Author Archives: PearlS

Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted. Fezzik, The Princess Bride

 

Stay at home. Save a life.

We zoomed under the words posted above the highway, intent on making our Taco John Sunday brunch (terrible, to be honest) last us till our next stop, the disc golf course. The kids and the dog whined, no longer used to long jaunts in the car. We passed out fruit and encouraged them to see what they could see out the window.

Joe knew I needed to get out, so we drove an hour and a half to a new course.

Disc golfers seem to be notoriously unconcerned, even with signs warning parties over ten people. Men hold bottles of beer in koozies while putting shots. Dogs run around, thrilled to be in the open. Folks smile. It’s a mask-less oasis. None of us are shaking hands, but we are all breathing the same air.

At the tenth hole, we took off our shoes and waded in the creek. Gretty loaded a sun hat with river-washed rocks. We finished the course and ate Cheez-its out of the back of the car, enjoying a view different than our front and back yard.

I was at the point where I couldn’t look out my front window without stomach acid burning my throat. This week I reported a domestic violence incident in my neighborhood. I held the girl in my arms as she sobbed and recounted all the ways he has hurt and threatened her. I held her baby as the cop took photos of her bruises. For hours I begged her to let me take her to a safe house. She wouldn’t leave.

I am so sick of hearing the jingle: stay at home, save a life.

I’m weary of celebrities in celebrity homes acting like we are all doing our part, baking bread and mindlessly scrolling social media, looking for the next big meme or “challenge”. I am tired of the news assuring us we cannot trust our instinct, our own rationale. In my city, it is becoming, just this week, absolutely required to wear a mask in public or face a $1000 fine. Reporters sit in front of cameras, faces masked, urging us to trust them, to do what they say. They know more than us, they think. Wearing a face mask in public shows we care, they say. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Is it the right thing to do? Who says what is right? Dear God, throw us some bread. Open our eyes and show us where we are being deceived.

The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations;
He frustrates the plans of the peoples.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart from generation to generation.
Psalm 33:10-11

When we lived in southwestern Colorado, our county had the highest liquor stores per capita as well as one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Distraction from hopelessness crowned purple mountains’ majesty. In the past decade, recreational marijuana and same sex marriages have been legalized, redefining sobriety and disparaging the family unit. Who needs a mother and a father? How old-fashioned!
One in four babies in this country dies by abortion; in Colorado, a fetus may be aborted up to birth. As long as she doesn’t breath air before they silence her, it is fine and dandy. My body, my rights.

We are so morally awful that we fail to recognize our choices are leading to our deaths! We are far, far beyond wearing masks. We are sick on the inside, sicker than we care to admit. We cannot rely on the government to fix the problem.

Take, for example, China. One night when I stayed up late, I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime called One Child Nation. Filmed and produced by a Chinese-American who interviewed her own family on the one-child policy and its implementation, the documentary is a heartbreaking insight into the overreach of Communist China.

The government imposed a law to limit the number of children a family might have, promoting its ideology in numerous billboards, songs, dance, and cultural stories. Even today in China are slogans–fading painted reminders on city blocks: One more baby means one more tomb. Induce labor. Abortion! Anything but an excess baby.

For a price, some families might be allowed to expand their family to two children, but only if spaced five years apart. The stories are horrific. Forced abortions and sterilizations, women screaming and pleading for mercy. During the interviews, tears trickle from deadened eyes. They shrug– “We had no choice.”

As Hitler rose to control in Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer could not reconcile any Christian peacemaking attempt with the Nazi regime. He had seen the African-American struggle for equality while he was in school in the States, and he felt it eerily similar to the injustice taking place in Germany.
“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear…Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more than they are doing now.”
D. Bonhoeffer

We are not far off this path of history repeating itself. I fear our pacifistic, don’t-rock-the-boat nature is bordering neglect. Someone is going to have to explain our inaction to future generations–why millions of kids weren’t allowed to learn at school or even play at playgrounds. Where they were held captive, at the mercy of domestic abuse. When mental health issues became the next crisis. When churches and fellowship were forbidden. Why the economy was stifled; why the new Depression began.

 

You may point a finger and say, how irresponsible, how naive! People are dying–doesn’t she care?! Here are my credentials: I am a sober, recycling, thrift-store wearing, tax paying, public school supporting, law abiding, cautious, debt-free, domestic abuse-reporting citizen, yet I am not given the choice to decide on wearing a mask in public. When is it ever my body, my choice?

This is the opposite of civil liberty. This is fear-mongering. This is bullying. This is overreach. This has little to do with sickness or concern for the elderly and health-compromised. If we had cared about the least of these, we would have looked into the nursing home for-profit industry long ago, because it has a history littered with neglect. If we cared, we would respect human life enough to not give handouts to people unwilling to work for bread. If we cared, we wouldn’t collect debt like it was Halloween candy. If we cared, we would not have legalized a drug (marijuana) that damages the brain and exacerbates mental illness. If  we cared, we would not fiddle with and downplay the role of a mother and a father or the family unit. If we truly cared, we would support caregivers. We would be people who honored our parents. We would love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the moral code written on our hearts, yet our minds that have been seared to allow the unconscionable.

Here is where we find ourselves.

You and I–we do not need to be told to keep our germs to ourselves; it is quite the natural way for a responsible, healthy person to behave. But we are no longer healthy-minded, and this is why it is so easy to be tricked into mindless submission.

We live in a country where the death of a celebrity is worth more than the death of a dear one in the nursing home. Kobe Bryant sparked a wave of mourning prior to Covid; twenty thousand nursing home deaths have not. We love pointing fingers and shifting the blame. Politicians fling hate like confetti–they’re ready to throw a party for the death of a president, a candidate, a representative, a speaker.

General Douglas Macarthur said, “In this day of gathering storms, as moral deterioration of political power spreads its growing infection, it is essential that every spiritual force be mobilized to defend and preserve the religious base upon which this nation is founded; for it has been that base which has been the motivating impulse to our moral and national growth. History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual reawakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”

 

Friends, people have always been hurting. People have forever been dying. As with my neighbor, I might not convince you to leave the craziness in the hands of the crazy. I might beg and plead, yet you still find the world an entertaining place and nothing more. Your life will testify for you, your silence, your words, your actions. If you are on the fence, ask Jesus to throw bread in your direction to knock you off of it. Ask him for perfect wisdom in this world, ask what is the will of God in my life? Ask for the Spirit to move in your heart, even as it raised Jesus from the dead. These are days where your seeking and knocking are imperative. It isn’t just about masks.
If you know the good you ought to do and do not do it, for you it is sin.
James 4:17
We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing — for that is nothing but fear. ‘Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless’ — for who in the church today still remembers that that is the least of the Bible’s demands in times such as these?

D. Bonhoeffer

 

I spoke with my mom on the phone last night. Our conversations keep circling back to these weird times we are living, and she said something I thought was worth writing down: I hope people are taking this time to slow down and think. Maybe it will change the way they live. Maybe it will change everything for them.

Like it or not, she’s right. Everything has come to a screeching halt, and it is the perfect opportunity to pose thoughtful questions. Before we start the engine back up–if that is what happens–question everything. Knock on the door and boldly ask for bread, for understanding and insight. I am posting a small series of some of my midnight conversations–I’d love to hear yours, too.

I’ve been thinking more about femininity and our culture, and how it enmeshes itself with  our modern American version of Christianity. I have touched on this in a previous post, written last year after Rachel Held Evans passed away. In a way, she split hairs for the faith community. She stepped into a gap and bluntly asked the questions we all had but were too afraid of rocking the boat. We differ in many ways, but like her, I have wandered this desert of perplexing “Biblical womanhood” for several years.
It has never felt natural to me to paste myself to the wallpaper or be a domesticated “help meet” to my spouse. I’m pretty independent, sort of stubborn, and embarrassingly low maintenance. I crave uncomplicated routines and despise laziness. At the same time, I am aware of the truth in the statement that beauty fades but a gentle spirit is forever lovely. The gritty sandpaper of the Spirit has had to smooth a lot of my rough edges, and I’m learning to yield a bit sooner as clay in the hands of a Potter.

My husband has pursued a career while I have stayed home and raised children. The feminist would cringe if they heard me declare my love for homemaking (by that I do not mean house cleaning), but I’m afraid they would stand and applaud if I confessed how much I grieved my lost dreams from my twenties. I didn’t even know what those dreams were, but I was sure I could knock them out if given a chance. Then God gave me four babies. It powered up the Holy Spirit sander–they have completely worn me down. Now I am equally at home in my mind mindlessly washing dishes as I am doing anything work or dream-related.

How does one explain the peace that comes with forfeit to a go-getter who has pursued their dreams? This was where I slipped off the train that carried people like Rachel Held Evans to feminist-Christian applause and success. I stopped questioning if God’s ways were higher and if His words held water. Of course they were. Of course they did. In our marriage, it wasn’t an argument that landed me a loser; we simply allowed the money making responsibility to rest on my husband’s shoulders, because he is better at it. It made sense. Likewise, I’m better at home life. Happier, even. I love my kids and am thankful to stay home with them. Some things are no-brainers: our marriage works best when we link arms and humbly take up our respective responsibilities.
Still, I’m no June Cleaver. There remains an unspoken tension when we compare our life to others in our conservative, evangelical circle, because even though things work for us, it doesn’t line right up with expectations. For beginners, we got married and told as few of people as possible just to avoid the gratuitous reactions of people who only slightly knew us. In the Love and Respect class we took, we found ourselves a backward combination: he wanted more love and I wanted more respect. There isn’t a bone in Joe’s body that desires an important, well-spoken, sharp-dressed, influential presence in the church. It makes me uneasy to admit how much I despise small talk and womens’ conferences and table decorations and fussing about refreshments and furniture and baby showers.

We are two oddballs, puzzled over mysteries like the perceived higher calling of being in the “paid ministry” and fellow believers who have no interest in setting a foot in their child’s school or Sunday school class. We are often impatient with a world that encourages us to love our neighbors but has such a hard time realizing that that means here and now and him and her. There is nothing remarkable about us, yet we feel so much on the fringes of Christian culture.
What do you do with folks who don’t fall in step with the crowd? What if they just won’t step in the water and ride the current? What about the system shakers that don’t take a side? I’m afraid I can come off as annoying or impossible to please. But if a person is bold enough to challenge the norms, they risk all sorts of labels.

After studying scripture and asking God to throw more bread, I think mostly everything I was raised to believe about women is only half true, if true at all. Rachel Held Evans hinted at it–I think she was on the cusp. I am finally understanding why my life, my marriage, and our perspective (mine and Joe’s) doesn’t always line up with cultural expectations. The view from the mountaintop looks nothing like the view from the valley. But sometimes in the church, we’re given a perspective that paints a picture only accessible from the top. It cuts out a lot of people who have to climb trees, like Zacchaeus, because they’re at a disadvantage–simply put, they’re too short to see. We’ve been fed a steady diet of what a women or a man ought to look like with little nuance and appreciation for differentiation. Mostly I am thinking on women, because I am one. Specifically in our culture of conservative American evangelicalism, we’ve been alerted to two paths–loud, obnoxious, rebellious (wrong), or gentle, quiet, obedient (right).
It should be simple, but I keep throwing rocks at the foundation of what I’ve been taught to see if it holds up. For example, the husband is supposed to be the head of the home, the spiritual leader. But what about the single woman? What about the woman married to a man who doesn’t want to be a spiritual leader? What about a woman who has lived through abuse and doesn’t trust men? With one-size-fits-all, it is difficult to find a place for the outliers.

As I get older, I realize I’m more aware of how easily I fell into this supposition that people who are able to follow the rules or match pitch must be right, therefore knocking the rest of us out of the running. But womanhood is not only for homemakers and hospitality and June Cleaver. Even if all the audio Bible versions I’ve ever listened to are women actors acting helpless, weepy, pitiful, or emotionally unstable, I know this is not a valid picture of womanhood.

I think I’ve always been a bit aware of the disconnect. The flannel board from my childhood Sunday school memory made Lydia, Martha, Mary, Magdalene, Esther, Ruth and Naomi all look the same. Even Eve just needed a robe in place of her carefully-adjusted hair and fig leaf to look the part. They were beautiful, shallow, Elizabeth Taylor versions of Bible characters, none of whom resembled any women I’d ever seen. None were portrayed as people I actually knew–none except poor Martha–and she was, in church, brushed off as a distracted control freak. Martha, whose work ethic resembled every good woman I’d ever loved and admired, the first to get up and serve, the last to sit down and rest. The tireless mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who fixed food and cleaned it up with not one nod of gratitude in her direction.

I could read the story, but how was I to really believe it, that love was sitting at the feet of Jesus and not getting the table set for supper? It took years before I put it into context, that at the time Martha’s story was unfolding, Jesus was there–God in person. Poor Martha. She should’ve been using paper plates, not scrubbing dishes.

This is what fooled me for so long–flannel board women, two-dimensional stories. Tales that wrapped women in petty roles. None of them mirrored my mother, grandmothers, aunts, or virtually anyone I knew in the midwest. When I happened upon the chapters describing the roles of men and women in the church, I shrugged and figured they were antiquated. It kept men happy to limit a woman, it made them puff their chest out a bit to keep them quiet.

Let me say, I rarely, rarely saw a man who led his family the way our Bible told us–the “spiritual leader”. My father loved my mother, but did he love her as much as he loved his own body? It seemed pretty apparent that deep down every mother was in charge of the leading.

This is actually what flipped the switch for me.
God doesn’t ask easy things of us. He didn’t ask that a man simply go to work and make money, then retire to the couch for the rest of the evening. He asked him to take care of a woman like it were his own flesh. He doesn’t ask women to sit pretty and keep kids quiet. He asks them to live meaningful lives where not a single word or action is wasted. He didn’t send Jesus to ace some test and prove He was flawless. God held a heavenly list of people who needed to experience love, and He sent Jesus to check off each personality type that has ever represented all of the human race. He hung out with his single friends, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. He loved on women who were abused and tossed to the side. He approached women just to talk with them. He let women touch him. He raised a little girl from the dead and asked for some breakfast. He took the babies from the arms of their mothers just to snuggle them for a moment and smell their sweet heads. He let women be the first to witness his risen self–even though a woman’s voice didn’t count as testimony in the court!

You want to know who has chutzpah, who made the balls-iest move in all of the New Testament? It was a Gentile woman with a demon-possessed child who begged Jesus for help. Those good men, those wonderful, super perceptive, servant-hearted disciples (note my sarcasm) told Jesus he needed to make her go away.  But Jesus pulled her aside and spoke in code. It was a secret language she understood, a pact between just the two of them. Hear this: Jesus pulled a Gentile woman into his circle and spoke her heart language:

It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.

And she shot back the quickest answer only a woman with incredible wit and a lifetime of pain could give:

Yes it is, Lord. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table.

In that time, a man would have every right to kick her in the face for being so cheeky. Jesus applauded the woman and healed her daughter that very instant. (Matthew 15)

Women are essential, elevated, big-time, multi-dimensional characters. We get it wrong all the time because we have the mountain view, the view that values beauty, success, health and wealth. We display our Beth Moores and Ann Voskamps and June Cleavers as the ultimate example of womanhood because they fit our flannel board minds, but we forget we are little shorties who need to climb a tree to see Jesus. The scope of womanhood is an ocean.

Now there are voices all the time being added to this discussion. They challenge our perspective and have incredible sway on our thinking. I listened to a recent podcast of Jen Hatmaker interviewing Glennon Melton-Doyle. These ladies are prominent faith leaders, you could say, and the frustration they expressed regarding this very subject–a woman’s place in society–was palpable. Both authors have recently released books, manifestos, you could call them, regarding the friction caused by unrealistic expectations–the flannel board woman. The conversation was all about feminism, power, the church. However, Hatmaker and Melton-Doyle explained their way out of the fundamental evangelical church, which they felt restricted their freedom. From their perspective, they are breaking chains and the unspoken rules that held them captive participants to life. They describe themselves as teachers of women, as if they are opening doors no one has ever walked through. They say they know the secret to regaining their wildness, untaming the tamed. It begins with hot anger at the system and courage enough to challenge the status quo. There is a sneaky twisting of facts. Do not subscribe to their fake news.

Jesus does not hold women in bondage. He raises a banner of love over us.

Get out of your Sunday school room and toss the flannel in the garbage. God’s love for women is not a thrift store, hand-me-down version. You can’t buy a higher quality, more fulfilling, satisfying, wild and wonderful life than the one He wants to give to you. Power, success, beauty–you’ll forget what you used to want when you run into Jesus.

Climb up into the tree to see Him, let your perspective be changed.

 

I have been sitting on my front porch more than usual. It’s warmer, for one thing, and I’m no longer walking the kids to school. Maybe it is to avoid the dog, who wants to climb up into my lap (she is not a lap dog, nor do I invite or even like lap dogs). She stays off my lap, out of my business, and in the backyard until I’ve had coffee and read or written a bit. Gretty joins me on the porch while two of the boys think about dragging their bodies out of bed and Lu reads upside down on the couch.
It is us two, just girls, and I’ve had a lot of busy-in-the-morning little boys to know to appreciate a little girl doing her little girl thing. Gretty loves worms and roly polies and is often on the hunt for things to add to her orange five gallon bucket. She talks to her little critters like a mother. Oh you precious little guy, don’t you worry. We’ll get you nice and cozy in your bucket. Do you need a pretty flower? You do? Oh, you sweet little thing, we can get you a flower! 

Yesterday, she pressed a tiny ball of a roly poly into my palm and urged me to love it while she prepared its new home. I examined the ball and its neatly plated armor hiding the soft inside secrets that tell it to move. After a moment to decide he was safe, it unrolled itself onto its curved back and squirmed ten or twelve little legs in the air, begging for me to flip it over.

This creature, a walking shell. A miniature military vehicle that cruises my vast concrete driveway and suddenly dries up when death takes over. What makes up its last moments? Does it raise one last leg up into the air, too weak to go on? I bet its wee brain, no more than a spark of instinct, simply shuts down. It halts like a toy whose batteries have run out. You could never convince me that several million years of development separate me from it. Millions of years should have upgraded this life form to its advantage; he shouldn’t just be scooting around on pavement, but rather sitting inside at the kitchen table.

I will never be a person who willingly argues a young earth viewpoint. But I can vouch that for me, only creation makes sense. The miracles expressed in a given day–have you seen how small and frail a dandelion seed is, yet the root of such a weed fixes itself in the dirt like an anchor?–the wonder of creation speaks. Environmentalists, activists, and Greta Thunberg are on the right track, sort of. There is something about this old-young earth worth saving, redeeming, or at least paying some attention. It is profound: For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen…so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

Just by marveling at creation we are testifying we see Him. We see God’s handiwork; we hold roly polies in our hands. We’ve seen babies born. We’ve picked vegetables out of our garden, we’ve eaten food from the ground. We’ve climbed mountains and watched sunsets. We’ve swam in the ocean. We are without excuse.

One time I met a rocket scientist during cello lessons. I was sitting on the couch, waiting for Jubal to wrap up his session, a massive textbook spread on my knees. Nerdy draws nerds, I suppose, and the man across the coffee table stopped strumming his guitar and asked me what I was studying. We fell into an easy conversation, pondering the pros and cons of various educational systems. I asked him what he did for a living. He began describing solar flares and how to measure them, and then he told me of a three million dollar machine prototype he would drive next week, strapped in his car like a baby, to Washington DC.

As usual, I felt pretty out of place talking to someone so qualified. Obviously he was important–though I’m not sure I know why solar flares need to be measured. But finally, at the ripe old age of the mid-thirties, I don’t feel threatened and I don’t mind asking foolish questions. Astronomy, rocket science–it’s not in my wheelhouse. I hardly know anything, not about the stars and sun, not about how to measure them, or even why man tries. I have enough faith to believe there is a God who holds it all in balance, who has a plan I’ll never even understand. I’m not curious about how solar flares work, at least not until it applies to me in an existential way.

I will not spend my life questioning how the universe has been put together. Eventually, we will know it–science is simply the mystery of God being distilled in a way humans can comprehend, with our limited tools of comprehension. It’s like the miracle of life itself, how several years ago we couldn’t imagine the secrets of the unborn child within the mother’s womb, yet now we can see the babe by ultrasound, sucking its thumb and dancing, patiently waiting for her day to be revealed. The more we uncover, the more we are without excuse. Science is a marvelous mechanism in the hands of the Father, but speaking for myself–I don’t think I need it. I live with a moral obligation to trust that even in the things I cannot see or understand, God has my best interests in mind. This is the security of every believer. Our eyes are fixed on Him.

But oftentimes, as I am in the habit of writing, an idea plagues me until I must fiddle with it until I understand it. I don’t need to know why I’m here anymore–I’m solid. What  I need to know is how to answer questions for people I love. It is the question, as Francis Shaeffer put it, How Should We Then Live?
I am desperate to know, determined to put it on paper. Thank goodness we’ve got the Bible, but even the Bible is read through our human lens and often misinterpreted. I grew up sandwiched between scare tactics and midwestern work ethic. Grace rarely figured into the equation. I need better vision. I lack wisdom, I am cynical. I fall into rhythms of hopelessness and doubt.

God, help me, I plead, and He never, ever ignores me.
Most people know the Lord’s prayer, the template Jesus offered when his disciples asked Him how they ought to pray. We all have it memorized, as simple as reciting a nursery rhyme:
Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…

But after Jesus taught them, he gave a little story. He talked about a guy who was at home, asleep in bed, his kids snuggled up around him. All of the sudden, there is a knock at the door. It’s his friend who lives down the road. His buddy yells through the window, “Hey man, sorry to bother you. Can you lend me three loaves of bread?”
The man inside is slightly annoyed. It’s the middle of the night, his kids are asleep, and he doesn’t want to be bothered.
Jesus says, “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”
This, apparently, is what God wants from us. Boldness in asking questions.

“I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
(Luke 11)

These words of Jesus are life to me. Lord, I can ask questions. I’m at your door every night and all day long. God, lend me your ear. I am not leaving till you throw me some bread.

As Gretty gently puts the little roly poly back into the flower bed–“he just loves my crazy flowers,” she giggles, referring to the wild flower seeds she’d sown the day before–I stand on the doorstep and knock. I’ve got questions that need answers–for Gretty, my early morning bug hunter, my future teenager, my forever baby girl.

God, how should we then live?

A couple months ago, I shut down my personal Instagram account.

This is not earth-shattering news, nor do I mean to overemphasize it as if I’ve really done something amazing and selfless. My husband doesn’t participate in any form of social media, and to him quitting social media is no bigger deal than turning the TV off when it’s time to go to bed.

I realized, when it wasn’t that simple, that I had given too much time, wrapped myself in the false security of feeling known. I had commented on thoughtful posts, entered some pseudo-community where no one really cares, but opinions and clever quips are appreciated for a nanosecond. You know, before we scroll down to the next picture on the list.

I think we all know this deep down, but it sure feels good to be counted among the folks we admire. We want applause and assurance, and this is what social media offers. We can laugh and joke about it, but it’s more complicated when we try to untangle ourselves from its grip.

When I’ve brought this up to friends, when I’ve come right out and admitted it was my idol, possibly an addiction–something I thought about and looked forward to and plotted how clever I could be, they looked away. When I confessed I had dreams about various people I followed, as if I knew them in real life, they laughed.

They kindly patted me on the back and said I take things too seriously. It’s an outlet, they said, not a problem. You stay at home, no wonder you want a little interaction. We all feel better when we pretend it’s superficial nonsense. It makes us uneasy to admit we have fallen for such a painted-up version of life, that quite possibly we are wasting our lives away, consuming pixels.

Cal Newport raises the red flag on this rarely regarded phenomenon:

…the fact that our humanity was routed by these tools over the past decade should come as no surprise…We’ve been engaging in a lopsided arms race in which the technologies encroaching on our autonomy were preying with increasing precision on deep-seated vulnerabilities in our brains, while we still naively believed that we were just fiddling with fun gifts handed down from the nerd gods.
Digital Minimalism, 2019

I think the obsessiveness is actually what alerted me to the dangers. It occurred to me, after I’d deleted Instagram off my phone, that I’d been even more wrapped up in the app than I’d initially thought. I only followed 60 people or so, but I’d cultivated a nice group of writers, speakers, literary agents; all which spoke deeply into my life, my hopes and dreams. I invested in my heroes and beamed when they noticed me. I thought I had a handle (little instagram pun for ya) on what was going on. I thought I was simply keeping my toes in the water, my poker in the fire, so to speak. These actions would build my platform, these little duties of commenting, liking, subscribing, sharing would help me someday with my own voice. I would hashtag my way into a book deal, and my insta-idols would have seen it coming all along. Because of my loyalty to them, they would, in the future, promote my books and tag me in emotional, spine-tingling insta-stories.

Anyone with half an eyeball could see this slippery slope, right? Resign yourself to the ways of the world if you want success. No one has ever told me otherwise. No one, that is, except for my dad, the most backwards person of all time. He’s always examined and challenged every tiny bit of the world, down to its cogs and hinges. I’ll admit, this sort of questioning and mild suspicion doesn’t make one an easy person to get along with–but since I am my father’s daughter, it has never left me.

Throughout my day, I am measuring things against a yardstick, Truth. Everything versus Truth. My mind picks it apart into miniscule pieces; I weigh what I hear with what I know, and then I do research for fun. I nail down the proof, then I move on to my next curiosity. I know I’m a nerd, but I’m comfortable with it. It is a bizarre, underrated gift…maybe. Discernment–that’s what I prefer to call it.

There was one little insta-story that bumped its way into my feed at the same moment I happened to be studying the minor prophets. If you know me, you’ll know I’ve been wading through these not-so-popular guys for a couple years now. For some reason, I can’t shake the remarkable similarities between the people of then and our culture today. The ache of sorrow by a God whose people have run into the arms of other lovers. The just and holy God, wooing them back, warning them they are only destroying themselves.

On Instagram, one of my favorite present-day authors posted a stunning photo of a peace monument made of melted firearms and Isaiah 2:4 printed below: They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

This verse is echoed in Micah 4–a beautiful image that follows repentant worship: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths…” He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Micah 4:2-3

But my dear author friend was using it as a call to social justice, a jab at the second amendment, a denunciation of school shootings. It was misplaced, a verse taken out of context. Rewind to Joel, and the call is reversed:

Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, “I am strong!” (Joel 3:9-10)

There is a time for war; there is a time for peace. But there always seems to be a time for misplacing verses on Instagram. It was very clear to me–less screen time would silence the confusion.

Still, I am aware not everyone is consumed by minor prophet study. Most, however, have a cell phone and routinely scroll for entertainment. It feels like my duty to push the red warning button. This is where I love to write, in the median, with my yardstick handy.
So I will begin.

Jen Hatmaker is one of my former faves. She is a master of semantics. Make no mistake, she is a pro when it comes to persuading others and proving her point. I have admired her for years. Clever, funny, smart, she gained a following–a tribe, she calls it–women who eat her words like truth straight to their gut.
I am fascinated by her. Years ago, she was a writer mom like myself, mastering her domain, poking fun at the chores of life, enjoying small moments rich with meaning, and answering the deeper questions that plagued her. From what I can tell, her first book was a lucky break, but each successive book propelled her into a bigger spotlight. I was introduced to her book, 7, and so enjoyed the model of a year-long, month-by-month challenge that I laid out my own book in the same fashion.
Hatmaker’s career evolved from writing into speaking and eventually what she called “bridge building”, riding the waves of a public paid-ministry in the era of social media boom. I watched as her convictions changed and as she shifted her feet, looking for her people. I’m not sure if it was fame, fortune, or plain old people-pleasing that instigated it, but subtle things skewed her perspective. She tentatively lowered a flag that stood for Jesus and replaced it with a swinging door of modern philosophy, raising questions on what exactly dictates a spiritual compromise.

She gave interviews that snuck in concessions. Her journey had led her to doubt, and she labeled it a refinement of faith. Meanwhile, her popularity was growing and her cool factor was through the roof. She apologized to people she viewed as marginalized and poorly treated, particularly the LGBTQ community. Everyone is safe and welcome, she assured them. She tucked them under their wing and promised there was a place at God’s table for them. They were her tribe, she declared, and she wouldn’t ever again settle for such a stingy view on God.

My jaw dropped. A flashing red warning signal began spinning in my head.
I had to sit for a while with my yardstick before I understood for myself where it all went off the tracks. It wasn’t the issue of welcoming the unwelcome. I’m all for it; I’ve always felt like an outsider myself. There is a big table set, and I think someday our minds will be blown by the people we meet in Heaven. The deeper, graver matter was how Jen Hatmaker no longer stood as a conduit for Jesus, but rather a new philosophy on grace. And Jesus was no longer a part of it.

Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be under God’s curse!
Galatians 1:7-8

Jen Hatmaker hasn’t been the only one. A whole list of beautiful people I’ve had my eye on have disappointed me with their words and choices. Hatmaker seems to have the thickest skin among them all–and I don’t mean to tear anyone apart–but I’ve seen these leaders, once solid and grounded, change their tune. Their initial, unique voice grew louder and morphed into political activism or social justice, or hints of a pseudo-freedom apart from Christ. It baffles me, but it isn’t unheard of.

It is well-documented: people are easily swayed. We move to the beat of our convictions, feelings, upbringing, circumstances, and better judgment. If you desire something, you’ll look for ways to enable your lust. If you hate someone or something, you will find ways to justify your hate. It is what sin is all about; it is the fruit of human nature. Think of Hitler, think of Stalin, Mussolini, North Korea, Communist China. Think of Republicans and Democrats, CNN and Fox News. Think on how they all reached or reach just far enough to scratch the ears of the people around them, how they stoke a fire that was already burning in the hearts of those who agree with them. Think on how they eschewed a sound mind and truth in favor of power and propaganda. Think how they established their own tribes, people who rise and fall at their whim. History is full of leaders leading and followers, following. We trace it back even to the time of Jesus–important-looking people swaying weak-minded individuals and convincing them to follow along. Blind men leading blind men, Jesus called the Pharisees, “both headed for the pit.” (Matthew 15) In one breath, Jesus dismissed these phonies and didn’t make any apologies about it. He was never afraid of offending the greater religious community, even though they actively sought to catch him in lies, to destroy him. He called a spade a spade.

In our culture today, we wonder how to approach hurting people with the love of Jesus, but there is confusion on who to approach and how to do it. We often err on the side of being sensitive, and we come off as wimps or half-hearted, already defeated door-knockers. But there are two clear sides. Ephesians 5 is an astounding, word by word recipe for saints. Unmarked by impurity, immorality, idolatry, idiocy–we are to light the world up and “expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness.” The chapter says, “do not let anyone deceive you with empty words–have nothing to do with them!” (Ephesians 5:6-7). These empty-worded ones are the folks on the other side of the tracks, people who “did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so they do what ought not to be done (Romans 1).
I’ve realized that this is the offense in following Jesus today. It is intolerance to sneaky, empty words and a depraved mind. It is exposing darkness. It’s the forsaking of the white-washed tomb people. The ones who look admirable and dress up Christianity as model living, using power, prestige, and beauty–to influence babies in the faith.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Colossians 2:8

We are thumping on watermelons, trying to spot the bad ones. Pointing them out is going to cost us big time.

Our same Jesus peeled back the exterior of our heart. He exposed our real intentions when it comes to relationships. It was disarming for Jesus to say, “if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them…But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return…” (Luke 6:32,35)

It is natural to love those we love, gain the admiration of folks like us, and think we must have a good thing going. It is upside down, however (not to mention unprofitable), to seek the good of our enemies, to invest in things that do not profit us. If we bend so naturally to our own inclinations, how then can we do the unnatural? How can we inhabit the perfect spirit of Christ and love our enemies? How do we abide in truth so we won’t be swayed by what isn’t true? How can we become genuine leaders and faithful disciples rather than puppet celebrities and gawking audience members?

This is what I so long to ask my brothers and sisters who fall for the quick wit and false humility typical of our modern teachers. What credit is it to us to love what is easy to love, that which costs us nothing more than mindlessly scrolling social media? We let our “influencers” lead us astray, one tiny step at a time, and meanwhile we have no idea how we lost our way. We don’t know why it is we believe a certain flavor or half-truth. We don’t know how to defend our faith that has been watered down by rote human arguments.

How quickly our faith falls apart when we rely on our own wisdom and the Jen Hatmakers of today! If we do not know what is true, if we don’t ask God to reveal to us what is Truth, how in the world can we refute what is false? How can Jen Hatmaker or news media outlet or any voice in your earbuds not sway you to whatever version of truth they prefer? You have, by default, willingly made yourself vulnerable to the arrows of the enemy. And if you don’t believe there is an enemy, you likewise deny there is purpose in some higher Truth, say, that life itself has meaning. You deny there is any holy work yet to be done in your life. Believe me, this lie is uglier and more dangerous than we give credit. I can’t even wrap my mind around how this works. In 2 Thessalonians there is a perplexing description of God sending people who don’t love the Truth “a deluding influence so they will believe what is false.”
Simply put, we have got to cling to Truth. We’ve got to crave the pure milk of the Word.

Has Jen Hatmaker forgotten who we are as men and women, professed believers in Jesus and “co-laborers in Christ”? Has she forgotten we are to be leading people to this real Life, the one true shepherd of their souls, not stamping unrighteousness with a good housekeeping seal of approval? We are to kneel, broken over our sin, filled with love and hope for our fellow broken humans.
We are to live transparent before God: “Seek me, know my anxious heart, try my thoughts and lead me in the path of everlasting”–a cry that rallies all of us unworthy sinners longing for redemption.

When a doctrine is created only to uphold a man’s logic, a springboard for launching one’s own self-promoting opinions, we should see this as a red flag. Such a platform ultimately (and publicly) denying there is a God in Heaven whose ways are “higher than ours” and “too wonderful for me to understand”. You see, there is only one Creed worth holding to, and it didn’t bubble up and out of the heart of man. It is Love that led Jesus, a perfect man, God-in-flesh, to the cross to die, a perfect sacrifice on our behalf. It is what will lead us to our own deaths as well, a death that will finally lead to real, victorious life.

An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.
The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful;
He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
Even on his bed he plots evil;

He commits himself to a sinful course
And does not reject what is wrong.
Psalm 36:1-4

Proud. Not God-fearing. Flatters himself and doesn’t even think there’s a thing wrong with it. Lying. No longer wise, no longer does good. Committed to his own cause because he can no longer decipher between good and evil.

What rattles me is our response to such false teachers. We are supposed to recognize these tomb people for who they truly are, but it is complicated. They look awfully clean on the outside. They easily convince us–they toss out ideas like unity, acceptance, peace, generosity– and it is a simple matter to fall in line. It hardly requires anything of us, only that we agree. Anybody can quote a Bible verse here and there. Taylor Swift could spin a proverb into a catchy ditty that everyone will sing along to, but to know God, to wrap yourself around the entire story, to plunge the depths of wisdom in the Word, to be absolutely wrecked, changed, and be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ–this is a whole other story. This is what God intends to do with us when we are drawn to Him.

It serves us well to poke holes in the wisdom of the world, to flat out refuse to fall in line with the modern prophets, to dissect their words under a high-powered microscope lens. It isn’t, as influencers would like to sway us, unkind. No. Pull out your measuring stick and see if what they are saying sizes up.
The most difficult next move is calling them out. It’s the matter of dragging the dark things into the light. People with power hate to be exposed. For the whistleblower, the consequences of exposing lies for what they are leads to persecution. Nothing is more hurtful than being ostracized, the physical distancing of your old friends from you.

“Blessed are you when people persecute you and say all sorts of false things against you,” Jesus said. He told us this was coming, and he said our reward was waiting for us in Heaven. Imagine that! Our persecution is our very assurance that He will make it all right one day.

Can I say, fellow laborers, listen closely. Pray for wisdom and clarity in this day, because confusion reigns and there are many who want you to follow them. Don’t be a person who blindly follows when the truth is displayed clearly in your Bible. Pick it up, read for yourself. Hide His Word in your heart, tattoo it to your soul.  Ask God to help you understand, to be able to distinguish what He says as opposed to what popular leaders say. The true believer is broken by his sin, not emboldened by his own voice.

And then, my friends, when you realize this is your battle: speak up. Clear your throats and speak louder, be a sign spinner and neon-light your way to leading people to Jesus. You don’t have to have a snazzy podcast of your own or charisma that slaps people over the head. Elevate the lowly. Shake the dust off your feet. Position yourself in such a way that is efficient and productive. Live as honest and humble as you can. Use your gifts, even the nerdy, Bible-studying ones, to bring the Kingdom right here, right now. It won’t hurt to get the heck off Instagram.
You were made for this.

 

Knowledge is proud it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

William Kowper