Hold the Line

Ephesians 6:10-18

Not much discussion is given to the war that we are currently in. The enemy has done a fantastic job of distraction, smoke and mirrors redirecting our gaze and our aim to whatever inflammatory topic is currently at the top of the news.

This is why we need to see this world for what it is…a battlefied. So when the battles come, as they will, we are able to recognize them for what they are, and for what they are NOT. They are NOT simply choices to do what is right or what is wrong in a moment. They are not capable of being won by flesh and blood and argument and law, but only by the power of the spirit. They are pitched battles for each and every soul. They are set up by an enemy who knows he cannot win and wants to take down everyone that he can before his final show.

I often forget myself that I am not a civilian, and I am in this war for my soul as an active combatant. I am not a side character standing around and making unimportant conversation. What I do matters here and now and for eternity. And if I am not standing firm on God’s truth, then I am falling away and losing the battle.

God grant me the strength to see what I am facing and to recognize attacks for what they are. When I think of what the stakes are, who I am, where I am standing, whose side I am one, it makes it so much easier to deflect the attacks of the one who wants to destroy me by turning to the one who created me.

Prayer for Focus in Spiritual Battles

Prayer for Focus in Spiritual Battles

Psalm 36:5-12; Psalm 38:1-6; Ephesians 6; Hebrews 12:28-29

Father God,

   I come before you in prayer with a grateful

and humbled heart for your marvelous and

unfailing love. Your precious love is far more

vast than my understanding, broader than the

sky above and higher than the mountains; all

encompassing.

You, O God, are righteous and just.

You are good.

You are my shelter and my provider.

You are the light by which I see.

   By your light, you make me able to discern 

the battles that are going on around me in this 

world. Let me recognize the schemes of the evil 

one so I can stand firm against them always 

turning toward you and not fighting as one 

boxing with shadows.

I depend on you, my God, 

for every victory, 

and in every failure, 

you are still my God who loves me.

  Help me to remember this, that I am yours. 

Strengthen me in your love, let your spirit grow 

within me until I am nothing but a reflection 

of you, a bringer of light in this world. May my 

focus be on you and on doing your work to 

your glory.

  Don’t let me be distracted by things that have 

no impact on eternity, by petty arguments or 

disagreements, by bad drivers or angry people, 

by distressing events or even by happy ones. 

  Take my focus away from myself.

  I refuse to believe in the lies of the enemy, 

the falsehood that my needs and desires are 

the most important, most urgent and must 

be fought for. I submit my desires to you. 

Help me to see what truly does matter in this life, 

what is precious and eternal amid all that is shaking 

and condemned to destruction.

  Show me what is worth fighting for. 

Then I will be able to stand firm 

armored in your truth and righteousness 

and peace and salvation and my faith in you 

will protect me from all the lies of this world. 

Your word will destroy every stronghold of deceit.

  I pray this for the men and women 

in my church, that the light of your love 

would guide us to see the reality of the

 world around us—the defeat of the enemy 

and the victory of your plan—and that we 

would walk with one another in love and peace. 

Strengthen us together so we can fight 

side by side, encouraging each other 

with the comfort you have given us 

in our suffering and trials, motivating one another 

to live as your daughters, saved by amazing grace, undefeatable!

  I pray that your church would not be distracted 

by the arrows the enemy is continually launching, 

no matter how fiery, but that our focus would be 

on the foundation, which is Jesus Christ crucified 

and resurrected, his victory over death, 

and his life eternal in which we will join him at the end.

  Make us a beacon of light and hope and love 

that reveals everything else as ephemeral shadows.

Amen.

Wandering

 I’m not lost. I’m just wandering.

There is something to be said for living life without an anchor. By which I mean, living without anything to hold you down to one place, one job, one style of life, one set of friends.

It’s sometimes frightening to be so unleashed, of course. To find yourself flung into the GREAT UNKNOWN without any idea of where you are going to land. But the hard facts of life mean that no one, not even the most rooted and grounded and anchored person with a pension and a 401K actually knows what is going to happen next. It’s just the illusion of safety to think that what you have now you will still have tomorrow or even in 5 minutes.

Wandering is the ability to throw off those illusions and simply face the uncertainty head on. It’s a little bit like an adrenaline rush, but more than that it is a fantastic exercise in faith…a trust fall of epic proportions.

I suppose I ought to clarify that I’m not truly without any anchor. The hope I have in Christ is a rock-solid foundation that I can anchor into even while I’m wandering (Hebrews 6:19). It’s like true north on a compass. No matter where I wander, I’m not lost, and I never will be. So I don’t have to fear the uncertainty. I can embrace change and wildness and even a worldwide pandemic without losing myself or losing sight of what is important.

I know it isn’t truly feasible for some, and that others wander entirely unintentionally. However, if it is ever possible for you to do so, if ever you come across a chance where you think “if only I had time off” or “someday I’d really like to” and you feel that pull in your chest like your being drawn somewhere even though it doesn’t make sense, I say go. I mean, pray about it first. Don’t just jump off a bridge without looking. But go as often as you can. 

Learn new things. Meet new people. Experience new cultures.

Love God Always, first and last and forever.

Wander.

Because

2020 became the year where the words ‘because Covid’ explained everything from chaos and fear to widespread shutdowns, illness, overtime or lack of employment, distance learning and the inability to get a decent haircut. In the course of a few weeks, the entire world changed. The structure and fabric of society warped in new ways, and humans did not approve. Because…Covid.

It’s a phrase that explains the change, separating the normal and expected from everything that followed over the course of the last 12 months.

It occurs to me that we can take a lesson from this. After all, as Christians, we’ve encounter another entirely life-changing event, one that can really be summed up by a similar phrase ‘because Jesus.’ And like the previous phrase, we should be able to note radical change in our lives, our homes, the way we do things, how we work, and even what we spend our money on…because Jesus.

This idea isn’t really a new one, but in the current context, I found it particularly poignant when it reached me.

Because Jesus came to earth as man and God, because he is light and love and life, because Jesus loves me, because he died to annihilate death, because he is alive and I’m forgiven…Because Jesus.

Imagine someone saying: This guy at work was so rude, but I was kind to him anyway…you know, because Jesus.

Or: I don’t really want to get involved with the underprivileged, it will take up so much time, but, because Jesus, I think I’ll do it anyway.

Just a thought, but if we started thinking in this way instead of underling everything that we’ve lost or been separated from in the last year, we just might find that we haven’t lost what’s important after all.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. 

- Ephesians 4:32

Kings, Countries, and Christmas

Kings, Countries, and Christmas

It’s coming around to that time of year where everyone turns to thoughts of gift giving and generosity. This isn’t simple coincidence. It is a direct link to the holiday that gives the season its name; a holiday that has in many ways been twisted and perverted by commercialism to gain as much revenue as possible. And yet beneath all the trappings, commercials, decorations, and treats there remains the idea of something strange and amazing happening. There clings to the days a sense of magic and wonder in what would otherwise be considered the bleakest of seasons, and it is this wonder and awe that inspires gifts freely given to family and strangers alike.

The wonder is that Emmanuel came into the world. That the spaceless and timeless God fit himself into a mortal body to live in this place of dirt and famine, wars and intrigue. Many people have quit social media sites because the burden of dealing with other people’s unfiltered opinions and emotions causes to much strain for a health life. And God, who is apart, who is holy, who is perfect, chose to immerse himself in that humankind. He didn’t do it for the amusing qualities of mankind. He did it to save us.

To anyone who has celebrated the advent before or attended Sunday school, this is not new information. In some cases, it may even be a bit tarnished and drab with unimaginative retelling. But that isn’t the point I’m going after here.

My point is that God came into the world to save men from the destruction they wrought with their own hands. Everything we have, from the next heartbeat to the homes we live in and our families are from God. We own nothing. It seems natural then to give away what we have at this time of year, as a sort of offering, and nod in the direction of the one who makes life possible.

And then… what?

Do we go back on December 26^th to protesting immigration, to wishing that the homeless wouldn’t set up their tents in our towns, to spouting caustic opinions about how right we are and how wrong others are?

Deuteronomy 10:18-19 “He [God] executes justice for the orphan and the widow and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Unless I’m much mistaken, this verse doesn’t apply to a particular time of year. This is a direction for how to treat people… all the time. But what if we allow people into our country, our city, our lives that don’t believe as we do? What if crime rates go up? What if we have to pay more taxes to support them? What if, what if. There’s no end to the possibilities. And none of them matter because what we have isn’t ours. This country, no matter who runs it or what the economy looks like, isn’t ours any more than Babylon belonged to Daniel or Nebuchadnezzar. Our jobs, our land, our food, our money, our healthcare: they aren’t ours. And until we acknowledge that, Christmas and all its wonder is going to remain inextricably linked to this one season and the rush of holiday shopping; that one day, shared with a man in a red suit; and fit into a neat little box so it can’t effect the rest of our lives and the rest of the world.

“Self-righteous religion is always marked by insensitivity to issues of social justice, while true faith is marked by profound concern for the poor and marginalized” (Keller, 2018, p 61).

Rather than worrying about what we could lose, I would love to see us separate ourselves from the individual mindset so popular in the West and start to think about what others could gain. What if we gave up some of our prejudice and worked with people on the other side who wanted to help people? What if we stopped letting the media or the politicians draw our lines for us? What if we refused to be separated from the work that God gave us?

What if Advent wasn’t just these few weeks in December, but a year-long recognition of the fact that Jesus Christ has in fact arrived and is working here still?

Keller, T. (2018) The Reason for God. New York, New York: Penguin Random House LLC.

Worth Dying For?

I was listening to a podcast the other day (It’s called Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, and if you have any interest at all in human nature or war history, I would highly recommend it). At the beginning of the very first episode I listened to, he asked the question “What would you die for?” 

As this is a fairly typical question, echoed in other forms as ‘until you know what you would die for, you’re not really living’ and so on, it is something that I’ve thought about in since I was a teenager. This contemplation was also probably sparked around the time of the Columbine shootings. As a teenager, the things on my list were straightforward and idealistic. The first three items, for instance, would have been something like: Faith, Family and Freedom. It could’ve been one of those rustic country signs that are so popular for fans of Magnolia Farms. And the things on that list are pretty standard. They are also extremely vague.

As a sidenote, I rather romantically wanted to add Love to that list, but even as a teenager, I never was that romantic. I mean, what is the point of being in love if one of you is going to die right away? That loved and lost stuff is nonsense. Anyway, moving on…

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognize, at least to a point, that I couldn’t possibly know the truth of what I’d be willing to die for unless I was put in the position of actually dying for it. This has nothing to do with bravery or even, I think, resolve, as the brain has an amazingly selfish desire for self-preservation. Some circumstances might make it possible for me to give up my life, but I don’t know if throwing myself into a hail of bullets in order to protect someone, or something, would actually be possible. For example, I was in Guatemala when someone lit a string of firecrackers outside the women’s bathroom, where I was showering. I was crouched down on the tile floor before I even really registered what the noise was.

Currently, I suppose my list would be much like many people’s. It’s a little less vague, but not much more developed. I would die to protect members of my family, or rather than renouncing my faith, and I’m certain there are cases where I would die rather than submit to some form of evil ideology. There are other circumstances as well that are harder to define. I was willing to die when I went to work in Iraq. To be honest, something of the danger made that trip that much more exciting, and I don’t know exactly what made that choice so clear to me. In the normal course of the day, I’m not willing to die in order to do my job. But then again, it isn’t normally asked nor expected either.

So think about it for a moment. Wherever you are in life, whatever is most important to you at this time, what would you considering worth dying for?

After you’ve thought about it and made your list, here is the follow up question that he asked, which intrigued me even more. Having already thought about this second question before I wrote the section above may have changed my own answer to the first questions by proxy. It was just that powerful. His second question was this: What happens when the things on your list clash? In other words, what things on your list would you sacrifice to protect other things on your list?

For example, if you say you would die for freedom, what would you sacrifice in order to secure that freedom? What if it wasn’t just your life you were risking in your fight? What if your choice to fight put your family in danger, or made them exiles? Would you sacrifice your home and your family’s lives for that same freedom that you would risk your own life to protect?

At what point, do the items on your first list begin to outweigh one another, and at what point do you draw the line?

This made me think. As Americans we are obsessed with the idea of freedom. Everyone’s freedom looks different, which makes it hard to pin down, and that’s why I call it an idea rather than a fact. In America, we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to act as we want, to travel where we want, to live where we want, freedom in person and in business, to the point that the idea of dying for freedom is sort of a national catchphrase. But what would I sacrifice to keep say my freedom to choose my own profession? If the alternative was a life in prison, or financial punishment, or consequences for my family, would I be willing to fight the idea that the government could tell me where and how I should work? Would I be willing to lose my life just so I can work where I want? I think not.

And that is where it becomes especially interesting. Because freedom, in the modern age, is unlikely to be lost all at once. Unless we were to be taken over by a neighboring country, say Canada suddenly decided to invade and enslave all Americans. In that case, all freedom would be at risk and fighting and dying would seem a reasonable alternative to simply watching the world be overturned. Also the amount of emotion and turmoil in such an invasion would fire up those sentiments of ‘live free or die’. But what if the world is overturned slowly? That’s harder to imagine, because it’s nearly impossible to visualize what the grinding away of any one aspect of freedom looks like and the course it will take. It’s harder still to make a particular stand and draw a certain line when you aren’t entirely sure if it is worth upsetting the status quo. To make it slightly easier, take for example, the idea that one day freedom of speech is taken away all by itself. People would be outraged, certainly, but is that one simple piece of freedom something I personally would be willing to die for all on its own? Are there more important things? And if so, what are they?

Living without the freedoms we have today would be unpleasant, and more so by comparison to our current state, but it would not be impossible. Of the freedoms that exist today, I believe that only the freedom of religion is one that I would fight for with all my heart. That is certainly something I would die for. One of the worst things I’ve heard about North Korea at this time is that parents who are secretly Christians never share their faith with their children for fear of either being reported by them, or of putting them in danger themselves. I don’t want to judge them in the least, but it makes me extremely sad, because I know that those children are in far greater danger if they don’t know Christ. Fear the one who, as they say, who can destroy the soul.

Of course, all of this is only speculation. And there is a difference between fighting and dying for a cause, and living and suffering for that same cause. Death is easy. Suffering, however, gives ample opportunity for one to change their mind.

All this in the podcast was in the context of what he called the “Celtic Holocaust”, or the destruction of the Gauls by Julius Ceasar. The Gauls, amid a whole mess of historic points that you’ll have to listen to the podcast to learn about, decided that fighting Rome was better than living under Roman rule. And Rome absolutely annihilated them, destroying not only the men who stood against the Romans, but starving out all the people and utterly destroying their way of life.

So I ask you again, what is worth dying for? And what is worth losing everything for?

The Instagram Perspective

A snippet from the Instagram Welcome email reads like this:

“Share your perspective by capturing and sharing photos and videos from your day, whether it’s your morning routine or the trip of a lifetime"

On the face of it, the words are accurate. You are in fact literally sharing your perspective by showing whoever happens to be following you what you are seeing… or what you want them to see. But the previous statement also has the implied promise that if people see what you see they will feel what you feel.

Is it actually true?

Certainly I appreciate pictures of clear blue waters that show up on my feed from my coworkers vacations. But do I actually know what it is to be there in the sun and the sand? Or does it instead inspire a sometimes vague and sometimes less so sense of envy and discontent? There have been multiple articles in the recent past that suggest it is very much the latter.

Why then do we continue to use such technology?

Because when it all boils down to it we do, very much, want people to feel what we feel, to share our perspective of the world if even for a brief moment, because in that sharing we feel that we ourselves might become known.

And there is very little knowing going on in current culture. I was fortunate to have grown up before the technology boom and can therefore survive for several hours and sometimes even days at a time without my phone or indeed any electronic devices.

But I’ve recently run into a problem. While I am perfectly capable, judging by past relationships and ongoing friendships, of starting and maintaining a conversation, the people around me are growing less and less capable of providing the other side of such a conversation.

I spent the last two days at a leadership conference here in Rochester. It was at a location that I’d never visited before, and the only person I knew there was my brother, who came as my guest.

The first day, the only people who deigned to talk to us were the greeters, and one random pastor that I met in the lunch line. Even the people sitting at our lunch table were entirely involved in their own conversation and their phones, so much so that they didn’t even say hello. At a leadership conference.

I would like to point out here that there is a certain amount of humorous irony in that.

The second day I made the extra effort to strike up conversations during the meal, and I was rewarded with a tepid stream of basic facts that wound down into painful silence. Once we were the past the where are you from and what do you do part of the questions, no one seemed willing to go any farther. Why?

Personally, I was tired of trying to draw out even the dullest facts. Small talk is a tapeworm to my soul. It’s all well and good if you have to talk to someone in the grocery line, but it isn’t meant to last any longer than that. After that you have to have something else to say, something of substance and value.

Unfortunately, many such topics have at this point been ruled politically incorrect. Taking the risk of mentioning anything of gravity opens you up to all sorts of possible vehement and critical responses. Of course, you might also have the nice surprise of finding that the other person agrees with you. Or you might have the even better surprise of discovering that they don’t, and are still able to discuss their opinion with you in a manner both respectful and casual.

And that, dear reader, is what actual perspective sharing is about. Listening. Learning. Talking. Thinking. Not necessarily agreeing, but considering with grace and respect.

This is not something that can be captured in a photo or selfie, no matter what the current exchange rate of words/photography.

It isn’t something that is being taught in our schools, our universities, or our churches. I failed to mention this was a Christian leadership conference and therefore much of the normal fear of being shot down shouldn’t even have come into play.

And yet…

Could I have started something more serious myself? Certainly. Do I have a truly good excuse for not bringing up some facet of the day’s teaching and gathering opinions? An excuse, no. But an understanding as to why I didn’t. Yes. Conversation, any kind of conversation that goes deeper than the shallow subjects of one’s number of children and current career path, requires at least a modicum of interest in having a conversation to be shown on both sides. If even getting you to say hello is like pulling teeth, no one is likely to want to sit down for a nice chat about the current theological/political climate, or the state of the gender wars.

Sharing perspective is important. It is vital for communication that moves people forward. And it is dying, if not already dead and cremated, because this rich tool that, properly wielded, can bring together diverse people from cultures and countries around the world has been substituted for something no thicker than a single moment captured on a digital print that will itself vanish in 25 hours.