If coming to the foot of the cross is difficult, staying there is even more so. It is however where we find fulfillment, peace, hope and joy (joy as opposed to happiness – more later). In fact this is the very reason Jesus calls us there in our quotation from last day. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
This verse is an invitation in some sense to die, and who would want to do that? Being willing to do that starts with seeing something in Jesus that we can find nowhere else. Why would we “desire to follow” Him? Well Jesus is pretty cool, He is amazing. He is the only one who ever practiced what He preached. “Love your enemies, ” and as they drive cruel spikes through His hands and His feet He prays “Father forgive them ...” He has appropriate words for the hypocrites, He tells it like it is speaking the truth in love, as He pours out His love even to those who reject Him (Luke 13:34). He is smart, He is kind, He is humble, He heals the sick and the broken hearted, He accepts the rejected, gives help in time of need, and invites us to share His sufferings.
Most of us find things about Jesus that are attractive, but we are less enthusiastic about the suffering, about the dying daily bit (1 Corinthians 15:31). Most of us would love to have the kind of influence that Jesus had, for deep within us is the longing to make a deep and lasting positive impact. And as we become willing to see, we know instinctively that it is in following Him, and we understand when He tells us there is a cost that we need count before we do (take up our cross daily). The cost is the rub, but it is the only way to make a deep and lasting impact, the only way to produce fruit that will remain (John 15:16). This life is not all that there is. What we do down here in the here and now impacts not only the here and now, but all eternity. We will have to give an account even of every idle word (Matthew 12:36).
I am reminded of a missionary I knew who came out of Jamaica. He tells the story of an interview he had years ago back home with a firm that exported bananas. In the interview he was asked what his life goals were, and he told of his missionary longings. They thanked him for his honesty, and then told him “We want someone who will give his life to bananas”. He told of seeing this on his tombstone “He gave his life to bananas”! This was not the legacy he was looking for!
What do you want on your tombstone? At the end of your life will you wish you had spent more time in front of the TV, or had given yourself more fully to pornography, or to the pursuit of wealth, or had had more sexual partners (with the attending broken hearts) or had been drunk more often etc., etc., etc? The things that God values are not necessarily the things we value. He values a mother who stays home because she feels that there is no more important job than raising her children, He values honestly and integrity and a willingness to go against the tide. He values those who will stand for Him in a world that is going to hell in an hand basket, those who are ready to give an answer of the hope that is within, with meekness and fear. He values those who, to the best of their ability, speak the truth in love. He values those who take up their cross daily and follow Jesus. Such people will have an impact far beyond what can be seen, such people will see and understand on that day that is was worth it all. He or she who gives even as little as a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus, will not loose their reward (Mark 9:41).
There is a cost “let him deny himself and take up his cross”. There was a cost to Jesus. We see this supremely in the garden just hours before His crucifixion “If it be possible let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but Yours” (Matthew 26:39). This kind of sacrifice only makes sense in the light (perspective) of eternity, for “if in this life only we have hope, we are to be pitied ...” (1 Corinthians 15:19).
We are told about the perspective Jesus had in Hebrews 12:2 where it says of Him “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross despising the shame”. Part of what this is saying is that the pain and disappointments and trials and temptations of life are a barrier, the other side of which is joy. But we do need to push through the barrier, to endure, with His help to stand up under it all. The first part of the verse in the last quote tells us how to do this “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”. We need to keep our eyes on Him, living in intimacy with Him, embracing His perspective. We need to count the cost, then set our hearts and minds to follow no matter what. This is our part. When we do this, He will meet us and He will keep that which we have committed unto Him against that day (2 Timothy 1:12). Note the balance here we commit, He keeps. The Lord always supplies, when we seek to walk in obedience, the very wherewithal to do His will (Philippians 2:13). And when we do this we “prove that His will is good and perfect and acceptable” (Romans 12:2).
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
When the honeymoon is over (married or not). Positioning for restoration.
I was reminded recently by a couple I know, that I had given her away (in proxy for her father, who was on the other side of the World). “Oh”, I joked “Its all my fault!” Well this is what Adam said to God when he was confronted with his sin. Adam's opening response was “the woman You gave me … ” - in other words its the woman's fault, and its Your fault too God, for giving her to me!
I told last day of one who told me “I did not realize how selfish I am until I got married”. And I know this couple well enough to know that it really is two sided. This couple is moving in the right direction for life long fulfillment in their relationship (James 5:16).
I read somewhere that there is no place other than marriage which is guaranteed to produce more anger. We are all aware of the phrase “the honeymoon is over” and we do not need to be told what it means. When a relationship is new and exciting we have such high hopes for it, or to put it anther way, we have such high expectations. We may not say this to ourselves in words, but our hope/expectation many times is that 'this one is going to meet all my needs'. And for a while they do, until “the honeymoon is over”. Then what will we do, will we throw this relationship away too?
In the process of discovering who we are, we may need to go through the school of hard knocks in our relationship choices, in particular when they fail. Perhaps the most important thing is that we learn from these experiences. I have said elsewhere that those who go through broken relationships tend to fall into two categories, those who learn a great deal from the break up, and those who learn nothing, remaining stuck in blame and bitterness and anger!
The second group may think they have learned something (i.e. Women are %$#%%..., or men are %%#$#….). What I am talking about is learning how much we ourselves have contributed to the problem and becoming willing to do something about it. Except when one of the parties is God, there are always faults on both sides. In particular no matter who started it, we all have wrong responses to wrong responses. When there are problems, we both need to take responsibility for what has gone wrong, and to play our part in doing what needs to be done to make it work.
There is lots of advice out there about what to do. Let's look at one particular secular insight. The one I am thinking of is the idea that surrounds the buzz phrase “love deficit,” where we talk about having “empty love tanks”. If we are both demanding more that the other one is willing/able to give because of our love deficits (wounds, hurts etc.), how are we ever going to make things work? And the longer these things go the more wounding it becomes!
The solution advocated by the behavioural model, is to work at performing loving acts for each other. And who would say that this is wrong? After all we are commanded to love one another in word and deed. On the other hand, if you have been there, you will know that many times this is an uphill battle, especially when the wounds and the hurt and the sense of betrayal goes deep. What do you do when love has died, what can anyone do? Well, we need to turn to the God of resurrection.
What we need to do in this and in many other situations is to tap into the resources of heaven. In the case we are discussing, we need God to fill up our love deficits, and to resurrect love. God is after all the origin of all love, for “we love because He first loved us” (1 John4:19 NIV). What this is saying is that our ability to love at all comes from God as a response to His love for us. So the ability to have love rekindled is found in His embrace. With some situations this is the only thing that will save the relationship, in particular when it has gone on for too long, and/or there is too much hurt, too much damage and no more energy, or even desire.
We do have a part to play (our help is three pronged – Bible help, self help and God's help), but in the end when we are in relationship with God, it does not all depend on us. In Christ there is always hope. When with man it is impossible then “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). We can of course both be Christians and fail to tap into God's resources. It has to do with being filled with the fullness of God (which we are in fact commanded to be). There is an illustration that I find helpful.
Imagine this triangle with God at the top (you would have to know that I am a mathematician), and you and your partner at the other two corners. The sides represent our relationships. The bottom side represents your relationship with your partner the other two sides your individual relationships with God. This is not a fixed triangle, the corners can (and do) move. As we draw closer to God, moving up the “arms” of the triangle, we automatically move closer to each other. As as we draw apart from each other, we usually also move further away from God. We also move apart from each if one of the parties moves closer to God, but the other one does not. This is one of the reason we are told not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14).
The point though, is that God is Love, and as we move closer to Him, He moves closer to us and pours His love into our hearts (James 4:8, Romans 5:5). Ideally we are to let His love flow through us into each other, and into this wicked and hurting World. When we are full of His strength and love and Grace and mercy and hope and peace, we have something the World does not have, and we are enabled to live the life He calls us to live.
Sounds good, it even sounds easy right? Not! It is the solution, but its not easy. You see we cannot be full of God (or love or peace or joy or hope or anything else) and at the same time be full of self, or hate or bitterness or revenge or pride, or self righteousness or be demanding our rights at the expense of the other. The Scripture describes these things as the “flesh” or as the NIV translates that word the “sinful nature”. What I am saying is that “self” pushes all these things out. But even coming to the place where we can acknowledge that we are full of self is difficult.
This brings us full circle back to what we were talking about earlier that is to come to the knife edge between debilitating guilt and indifference (or blindness, or presumption) to our sin. In this place we know we need help and become humble enough to ask for, and hence receive, it. In this place we are positioned to receive His enabling grace to help in such times of need (Hebrews 4:16). The theological word for this is repentance. It is about coming to the end of ourselves, acknowledging and turning from our sin and receive His forgiveness and Grace and mercy, His hope and joy and peace etc. In this place, there is the awareness that in many things we all fail, and this allows us to deal more gently and empathetical with each other, knowing we are both the same, that there is no real difference between us (Romans 3:23).
And our salvation, our rescue has to do with learning to live in this place. This is the secret to walking in the Spirit, in fact to living the Christian life. It starts with our agreement with God of our predicament, and our acceptance of His solution (the good news or Gospel).
There is a lot of resistance to doing this, both in the world and in our own selves. There is a sort of catch 22 here, because we can't receive the good news if we don't know the bad news, and we can't receive the bad news because we don't know the good news that we can be rescued. So the default is to continue jus with what we have “me and only me,” and none of the resources of God.
Lets unpack this a little. It seems to work like this: we resist the good news because we don't see the need, or we may not even know about it, or it may not have not been presented it in a way we were able to hear. Or it may seem just too good to be true. It may not even make any sense to us, and we may have been hardened against it by guilt trips that have been laid on us, or by the hypocrisy of some who call themselves Christian. On the other hand many times we are in denial about the bad news, which is that without Him we are totally lost. We may be in denial about the bad news because we want all our own way, or on the other hand, because it is Pandora's box. We know at least subconsciously that the problems are so deep they are unfixable. If you doubt this ask yourself if you like yourself, and if not why not? One of the good things about walking with God is that you do get to get to like yourself.
And the bad new is indeed bad. There are a lot of inconvenient truths out there and in here (in our “self life”). And they are indeed unfixable by us, but not by God. To say it again “With God all things are possible”. Life's difficulties are crossroads, in each of them we are invited to draw close to Him and in cooperation with Him bring in the Kingdom which always brings His solution. But He will not do it without our cooperation.
The second part of the title of today's post is “Positioning for restoration. So what and where it this place. To give an analogy, it is like to come to the place where like a child in a fully functional family, we can receive correction without being crushed. Part of the problem here, is that most of us are too wounded, or too proud or too self centered to admit or even see that in many things we all need to be corrected (James 3:2). Or we are too insecure, have had too much rejection in our lives to be able to hear about our faults. And part of this is because we cannot distinguish between the other persons rejection of our behaviour and rejection of our very selves. And part of this is more often than not, the person criticizing us does not make that distinction themselves. Then there is the way it it done. We spoke earlier about speaking the truth in love. But when things get bad the truth may well have been spoken, but not in love, but rather in anger and frustration or even hate.
Nevertheless, God has given us to each other warts (besetting faults) and all. Without exception, we come to each other as raw unpolished diamonds with (often) very rough edges. There is a war going on for our souls. The Evil one, wants to use these raw edges to destroy us. The Lord wants to use them to polish us into the beautiful individual diamonds He purposed before the foundations of the World that we should be (Proverbs 27:17).
To describe this place of being positioned for restoration in Biblical terms, is to say that we need to to meet Him and each other at the foot of the cross. It is in the shadow and the perspective of the cross where we see and understand all that He has done for us. It is here where we see that there is indeed no difference between us, for indeed all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). It is here, in the light of His sacrifice, and of all the pain He was willing to suffer for you and I, that our own relationship pain is put into perspective; where we stop demanding our rights, and start to follow His example of respectful loving giving. It is here where we start to become willing to see, and take responsibility for, our own part in it all. Indeed it is probably only here, under His tender love and care and unconditional acceptance, that we receive enough from Him that we become secure enough to start to see where we have failed, where we have been selfish and self centered; where we take our eyes off “me” and where with the hymn writer we sing of being “ransomed, healed, restored forgiven” and we declare “who like me His praise should sing”.
At the foot of the cross, we start to see just how much we have needed to be forgiven, and to return over and over to Him for restoration and healing and love and joy and forgiveness and acceptance. When we come to this place and stay there, it becomes unthinkable that we should not in return forgive our partners and be willing to be fully restored to each other. It is here that we see that He has indeed “broken down the dividing walls between us” (Ephesians 2:4), and it is here where we start to cooperate with Him in His primary purpose that in the fullness of time He would unite all things in Him (Ephesians 1:10).
Jesus told us “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). When we do this we are indeed being positioned for restoration. Are you willing to follow Him in this way, am I? It is the only way to fly! We need His help. More to come.
I told last day of one who told me “I did not realize how selfish I am until I got married”. And I know this couple well enough to know that it really is two sided. This couple is moving in the right direction for life long fulfillment in their relationship (James 5:16).
I read somewhere that there is no place other than marriage which is guaranteed to produce more anger. We are all aware of the phrase “the honeymoon is over” and we do not need to be told what it means. When a relationship is new and exciting we have such high hopes for it, or to put it anther way, we have such high expectations. We may not say this to ourselves in words, but our hope/expectation many times is that 'this one is going to meet all my needs'. And for a while they do, until “the honeymoon is over”. Then what will we do, will we throw this relationship away too?
In the process of discovering who we are, we may need to go through the school of hard knocks in our relationship choices, in particular when they fail. Perhaps the most important thing is that we learn from these experiences. I have said elsewhere that those who go through broken relationships tend to fall into two categories, those who learn a great deal from the break up, and those who learn nothing, remaining stuck in blame and bitterness and anger!
The second group may think they have learned something (i.e. Women are %$#%%..., or men are %%#$#….). What I am talking about is learning how much we ourselves have contributed to the problem and becoming willing to do something about it. Except when one of the parties is God, there are always faults on both sides. In particular no matter who started it, we all have wrong responses to wrong responses. When there are problems, we both need to take responsibility for what has gone wrong, and to play our part in doing what needs to be done to make it work.
There is lots of advice out there about what to do. Let's look at one particular secular insight. The one I am thinking of is the idea that surrounds the buzz phrase “love deficit,” where we talk about having “empty love tanks”. If we are both demanding more that the other one is willing/able to give because of our love deficits (wounds, hurts etc.), how are we ever going to make things work? And the longer these things go the more wounding it becomes!
The solution advocated by the behavioural model, is to work at performing loving acts for each other. And who would say that this is wrong? After all we are commanded to love one another in word and deed. On the other hand, if you have been there, you will know that many times this is an uphill battle, especially when the wounds and the hurt and the sense of betrayal goes deep. What do you do when love has died, what can anyone do? Well, we need to turn to the God of resurrection.
What we need to do in this and in many other situations is to tap into the resources of heaven. In the case we are discussing, we need God to fill up our love deficits, and to resurrect love. God is after all the origin of all love, for “we love because He first loved us” (1 John4:19 NIV). What this is saying is that our ability to love at all comes from God as a response to His love for us. So the ability to have love rekindled is found in His embrace. With some situations this is the only thing that will save the relationship, in particular when it has gone on for too long, and/or there is too much hurt, too much damage and no more energy, or even desire.
We do have a part to play (our help is three pronged – Bible help, self help and God's help), but in the end when we are in relationship with God, it does not all depend on us. In Christ there is always hope. When with man it is impossible then “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). We can of course both be Christians and fail to tap into God's resources. It has to do with being filled with the fullness of God (which we are in fact commanded to be). There is an illustration that I find helpful.
Imagine this triangle with God at the top (you would have to know that I am a mathematician), and you and your partner at the other two corners. The sides represent our relationships. The bottom side represents your relationship with your partner the other two sides your individual relationships with God. This is not a fixed triangle, the corners can (and do) move. As we draw closer to God, moving up the “arms” of the triangle, we automatically move closer to each other. As as we draw apart from each other, we usually also move further away from God. We also move apart from each if one of the parties moves closer to God, but the other one does not. This is one of the reason we are told not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14).
The point though, is that God is Love, and as we move closer to Him, He moves closer to us and pours His love into our hearts (James 4:8, Romans 5:5). Ideally we are to let His love flow through us into each other, and into this wicked and hurting World. When we are full of His strength and love and Grace and mercy and hope and peace, we have something the World does not have, and we are enabled to live the life He calls us to live.
Sounds good, it even sounds easy right? Not! It is the solution, but its not easy. You see we cannot be full of God (or love or peace or joy or hope or anything else) and at the same time be full of self, or hate or bitterness or revenge or pride, or self righteousness or be demanding our rights at the expense of the other. The Scripture describes these things as the “flesh” or as the NIV translates that word the “sinful nature”. What I am saying is that “self” pushes all these things out. But even coming to the place where we can acknowledge that we are full of self is difficult.
This brings us full circle back to what we were talking about earlier that is to come to the knife edge between debilitating guilt and indifference (or blindness, or presumption) to our sin. In this place we know we need help and become humble enough to ask for, and hence receive, it. In this place we are positioned to receive His enabling grace to help in such times of need (Hebrews 4:16). The theological word for this is repentance. It is about coming to the end of ourselves, acknowledging and turning from our sin and receive His forgiveness and Grace and mercy, His hope and joy and peace etc. In this place, there is the awareness that in many things we all fail, and this allows us to deal more gently and empathetical with each other, knowing we are both the same, that there is no real difference between us (Romans 3:23).
And our salvation, our rescue has to do with learning to live in this place. This is the secret to walking in the Spirit, in fact to living the Christian life. It starts with our agreement with God of our predicament, and our acceptance of His solution (the good news or Gospel).
There is a lot of resistance to doing this, both in the world and in our own selves. There is a sort of catch 22 here, because we can't receive the good news if we don't know the bad news, and we can't receive the bad news because we don't know the good news that we can be rescued. So the default is to continue jus with what we have “me and only me,” and none of the resources of God.
Lets unpack this a little. It seems to work like this: we resist the good news because we don't see the need, or we may not even know about it, or it may not have not been presented it in a way we were able to hear. Or it may seem just too good to be true. It may not even make any sense to us, and we may have been hardened against it by guilt trips that have been laid on us, or by the hypocrisy of some who call themselves Christian. On the other hand many times we are in denial about the bad news, which is that without Him we are totally lost. We may be in denial about the bad news because we want all our own way, or on the other hand, because it is Pandora's box. We know at least subconsciously that the problems are so deep they are unfixable. If you doubt this ask yourself if you like yourself, and if not why not? One of the good things about walking with God is that you do get to get to like yourself.
And the bad new is indeed bad. There are a lot of inconvenient truths out there and in here (in our “self life”). And they are indeed unfixable by us, but not by God. To say it again “With God all things are possible”. Life's difficulties are crossroads, in each of them we are invited to draw close to Him and in cooperation with Him bring in the Kingdom which always brings His solution. But He will not do it without our cooperation.
The second part of the title of today's post is “Positioning for restoration. So what and where it this place. To give an analogy, it is like to come to the place where like a child in a fully functional family, we can receive correction without being crushed. Part of the problem here, is that most of us are too wounded, or too proud or too self centered to admit or even see that in many things we all need to be corrected (James 3:2). Or we are too insecure, have had too much rejection in our lives to be able to hear about our faults. And part of this is because we cannot distinguish between the other persons rejection of our behaviour and rejection of our very selves. And part of this is more often than not, the person criticizing us does not make that distinction themselves. Then there is the way it it done. We spoke earlier about speaking the truth in love. But when things get bad the truth may well have been spoken, but not in love, but rather in anger and frustration or even hate.
Nevertheless, God has given us to each other warts (besetting faults) and all. Without exception, we come to each other as raw unpolished diamonds with (often) very rough edges. There is a war going on for our souls. The Evil one, wants to use these raw edges to destroy us. The Lord wants to use them to polish us into the beautiful individual diamonds He purposed before the foundations of the World that we should be (Proverbs 27:17).
To describe this place of being positioned for restoration in Biblical terms, is to say that we need to to meet Him and each other at the foot of the cross. It is in the shadow and the perspective of the cross where we see and understand all that He has done for us. It is here where we see that there is indeed no difference between us, for indeed all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). It is here, in the light of His sacrifice, and of all the pain He was willing to suffer for you and I, that our own relationship pain is put into perspective; where we stop demanding our rights, and start to follow His example of respectful loving giving. It is here where we start to become willing to see, and take responsibility for, our own part in it all. Indeed it is probably only here, under His tender love and care and unconditional acceptance, that we receive enough from Him that we become secure enough to start to see where we have failed, where we have been selfish and self centered; where we take our eyes off “me” and where with the hymn writer we sing of being “ransomed, healed, restored forgiven” and we declare “who like me His praise should sing”.
At the foot of the cross, we start to see just how much we have needed to be forgiven, and to return over and over to Him for restoration and healing and love and joy and forgiveness and acceptance. When we come to this place and stay there, it becomes unthinkable that we should not in return forgive our partners and be willing to be fully restored to each other. It is here that we see that He has indeed “broken down the dividing walls between us” (Ephesians 2:4), and it is here where we start to cooperate with Him in His primary purpose that in the fullness of time He would unite all things in Him (Ephesians 1:10).
Jesus told us “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). When we do this we are indeed being positioned for restoration. Are you willing to follow Him in this way, am I? It is the only way to fly! We need His help. More to come.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
How much do you love your children?
The other day I was at the beach here in Newfoundland, at a place where there is a brook that, through a pond, empties out into the sea. At that place there is a shallow, but strong current. A young boy got caught up in it. I was watching, and before I even started to realize he was in danger and not merely playing, his mother came hurtling past me and jumped fully clothed into the water to rescue him.
She was in no real danger herself, but I had the impression it would not have made any difference, she would have jumped in anyway. Such is a mother's love for her child. How about you, how much would you be willing to risk to save your child? When our kids are ill, most of us would gladly exchange our health for our child's illness. We hate to see our children suffering. So how much do you love your children? Here is the challenge: Are you willing to be made whole? Let me say it slightly differently, are you willing to do the hard work of recovery in your personal life and in your relationships (see “Do you want to be made whole” 27th July 2010)? Because if you are not, you can be sure that you will be leaving your children with all the problems you have and then some.
There is a poem by Philip Larkin, that I will change slightly:
They mess you up, your mum and dad,
they may not mean to, but they do,
they load you down with all their sins
and add some others just for you.
He goes on to explain that of course they were messed up too. I have come to the realization that, though we will never be perfect, what we can do is to leave our children with the example of dealing with our stuff. When we do not deal with our issues, stuffing them under the carpet, what finishes up under the carpet is a monster. And if we cannot deal with the issues when they are small enough to push under the rug, how will we deal with the monster we have created by putting off dealing with them? Remember the default is for our children to fall into the same patterns. In order not to, they need to be more mature than we are. Where will they learn this?
And when we deal with our stuff we will have more influence with our children. We will be able to share (hopefully with gentleness and humility) the experience of breakthrough. When they see this, and they will eventually, they will be much more likely to deal with their stuff, and hence come to breakthrough themselves. But how can we expect them to deal with their stuff when we have not been willing to deal with ours?
I have seen it over and over, parents who truly love their children, but are not willing to go for marriage counseling, not willing to change, stuck in blaming the other, deaf to each others pain. We do love our children, but in the midst of all of this it is far too easy to close our eyes to the impact our life choices, and in particular our relationship choices, have on our children. Modern research is showing that adult children of divorce (or the equivalent) suffer from life long trauma because of it. We don't want to see it, because if we do, then we just might have to do something about it.
There is a relevant warning, in the midst of the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:5), “The sins of the fathers (and mothers) are visited (impact severely and devastatingly) upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me (demonstrating this by disobeying the commandments I have given)”. The words in brackets are mine. The next verse tells how to reverse this trend (see 15th August 2010). But the point I want to make here, is that the Lord knows that if and when we start to fully understand the extent to which our poor choices negatively impact our children, then we will be a lot more motivated to do something about our “stuff”. Paul in Colossians 1:9 prays that the Colossians would be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”. The point is that most of us, if we saw things as they really are, would be willing to move heaven and earth to change what needs to be changed. And such change is always towards wholeness and righteousness, and walking in love and Biblical integrity. To repeat a phrase I use often, these things are not only good and right and proper, they are smart, and they are loving.
We give up far too easily on relationships. We change churches at the drop of a hat, as we do “significant others”. And a very big part of the problem is that we are not willing to deal with our stuff. Most times we don't even see it. It is called denial. We see the other person's baggage, but many times not our own. When we do not deal with our stuff, our relationship interactions inevitably develop in dysfunctional ways. The Scripture commands two things in this context, love and respect (see Ephesians 5:25-32). I often hear “But I don't love him (her) anymore”. But the Scripture tells us to “love one another” (1 John 4:7). Are you tempted to ask me “Are you deaf, I just told you, I don't love him”? Well no I am not deaf, I am simply telling that when the feelings of love have gone, the commandment to love kicks in. We are told “let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). The love with which we are commanded to love is not simply a command to feel love! When we commit to love, the feelings will eventually follow (return).
What are the alternatives, and what are we teaching our children when we give up on our relationships? Are we not by example teaching “If a relationship is not working, trash it”? The divorce rates of adult children of divorce are much higher than that of the general population. Don't take my word for it check it out!
And what are we teaching them about attitudes? The second of the two commands I mentioned above is to respect one another to “esteem others better than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3). They say attitudes are caught rather than taught. What about our attitudes to our significant other? If you do not respect your spouse, how will your daughter or son respect his or her's. Yes they do have a choice, but the default (most of the time) is that such attitudes are caught and repeated.
When things get really bad, most of us need help. More likely than not, most times without even realizing it, we have trained each other to deal with each other, in the ways that we do. We do it through conflict avoidance, manipulative anger or punishing silences. We do it through control, because we don't know of any other way to do it. We get stuck in reaction to reaction to reaction. We need to let God (often with the help of a counselor) back into our relationships. When a relationship is not working, we will need to renegotiate it. It works best when both of us are willing to do it. We can start by confessing to each other, that we have not loved as we should, we have bad attitudes and have held each other in disrespect. Many times in a relationship break down, a radical disrespect can be found in one or the other partners. What the one who exhibits such disrespect does not usually realize, is that their attitude plays a significant role in keeping the other one stuck.
I know of no better place to see this than the movie “When a man loves a woman” with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. Meg plays the role of the alcoholic wife, who eventually goes to detox. She tells him, “If you ever leave me I will die”. When she comes out of detox, she throws him our of the house. Watch the movie and observe his attitude, and you will see what I am talking about. Let me say this. The faults are never one sided, never! We don't see it of course, Andy Garcia did not in the movie!
So do you love your children? Do you love them enough to do the hard work of making your relationships work, of renegotiating the relationship according to Biblical norms? I don't pretend that it is easy. You might find out that you are not as innocent in terms of blame as you imagine yourself to be. One person told me recently “I did not realize how selfish I am until I got married”. There is much hope for that marriage. This doing the necessary hard work in relationships is not common, but you can be sure of one thing, the emotional health of our children (future children) is as stake. We will never be perfect, but we what we can do, is leave them with the example of entering into recovery. It is the perhaps the most significant thing we can do, it is perhaps the best way to love them.
The good thing with God by the way, is that it is never too late to start. While we yet have breath, it is not too late to claim His promises, in particular that He will “visit” the blessings of His steadfast love and mercy on the children's children's children of those who turn to Him and obey His commandments (Exodus 20:6). This promise is, perhaps even especially, for those of us who have failed. More explicitly He will, when we turn to Him, start the process of restoration. He will restore the “years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). What is left when a plague of locus has gone through, looks like total destruction, but He is still able to restore. With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible! He is waiting for us to turn and to obey.
She was in no real danger herself, but I had the impression it would not have made any difference, she would have jumped in anyway. Such is a mother's love for her child. How about you, how much would you be willing to risk to save your child? When our kids are ill, most of us would gladly exchange our health for our child's illness. We hate to see our children suffering. So how much do you love your children? Here is the challenge: Are you willing to be made whole? Let me say it slightly differently, are you willing to do the hard work of recovery in your personal life and in your relationships (see “Do you want to be made whole” 27th July 2010)? Because if you are not, you can be sure that you will be leaving your children with all the problems you have and then some.
There is a poem by Philip Larkin, that I will change slightly:
They mess you up, your mum and dad,
they may not mean to, but they do,
they load you down with all their sins
and add some others just for you.
He goes on to explain that of course they were messed up too. I have come to the realization that, though we will never be perfect, what we can do is to leave our children with the example of dealing with our stuff. When we do not deal with our issues, stuffing them under the carpet, what finishes up under the carpet is a monster. And if we cannot deal with the issues when they are small enough to push under the rug, how will we deal with the monster we have created by putting off dealing with them? Remember the default is for our children to fall into the same patterns. In order not to, they need to be more mature than we are. Where will they learn this?
And when we deal with our stuff we will have more influence with our children. We will be able to share (hopefully with gentleness and humility) the experience of breakthrough. When they see this, and they will eventually, they will be much more likely to deal with their stuff, and hence come to breakthrough themselves. But how can we expect them to deal with their stuff when we have not been willing to deal with ours?
I have seen it over and over, parents who truly love their children, but are not willing to go for marriage counseling, not willing to change, stuck in blaming the other, deaf to each others pain. We do love our children, but in the midst of all of this it is far too easy to close our eyes to the impact our life choices, and in particular our relationship choices, have on our children. Modern research is showing that adult children of divorce (or the equivalent) suffer from life long trauma because of it. We don't want to see it, because if we do, then we just might have to do something about it.
There is a relevant warning, in the midst of the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:5), “The sins of the fathers (and mothers) are visited (impact severely and devastatingly) upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me (demonstrating this by disobeying the commandments I have given)”. The words in brackets are mine. The next verse tells how to reverse this trend (see 15th August 2010). But the point I want to make here, is that the Lord knows that if and when we start to fully understand the extent to which our poor choices negatively impact our children, then we will be a lot more motivated to do something about our “stuff”. Paul in Colossians 1:9 prays that the Colossians would be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”. The point is that most of us, if we saw things as they really are, would be willing to move heaven and earth to change what needs to be changed. And such change is always towards wholeness and righteousness, and walking in love and Biblical integrity. To repeat a phrase I use often, these things are not only good and right and proper, they are smart, and they are loving.
We give up far too easily on relationships. We change churches at the drop of a hat, as we do “significant others”. And a very big part of the problem is that we are not willing to deal with our stuff. Most times we don't even see it. It is called denial. We see the other person's baggage, but many times not our own. When we do not deal with our stuff, our relationship interactions inevitably develop in dysfunctional ways. The Scripture commands two things in this context, love and respect (see Ephesians 5:25-32). I often hear “But I don't love him (her) anymore”. But the Scripture tells us to “love one another” (1 John 4:7). Are you tempted to ask me “Are you deaf, I just told you, I don't love him”? Well no I am not deaf, I am simply telling that when the feelings of love have gone, the commandment to love kicks in. We are told “let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). The love with which we are commanded to love is not simply a command to feel love! When we commit to love, the feelings will eventually follow (return).
What are the alternatives, and what are we teaching our children when we give up on our relationships? Are we not by example teaching “If a relationship is not working, trash it”? The divorce rates of adult children of divorce are much higher than that of the general population. Don't take my word for it check it out!
And what are we teaching them about attitudes? The second of the two commands I mentioned above is to respect one another to “esteem others better than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3). They say attitudes are caught rather than taught. What about our attitudes to our significant other? If you do not respect your spouse, how will your daughter or son respect his or her's. Yes they do have a choice, but the default (most of the time) is that such attitudes are caught and repeated.
When things get really bad, most of us need help. More likely than not, most times without even realizing it, we have trained each other to deal with each other, in the ways that we do. We do it through conflict avoidance, manipulative anger or punishing silences. We do it through control, because we don't know of any other way to do it. We get stuck in reaction to reaction to reaction. We need to let God (often with the help of a counselor) back into our relationships. When a relationship is not working, we will need to renegotiate it. It works best when both of us are willing to do it. We can start by confessing to each other, that we have not loved as we should, we have bad attitudes and have held each other in disrespect. Many times in a relationship break down, a radical disrespect can be found in one or the other partners. What the one who exhibits such disrespect does not usually realize, is that their attitude plays a significant role in keeping the other one stuck.
I know of no better place to see this than the movie “When a man loves a woman” with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. Meg plays the role of the alcoholic wife, who eventually goes to detox. She tells him, “If you ever leave me I will die”. When she comes out of detox, she throws him our of the house. Watch the movie and observe his attitude, and you will see what I am talking about. Let me say this. The faults are never one sided, never! We don't see it of course, Andy Garcia did not in the movie!
So do you love your children? Do you love them enough to do the hard work of making your relationships work, of renegotiating the relationship according to Biblical norms? I don't pretend that it is easy. You might find out that you are not as innocent in terms of blame as you imagine yourself to be. One person told me recently “I did not realize how selfish I am until I got married”. There is much hope for that marriage. This doing the necessary hard work in relationships is not common, but you can be sure of one thing, the emotional health of our children (future children) is as stake. We will never be perfect, but we what we can do, is leave them with the example of entering into recovery. It is the perhaps the most significant thing we can do, it is perhaps the best way to love them.
The good thing with God by the way, is that it is never too late to start. While we yet have breath, it is not too late to claim His promises, in particular that He will “visit” the blessings of His steadfast love and mercy on the children's children's children of those who turn to Him and obey His commandments (Exodus 20:6). This promise is, perhaps even especially, for those of us who have failed. More explicitly He will, when we turn to Him, start the process of restoration. He will restore the “years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). What is left when a plague of locus has gone through, looks like total destruction, but He is still able to restore. With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible! He is waiting for us to turn and to obey.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Is the scientific method valid?
Is the question “Is the Scientific method valid?” a silly question? It may not be as silly as it looks. I ask you to bear with me, for a moment. I do have a point to make. Most of us would answer the inside question “Of course the scientific method is valid!” Well how do we know? Well everyone accepts it. Well yes, but at one time it was widely accepted that the earth was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth. Did that make it true? Well no, but that's different. Well how is it different? Today we know better! Okay so will we know better tomorrow that the scientific method is wrong?
Let's take another tact. Some would suggest that the scientific method is correct because it works. But are we saying that using the Scientific method nobody has ever made a mistake? Well no, but when mistakes are made it is because the scientific method was not used properly. But how do you know in advance if it is always the method that is used incorrectly or if the method itself is wrong. To prove this scientifically, we would need to set up a repeatable scientific experiment to see if, whenever a mistake was made, we could always find a mistake in the procedure rather than in the method. First of all good luck in designing such an experiment, but secondly how would we know that that experiment itself was not flawed? In other words how could that experiment validate itself? The point I am making is not there there is no validity in the Scientific method, but merely that the Scientific method cannot be used to validate itself. This would be a circular argument. To put it another way, if we accept that the scientific method is valid, we do so by faith.
So do I believe that the Scientific method is valid? Well yes within the limited range of questions the scientific method is equipped to answer, I believe that the scientific method is valid. Let me say more!
Firstly there are many things the scientific method is not equipped to answer. Such questions include, for example “Does the wife love me” (see I know too much Science to believe in God” June 2010), or “Does God exist”. Secondly my belief that the Scientific method is valid is of course a position of faith. I cannot prove it. It is however reasonable to me, because of other beliefs that I have. I believe that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Because God is creative and intelligent, it makes sense to systematically examine what He created. This in fact was the presupposition that lead to the existence of modern science in the first place. So modern science was born in the Christian West, not in the polytheistic east. This is precisely because an intelligent God was believe to have created an intelligible creation. Why else would it make sense to systematically investigate creation? If it all came about by chance, why would it be governed by discernible laws? Would you expect meaningful literature to come from an explosion at the print factory? Why would you even bother looking?
Let's take another tact. Some would suggest that the scientific method is correct because it works. But are we saying that using the Scientific method nobody has ever made a mistake? Well no, but when mistakes are made it is because the scientific method was not used properly. But how do you know in advance if it is always the method that is used incorrectly or if the method itself is wrong. To prove this scientifically, we would need to set up a repeatable scientific experiment to see if, whenever a mistake was made, we could always find a mistake in the procedure rather than in the method. First of all good luck in designing such an experiment, but secondly how would we know that that experiment itself was not flawed? In other words how could that experiment validate itself? The point I am making is not there there is no validity in the Scientific method, but merely that the Scientific method cannot be used to validate itself. This would be a circular argument. To put it another way, if we accept that the scientific method is valid, we do so by faith.
So do I believe that the Scientific method is valid? Well yes within the limited range of questions the scientific method is equipped to answer, I believe that the scientific method is valid. Let me say more!
Firstly there are many things the scientific method is not equipped to answer. Such questions include, for example “Does the wife love me” (see I know too much Science to believe in God” June 2010), or “Does God exist”. Secondly my belief that the Scientific method is valid is of course a position of faith. I cannot prove it. It is however reasonable to me, because of other beliefs that I have. I believe that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Because God is creative and intelligent, it makes sense to systematically examine what He created. This in fact was the presupposition that lead to the existence of modern science in the first place. So modern science was born in the Christian West, not in the polytheistic east. This is precisely because an intelligent God was believe to have created an intelligible creation. Why else would it make sense to systematically investigate creation? If it all came about by chance, why would it be governed by discernible laws? Would you expect meaningful literature to come from an explosion at the print factory? Why would you even bother looking?
Thursday, July 7, 2011
When guilt turns to shame
“You aught to be ashamed of yourself”. It's a guilt trip, but in my book it should more rightly be called a shame trip. As I have said before if it is guilt we are asking “what wrong did I do?” Shame's question on the other hand is “What is wrong with me?” We can repent of having done something we have done, but how do we repent of being flawed? It is a lie, even if it is a question!
Many of the systems of the World are shame based. We use shame to manipulate each other. We look down on, and shame others in an attempt to try to feel better about ourselves (I'm not as bad as him!). Or we shame them by withholding approval in order to get back at them for some real or perceived wrong. Sometimes we shame ourselves. We do this when we beat ourselves up after having messed up in some way. After having failed one time, I was feeling bad for weeks. I had walked in victory for months, and was feeling that at last with the Lord's help I was finally over my problem, and them bam! The Lord, after assuring me of His love, acceptance and forgiveness, told me “It is time to put the guilt aside. You have tortured yourself enough!”
We have talked about forgiveness, but sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. We have this sense that, well I don't deserve to be forgiven, and we misguidedly think that if we beat up on ourselves long enough it will help us not to do it again. It does not work. With addictions for example, shame is part of the addictive cycle. The negative emotions accompanying shame drag us down, and more often than not lead us straight back to craving for the anesthetic of our addiction (longing to escape if only for a while).
One of the characteristics of shame is that it hides, it puts up walls. “If they only knew what I was like they would reject me”. And it is true that some do, some will! Unfortunately this can even be true in Church. The Pharisees are alive and well and living on planet earth! The problem with walls though they may keep some of that bad out, they also keep the good out, and the existing bad in. There is an interesting principle in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective”.
Does it sound scary? Well I suppose it is, but you will not find healing behind walls. We also need to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16). In particular, it is important in seeking to follow this teaching, to find a safe place. A safe place is one where you will not be judged, where you will find a sympathetic ear, where what you tell will be held in the strictest confidence, where you will accepted and encouraged and (as the verse in James implies) prayed for. We really do need places that are safe. The wider Church is probably not that place. In many cases it would be unwise to do it there. I have found healing takes place best where there is a willingness for others to share too. The verse tells us to confess our faults to “each other”. This does not necessarily mean the minister/leader/priest. It is not meant ultimately to be a one way street. When it is, it can lead to dependence and vulnerability. It is helpful to have people around who have struggled with similar things. So we need Biblical based support groups, many more than currently exist. We need local chapters of AA and ALAON which emphasize Biblical recovery principles, we need abortion and abuse and divorce recovery groups etc., etc., etc. There is a crying need for safe places where those who are trapped in the dehumanizing influence of pornography can find support to escape their addiction.
And groups that work best are those which are small. This too is Biblical, they met house to house, and in the Temple (both large and small groups). It is hard for trust and intimacy to be built in large group settings. The best groups should also have a strong Biblical basis. As Christian counselors Cloud and Townsend say in their literature “Secular recovery principles that work all have their warrant in the Bible”. The Bible is profitable for showing where we are wrong, for setting us straight, and for instructing us in right living (2 Timothy 3:16). As I have said elsewhere, sometimes secular research illustrates Biblical principles (see “ The Sins of the Fathers … August 2010), at other times the Bible is a more than useful tool to help us to discern where secular research is based on some wrong idea or principle. But supremely a Biblically based recovery shows us how to access His healing, His Grace and peace as well as all the other resources of the Kingdom (see “Psychology without faith is lame” also from August 2010).
But what if you don't know of anyone or any group like this? Why not ask the Lord to lead you to others who are like minded in this, and who are serious about putting recovery principles into practice. If you cannot find people or a group that meets your need, then perhaps the Lord would encourage you to start one. One thing is for sure, if we continue to allow shame to keep us in hiding, we will not find the promised healing, and we will not have support that comes from being prayed for on a regular bases. The prayers of those who (in the righteousness of Christ) are righteous are indeed “powerful and effective” (James 5:16 again).
Many of the systems of the World are shame based. We use shame to manipulate each other. We look down on, and shame others in an attempt to try to feel better about ourselves (I'm not as bad as him!). Or we shame them by withholding approval in order to get back at them for some real or perceived wrong. Sometimes we shame ourselves. We do this when we beat ourselves up after having messed up in some way. After having failed one time, I was feeling bad for weeks. I had walked in victory for months, and was feeling that at last with the Lord's help I was finally over my problem, and them bam! The Lord, after assuring me of His love, acceptance and forgiveness, told me “It is time to put the guilt aside. You have tortured yourself enough!”
We have talked about forgiveness, but sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. We have this sense that, well I don't deserve to be forgiven, and we misguidedly think that if we beat up on ourselves long enough it will help us not to do it again. It does not work. With addictions for example, shame is part of the addictive cycle. The negative emotions accompanying shame drag us down, and more often than not lead us straight back to craving for the anesthetic of our addiction (longing to escape if only for a while).
One of the characteristics of shame is that it hides, it puts up walls. “If they only knew what I was like they would reject me”. And it is true that some do, some will! Unfortunately this can even be true in Church. The Pharisees are alive and well and living on planet earth! The problem with walls though they may keep some of that bad out, they also keep the good out, and the existing bad in. There is an interesting principle in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective”.
Does it sound scary? Well I suppose it is, but you will not find healing behind walls. We also need to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16). In particular, it is important in seeking to follow this teaching, to find a safe place. A safe place is one where you will not be judged, where you will find a sympathetic ear, where what you tell will be held in the strictest confidence, where you will accepted and encouraged and (as the verse in James implies) prayed for. We really do need places that are safe. The wider Church is probably not that place. In many cases it would be unwise to do it there. I have found healing takes place best where there is a willingness for others to share too. The verse tells us to confess our faults to “each other”. This does not necessarily mean the minister/leader/priest. It is not meant ultimately to be a one way street. When it is, it can lead to dependence and vulnerability. It is helpful to have people around who have struggled with similar things. So we need Biblical based support groups, many more than currently exist. We need local chapters of AA and ALAON which emphasize Biblical recovery principles, we need abortion and abuse and divorce recovery groups etc., etc., etc. There is a crying need for safe places where those who are trapped in the dehumanizing influence of pornography can find support to escape their addiction.
And groups that work best are those which are small. This too is Biblical, they met house to house, and in the Temple (both large and small groups). It is hard for trust and intimacy to be built in large group settings. The best groups should also have a strong Biblical basis. As Christian counselors Cloud and Townsend say in their literature “Secular recovery principles that work all have their warrant in the Bible”. The Bible is profitable for showing where we are wrong, for setting us straight, and for instructing us in right living (2 Timothy 3:16). As I have said elsewhere, sometimes secular research illustrates Biblical principles (see “ The Sins of the Fathers … August 2010), at other times the Bible is a more than useful tool to help us to discern where secular research is based on some wrong idea or principle. But supremely a Biblically based recovery shows us how to access His healing, His Grace and peace as well as all the other resources of the Kingdom (see “Psychology without faith is lame” also from August 2010).
But what if you don't know of anyone or any group like this? Why not ask the Lord to lead you to others who are like minded in this, and who are serious about putting recovery principles into practice. If you cannot find people or a group that meets your need, then perhaps the Lord would encourage you to start one. One thing is for sure, if we continue to allow shame to keep us in hiding, we will not find the promised healing, and we will not have support that comes from being prayed for on a regular bases. The prayers of those who (in the righteousness of Christ) are righteous are indeed “powerful and effective” (James 5:16 again).
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Hawking, Dawkins pudding and pie...
Hawking, Dawkins pudding and pie...
kissed the girls and made them cry...
As my grandchildren would say “Grandpa, you are being silly”. Well yes, but then so are Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. But there is no need to cry at their dismissal of God. Their arguments are in fact easily overturned by an informed and intelligent faith that is not overawed by the success of these men in other areas. I would not go to a brain surgeon to get him to deal with my obsessive compulsive disorder. Though perhaps a full frontal lobotomy would fix the problem! Why those who are undoubtedly brilliant in one field think they have the wherewithal to pontificate about God is a tad beyond me. Actually having spent my entire working career in academic circles I do have a clue. You see academia is not entirely devoid of arrogance!
Stephen and Richard have this in common with the Christian, they are men of faith. Their faith is not the Christian faith, but it is faith. Stephen in a recent book “the grand design” claims that is it the laws of physics, not the will of God, that provides the real explanation as to how life on earth came into being. But Stephen where do the laws of Physics come from, and why should there be any laws at all? If it all came about by chance would we not expect chaos rather than the order we see?
As a Christian the more I learn about Science the more I marvel at the intricacy and the complexity of design. I see God, Richard and Stephen see nothing. “In the beginning nothing created everything that is out of nothing”. And they call me naive! What evidence do they have for this view? In an interview Richard had to admit that he had none. So on what basis does he make these “Evangelical” statements about the non-existence of God? They are in fact statements of belief, they are held by faith. It is faith in “not God” (see “The faith of the atheist” and other posts from June/July 2010).
So where do such faith views in ”not God” come from? It is not correct to attribute them all to arrogance. I am convinced that many of these views come from profound disappointment with God (well He can't be manipulated or bullied into giving us all our own way), or with those who claim to believe in Him but don't live as though they do, and/or from hypocrisy (or worse) in the Church. It is easy to be poisoned against God and religion by these things. But if we are, are we not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water? While it is true that a great many, perhaps even the vast majority, of atrocities have been committed in the name of God and of religion, this is not the whole picture. Very few things in life are completely neutral. When we split the atom, we could have used it to make bombs or provide electric power. Similarly religion has the potential for good or evil. Who would say that supplying clean water in developing countries was evil, or that the justice and equity commanded in the Bible was wrong? Many good things have come from Biblical principles. We are commanded to bring justice to the oppressed, and to feed the hungry. I am told that the vast majority of charitable donations in this country come from Christians.
If we are going to be “scientific” (logical/systematic) about our investigation into God and religion, then we should investigate the best expressions of them, that can be found. If I want to see if Islam is true, I would not look to Osama Bin Laden's views. Many prominent scientist and astronomers are or were, devout Christians. Einstein certainly believed in God, as did Newton. It was his Christian faith and compassion that motivated William Wilberforce in his life long battle in the English parliament for the abolition of slavery. We see what we want to see. In creation I see God. But not just in creation. He is active in a very positive way in my life. Even those friends who are antagonistic to my faith, will admit that Christianity has been good for me. Indeed it has, I would quite literally not be here if it were not for my relationship with God. I would not have made it without Him, let alone have the peace and love and joy I have found in Him.
kissed the girls and made them cry...
As my grandchildren would say “Grandpa, you are being silly”. Well yes, but then so are Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. But there is no need to cry at their dismissal of God. Their arguments are in fact easily overturned by an informed and intelligent faith that is not overawed by the success of these men in other areas. I would not go to a brain surgeon to get him to deal with my obsessive compulsive disorder. Though perhaps a full frontal lobotomy would fix the problem! Why those who are undoubtedly brilliant in one field think they have the wherewithal to pontificate about God is a tad beyond me. Actually having spent my entire working career in academic circles I do have a clue. You see academia is not entirely devoid of arrogance!
Stephen and Richard have this in common with the Christian, they are men of faith. Their faith is not the Christian faith, but it is faith. Stephen in a recent book “the grand design” claims that is it the laws of physics, not the will of God, that provides the real explanation as to how life on earth came into being. But Stephen where do the laws of Physics come from, and why should there be any laws at all? If it all came about by chance would we not expect chaos rather than the order we see?
As a Christian the more I learn about Science the more I marvel at the intricacy and the complexity of design. I see God, Richard and Stephen see nothing. “In the beginning nothing created everything that is out of nothing”. And they call me naive! What evidence do they have for this view? In an interview Richard had to admit that he had none. So on what basis does he make these “Evangelical” statements about the non-existence of God? They are in fact statements of belief, they are held by faith. It is faith in “not God” (see “The faith of the atheist” and other posts from June/July 2010).
So where do such faith views in ”not God” come from? It is not correct to attribute them all to arrogance. I am convinced that many of these views come from profound disappointment with God (well He can't be manipulated or bullied into giving us all our own way), or with those who claim to believe in Him but don't live as though they do, and/or from hypocrisy (or worse) in the Church. It is easy to be poisoned against God and religion by these things. But if we are, are we not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water? While it is true that a great many, perhaps even the vast majority, of atrocities have been committed in the name of God and of religion, this is not the whole picture. Very few things in life are completely neutral. When we split the atom, we could have used it to make bombs or provide electric power. Similarly religion has the potential for good or evil. Who would say that supplying clean water in developing countries was evil, or that the justice and equity commanded in the Bible was wrong? Many good things have come from Biblical principles. We are commanded to bring justice to the oppressed, and to feed the hungry. I am told that the vast majority of charitable donations in this country come from Christians.
If we are going to be “scientific” (logical/systematic) about our investigation into God and religion, then we should investigate the best expressions of them, that can be found. If I want to see if Islam is true, I would not look to Osama Bin Laden's views. Many prominent scientist and astronomers are or were, devout Christians. Einstein certainly believed in God, as did Newton. It was his Christian faith and compassion that motivated William Wilberforce in his life long battle in the English parliament for the abolition of slavery. We see what we want to see. In creation I see God. But not just in creation. He is active in a very positive way in my life. Even those friends who are antagonistic to my faith, will admit that Christianity has been good for me. Indeed it has, I would quite literally not be here if it were not for my relationship with God. I would not have made it without Him, let alone have the peace and love and joy I have found in Him.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Godly sorrow, repentance and joy, or worldly sorrow and death.
In the communion service (Lord's Supper/Mass) we are encouraged to examine ourselves before we partake of the bread and the wine (1 Corinthians 11:28). We were talking about this the other day, and my buddy perhaps half jokingly, groaned at the thought. I guess the point is that it can be hard to face up to the reality of how often we fail, and the misery our failure brings to ourselves and others. But the Lord does not instruct in these things to in order to depress us or to make us miserable, He wants to restore fullness and joy. The title of a book I own says it all “Repentance the joy filled life”. The joy is not always immediate (but it can be especially when we are in the habit of keeping short accounts with God). In times of deep conviction there needs to be sorrow and contrition, but we should not get stuck there, we need to push through the sorrow to salvation and joy. One translation of 1 Corinthians 7:10, on which the tile of this post is based, puts it this way “Godly sorrow works repentance into salvation with no regrets; but worldly sorrow's end result is death”.
We live in an age where the trend is to emphasize rights over obligations, where we expect to be able to take a pill for every pain. This spills over into our expectation to be able to do away with guilt without repentance, to make poor choices without suffering the consequences, and we rage at the night and lay the blame fully on others when we find ourselves in pain and despair. C.S. Lewis (of Narnia fame) said one time that pain is God's megaphone to get our attention. Are we listening? I believe that God gave us consciences to alert us, when we have done wrong, to the need to change. But there are two types of sorrow that accompany guilt. There is godly sorrow and there is the worldly type. We are still talking about true guilt as opposed to shame, we will deal with this later (or see 12 July 2010 if you can't wait). We are talking about the guilt we feel when we come to the realization that something we have done is truly wrong, and that it has impacted others in a (often very) negative way.
To say something first about worldly sorrow, we are talking about the sorrow that we got caught; the sorrow of being stuck but unwilling to do anything about it; the sorrow that I can't have my cake and eat it too; disappointment that I can't have all my own way and still be happy; the sorrow that says “life sucks and then you die”, but refuses to see we are being called back to holiness; the sorrow that has no faith in God and does not see the good, but only blackness, darkness and despair; the sorrow that just wants to get rid of the pain but is not willing to do anything but take a pill (or a drink) to get rid of it. This sorrow is truly a kind of living death. I have been there have you?
I liken this sorrow to the sorrow of the man who suspects that he has cancer, but is not willing to go to the doctor to find out for sure. He might have to have an operation. This man (this woman) is not willing to do the hard work of examining himself (what I was talking about from above in the communion service). It is a serious thing for the Christian to refuse to do this, since we are inviting His judgment (1 Corinthians 11: 29 and context) rather than His mercy. Proverbs 14:12 tells us “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death”. If you ever wondered why the ways of the World leave you in such pain and emptiness, it because even here God is calling you back to Himself, back to true repentance through the sorrow and into joy. For myself at conversion, the living death I was experiencing left me desperate enough to try anything, even God. I found Him to be everything I need.
So what does this godly sorrow look like? It is first and foremost agreeing with God that what we have done is wrong. It is making amends where it is possible and will not do more harm than good. In the verse following 2 Corinthians 7:10 (see above) Paul says “See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done”. This is bearing “fruit worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8). Such “fruit” is evidence that there has been true repentance, a true turning. But as with David in Psalm 51, true repentance is a humbling thing, it is accompanied by a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17), and a determination to turn from our sin and walk in His ways. Some have described repentance as doing a 180 degree turn.
One part of the Wikipedia definition puts it this way repentance is “a change of mind accompanied by regret and change of conduct, "change of mind and heart", or, "change of consciousness". Positive change in the direction of God and His ways, is certainly what it is all about. Regret or sorrow for what we have done, an admittance that what we did was wrong. But we do not stay in this sorrow/regret forever. Look again at the first part of 1 Corinthians 7:10 “Godly sorrow works repentance into salvation with no regrets”. In true repentance, true conversion, true turning we see that this really is the way to go. We see this Jesus is indeed the way the truth and the life, and we see when we have worked through the sorrow, that our turning leaves us without regret that we have turned, no regrets that we have escaped our former way of life. In such times we see with the prodigal son that we were formerly “out of our mind” (Luke 15:17), but now we have returned to the guardian of our souls. Now we are safe in the arms of Jesus. Now we experience His ongoing joy, His peace, His healing love and acceptance. Indeed in such a place, what is there to regret?
But true repentance is not just something we need to do once. In our moments of lucidity, in true repentance, we see things as they truly are, but it is far too easy to slip back. Indeed we are told in Hebrews 2:1 “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away”. So then repentance needs to be a way of life. In many things we all fail. His refining fire will bring us back again and again when we embrace it. The first part of the Hebrews quotation is what we were talking about the other day, about hearing Him, really hearing Him. To take the words of two of my favourite hymns “trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey” and “prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love”. Can you relate? If so cry out with me and the writer of the last hymn Lord “Here's my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above”. We cannot do this without Him. Amen
We live in an age where the trend is to emphasize rights over obligations, where we expect to be able to take a pill for every pain. This spills over into our expectation to be able to do away with guilt without repentance, to make poor choices without suffering the consequences, and we rage at the night and lay the blame fully on others when we find ourselves in pain and despair. C.S. Lewis (of Narnia fame) said one time that pain is God's megaphone to get our attention. Are we listening? I believe that God gave us consciences to alert us, when we have done wrong, to the need to change. But there are two types of sorrow that accompany guilt. There is godly sorrow and there is the worldly type. We are still talking about true guilt as opposed to shame, we will deal with this later (or see 12 July 2010 if you can't wait). We are talking about the guilt we feel when we come to the realization that something we have done is truly wrong, and that it has impacted others in a (often very) negative way.
To say something first about worldly sorrow, we are talking about the sorrow that we got caught; the sorrow of being stuck but unwilling to do anything about it; the sorrow that I can't have my cake and eat it too; disappointment that I can't have all my own way and still be happy; the sorrow that says “life sucks and then you die”, but refuses to see we are being called back to holiness; the sorrow that has no faith in God and does not see the good, but only blackness, darkness and despair; the sorrow that just wants to get rid of the pain but is not willing to do anything but take a pill (or a drink) to get rid of it. This sorrow is truly a kind of living death. I have been there have you?
I liken this sorrow to the sorrow of the man who suspects that he has cancer, but is not willing to go to the doctor to find out for sure. He might have to have an operation. This man (this woman) is not willing to do the hard work of examining himself (what I was talking about from above in the communion service). It is a serious thing for the Christian to refuse to do this, since we are inviting His judgment (1 Corinthians 11: 29 and context) rather than His mercy. Proverbs 14:12 tells us “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death”. If you ever wondered why the ways of the World leave you in such pain and emptiness, it because even here God is calling you back to Himself, back to true repentance through the sorrow and into joy. For myself at conversion, the living death I was experiencing left me desperate enough to try anything, even God. I found Him to be everything I need.
So what does this godly sorrow look like? It is first and foremost agreeing with God that what we have done is wrong. It is making amends where it is possible and will not do more harm than good. In the verse following 2 Corinthians 7:10 (see above) Paul says “See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done”. This is bearing “fruit worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8). Such “fruit” is evidence that there has been true repentance, a true turning. But as with David in Psalm 51, true repentance is a humbling thing, it is accompanied by a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17), and a determination to turn from our sin and walk in His ways. Some have described repentance as doing a 180 degree turn.
One part of the Wikipedia definition puts it this way repentance is “a change of mind accompanied by regret and change of conduct, "change of mind and heart", or, "change of consciousness". Positive change in the direction of God and His ways, is certainly what it is all about. Regret or sorrow for what we have done, an admittance that what we did was wrong. But we do not stay in this sorrow/regret forever. Look again at the first part of 1 Corinthians 7:10 “Godly sorrow works repentance into salvation with no regrets”. In true repentance, true conversion, true turning we see that this really is the way to go. We see this Jesus is indeed the way the truth and the life, and we see when we have worked through the sorrow, that our turning leaves us without regret that we have turned, no regrets that we have escaped our former way of life. In such times we see with the prodigal son that we were formerly “out of our mind” (Luke 15:17), but now we have returned to the guardian of our souls. Now we are safe in the arms of Jesus. Now we experience His ongoing joy, His peace, His healing love and acceptance. Indeed in such a place, what is there to regret?
But true repentance is not just something we need to do once. In our moments of lucidity, in true repentance, we see things as they truly are, but it is far too easy to slip back. Indeed we are told in Hebrews 2:1 “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away”. So then repentance needs to be a way of life. In many things we all fail. His refining fire will bring us back again and again when we embrace it. The first part of the Hebrews quotation is what we were talking about the other day, about hearing Him, really hearing Him. To take the words of two of my favourite hymns “trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey” and “prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love”. Can you relate? If so cry out with me and the writer of the last hymn Lord “Here's my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above”. We cannot do this without Him. Amen
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