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It’s a game we all played in childhood. It’s human nature, really, to play “follow the leader.” It’s a curious game, in that each person chooses when to join in and when to drop out. A child will join in, thinking “This is fun!” or “I wonder what will happen?” or maybe just “Well, everyone else is doing this…” But eventually, they will start to question. “This isn’t so much fun anymore.” “I’m bored.” “Hey look, they’re having more fun over there.” “I don’t like what the leader is doing.” “I want to do what I want to do now.” And soon they will leave the game. Actually, follow the leader is more than just a game for children. It’s a game we all play in life. We started out playing it with the people who raised us. They taught us their values, what they felt about right and wrong, what their concept of God was, what it meant to be a good person, and maybe how to get to heaven if they believed in such a place. Because we were children, we at first accepted what they said and started playing follow the leader. Later, we pick up the direction that our friends or social circle or church or just the world at large is going, and we keep following along. But somewhere along the way, we all start to question the path that we’re on. We find out that life isn’t always simple or even pleasant. We get disillusioned with life, and with the path that we are following. “This doesn’t make sense.” “This isn’t much fun.” “This other path looks so much better…” The reasons may be varied, and come in different forms, but they all point to the same thing: self-determination, wanting to be the captain of your own ship. In some form or fashion, the status quo isn’t working out, and so you strike out on your own. It’s not wrong to question, to honestly seek out the truth, to make sure you really are on the right path. In Isaiah 1:18 God even pleads, “Come, let us reason together.” But usually the reason for leaving the path isn’t a quest for truth, but a quest to pursue pleasure or escape from pain. We’ve all done this. Sometimes it’s dramatic, as when Eve ate the apple, or when a governor decides that his wife isn’t enough for him. Other times it’s much more subtle, and we just take a few steps off the path, just to see where it may lead. However it happens, we all want to stop playing “follow the leader” when the path that we’re on in some way doesn’t suit us, when we see another path that looks better to us. And so we leave the path, and take up a new direction that we choose, that seems to lead to a much easier, more fulfilling destination. But to paraphrase Dr. Phil, “How’s that working for ya?” How is it? How is that little compromise, that little detour you’ve taken? Can you really see the end of the path that you’ve chosen? Do you really know where that detour may one day take you? No, you can’t, can you? If you’re honest, you have to admit that you can’t see the future, you can’t know for sure which path will actually have you end up where you want to be. But there is One who does know the future, and fortunately, He is One in whom we can absolutely trust:
We can’t trust our own intution or understanding. We are finite creatures who are limited and so prone to error. But there is one with infinite knowledge, infinite power, and infinite love for His children. He invites us to follow Him. Will you be willing to trust Him, regardless of whether you understand or desire His path? Will you lay down all your objections and follow the leader today?
There’s something very right about this world. And there’s something terribly wrong. We all sense it, every day. Laughter and tears, joy & sorrow, peace & war, birth & death. Something within us is frustrated, every day. Whether we voice it or not, we feel it: We’re right, of course. The world wasn’t supposed to be this way, it wasn’t supposed to be both beautiful and broken.
The Bible simply & powerfully tells us how things started. God created. God created everything, and at the end, he concluded that it was very good. Butterfly wing and mountain range, flower stem and ocean deep, every single detail of an entire planet down to the atomic level painstakingly handcrafted by an infinite being. Perfect in every way. But as we know, the creation did not stay that way. The perfection was broken, shattered into a billion pieces when man turned his back on God. That act brought incalculable disharmony, suffering, and death into every facet of reality. Shattered like a broken vase, the world we now live in is schizoid. There is still beauty & joy everywhere, but there is also sadness & death. So, how do we live in such a world both beautiful & broken? First, we must enjoy the beauty as a blessing. God could have removed all traces of His beauty after the Fall, but He chose not to. He continues to bless us every day with the beauty of the world and the simple joys of living. There is abundant beauty in this life if we are willing to see it. God meant for us to take joy from this life, as long as we see it as a reflection of His love towards us. Second, we must bear the brokenness of this world through God’s grace. Life can be hard, very hard, in this fallen world. But God has not left us alone; He has given a Comforter to His children in the Spirit, Who lives to communicate God’s love & grace to all of us in our time of need. He is always there to soothe every wound this broken world inflicts upon us. Third, we must look forward to the restoration of all things. This world will not always be broken. One day it will be restored again to glorious perfection, and every tear will be wiped away, and death & sadness will be no more. Until that final day, we can now set ourselves to being faithful to bring God’s love into this world today, bringing beauty and healing brokenness. That is what we can do, each day. Rejoice in God’s beauty, seek God in the brokenness, and work toward the restoration until the day we will all be home.
“This tape will self-destruct in five seconds…” For some of you that will be a familiar line, voiced at the beginning of each episode of Mission: Impossible by a tape recorder that started smoking even as its reels continued to turn. But even before the tape began to roll, you already knew what was going to happen. That tape recorder was manufactured to carry only one message and play it only once. That tape recorder was made to self-destruct. Have you ever stopped to consider that you are no different than that tape recorder? Your body, down to the last cell, has been pre-programmed to self-destruct. It is in our very genetic structure, and in the nature of the current physical universe. No matter how healthy you are, no matter how well you take care of your body, you will eventually grow old and die. God has already programmed you to self-destruct. The Bible speaks very pointedly to this fact:
Is this simply indulging in despair, to think of death? No, or else God would not have inspired these words to be recorded in the Scriptures. These words are in the Bible because God wants us to consider the nature of our lives. The poet-warrior David even prayed to God to help him grasp his own mortality in Psalm 39:
So, we are like that tape-recorder in that we are programmed to self-destruct. But we are also like that tape recorder in another way: we have a message. Each one of us has a message to give to the world in our life, a message of love & hope & worship & joy & obedience toward God. Each one of us is unique, and each one of us is important, and each one of us can glorify our Creator. But guess what— there is one way we are different from the tape recorder. The tape recorder knew how much time it had. It knew when there was only five seconds left. We don’t. We don’t know when the message of our lives will be finished, and the tape will stop rolling. We know our time is brief, but only God knows how long our tape is. You have only one message, and you only get to play it once. Give it all that you have, starting today. Your tape is running, starting now… Tick, tick, tick.
One of the most widely photographed trees in the world was the Jeffrey Pine on the crest of Sentinel Dome in Yosemite National Park. Its beauty was made famous by the legendary Ansel Adams in 1940, and was photographed & enjoyed by thousands until it died of drought in 1977. Many say that its rugged beauty was the result of centuries of harsh winds, frigid winters, and dry summers, that its was a beauty born out of adversity. But I would argue differently. It was not adversity that produced the beauty of the tree— it was the response of the tree to adversity. Over the centuries, there may have been hundreds of seedlings sprout on that rocky crag, but only one survived, yes, not only survived but thrived and became a source of inspiration. What was the difference? How did that tree respond to its adversity? And how can we respond to the adversities in our lives? First, the tree found a secure footing and stayed rooted. This tree dug itself into the great stone mountain, so much larger & stronger than itself. As long as it stayed rooted in the rock, it was immovable, no matter how fiercely the wind blew. Jesus said that we could be the same way. In the parable of the two builders in Matthew 7:24-27 He said that only the house built on the rock was able to withstand the storm. Just like the tree & just like the house, we can withstand the storms of life as long as our roots are firmly planted in the solid rock of Christ’s teachings. Second, the tree kept growing despite the hardship. In the book Mindset psychologist Carol Dweck concludes that successful people share a “growth mindset,” a basic life outlook that says that life is about growth, no matter the challenges. As the old saying goes, life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing those you hold well. That tiny seedling on Sentinel Dome hundreds of years ago did not hold “a good hand,” but it played its hand well. So can you, if you refuse to stagnate, if you continue to learn & change & fight & grow no matter what. Third, the tree drew its life & strength from daily exposure to the sun. That tree could have decided, “This wind and snow is too much, I’ll build a wall all around me and a roof to keep out the cold.” If it had, it would have died, for trees need sunlight to survive. In the same way, we are sometimes tempted to wall ourselves off in our hardship, from others, even from God. But only by daily looking to Christ & abiding in His light can we draw the strength to live & grow & flourish in this all-too-often harsh world. Do you want to have beauty born from the adversity in your life? Then remember to stay anchored and rooted in Christ, keep growing, & draw life & strength daily from Him.
God must have had something special in mind when he made years. Time passes, and we humans have a need to mark it. Marking the passage of life once every 365 days, beginning with the day of your birth, is a curious custom. Some people try to ignore it, some celebrate it, some lie about it, some dread it, but no one escapes it. It’s strange to think that I’ve had forty five of these days in my life now. At first I think forty five seems like a lot, but then I consider it is not very many at all. These singular events in our lives tend to make us to reflect, assess, & plan— to look at the past, present, & future. I look at my past, & most of all I see God’s mercy & grace so evident. I think of the words that Charlie Peacock once penned:
God gives us the gift of time, so that we have time to change, to turn toward Him & become like Him. I am slowly realizing that the whole purpose of time is for this one goal of God’s: to make me like Him, to restore the original intent in the Garden that man was to be in God’s image. I presently only dimly grasp what it means to be made in God’s image, to become conformed to the image of His Son as Paul wrote in Romans 8. This much I do know: it is more than simply doing good things, more than finding happiness, more than even “walking with God.” It is becoming holy as God is holy. It is a reality that is staggering beyond all my ability to conceive. Every day I still see so much selfishness and chaos in my soul and it grieves me, but I can also catch a glimpse of something that gives me hope and indescribable joy. It is more than just the bad stuff being improved or cleaned up. It is something new, something glorious, something that could only come about through God’s miraculous power. It is happening to me now bit by bit, as the very core essence of who I am is being reworked, is being remade by the Spirit of God. I have so far to go and it is a task far too great for me; this keeps me humble and always seeking after God. But the very fact that my ultimate success is not in my hands but His grants me an unassailable confidence as I go. And so I journey on, on a path that feels like I’ve been on a long time, but on the timescale of eternity have only just begun. Even through my weakness, my sinfulness, stumbling, & mistakes, there is a song in my heart and in my life, a song that I will sing to My Savior today, tomorrow, when I’m ninety, and stretching out for all eternity. I think Sarah Reeves expresses it best:
An expert, however, can play the game through its 255 levels without losing once. How can they win so flawlessly over and over again? Simple: the game always stays the same. The ghosts (the bad guys) have behavior patterns that never change; learn the patterns once and you master the game. The Pac-Man you won at in 1980 you can win at today doing the exact same thing because it is the exact same game. And that, my friends, is precisely how people are not like Pac-Man. People change. Yes, I know you already knew that, but do you live like it? Have you thought about the implications of it? The people that you knew in 1980 do not exist anymore. They have become different people. The people you knew last week do not exist anymore either; they have become different as well, and so have you. This means that the relationship that you have with them has to change. If you “play” your relationship with your parent, your friend, your spouse, your child, in the exact same way that you did ten years ago, you will lose— people are not like Pac-Man. This is a prime reason relationships fail: the people change, but the relationship does not. The moral of the story? Look at your vital relationships with your friends and your family. Are you trying to play by exactly the same rules? Do you expect your spouse to devote the same amount of time to you as she did before she had children? Do you expect your friend to be able to drop everything he was doing to go golfing the way he did before he got married? Do you expect your teen to relate to you the same way he did as a tween? For a relationship to grow and flourish it has to change with the passage of time, just as the people that make up the relationship do. Don’t try to force your past rules or past expectations on the people in your life; always be looking for “new patterns” to win at your relationship “games” everyday.
Then why do marriages grow stale and fail? Once again, it is a matter of the heart. In their book The Wholehearted Marriage, counselors Greg Smalley & Shawn Stoever pound home this one simple point: you can’t improve a marriage relationship without focusing on the heart. All the conflict resolution, financial planning, dating tips, & sex guides in the world will not help a marriage unless you have “two hearts fully open and engaged.” Consequently, the book guides the reader through steps to “understand, unclog, & unleash” the heart in marriage. In the first part of the book the authors deal with understanding the heart and its central role in life & relationships. Their basic principle that a closed heart will not be able to love and engage in a relationship is important, and I think many marriages fail for precisely this reason. We’ve all seen marriages where two people pledged themselves to each other & to God, and yet ended up turning away. The underlying reason often comes down to one person closing their heart to the other. From understanding the heart the authors move on to unclogging the heart. There are chapters on helping to heal the wounded heart, helping to open up the fearful heart, and helping the exhausted heart to gain strength. Their view of the heart is similar to that of popular author John Eldredge and some other psychologists. I find their views and advice to often be helpful but also theologically shallow. There are some real problems with the heart, especially concerning the sin nature, which are not adequately covered in this view. Like Eldredge, they also make mention of the Spirit directly revealing specific information to us, which likewise wades into some murky waters. The final division of the book becomes more practical, with chapters on caring and speaking to your mate’s heart, as well the importance of laughter and enjoyment in the context of a relationship. These chapters are a helpful read, but are fairly standard relationship booster material. Overall, I think their one simple point remains the great strength of the book: there’s no point in working on any issue in a marriage until you start working on the heart first. We all would do well to keep the heart at the heart of every marriage.
Pain is an unavoidable part of life. We all experience it, in different ways and in different degrees every day. All of us are confronted with the question, “How do I deal with the pain in my life? How do I get past it?” Meaning is KeyOne key in effectively dealing with pain lies not in what pain we experience, but how we experience it. The “how” that makes the difference is the meaning that we assign to the pain. You see, part of what it means to be human, to be conscious, is that we assign meaning to our lives, to our life as a whole and to every individual part. The meaning we assign to something, even something very painful & hurtful, determines how we experience it. Even more to the point, the meaning you attach to something is your life, is your whole experience, and not the event itself. A Simple ExampleHere’s a very simple example: let’s say I wake up this morning and I am aching all over, I’m stiff, and I have pain even getting out of bed. I can experience this pain by thinking to myself, “I’m hurting all over. This day is going to be hard. I’m not going to be able to do everything I wanted to do. I know other people who aren’t hurting. This isn’t fair or right. I don’t know how long this is going to go on.” That interpretation is probably my automatic, or natural, or subconscious way of experiencing the pain that starts in my mind without me even thinking about it. As I assign that meaning to what I am experiencing I am living out that experience as a function of that meaning. However, I can step back from that automatic pattern, survey the situation, and choose differently. I can say, “The rose bed I planted yesterday looks stunning. My whole family and the whole neighborhood is going to enjoy it for years. It is beautiful. My muscles are going to heal in a few days and be stronger. I am so thankful that they served me well.” Choose Your Meaning, Change Your LifeYou see, I can choose either way to experience that physical reality of pain in my body. One way would only lead to more pain, while the other way leads to peace and strength and joy and gratitude. One physical experience of pain, two very different lives lived. Choose your meaning, change your life. Now, I know that we all experience pain that can’t be dealt with so easily. There is physical pain that is unrelenting and seemingly purposeless, that the best medicine cannot help and that isn’t directly connected to anything good like a rose garden. There is emotional pain like the loss of a loved one or a broken relationship, there are shattered dreams of things that will never be, and there are the pains of financial, work, & commitment pressures. How do we deal with these, when there is no simple “happy face” to put on them? What Meaning Are You Choosing Now?To make this article real & beneficial, go ahead and think of something in your life that is painful right now. No, I don’t want a stubbed toe from last week, make it something that is causing you real & serious pain, something that is coming again and again to your thoughts and that you’re struggling with. Write it down on paper and take a hard look at it. Got it? Good. Here’s your first step: remind yourself that it’s not a “Can I deal with this?” question, but a “How am I already dealing with this?” question. As a human, it’s not a question of if you are assigning a meaning to something painful: you are assigning a meaning, even if you don’t realize it. As humans assigning meaning is a function of being conscious and alive. So the question really does become asking ourselves, “How am I dealing with this pain? What meaning am I assigning to this hurt?” The answer to that all-important question may not be obvious, especially if you’re not in the habit of asking it, or if the pain is strong enough to be clouding your thoughts. So let’s go over some common ways to deal with pain, to see if you can recognize which one you may be using: It’s not that painful: this is the “making a mountain of a molehill” perspective. You hurt, and you tell yourself that it’s not that big a deal, that it’s a small thing. This works fine if the pain really is small, but if the pain is a mountain in your soul no amount of creative accounting is going to make a molehill out of it. It will go away: this is the “time heals all wounds” strategy. Just give it time, ignore it, and it will go away. Tell that to people wracked with pain decades after the betrayal that collapsed their world. Yes, some pain does go away with time, but if the pain is serious it is not time itself that makes it spontaneously fade away, but that the person has actually actively done something to move beyond the pain. I shouldn’t feel it: this is the guilt trip remedy— “I really shouldn’t feel this way.” Well, that may be true, but is simply saying that helping any? Know anytime that taking a guilt trip has resulted in substantive personal growth? I thought so. Bad plan. There is no pain: This is a variation of common Eastern religious thought, to say that evil is not real (”there is no spoon” for you Matrix fans), that it is just to be accepted as part of reality with no real difference between it & good. You come to accept that evil & good, darkness & light, yin & yang are actually part of one reality. If you can get your mind to buy into this version of reality, it’s probably more helpful than “it will go away” or “I shouldn’t feel it. ” However, there’s one little problem: it’s not true. There is evil, and it’s not a mirror image or inevitable companion of good, and this world was originally designed without it, and one day will be remade to be without it again. The bottom line on all these choices is that any interpretation of reality that is inconsistent with reality is a fancy convoluted way of saying that you’re living a lie, & living a lie will one day fail you. The God-Focused AlternativeWhat’s the alternative to all these different meanings? Just this one: God loves me, and is still in control of my life. This choice, to look to God & trust Him, can be a hard one to grab on to when our heart is battered by a raging storm. If we believe in a God who loves us, then it is genuinely hard to understand why He allows evil in this world, why he allows our dreams to be dashed & our hearts to be hurt. But the bottom line is that this is the only choice that works, because it’s the only choice that’s real, & it’s the only choice that gives us true hope that there is a path out of our pain. Acknowledging that God is God, even when we’re hurting, opens our heart to have Him comfort us, and opens our eyes to see beyond our present hurt. As the writer of Hebrews said, God indeed rewards, but only to those who believe in Him and seek Him. Like Job, we must throw ourselves on God’s mercy, & rest in His arms. A Path Beyond the PainOften the path of opening our heart to God in our pain is a gradual one. Step by step we are able to realize more, accept more, & be healed. Here are some steps we can take with God in our pain: Pray: Cry out to God, and ask for His comfort and wisdom. Meditate: Focus on passages in the Bible (like Job or the Psalms) where people are suffering and relating to God. Memorize Scripture, or repeat an affirmation like: My Poppa, out of His great love for me, allowed this pain in my life, for my good and His glory. Read: Several good books on the problem of pain include The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants by Philip Yancey & Paul Brand, & Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Write: Journal your thoughts, your prayers, your insights, & God’s comfort. Share: Open up to a few trusted friends & allow them the privilege of ministering to you in your pain. Release: Eventually, you will be able to release the pain and hurt. It can’t be put into words how to do it, but you will know when it happens, for the pain will no longer have any power to hurt or imprison you. You will be free. Pain is a problem for all of us. Let’s all help each other, to comfort, to heal, & to grow as we deal with the pain we face in this life.
Yes, it’s easy to say, “Oh, that’s a great Bible verse, yes, indeed, I’m just like Paul, I treasure Christ more than anything.” Easy words to say. But how do we live those words out, in this age of iPhones & Abercrombie? How do we really treasure Him? If our hearts have been changed, if we truly have counted all things loss, then there must be some lifestyle implications. There must be something different, radically different, about our lives compared to anyone who doesn’t treasure Christ above all. Anyone could look at Paul’s life and tell he wasn’t just blowing steam. He had went from a respected academic and political position to an outcast and a prisoner. No one ever looked at Paul & thought, “Hey, man, you say that you’re a Christian, but you’re no different than me.” Take three minutes and watch this video:
I have listened to those words over & over, and they still go deep into the core of my heart. How do I use money in a way that shows money is not my treasure? How do I eat, how do I love, how do I live a life that makes it plain that nothing is my treasure but Christ? I don’t think this kind of life comes automatically once you become a Christian– it comes with a lot of thought and prayer and tears and sweat. And it’s a path that you have to keep focused on, keep coming back to, keep asking God to show you more and more. My two year contract on my iPhone is up this month. As I discussed last year, I really had to think & pray over whether getting an iPhone was honoring to God, whether it was a God-focused desire or not. Well, I’m putting a lot of thought and prayer in it again. I have no doubt that it is a useful tool for me (I used it while writing this post), but is there any problem with treasuring Christ with it? Would the $70 a month I’m spending for mobile internet access be better spent elsewhere? Honestly, it’s not as much what my final decision will be, as much as it’s that I’m down on my knees, knowing that it’s an issue, asking God for wisdom, trying to honor Him as best I can. That’s where I need to be on every facet of my life, taking it to God with an open hand and a God-focused heart, knowing the lifestyle implications.
(picture snitched from the excellent blog of The Naked Pastor) I remember sitting in this group of people when one guy spoke up, “Sometimes I can be such a bastard.” Actually, he was really a nice guy: he was just being honest, being real, about the state of his inner soul. He had decided that he was tired of pretending. I remember that my first reaction to his self-disclosure was, “Wow, I’ve never been in any church or small group that you could SAY THAT in.” What I really meant was, “I’ve never been in a church or small group where we all weren’t pretending.” Why is that? Why is pretending an art form, a life goal for everyone human? It seems we’ve been in the pretending business ever since Adam & Eve tried to pretend they weren’t in the garden and ever since Cain tried to pretend he didn’t know where Abel was. Why do we have this problem of pretending? Let’s look at some of the reasons: 1. Shame— just like Adam & Eve & Cain, we try to hide our guilt. The problem is, if we try to hide it, we just isolate ourselves, from God and from others. That’s no good. Jesus died so that we could be free from shame & guilt, and from all the chains and prisons that go along with it, including pretending. 2. Acceptance— we want to be accepted, we want to fit in, so we mold ourselves to what we think will be acceptable to others. That can work, all right, but we lose our soul in the process. That’s no good either. Sometimes we try to fit a mold to be accepted by God. That can’t work, because He sees right through. It doesn’t matter to Him, anyway— that’s where Jesus comes in, to bring us back to God, warts and all. 3. Safety— we all want to feel safe. Sometimes fitting in feels safe, & sticking out from the crowd feels very unsafe. On the other hand, sometimes fitting in feels unsafe, so someone will deliberately stick out from the crowd to put distance between them and any possible hurt. 4. Pride— sometimes it’s not that we want to fit in, au contraire, we want to be superhuman, we want everyone to admire us & ooh & aah over us as having it all together. Or else we don’t want to be pitied, we can’t bear the thought of being seen as the screwed up & needy pile of crap that we are. Either way, pride drives us to pretend. Any of those sound familiar? I’ve used all four, in different ways and at different times. Pretending will work, for a while, but it’s a dead end— all kinds of nasty side effects on the soul— fear, isolation, stagnation, burnout, lost dreams. The problem is, being real isn’t a bed of roses either in this life— anyone remember what the velveteen rabbit looked like at the end of the story? This isn’t one of those posts with a neat little ending, because there isn’t a neat little solution to the problem of pretending. We all have fallen souls that fear being real, and we’re around a bunch of other fallen souls that often do hurtful things to people who do dare to be real. I just want to say, “Can we try a little less pretending, please? Let’s have the courage to try, to try & be real, & have the grace and compassion to accept each other and embrace each other for who we really are.” |
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