the price of pride

There’s a story about a maniacal leader who was once in power of the entire known world. He was braggadocious and outrageous and completely bi-polar. He was feared and hated, but too powerful to stop. 
Pause the story–this sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

But this is actually ancient history, way back when Babylon ruled the world. The king’s name was Nebuchadnezzar, and he regularly put lives at risk while exalting himself as a god. So that he might not be forgotten, he stamped his name on some 15 million clay bricks that made up his kingdom. It took an immigrant named Daniel (a slave to Nebuchadnezzar) to boldly approach the king before history was altered. Daniel didn’t suggest he see a psychiatrist–rather he begged the king to humble himself before God:
“Be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.”

Do you know how the story ends? Did the king, like Kanye, renounce his sins?
One year later, he was out walking on the roof of the palace, admiring the sights and boasting about his accomplishments to everyone who could hear, when a voice boomed from heaven. It said, 
“This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals: you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

The story says that “immediately what had been said was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of the bird.”

Now who wouldn’t cheer for this–God humbling and humiliating the arrogant leader of the known world! About the only thing we like better than rooting for the underdog is watching Goliath fall. To me, the fascinating thing about this story isn’t the fact that Nebuchadnezzar went mad and wandered off to live like an animal in the wilderness. It isn’t the modern day equivalent, if you think I’m comparing the king to some current world leader. What intrigues me is how similar we are to that old king, admiring our own accomplishments. We shamelessly promote our own image and agenda. We’re addicted to the spotlight–the very American notion that anyone can become a ruler if they have the gumption. A dream and some hustle can buy a kingdom of internet followers. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”–yet we erect million dollar buildings, stamp our names on the bricks, and play church inside.

What worries me is how close we are to hearing a booming voice from heaven after we’ve had so many warnings. The last thing we want is a Daniel, some scrappy nobody, suggesting we renounce our selfish, proud ways to turn back to God.

I think it’s easy to look around and assume this is the affliction of a younger crowd. When we poke fun at millennials and the attitude of obsessive me-first thinking (self-promotion, self-care, becoming an influencer, etc.), we must understand how this came into fruition. We didn’t just happen to birth a generation of self-absorbed people. I don’t pretend I can pinpoint exactly when it all started, but I think we can trace our steps back to a moment when we entered darkness because we walked away from the light.
J. Vernon McGee called it spiritual apostasy, and said it is always closely followed by moral awfulness. No wonder we are losing the grip on reality.

We quite easily forget who put us in our privileged state. We walk on our palace roofs and pat ourselves on the back. We become god to ourselves, so when unwelcome voices start talking in our head, when we are tempted with the sweet aroma of pride and flesh, we can’t say no. How, then, can we teach our children ‘no’?

We have normalized and diagnosed such things as high-functioning anxiety and clinical depression. This is not to say chemical imbalance isn’t a real issue–our bodies and minds are intertwined and must be treated holistically–but the wholeness of man is also reliant on making sound choices. In court, a person charged for murder might be acquitted on the basis of insanity. I think, therefore I am…unless I’m not thinking clearly–in which case you can’t blame me because rules don’t apply. It’s the attitude that responsibility is negotiable. In our current society we have determined it is perfectly acceptable to be a person with a mental illness, yet we will kick and scream if anyone attaches stigma to our condition. Instead of asking God to break our chains and renew our minds, we hold tight to our labels to excuse our behavior. But can’t we see that pride and prosperity itself can lead to discontent, then paranoia and depression? We can choose self-advancement and suffer the consequences of the proud.

Nebuchadnezzar, with his power and prosperity at stake, didn’t want to be exposed. Pride led him to the brink of insanity and plunged him right into the pit. If we think all mental illness happens through none of our own doing, we are wrong. Like the king we have eliminated our boundaries and made ourselves vulnerable. We have become haughty, and it is costing us our souls.

Very clearly in his Word, God establishes boundaries. He tells us who He is (defining His boundaries) and He tells us who we are (defining ours):

You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands. Psalm 119:4-6

Among other things, we are to guard our hearts, capture every thought and make it obedient, consider the needs of others. We aren’t to make promises we can’t fulfill or think of ourselves too highly. We are to love God, who is perfect, and love people, who aren’t.

Any confusion generally stems from our unfamiliarity with scripture. Unfortunately, the further we drift from his Word, the further we get away from His established mile posts that mark our path. We don’t realize how modern psychology is seducing us, asking us to forfeit boundaries and replace them with blame. We ought not be alarmed–after all, this is exactly the way the enemy works. It looks okay, easy to swallow and non-offensive. Humanism tells us we can reason out our hurts–we were damaged as children, it’s someone else’s fault. We make our own destiny; self-promotion is just good marketing. But it’s a dangerous tweaking of truth, a fork in the path that sets us in the wrong direction. It goes back to the garden with the serpent and Eve. “Did God really say….?” the evil one whispered, and Eve began to doubt God’s goodness.

Recently I’ve been convicted about my own tendencies to lean into modern psychology rather than God’s word. The enneagram trend, crazy popular in Christian circles, is a personality-typing tool used to “better understand” ourselves and other people. But it doesn’t offer hope for the slovenly to get up off the couch. It doesn’t reduce one’s obsessive tendencies. It doesn’t empower a worrier to release their burden. The writer of Ecclesiastes, the wisest man in the world, claimed that every worldly pursuit is meaningless. The enneagram might help us discover our hidden motivation to do or not do, act or not act–but it, on its own, cannot lead us in the way everlasting. 

When he walked this earth, Jesus noted that the people were like sheep without a shepherd. His compassion for the masses of hurting, sick, demon-possessed, struggling people was apparent as he ministered. On the other hand, he scolded the religiously proud, those who like to justify themselves by their traditions and false piety. In front of everyone, he established the absolute equalizer–that all are utterly depraved apart from God. And then, in Love’s perfect example, He died, sinless on the cross, so we might know the Father. There wasn’t an ounce of pretentious talk or humanistic rationale in Him. Only love that looked down and had compassion.

After seven years in the wilderness living naked and animal-like, Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity was restored. The book of Daniel says the king praised God,

“His dominion is an eternal dominion;
His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven
And the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

Believe it or not, Nebuchadnezzar was welcomed back to his throne. It is written,
“At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”
Daniel 4

Nebuchadnezzar, a brutal, self-worshipping, arrogant ruler was ultimately given back everything he had lost! His pride led to madness, which God used to change him. Can you believe it–this maniac was loved and used by God! Even through his mental illness, God had a purpose for him.

Isn’t that just like Him, to work miracles with the maniacal, to deliver the depressed?

When I look back on my lowest, I really can’t get over how God restored my life to me. How He drew me back into His Word, seeking me out and filling my empty heart with hope.

In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
My cry came before him, into his ears…

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
He drew me out of deep waters
He brought me out into a spacious place;
He rescued me because he delighted in me.
Psalm 18:6,16,19

I have written on my own struggle with depression here and here. I recommend Boundaries, an excellent book by Cloud and Townsend, if you struggle internally with setting up boundaries regarding depression, obsessive thinking and relationships (and actually every aspect of taking control of your life).

Halloween, the Unseen

Years ago, I walked into a Halloween party at school, excited to see my little kindergartner dressed up for the first school holiday with his buddies. It was far tamer than my own memories. I recall Halloween parades and greasy makeup smeared all over our faces, buckets of candy and sticky fingers on the bus ride home. Back then, we called it Halloween and not Fall Celebration. We sang spooky songs like Have You Seen the Ghost of John and told stories like the one about the girl with a ribbon tied around her neck. There were masks and props, carnivals and cake walks, construction paper ghosts hanging from the hallway ceilings.

Times have changed. So have safety measures. I’m not resentful, especially in the public school arena. It’s nice to avoid the creepies. (And fake blood.) Kids probably don’t need cupcakes and rice crispy treats two hours before they go trick or treating…even if the “healthy schools” initiative seems a tad overkill. You can bet most of the veggie tray–the carrot witch fingers from pinterest some poor mother tried to turn into novelty–will end up in the trash.

On this particular day In the kindergarten room we parents milled about, admiring animal and super hero costumes and coaxing our own kids to eat healthy mini “pumpkins”–peeled clementines with a celery stem poking out of the top. We laughed and made polite small talk, ourselves dressed in our cozy fall flannels, putzing around our little ones.

This is when she walked in the room. I knew who she was, even apart from her garish witch costume and green makeup. She was Evan’s mom, and she bagged groceries at the store. A couple months before I met her as she was loading my meat, eggs, milk into the cart. Her front teeth were gone, either knocked or rotted out, and she curled her lip to cover the hole. “You ready for school?” she’d asked my five year old, and he’d dipped his head, nodding a shy yes. “My son is going be in kindergarten, too,” she told him. She mentioned the name of the elementary school and it was the same as ours. “Maybe they’ll be in the same class!” I offered.
“Yeah…I hope Evan ends up going to that school. Right now we’re staying at the women’s shelter, but I’m trying to get out of it. There just aren’t many low-income options in this town.”

My cart full of kids hinted it was time to go. I promised her I’d keep my eye out and see what I could find available. As it turned out, she beat me to it, finding a room to rent on her own. I prayed that we might not lose contact. As fate had it, our kids were in the same class.

And here she was, decked out as a witch, purple hair topped with a pointy black hat, wart and all.
I could tell she was making the room parents uncomfortable. They huddled a little tighter around their kids, making louder the lighthearted conversation to pry the wondering eyes of small children off the witch in the room. “Oh, I looove your purple pumpkin and orange cat, Joshua!”
Detecting the awkward interference, I walked over to her and welcomed her. “You made it! I’m so glad! We’re just having treats and playing games,” I said, walking her toward the snack table. “Clementines and celery, can you believe it? Everyone is either allergic to the good stuff or it’s been banned.”

It occurred to me that she was equally surprised to walk in a room where none of the parents looked like anything but parents. Where was their Halloween spirit? With false bravado and all the help of a costume and makeup she’d procured, she smiled her toothless smile and whispered to me, “I thought everyone was supposed to dress up.” I waved it off and handed her an orange, pretending it didn’t matter a bit.
“Where’s Evan? Is he the one dressed up as Darth Vader?” I said. She beamed and pointed at the little guy. Immediately he saw her are ran to her, hugging her legs.

Guilt rushed through my veins. I felt my cheeks turn red, ashamed for unconsciously judging Evan and his mom’s neediness. This was a great divide, and I was in limbo. Do I rest on the side of a scary-looking witch or with the well-mannered and well-dressed? Does my desire to fit in create friction when it comes to accepting and integrating people on the fringes? 

In a heartbeat, I saw a mama who cared more about what her boy thought than what everyone else around was murmuring. I saw a boy who watched his mama show up for his first school party. I saw the mom I wanted to be, the lowest common denominator, no pretense, a soft place to land.

I saw a hint of something unseen. I’ve been chasing after it ever since, searching for the unknown. The place where I could take my shoes off more often because it was holy ground. One glimpse of it was far more beautiful than anything I saw in the cool, unaffected parents at school. They could have a thousand things: nice clothes, a reliable car, a manageable number of evenly-spaced kids, a flexible work schedule, hobbies–a lot, from outward appearances. They had the advantage of being able to drop in, nonchalant, to the kindergarten Halloween party. But there was some kind of secret sauce in Evan’s mom’s struggle. She held her kids far more precious, because she knew the fragility of life. There wasn’t an ounce of arrogance in her appearance because life had never afforded her the opportunity. Everyone else’s standards could be damned; she’d dress up as a witch and surprise Evan.

I’ve learned a lot from people who don’t have their lives together. People who don’t fake it till they make it. I used to be scornful of this very type, probably because from childhood I desperately wanted to have it together. I thought satisfaction came from upping the ante and anticipating success around every corner. But how many corners does a person have to turn before it is enough? How many ways can I get everything right–my way–but still be ultimately wrong? How could I ever look someone level in the eye when I’m not willing to compromise on my high standards? Entitled living and patronizing words–it’s a ruse–and it’s not kind. It for sure doesn’t fool the underprivileged.
If you are a person who has it all together and hangs out with other people who have it all together, don’t you sense this? That you are missing out on valuable–priceless, even–by avoiding a world of misfits? That perhaps you are your own joy-stealer? Maybe we must first drop the illusion we have something superior planned for our lives.

What about Halloween, public school, poverty–you name it–are we so afraid of? Doesn’t God hide treasures in the unassuming fields and wait for us to find them and dig up the pearls?

I have become curious about the things unseen. We live in a physical world, so it’s easy to spend our lives pursuing what we can perceive, that which appeals to our senses. But if we only go after what our eyes can see and our fingers can touch, we’ll only ever understand one side. We will never understand what is unseen, which is equally (or maybe even more) important as what is seen. There is a whole other side to life when the coin is flipped. But none of the unseen things will ever be brought to light if we don’t go out and start digging in the dirt.

One by one He took them from me,
All the things I valued most,
Until I was empty-handed;
Every glittering toy was lost.

And I walked earth’s highways, grieving
In my rags and poverty
Till I heard His voice inviting,
“Lift your empty hands to Me!“

So I held my hands toward heaven,
And He filled them with a store
Of His own transcendent riches,
Till they could contain no more.

And at last I comprehended
with my stupid mind and dull,
That God COULD not pour His riches
Into hands already full!

 -Treasures, Martha Snell Nicholson

Beth Moore and the know-betters

One time Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. He asked the man to stretch his withered hand out and Jesus restored it, one-hundred percent, in front of a crowd of people. Instead of glorifying God, a bunch of disgusted Pharisees (who I’ll call the know-betters) called Jesus a prig for violating the keeping of the Sabbath.

“What’s more important?” Jesus asked, “to heal or to destroy?” The Bible says He looked at the Pharisees with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. Then, bam, he healed the guy. In an instant his hand was restored.

This enraged the know-betters. Who did Jesus think he was?

There are so many know-betters today. You might recognize them. They like to tag on all sorts of scholarly and unnecessary labels, many of which confound the every-person. Calvinist, post-millennialist, dispensationalist, southern Baptist, reformed–words I have yet to find anywhere in my Bible.

When Jesus walked this earth he garnered followers. He also gained a following of haters who wanted to trap him every chance they got. Funny, the haters were too blind to see Jesus had come for them, to save them–He was on their team!
They were folks who loved labels. Their Jewish fringe was trendy, their yarmulkes and beards were on point. Their prayers were loud and long-winded. They loved rules and regulations. They hated Jesus because they thought he was a threat to their power, their tradition, their faith, their paycheck. What if he stole their followers?These know-betters had boiled their religion down to a tidy prescription of placebo pills, handing it out like doctors to sin-stricken patients. How dare Jesus inform the Jewish people they had God’s laws written on their heart? How dare he imply that even the Gentiles could know God?

Jesus taught in the temple every day, right where the know-betters liked to hang out. This really irked them. The book of Luke says

…the chief priests, scribes, and leaders of the people were intent on killing Him. Yet they could not find a way to do so, because all the people hung on His words.
Luke 19:47-48

The people were hanging onto his words while the haters looked for any little way to trap him and kill him.
This sounds like a tight spot to be in. 

A couple days ago at a conference, a well-respected preacher named John MacArthur said something unkind about Beth Moore, a women’s Bible teacher. It probably should have never been prompted–a few know-betters on stage were playing a game and for no good reason decided to poke fun at Beth Moore. At the crux of their joke was the argument that women ought not be preachers. Moore, of course, hadn’t been asked to play their pithy word game.

It reminds me of a woman in the Bible named Deborah. Before Israel had kings or a kingdom, 1,200 years before Christ, they lived in the promised land with enemies all around them. To maintain a sort of order, God determined judges for his people. Deborah was a judge in Israel. Yes–a woman. Yes–3,000 years ago, long before male preachers were ordained (another fancy non-Bible word) in the Christian church.

Deborah was a judge in Israel because Israel was full of cowards. It seems like God couldn’t find a man suited for the role, and so wise Deborah was given the reins. People came to her from all over to have her hear their disputes. Folks needed her wisdom, they sought her out to help them understand. She led them to victory against their enemies.

Today there are people who want to know God. They want to approach Jesus for healing, but there are often too many know-betters standing in their way, blocking the temple. They are the churchified, the holier than thou, the Bible thumpers who smack sinners on the head with their rules and big words. Jesus seekers want the bread of life, they hunger and thirst for righteousness, but know-betters set up standards that prohibit the starving from being filled. Know-betters don’t want to, as J.Vernon McGee says, “put the cookies on the bottom shelf.”

I’ll admit, I’m not a Beth Moore fangirl, per say. Maybe it’s because I’m jealous of her hair and makeup, but I’ve only ever attempted one Beth Moore Bible study. A friend once gave me a set of DVDs and a workbook after she’d finished teaching the study to a women’s prison group.

Did you catch that? Women in prison. People hungering and thirsting for the Word. People on the fringes, folks we have been called to minister to…Beth Moore’s Bible studies have made it into prison and set captives free. I’d say Jesus wouldn’t tell her to “go home.”
Moore has made knowing God available to the masses. She has passed on her detailed study of the Scripture to thousands of thirsty souls. She has broken it into edible pieces without waxing philosophical. Moore, like Deborah the judge, has become a sort of mother to the people. She has not, to my knowledge, assumed a man’s rightful position in church.

I am not denying that in the Bible God has laid down some rules to protect the Church on the inside. Beth Moore hasn’t denied this, either, as far as I know. There’s a reason behind His direction to men to step up as leaders.There is sovereignty in wisdom to appoint elders of a local church. In New Testament times, asking women to behave modestly (keeping silent and covered) was a way to eliminate confusion among the recently converted in the young Church (the culture at the time was cultish and sex-driven). As Christians, we need to examine these verses closely, but they are meant as clarifications on how to maintain order. They don’t encompass the message what Christ sent us to do: Go and make disciples, he said. Teach them, he said.

I wonder, these days, where the line is drawn. Online, a woman might have a Twitter account, post youtube videos, write books…but if she suddenly stands up in church, she loses all respect? Will we ever stop nitpicking, fault-finding–when our whole lives have been redeemed to reconcile people to their Creator? What is more important, Jesus asked–to heal or to destroy? With two words–go home–John MacArthur drew his sword.

This isn’t a call to add or delete scripture nor to bend it to our advantage. Rather, it is a wake-up call to see the forest in spite of the trees. For the know-betters, the Pharisees of today–those who lead–may they not forget there once was a Deborah in Israel. Jesus, the Savior, healed on the Sabbath. Beth Moore preached the Word, and men might have listened, might have learned.

…the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.
And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
And He answered and said, “I tell you, if these become silent, even the stones will cry out!”
Luke 19:37, 39-40

playing Pollyanna

The man at the register rang up my goodies: foam balls, wire, floral tape, cardstock. He chatted to himself as if he were new to his post at Hobby Lobby. I smiled patiently, once more glad to never again (please, Lord, let it be so) work retail.

As he handed me my bag I said, “Thank you, sir.” 

Immediately his face twisted into a grimace.
“I prefer ma’am,” he said.

“Ma’am,” I whispered.

I grabbed my supplies, purse, and the hand of my little girl and left, stunned. Here was a guy with a beard, baritone voice, and no shape of a woman. Was I to feel ashamed for calling a man a “sir”? Honestly, I didn’t even know what to think, so delayed was my reaction.

I don’t think I am a fool. I think I am reasonable and kind–the first to acquiesce in any uncomfortable small talk. I avoid politics and lingering eye contact; I try not to act too witty or domineering. I don’t stand in the grocery line, proselytizing, when everyone just wants to get on with their life. It’s a matter of keeping the peace and minding my own business–two things I value in life. But I’m beginning to realize I cannot keep silent, not when the man at Hobby Lobby is claiming to be a woman in front of my children. The fact of the matter is this is the world we now live in, where a trip to the craft store has set us on edge, at risk of offending around every corner. The whole world is telling me I must tread lightly.

However, I am realizing more and more the need to begin looking into this situation, because no longer is it about the neighbor I risk offending. It isn’t about being kind, turning the other cheek, smiling politely to keep the peace. Believe it or not, playing Pollyanna is not our calling as Christians. Our number one job is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If I get this wrong, game over.

Before I barge into a sticky pit, I’d like to mention that I am a woman, and well acquainted with the woman experience. I have dated men, married a man, carried babies in my womb, birthed children, nursed them at my breast, nurtured them. This is no small feat, no minor duty. This has been pain, anguish, glory and pride. When I stand for womanhood, I am in the company of mothers who have risked death to deliver the whole human race. This statement should not spawn confusion, yet our culture is glorifying the Bruce Jenners of the world who think womanhood is theirs to claim. Ought it not offend me, a woman who, from conception, has been given the honor of being a woman? Why should a pretender be applauded for pretending? For mocking the sacred and degrading personhood?

It is said that in the beginning God created male and female. In his image, God created them. Do we think God did this without purpose or that it was all a mere suggestion? 

There is a clear difference between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God, but from what I can tell, many Christians are swimming in brackish waters. They have forgotten that ours is a battle against the wisdom of the world, not an integration of it. It’s a crucial error.

If we fail to understand why blatant disregard for gender, for God’s creation–for God!–is wrong, we will never be able to guide our children in the path of truth. Their futures will unravel, hopeless and futile, swayed by every false notion. They will find themselves on a dark path: depression, worthlessness, mental instability. Chaos, confusion. Look around, friends. It is already happening. Unless we are all drinking the same GMO koolaid and rapidly evolving into the next future step of homo sapien-ism (which, from what I’ve read, takes millions of years, and will be slowed exponentially by gender confusion) there is only one explanation for what we can call this culture, and it is depraved.

Paul wrote,

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools…” Romans 1:21-22

Francis Shaeffer said,

When the Scripture speaks of man being foolish in this way, it does not mean he is only foolish religiously. Rather, it means that he has accepted a position that is intellectually foolish not only with regard to what the Bible says, but also to what exists concerning the universe and its form and what it means to be human. In turning away from God and the truth which he has given, man has thus become foolishly foolish in regard to what man is and what the universe is.

You see, we have been presented with clear, absolute truth and have turned on our heel to march off in another direction. We aren’t just denying what is true for us individually, but that which is true for every other person. When I address my Hobby Lobby cashier as a woman when he is actually a man, I deny every good thing in him that God created him to be as a man. I diminish his rights as a man, friend, brother, and father. Playing Pollyanna damages people.

What of today? I don’t think there are many Christians today willing to stand up and speak truthfully in the world. We want our God to represent love, and, speaking for myself, we are happy to share that. The best thing I’ve ever been able to do is share hope with someone who feels hopeless. But we’ve become really adept at pulling off a vague sort of watered down love. It looks like minding our own business and keeping the peace–but it sets free no man. It’s a cop out, and it’s related to our misunderstanding of who God is.

 We are less than enthusiastic about sharing the character of God that expresses this perfect love–holiness. But here’s the truth–God can’t be Love if he isn’t Holy.
Christians, we have the answers the whole world is looking for! The perfect love we can offer, the hope we proclaim, is that a man can be changed–not into a woman, but into the righteousness of God. It became realized when a perfect, holy man–God in the flesh–he who knew no sin–Jesus! became sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor.5:21).

Shaeffer wrote,

Truth demands confrontation. It must be loving confrontation, but there must be confrontation nonetheless.

Sadly, we must say that this has seldom happened. Most of the evangelical world has not been active in this battle, or even been able to see that we are in a battle. And when it comes to the issues of the day the evangelical world most often has said nothing; or worse has said nothing different from what the world would say…The evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of this age…We must say with tears that it is the evangelical accommodation to the world spirit around us, to the wisdom of this age, which removes the evangelical church from standing against the further breakdown of our culture.
The Great Evangelical Disaster (1984)

We have got to bring back humble, loving confrontation that honors God and affirms humanity. We’ve got to stop resorting to snide remarks on things that prickle us or rub us the wrong way. Too often we, as Bob Goff writes in Love Does, “seem to have more opinions about what or who we are against than who we are for”.

We are in a battle. The wisdom of the world doesn’t stand a chance.

Friend, who are you for?

Give me neither poverty nor riches

This spring, I went to a professional hockey game with my oldest son and my husband. Talk about a fish out of water: I am the mid-30s mother with my hands over my ears, blocking the pounding music while my nine year old is breaking down orange-justice style in the aisle beside me. I’m crossing my fingers that the roaming spotlight doesn’t spark a migraine, or worse, that the kissing cam zooms in without warning on my get-me-out-of-here face. “I don’t know how much more I can take,” I mouth to my husband over the boomboomboom. He flashes a grin. 

“Just try to enjoy yourself!”

What brings us to the hockey game? Business, I’ll say. Quite often the vendors who sell product through my husband’s wholesale work like to reward employees with a slap on the back. Usually it’s breakfast burritos, sub sandwiches, lunch for all the guys. They show up with trinkets and goodies and giveaways. Yeti cooler? Check. There is golf, and of course dinners out. Around Christmastime, stacks of Harry and David boxes arrive at work. Huge tins of popcorn, whiskey, chocolate covered almonds (my favorite). Gift cards to restaurants, whole serving trays of cookies. I’ve ridden a ski train to mountain sponsored by vendors. It boasted an open bar and individual goodie bags stuffed with beanies and scarves. We had the day of our lives, blazing up and down trails on snow machines, then back home on the train with hot toddies and stories all around. Tonight it was hockey, and there just happened to be a few extra tickets, which is why we are here with dad. We are sitting directly behind the goal, up several rows, but in a nice enough section to have our own server. His name is Chad, and he hands us a menu. I order nachos and a coke instead of a beer because I can’t trust the concrete arena steps after any amount of alcohol. My boy, hesitant, asks for cotton candy. “Mom, it’s eight-fifty,” he whispers with concern. “I only have four dollars in my pocket. Mom, look. A bottle of water is four-fifty! I can’t even buy that!” His eyes fill with panic. 

“Don’t worry,” I pat his knee to assure him. “Dad has started a tab for his work guys. You can order whatever you want and we’ll take care of it. Save your money for another time.”

He gets the cotton candy.
This is my life, and I cannot even believe it, that I’m telling my son to order whatever he wants rather than hiding the menu and explaining what price gouging means. It is a far cry from my childhood, still not understood in his own nine year old brain, but within our family’s means. Is it wrong to buy cotton candy at nine bucks a pop? I’m sure it is–it’s not even the fresh kind. Is it okay to blow money like nobody’s watching? Well, a certain nine year old is watching.

It is indeed another rich man dilemma, and I’m still thinking it out.

I didn’t grow up with money. When I was a young child, we lived in a house without heat. A ladder leaned up against the stairwell where the steps had been torn out. Rebar poked up through gravel in the living room. The dusty horsehair plaster walls were exposed–another fixer project my dad had on his to-do list. He had framed in a new bathroom, but it didn’t have running water or lights. We took turns taking baths, and every few minutes he’d enter the shadowy room to add a new bucket of warm water to the tub. I’d fall into bed shivering and cold, my hair still wet from bathing. 

I was jealous of friends at school with puffy jackets–not because I cared about the Rams or any professional football team–but because the stylish jackets looked warm, and I most definitely was not. Needing and wanting made me feel doubly ashamed. How could I betray my parents by asking for what they couldn’t give? How could I ever be normal?

I learned a way of coping with this. I told myself (quite subconsciously) that I didn’t care.  “Toughen up,” my dad liked to say, and I did. I read books to escape. I made myself small and grew a shell where nothing could hurt me, not the teasing at school, not the cold at home. I buttoned my mouth and pretended I was made of iron. I didn’t realize it was hardening my attitude into a peculiar disdain for everyone who couldn’t suck it up like me.

There is a level of pride that coexists with poverty. I realized early on I could acquire other personas to cover up. I could be the little girl who collected hats and owned her own lemonade stand. I could be perfectly obedient and well-behaved. No one would ever have to know: I could secretly justify harbored bitterness toward everyone because compared to them, my problems were always worse. For whatever reason, they were the lucky ones, and if they feigned discomfort, I had zero compassion. I was naturally suspicious of people with money, but still incredibly jealous.

Funny enough, as unfamiliar as I was with wealth, personally, I have to say: it easy to warm up to. As a young girl, I could obviously see the advantage to having money. It is like looking at a chocolate bar from a distance; it’s desirable, delicious, and I knew exactly what I would do with it if I could access it. But once it landed in my hands, once I took a bite, ate the whole bar, found myself satiated–once the chocolate kept coming, all I could do was let it melt in my hands. All it did was leave me sticky and uncomfortable. It gave me the same sort of chest pains I had as a jealous, hateful child. How many Harry and David towers could be unstacked and unwrapped by my own ungrateful children, leaving wrappers scattered all over the floor? Why was it so much work to maintain the facade of having it all together? How could we ever feel happy if we were always spoiling ourselves?

All I wanted was to wash it off, rid myself of the mess.

Contentment–could I ever find it? Did it live in a warm house the suburbs? Could it be bought with a bachelor’s degree or by finding my true soul mate? All you can eat at the hockey game?

The writer of Hebrews urged his readers: Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
Never will I forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5

It requires practice and diligence to keep one’s life “free from the love of money”. Maybe it takes more awareness if you’re a rich man, but even if you live in a shack with no heat it is hard to not wish for enough money to raise the thermostat. Somehow, some way, my parents unwittingly shielded us from it. Of course it is muddled by memory, but truly, they set almost a spotless example of being free from the love of money. What kept us unaffected for so long was one thing–we had each other. We had no money, but I never felt insecure.

Holidays spent with my family growing up are my most precious examples of this. We kids knew better than to ask or beg for the newest thing (skip-its? TrapperKeepers?), yet Christmas and birthdays were loaded with treasure. There was music and joy and the promise of safety, warmth. My mom was brilliant when it came to creating an amazing holiday from very little. She sewed us homemade gifts from fabric scraps. One year she discovered the thrifty art of blowing up photographs to poster-size. She made entire feasts from seemingly nothing, and we felt–we knew she did it completely for us. She wrapped every present and held them out, giggling, her hands pressed to her face with nervous excitement. One year, maybe for his birthday, my brother unwrapped a gallon of Ranch dressing. It was a typical, hilarious gift from Mom. This is why we adored her. She cleared out a place in the fridge for it to make its home (not a small sacrifice, if you know her fridge). This, we convinced ourselves, was worth a thousand TrapperKeepers.

There is a funny verse in the Bible, one that we like to quote often when we have a deadline, goal, etc.. It’s the one we print on posterboard for the highschool championship football game, mark in permanent marker on our inner wrist when we run a 5k. When we face the inner battle to not eat a second piece of chocolate cake after we’ve already had one. “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Phi. 4:13 NLT)

We usually skip right past the verses before, because it seems so unnecessarily  contingent:
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
Philippians 4:11-12

The confounding thing here is that Paul observes at both poverty and wealth as a curse! Who of us in America takes this view–that the pursuit of money is actually a path to ruin? We all despise a trailer park mentality, but do we equally pity the affluent? Hear me out–both are to be endured, both are possible breeding ground for contentment. The only way to survive not having enough or having plenty is by relying on God’s strength to help us hold on–to Him, and nothing else.

Happiness cannot be bought, begged, or borrowed. Contentment–the act of living satisfied–can happen anywhere, but it’s as seldom found as a needle in a haystack. It might be found in the slums, it might be found in a gated community. It is most likely found in the most ordinary of ordinaries, the enough-to-cover-the-bills life. But it cannot be found apart from Christ.

I thank God I grew up in the home I did. If I hadn’t experienced His presence in need, I surely couldn’t have recognized contentment in wealth. At this point in my life, I finally understand what Paul is talking about. The little girl who coveted her classmate’s puffy coat grew into a woman who realized life wasn’t actually any better when she had her pick of store bought, down-filled jackets. It’s nice to be warm–this is what matters. Back when a gallon of Ranch dressing was cause for celebration, I didn’t know there were families who went on Christmas break ski trips. My parents probably knew, but they never pointed it out. I’m grateful for their wisdom: contentment is a far higher road than comparison. If anything lured me out of my hardness and into this better perspective, it was my parents’ visible pursuit of Jesus. Not comfort, which they saw as a trap, but the forever promise we would never be forsaken.

Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion.
Lest I be full and deny you and say,
“Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:8-9