bible? Are Tim McGraw and Professor Keating (Dead Poet’s Society) and Henry David Thoreau echoing the truth of God when they implore us to live with all our might?

Jonathan Edwards thought so. In his late teens he developed a list of personal resolutions that guided and motivated him for the rest of his life. Resolutions 5-7 read like this: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.”

As we would expect, Edwards’ philosophy of life is spelled out explicitly in the Bible. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart” (Col 3:23). “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…” (Eph 5:15-16; cf. Col 4:5). “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins” (James 4:14,17). Apparently, half-hearted living is not a biblical option!

So I want to add my voice to God’s and Edwards’ and all those from the culture and say to you: “LIVE!!” Don’t fritter away your precious life on video games, surfing the web, plodding through malls, or watching TV. Live!

I want to wrap up with a few suggestions for how to “seize the day!”
· Realize that wasted hours become wasted days, which become wasted months, which become wasted years, which become a wasted life. So start seizing the day by seizing each hour.
· Take every opportunity you can. Realize that today is a gift and tomorrow is not guaranteed. You might never get this chance again. So do it now!
· Cultivate a sense of wonder and originality in how you look at life. When other people see a homeless bum, consider whether you might have just seen an angel (cf. Heb 13:2).
· Find something worthy—some cause, some person, some mission, and devote your entire life to it. I would argue that the best choice here would be knowing and making known Jesus Christ.

So what are you reading this blog for? Go LIVE!!