Remember

I hate the cold, but I love the holiday season. For me “the holidays” start a few weeks before Thanksgiving with Veteran’s Day. One of the things I love most about the military is the richness of tradition and symbolism. It’s built into our uniforms. It’s part of the rigid environment of customs and courtesies. We learn our branch’s history with a sense of pride as if we somehow took part in those events. Symbolism is everywhere in the military.
Every holiday season I inevitably hear someone say (with just enough pretentious piety to warrant an eye roll) something along the lines of, “I don’t need a holiday to remind me to be thankful.” Or, “It’s such a shame most people need a holiday to think of Jesus.” But if we don’t focus our intentions into something specific we tend to become less mindful of things over time. Remembering/commemorating/memorializing really significant things is so important, but human nature is to forget. And that’s why we have things like Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving, to help us be intentional about remembering and honoring.
The Bible is absolutely drenched with the idea of intentionally remembering meaningful things. According to God’s law every year at Passover God’s people were to sit down as families and eat a very specific meal that reenacted the night God delivered the Jews from Egypt. During the Feast of Tabernacles they were to actually live in tents for a week to remember how God took care of them in the wilderness after Egypt. Tons of other festivals and feasts were instituted to remember certain things. Also, as you read the Bible you notice how insanely often people and places are renamed in order to remember significant things. That town’s name was changed to this because this happened there. And then you take into account all the times a really phenomenal event happens and someone builds an altar, or erects a monument in that spot. On and on it goes. The point is, God is a big fan of intentionally remembering significant things.
 
 I think many Christians, mostly in the evangelical arm of Protestantism, have lost sight of the power of remembering through symbols and monuments. The reality is the scriptures direct believers to employ symbols and traditions to remember the most important parts of faith. To make tangible the invisible things we believe, if only for a moment. Virtually all believers are familiar with at least two of these symbols.
 
Communal symbols
These are symbols that all believers are called to embrace and take part in. ​
1. Baptism. When you come to faith in Jesus you express an unseen spiritual reality through the symbol of baptism. In Acts 2:38 Peter, preaching the first Christian sermon, directs them to “repent and be baptized, everyone of you…” In baptism we reenact the reality that Jesus died, was buried then came up out of the grave. More than that, though, we are making a statement that we are somehow joined with him in this. Romans 6:3-5 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him, through baptism, into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
2. Communion. This is to be an ongoing way that we remember Jesus. In fact, when Jesus was instituting this tradition in the upper room he said explicitly, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul said that with communion we are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he returns. This is something we do as a family, as the church, as a community of believers. When we come together we remember Jesus through the symbols of the bread and cup.
Those are some of the communal symbols we share with all believers. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of the individual symbol. The personal monument.
 
The Personal Monument
I want to share a really obscure story from the Old Testament with you. It’s in 1 Samuel 7. The main guy on the scene is the prophet Samuel. Israel has been serving idols for a while, and then there is a deep, nation-wide turning to God. Samuel says, “If you guys are really serious about returning to God, then get rid of all the idols and false gods. In fact, everyone should get together at the city called Mizpah and we’ll all repent and pray and fast together there” (I’m paraphrasing). So they go. The Philistines find out and say, “Hey, the entire Israelite army is in one place and they haven’t eaten anything for a while, so they’re tired and weak. Let’s go be bad guys to them and kill them there.” (Also not a literal translation).
The Israelites find out the Philistines are coming, panic and say, “Samuel! Pray for us!” Samuel prays and God causes a great panic and confusion among the Philistines. They end up just slashing at each other until they run away and Israel wins. Hooray. This is the important part. 1 Samuel 7:12 Afterwards, Samuel took a stone and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, explaining, “The Lord has helped us to this point.”
Such a peculiar passage. Such an odd name. In our context when we hear Ebenezer most of us immediately think of Scrooge right? And I remember in Bible college hearing this odd old hymn “Come Thou Fount”, which has this line “Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I come.” So, what’s that about?
Ebenezer (Eben-ha-neser) literally means “Stone of the help”.
​The point is this: God does this truly amazing thing and Samuel responds by putting a marker there. This isn’t a ceremony that all Jews are to take part in. This is something he did to help him remember, to memorialize this great event, to commemorate God’s help, so that every time he looked at the “stone of the help” he would recall how God came through.

​I love Samuel’s explanation. “Up to this point God has helped us.” There is such a beautiful realism and heavy theology in that statement. That explanation implies I don’t know what God will do with me tomorrow. God may allow the Philistines to win tomorrow. But, up to this point God has helped us.
​So my question for you today is this: We all share one baptism, and we all share the same communion, but what is your Ebenezer? There should be something(s) in your life that trigger memories of God’s faithfulness. Things that help you own a faith that says I don’t know what God has for me tomorrow, but up to this point he’s been faithful.
 
How many times have we experienced some blessing and we think, “This is awesome. I’ll never forget this!” Then a few months later we are back in panic mode wondering will God come through? Is he able? Does he care? Does he answer prayer? In those moments we need an Ebenezer.
 
What does an Ebenezer look like? I don’t want you to think I’m promoting any type of idol worship, or faith infused items, or even the kind of icons that some branches of Christianity hold to. I’m just talking about something that helps you remember. It looks like the anniversary of an event. It looks like sharing your faith and your testimony with others. It looks like a blog post in which you tell the story of what God has done. It looks like a copy of a large donation check that sits under the glass on a desk at a local Christian youth center. It looks like anything that prompts you to remember.

Here is one of mine. This chunk of metal is an Ebenezer. It’s a piece of a 120mm mortar that was half of a roadside bomb that hit my vehicle in Iraq. My vehicle was directly hit by IEDs on several occasions and each time my crew and I walked away without a scratch. This chunk is from the first one. It sits on a shelf in my office. I don’t pray to it. It doesn’t extend grace or faith to me. It’s just a hunk of metal. But every time I look at it, I remember.

Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas.

Stupid stories or powerful precepts?

This comic strip was sent to me by the other half of Werdguys. You can read it for yourself at http://ow.ly/i/2X8Qm/original but basically it tells a very troubled story of how the Bible came to be. The steps listed suggest the Old and New Testaments we read today are based on myths ripped off from other cultures that were altered countless times by storytellers before they were recorded, then altered countless more times by careless scribes and revised and edited again by political powers. Only after centuries of edits, sloppy mistakes, alterations and agendas did the Bible come to rest in the state we know.

            The comic is convincing at first. The characters are cute. The phrasing is condescending enough that you really want to side with the author so that you aren’t on the dumb side of the topic. And enough history is provided that most readers would assume the conclusions are based on raw facts. The only problem: most of what’s presented in this comic strip is completely wrong. To be fair, there are some aspects of truth presented. For example, many biblical accounts existed in an oral tradition before being written down, eventually the printing press was invented, we have a Bible and…that’s about it.

            I’d like to discuss some flaws I see in this comic. I’ll do so from two different angles: factual flaws and philosophical flaws. I’ll say more on this at the end of this response, but let me quickly say here that I am not opposed to people raising genuine questions and criticisms to the Bible. I’ve done so myself many times throughout my faith. However, when objections are raised they should be based on facts or solid reasoning, neither of which is present here.

Factual Problems

            There are arguments that could be made against the propositions in panels 1 and 2, but for the sake of this response lets start with panel 3. It is true that most biblical accounts existed in an oral tradition before they were recorded. However, to equate this to a giant game of telephone is misleading and irresponsible. This position does not take into account the drastic difference in how information is often conveyed today and how information was often conveyed in ancient near-eastern culture. The Jewish oral tradition was hardly a game of telephone in which each new storyteller could accidentally insert changes without repercussion or intentionally add changes for preference.

We are talking about a culture that valued rote memorization on level we can barely comprehend. We are talking about a culture in which most boys had the entire Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) memorized by the age of 10, some boys additionally memorized the Psalms and some other wisdom by the age of 12, and a few could recite the entirety of the Jewish scriptures by age 14. Ancient Jews would recite stories over and over again in front of their teachers to ensure they could repeat them verbatim, without error. That’s the most boring game of telephone ever.

Panel 4 suggests that at some point some dense, bumbling scribes scratched their heads trying to remember a story they’d heard years ago and ended up scribbling down a spotty version of a story they barely knew. Again, this simply is not true. The scribes knew the stories well. If they were not among those who had memorized them, they could easily have someone recite the account word for word, as slowly as they needed. In reference to the formation of the New Testament it was not centuries that passed before the accounts were written down, but a matter of years. Mark, for example, was probably written as soon as 30 years after the death of Jesus. Not only does that leave less room for the “telephone” effect to take place, but it also means if the gospel writers had changed what happened there would have been many people still alive to throw a flag. There is no indication this is the case.

Panel 5 says the process by which the Old Testament books were copied led to many mistakes. This assumes the ancient scribes took as much care in copying what they believed to be the Word of God as a junior high student takes in copying notes in Home Economics. In actuality the process by which the ancients copied the scriptures was so regimented that a mistake or change making it through the editorial process is almost impossible.

Indeed, the scribes copied the texts, letter by letter, word by word. They did this meticulously and with great focus and scrutiny. Here are some of the measures put in place to make sure they coped the text correctly.

• The texts were organized into block format so that each line and page would have the exact same amount of characters as the master copy.
• The scribe was mandated to reference the master copy before beginning each and every letter. He was not allowed to write even one letter from memory or assumption. For example, if a scribe had copied “He rode in on a hors” he would not write the obvious “e” without first checking the master copy.
• The materials used (the ink and the animal skin scroll) had to be of a certain kind and quality to ensure the letters would not bleed or fade.
• They would say each word aloud after writing it.
• A scribe was not allowed to speak to anyone, regardless of their rank or importance, while copying the scriptures.
• If two letters touched each other the page was seen as invalid.
• Once a copy of a book was finished it would be reviewed within 30 days. If as many as 3 mistakes were found (in the entire book) the entire document would be set aside as invalid.
• Invalid texts were destroyed.

There are cases in which a text was intentionally altered by a scribe or group of scribes acting under the direction of a superior. These are called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes”. We know these to be intentional because they are identified by annotations in the margin of the text. Yep. The scribe left a note saying, “I changed this letter because…” And how many of these changes exist in ancient copies of the Old Testament? Somewhere between 7 and 18 depending on which text you’re looking at.

The reality is the sheer number of ancient biblical manuscripts provides amazingly compelling evidence for the scriptures’ reliability. Let me explain it this way. Suppose we live in the year 1234, long before the printing press was invented. I write you a letter and then hand copy a duplicate for myself. I find out a month later that your letter never arrived. It was eaten by pirate ninja bandits before it got to you. So I retrieve my duplicate and begin to copy you another letter, but as I do I notice a discrepancy. A line is missing with the details of a story. I had, in the letter I sent to you, recounted a story about my birthday party at Ye Ole’ Water Park. I went down a water slide backwards and got reprimanded by Athelardus the life guard. But now I can’t remember if that happened on the Saxony Splunker or the Druid Drowner and that line is missing from my copy of the letter. There is no way at this point to recover that information. However, suppose that I had written 20 identical letters to 20 friends. When I find out yours is lost I am able to recover the original information because there are 19 other copies out there. In fact, I can collect all 19 copies, compare them to each other and know with a great deal of certainty that the parts that correspond truly reflect what was originally written.

How does that correlate to the reliability of scripture? Easy. There are more manuscripts of biblical texts than of any other ancient document. Many, many more. There are more than 24,000 ancient, handwritten copies of New Testament texts as well as thousands of Old Testament manuscripts. Scholars such as Ezra Abbot and A.T. Robertson place the consistency of ancient biblical texts at 99% or higher. Most of the inconsistencies boil down to changing the spelling of a person’s name or the name of town. A small fraction of the less than 1% of text differences could possibly said to change the meaning of the text in any way.

Now consider the following. As I said there are many more manuscripts of biblical texts than of any other ancient document. Second place in this field goes to the Iliad by Homer, for which we have 643 ancient manuscripts. There is a gap of about 500 years between Homer’s life and the earliest copy we have of his writing and these copies are about 95% consistent to each other (keep in mind the Bible has at least 24,000 manuscripts with 99% accuracy). There are only about 49 manuscripts of Aristotle’s works with the earliest one appearing 1,400 years after his death. We have only 7 manuscripts from Plato. For both Aristotle and Plato the amount of text available is so low that it is difficult to generate a consistency rating. Yet nobody ever doubts the authenticity or reliability of these works. When is the last time you heard a professor of philosophy say, “This is fairly meaningless because these texts have been altered so many times it is unreasonable to assume this is actually what Plato said”? No! We trust the reliability of documents for which we have fewer copies that are less consistent and mock the idea of trusting the reliability of the document for which we have the most copies that are the most consistent.

Panel 12 provides no real data to be confirmed or refuted. The only thing to be said here is that the language “slapped together” is clearly an intentional attempt to undermine trust in the process by making it appear haphazard and careless. In reality the process by which texts became part of a recognized New Testament was very tedious. The early church was extremely careful in this process evaluating texts by criteria such as: apostolic authorship, orthodoxy (is it consistent with what the church believes), unity (does it contradict the Old Testament or other apostolic teachings), as well as several other measurements. Then there is the fact that numerous church councils, such as the Council of Laodicea, the Council of Hippo and the Council of Carthage all convened and discussed this topic in a formal setting. That is not being “slapped together.”

Panel 13 points out that the earliest copies of the Greek New Testament did not include spaces leading to the “godisnowhere” problem. By the way, ancient Hebrew was also written without spaces or punctuation. This was to save space on very expensive animal hide scrolls. So, if this were indeed a problem then I just pointed out it’s a problem for the Old Testament as much as it is for the New. However, I’m not too worried about it. If one reads contextually these problems almost always resolve themselves.

Let me throw out my own version of godisnowhere to show you what I mean. Consider a text that says draftswet. Is this talking about some drafts that got wet (He got the draftswet)? Is it referring to Dr. Aft, who is wet (get a towel, draftswet)? Or maybe it is referring to something Dr. Aft owns that got wet (get draftswet coat). Without context any of these could be the case. But this amazing thing happens when you plug the word or phrase into a larger idea. CONTEXT! If I said, “I opened my brief case in court, after which my assistant spilled water on my folders and got my draftswet” is there really any chance at all I’m talking about Dr. Aft’s wet coat? Let’s not be silly.

Panel 14. Not really. There were pockets of believers who adopted erroneous beliefs. However, by and large these pockets were identified as being in error by the church at large. The orthodox doctrines of Christianity have been held consistently by the Church since the time of Jesus. The fact that some believed different things has no bearing on the reliability of the Christian faith. For example, suppose I say I believe Elvis is hanging out with Tupac in Fargo, ND. Does that mean everything written about Elvis and Tupac is unreliable and stupid because I’ve developed a wrong belief about them? Hardly.

Panel 16, see previous arguments.

Panel 18 is perhaps the most entertaining. According to this block in the 19^th century a Frenchman named Robert I Estienne put the Bible into chapter and verse. Where to start? Estienne was in fact a real person. He lived in the 16^th century (1503-1599), not the 19^th century. Only off by 300 hundred years. He worked in printing and is credited with adding verse numbers, but had nothing to do with chapters. That happened a few years earlier…in the 13^th century. Only off by 600 years. In fact Stephen Langton first began the process of dividing the scriptures into smaller, easier to handle portions (chapters) around 1227 C.E.

If I were inclined I could point out that ancient rabbis were actually the first to conceive of a way to implement markers that would organize the scriptures. They organized them by paragraph, putting the letter Pe in front of paragraphs that started a new line and the letter Samekh in front of paragraphs that started part way through a line. During the exile Jews divided the Torah into 53 parts to be read through in a year. In the 4^th century the New Testament was organized into topical categories. The Bible was not organized in the 19^th century by Estienne. It has been “being” organized for thousands of years, but the chapterization, which is referred to in the comic, happened in 1227.

Panel 19 suggests the only reason various translations exist is because the texts are so confusing and open to interpretation that nobody can agree on any of it. This is not the case. Most of it comes down to preference. I agree that the vast majority of the King James Bible was translated properly. But I don’t speak 1611 English, so I don’t prefer it. I think the NASB is one of the most accurate English translations, but can read a little choppy at times, so I don’t use it for certain occasions. When I preach a sermon I may use texts from 4 or 5 translations because I appreciate many of them. To imply there is only one correct way to translate text from one language with its own idioms and unique characteristics into another language with its idioms and characteristics is incredibly simplistic and shows a deep lack of understanding in the translation process.

 

Philosophical Problems

            In addition to the fact that this comic contains numerous untruths, it is presented in a way that is full of philosophical fallacies. 

            The Straw Man Argument is when an arguer misrepresents the views of the opposing side, argues against this falsified version of the other side, and then concludes the opponent must be wrong. This is exactly what has happened in this comic strip. I’ve demonstrated how many propositions and implications are not based in any reality whatsoever. If the way the scriptures came into being was indeed this sloppy then the author’s conclusions would be correct. However, the process presented has been intentionally dumbed down and, in some cases, completely altered in order to create an opponent much easier to argue against.

            Allow me to use another straw man argument to show demonstrate the degree to which this author falsified the canonization process. One reason Starbucks is so successful is the consistency with which they make coffee. You can go into any store, order your coffee and feel confident that your coffee will taste like you expect it to. But suppose I make the following argument.

            Coffee beans are grown all over the world in different and uncontrollable environments. All sorts of factors change the chemical makeup of the beans including weather, human factors like pollution, and environmental factors like monkeys pooping around trees. There’s no way to tell if the beans from any batch will have the same flavor as beans from the same source a few months earlier. Then these beans are picked by farmers with all sorts of contaminants and residue on their hands. There’s absolutely no way to tell if they are spreading to the beans remnants of their bacon cheeseburger lunch.

            These beans are then packed in containers that undoubtedly transfer metallic and plastic flavors. The beans that make it to any local Starbucks store have already been contaminated and altered in who knows how many ways. Some poor goober orders a coffee with milk and vanilla. A zit faced college sophomore, who is distracted thinking about his chemistry final types the order wrong and starts making a decaf coffee with soymilk and toffee nut syrup. Not only does he make the wrong drink, but he’s also in such a rush to keep up with the crowd waiting in line that he guesses the measurements of the ingredients without taking time to actually check them. The beans, which we have no idea of knowing how they will taste, are brewed into coffee using local water, which is completely different from city to city. Perhaps this town has a lot fluoride in its water. Perhaps this town has a lot of lime. You just don’t know. Finally, you are handed your incorrect order made of ingredients and water that has been altered hundreds of times and which contains countless contaminants that change the flavor. The bottom line is when you order a coffee from Starbucks you have no idea how it will taste.

            This is clearly absurd. Again, one of Starbucks’ strengths is the consistency of their coffee regardless of where you order it. However, it is easy to spin the details of the process in such a way that casts doubt on the entire thing. If this false situation I invented actually reflected the way most cups of coffee were made then my statements might have some weight. But they don’t. I’ve invented a ridiculous situation that is easy to mock and argue against.

            The Appeal to Emotion argument is just what it sounds like. A person’s arguments are intended to appeal to emotions rather than reason. Here’s a quick example. “My cousin was a straight A student. She was set to go to college on a full scholarship. She volunteered every weekend at the homeless shelter. Her goal after college was to develop a youth center to keep kids out of gangs. I’ve never known anyone as selfless and full of potential as her. She was shot by man robbing a gas station. Therefore, all guns should be taken from private citizens.” My argument does not evaluate the information on the issue or investigate any aspect of the gun debate that has to do with reason. It simply tries to stir up sadness and sympathy in hopes that your emotions will lead you to agree with me.

            This comic is one giant appeal to emotion from start to finish. The message (sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit) is that the entire process by which the scriptures came to be is filled with blundering idiots and malicious evildoers who messed up every possible step. Consider the volume of negative descriptions and words used in negative connotations in this one page comic:

a little sloppy

limited

mythological

some people claim

coincidentally plagiarized

massive game of telephone

hearsay

best their memories can

centuries after

painstaking

many mistakes

Many changes

accident and carelessness or intentionally altered

slapped together

Huge problem

room for far more errors

different versions

massacres and book burnings

additional errors

no one can agree

FINALLY.

            This comic offers no rational justifications for its claims, but relies almost exclusively on an appeal to emotion. This document, from start to finish, is dripping with sarcasm, condescension and the general implication that “This is so stupid that nobody with a brain could believe this.” Building that implication into the language and pictures puts a false dichotomy onto the reader. He or she may feel like the only two viable options are hold onto faith and be stupid or abandon faith and join the smart club. And since the need to fit in, be accepted and be respected are among a person’s chief emotional needs he or she may choose to side with the cartoonist simply to avoid being labeled stupid. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an appeal to emotion and it has no bearing on whether or not a position is true.

 At the bottom of the page the cartoonist adds some concluding thoughts that basically express the idea that God is either incapable of coming up with a better plan to deliver his word to people, or too dumb to come up with a better plan. Why would the all-powerful God rely so much on human involvement in the delivery of his word, when involving humans means it will almost certainly be messed up? Why didn’t God just will the Bible into being like he supposedly did light and matter?

Think about that for a second. Why did God let people be involved in the development of his written word? It’s probably because most of it is narrative or dependent on contextual situations to exist. In other words, the vast majority of God’s word to humanity is wrapped up in the history of humanity. This kind of requires human involvement. So, why didn’t God poof the book of Habakkuk into existence at the beginning of time? Because the book’s messages of God’s faithfulness to his promises and his judgment on those who rejoice in evil is much better understood in the context of those things actually happening. In my opinion the most powerful message of Habakkuk is God’s patience and gentleness with his followers who have questions and wrestle with the idea that “God’s doing it wrong”. We see this in Habakkuk’s questions, like “How long will you ignore me God?” (Hab 1:2).

If God’s word was nothing more than a list of rules, then perhaps God could have “poofed” it into existence. But it’s not. It’s so much richer and deeper than that. It’s a story. God’s word is the story of him making us and redeeming us, it is full of examples of successes and failures, and its infinitely more about how God relates to us than it is about a list. This kind of story obviously requires human interaction.

As far as the specific question of why did God allow humans to be in charge of recording it instead of it falling out of the divine printing press, I think this is also obvious. To take ownership in something is to love it. If I buy my son a Ninjago Lego set and build the entire thing for him he would probably think it was neat. If, however, I set the box on the floor and say, “I see how this all fits together, and I know how to do this, but let’s build this thing together” then he will love and value it a thousand times more. “He” is in the building of this toy. “He” interacted with it. “He” saw the pieces coming together and when it’s done he will love it. I see the formation of the scriptures the same way. Even if we disregard what I said above about requiring historical human context for the narrative and assume God could have willed the Bible into being apart from human interaction, I really don’t think he would have. God did not need us to be involved, he wanted us to be involved. He wanted to speak through humanity, not just to humanity. He wanted us to be involved in the legos.

One of my son’s chores is to vacuum the rug in the living room. It’s takes him forever to do it. And when he’s done I sometimes have to go back to get some spots he missed. He struggles to wrap the cord up properly when he’s done and to be honest, I could have the thing done in half as much time. But according to the same logic used by this cartoonist the only possible reasons for me having my son go through a long process is because I’m either incapable of doing it myself, or too stupid to figure out how to do it. The third possibility that I’m choosing the longer process for the betterment of my son would not be considered, even though that is indeed the truth. Why did God choose such a long and difficult process to deliver his word? Because that’s what benefits us the most. Can you honestly say you would have an easier time revering the scriptures if I came to you and said, “Here is a list of rules with no context or narrative to give insight. Nobody wrote it. It fell from the sky. Enjoy.”?

 Now, I have no problems with someone raising honest, researched and well thought out objections to faith. I welcome friendly conversations from those with different views. But this comic is not based on anything rational. The author simply twisted the history of the Bible into something much easier to dismantle than the truth, then packaged an argument in condescending language hoping people would be moved by the need to be in the cool kids’ club and reject the reliability of the Bible. 

Weep

Walking through grief with a friend is a tricky thing. How much do you try to help? To what extent do you try to lessen the pain with encouraging words? When do you just shut up, allow them to feel sorrow and be sad with them? How long can you do that before you’re just enabling negative thought processes? My experience has been that it’s even trickier in the often-weird subculture of Christianity. Add to those questions further complications like that Christians are supposed to have joy, God has a plan for you, all things work for good and other theological clichés that always sound better to the one giving advice than the one receiving it. This cocktail of awkwardness, good intentions, bad judgment and theological muddiness is one of the thinnest and most frequently walked tightropes I have experienced. I’m walking it right now. A very close friend of mine got devastatingly bad news yesterday.

 

I certainly don’t consider myself an expert on grieving, counseling, or anything else other than Little Debbie snacks and breaking bones. However, walking through grief with others seems to be something that gets sent my way with more than average frequency and, therefore, it’s something I’ve studied and taught on often. So I thought I’d offer some of my thoughts of the subject.

 

The most common and dangerous misconception here is that believers aren’t allowed to be sad. The joy of the Lord is our strength and everything…sooo….having faith “looks like” being super happy. All the time. Everyday. No matter what. This bad thinking often results in people saying and doing things that they think are “God’s work”, but in reality are insulting and harmful. Let me cut to the chase. When someone is devastated due to a genuinely crappy situation hearing things like, “God has something better around the corner”, “there are lots of people worse off than you”,  “don’t worry, everything happens for a reason”, or “God works in mysterious ways” is far more damaging than helpful. What you may not realize is that you are implicitly telling that person, “You don’t have the right to be sad, and if you are sad you don’t trust God.”

 

We take the verses about joy and faith and create impossible expectations of uber-happiness, which are fueled by self-help slogans and acronyms on bracelets but never touch reality. Let go and let God. What does that even mean, and how is it helpful to my friend who just got the short end of the stick while life beat him mercilessly with the long end?

 

I’m not saying “joy” verses aren’t there. I believe my joy brings God more glory than does my misery and, therefore, God desires me to have joy. But to only quote the happy verses during times of suffering is unfair and doesn’t really reflect the whole teaching of scripture. My view these days is a lot less “live your best life now, by smiling and thinking positive thoughts” and a lot more “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…” (Ecc 3:1,4). Here are some other things to think about.

 

• When Elijah was depressed God did not rebuke him or say his faith was crappy. God’s response was to have Elijah take a nap and eat something (1 Kings 19). Sympathy.
• Jeremiah expressed so much grief in his book that he became known as the weeping prophet (see especially Jer 9:1).
• Job’s three friends gave a lot of horrible advice to their suffering buddy. But they got one thing right. When they first arrived and saw how distraught Job was, they silently sat with him for seven days while he cried (Job 2:13).
• Jesus sat in the road with Mary and Martha and cried with them even though he knew Lazarus would be fine (John 11:17-35).
• Jesus himself got emotional in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was so stressed his blood pressure was near stroke level. He repeatedly asked God to change directions and was disappointed that his friends weren’t there for him the way he wanted (Matthew 26:36-46, Luke 22:43-44)
• Paul did not instruct the Romans to cheer up sad people with pithy sayings and jokes. He told them to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).

 

To deny someone the right to feel emotions other than happiness is to deny them the full extent of their humanity. We are emotional beings. And while I hope to see a reality someday in which there are no more tears or pain (Revelation 21:4), that is not this reality. That is not this world. Now, let’s be clear. I’m not saying, “Let’s all get emo together, sit in a kumbaya circle and watch chick flicks till we have a good old fashion cry party.” There is a point when moving on needs to happen and healing should begin. But I think we often want to rush to that at the expense of the person suffering. Let them feel it for a while. That’s being human. This world has a wide range of emotions and the Bible seems to indicate God is ok with that. We should be too.

Jump

The town I live in is very health conscience. Very. I would say Bloomington is the Portland, Oregon of the Midwest. Bloomington is older, however. So maybe Portland is the Bloomington of the Northwest. I’m sure people in Portland would agree with me. We have bicycle lanes on many of our roads. We have enough health food stores to feed a small army the blandest, gluten free, organic, high antioxidant, soy based meal they’ve ever had. We have trails throughout the city for running and biking. I frequent the running trails a little more often than the health food store. By a little I mean at all.

 

The other night I was running on a trail through town that has rest/workout stations every half mile or so. These areas off to the side of the trail have benches; various exercise stations, and sometimes a water fountain. I stopped at one of these areas and noticed this sign explaining a workout in which you jump up and touch a bar at various heights.

 

This picture cracks me up for two reasons. First, they got the names of the exercises all wrong. These are obviously the Cliffhanger, the Disco Cliffhanger, and the If You Sit Down Really Fast Your Soul Can’t Leave And You’ll Live Forever.

 

The other thing that made me laugh is the drastic, unfathomable gap between the beginner and advanced work out. Really? Beginner, 4 reps. Advanced, 5 reps. Expecting a bit much from the advanced guys don’t you think? I mean, 5 jumps?!? I bet this workout regimen would be even more awesome to hear from a trainer than to read on a board. “Ok, I want you weak beginners to only jump 4 times. I don’t want you to hurt yourselves. Now, you advanced athletes, you specimens of physical prowess, I want you to dig deep and give it everything you’ve got and jump one more time.”  I’m just saying that it seems like the difference between beginner and advanced is a little…pathetic. Don’t you think? One extra jump is the bar they’ve set to make you “advanced”? I think if 4 jumps is beginner status, then 5 jumps should be called “beginner plus 1”.

 

I know this is fairly unimportant in this context. This is just a quick workout station on a trail in town. Who cares what they say is the difference between beginner and advanced. But this picture got me asking a similar question in a different context. I think until recently the difference I had in mind between my life being mediocre and my life reaching greatness was pretty small. For example, a few months ago I would have said my “dream” was to do well at my job in college ministry and to love my family well. Those are obviously great things to want, but they feel relatively safe to say. Of course I want to love my family well and do well at my job. There’s no risk in saying I want to achieve those things because it’s expected.

 

It’s only been in the last few months as I’ve had many conversations with my best friend (and other half of werdguys) that I’ve solidified in myself a higher bar to jump for; things that are scary to say out loud because I may not achieve them. Yet there they are, in my head, separating beginner from advanced by about 100 extra jumps. I know what these things are for me; things like becoming a published author and obtaining a PhD. What are they for you? Don’t bring your idea of “the best it gets” down to just one more jump. Separate average and advanced a little more and give yourself something to sweat for. Set some high, seemingly unreachable goals and then disco cliffhanger the time out of them. 

Kidols

 

 

A friend of mine recently emailed a question pertaining to the parenting-faith dynamic. I thought I’d share her question and the response my wife and I gave. Below is a just a slightly modified copy of the email conversation we had.

I was reading a devotional today about idols. It was more focused on what idols are and what constitutes an idol in our daily lives. I started to think it sounded an awful lot like being a good parent. Example: putting something as the most important thing in your life, what you live for, what gets your time and energy, etc…

Now, I know that God SHOULD be the most important thing in my life, be what I live for, and get my time and energy but realistically…I think [my son] and [my husband] seem to fit that description more (yikes).

I guess here are my questions:

Is this idolatry?

Is there some portion of this that IS worship to God by serving my husband and son or am I just justifying making my family an idol?

How do I keep God first in a very child centered world?

Wow. We really are going big here.

Ok, I’ll write down some thoughts, and then have Merry add some thoughts.

There are definitely some similarities between a description of idols and of good parenting. I think it is impossible to be a good parent without making your kid(s) more important that your own life. I suppose there are some semantic/hair splitting/distinctions to be made. My children are infinitely more important to me than my own life. In actuality, Merry and the kids are more important to me than anything on this earth. So in the context of this temporal life, they are the most important things. That does not mean they are the absolute most important thing to me. It is possible for me to distinguish between the most important thing to me in this life (family) and the most important thing to me (Jesus). Being a good husband/wife/parent absolutely requires placing your family above yourself, loving their well being above your own well being, delighting in their joy, etc. There is nothing antibiblical about this. Paul himself commands husbands to love their wives like Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25). And how did Jesus love the church? In a way that valued the church above his own life so that “he gave himself up for her”. That is the biblical command for us to follow: to love in such a way that the other is more important than me. That is not idol worship. It is biblical family life. This brings glory to God.

Here is the key to distinguishing between this God-glorifying selfless love and idolatry. It becomes idolatry when the love of family becomes more important than obeying God. Here’s an example. As stated, I love my family more than my own life. I would take bullet to the face for any of them. Yet if I sincerely felt God calling my family to a hostile mission field in which they have a higher likelihood or suffering, I would go. They are more important to me than anything on earth, but not more important than God. Yes you invest more time in them than anything else. That can, but does not necessarily indicate idolatry. The average person spends 8 hours a day sleeping, that doesn’t necessarily mean the bed is their idol. The simple, practical reality is that parenting takes more hours of the day than we can devote to praying. This does not mean God is not important. It’s simply a practical reality. I think the level to which you agree with these statements may help differentiate between godly family service and idolatry:

1. I’m confident I would follow God’s leading in my family, even if it took us somewhere I wouldn’t choose.

2. If the things I treasure on this earth were to be taken from me, devastated as I may be, I could still call God my good King.

3. My identity is rooted more in Jesus than in being the spouse of , and the parent of .

From Merry. Fsheew! Good question and great response! I can remember my mom telling me about when she was first married going through a time of great fear that my dad would die. I don’t know if this period of time went on for weeks or months. She told me that she had to really work on giving my dad to God and determining that she would trust God with his life and trust God if He took his life. I have never been much of a worrier, but I have had moments when paralyzing terror has tried to creep in about Nick or one of my kids dying. In those moments I have to rededicate my family to Him. I say, “God, I don’t know how I could survive losing one of them, but I trust that if you choose to have me walk that path that you will give me the strength and grace to handle it. But please don’t make me!”

For me the daily parenting becoming an idol isn’t as much of an issue because I’m past the stage of them being itty bitty. I’m in the stage where if I’m not asking for God’s patience and help I find myself getting too frustrated by them and irritable. I have to ask God to give me wisdom and patience constantly! I think that by God being my source of ability to parent it is putting Him first. I don’t get to spend much time in solitude with Him so I take as many moments as I can while I am alone driving or in the shower or whatever to pray. I also try to take as many opportunities as I can to bring the kids into my relationship with God. I ask them to help me pray for things or we talk about what we are thankful to God for. We talk about telling others about Jesus. Nick and I try to find opportunities in daily life to explain life with God to our kids.

Ooh! One last thought. The parents I see whose kids have become their idol have spoiled their kids more often than not. It is very hard to discipline and limit them when they are on a pedestal.

We hope this helps.

Dangerous

I grew up with a great love for adventure and risk. Not much has changed since I’ve grown up. In fact, its arguable if Ive actually grown up. As a kid I rode bicycles and dirt bikes. I jumped off roofs and got pulled behind cars on skateboards (shout out to Marty McFly for the great idea). I played in old abandoned quarries and loved climbing the rickety, rusted cranes that were left by stone cutters in the 50s.
All this hard playing has taken a toll. I’m 32, but have been told by a doctor I have the skeleton of an arthritic 60 year old. I’ve broken twenty some bones and had enough stitches to reupholster a couch. You know what? I don’t regret a moment of it. I’m an adrenaline junky through and through. I honestly can say I can’t imagine a safe boring life being any fun at all. In my mind getting hurt is the price you pay to have the most fun.
But I’m experiencing some new feelings lately. The desire for safety and control. Not for myself. For my kids. The other day I went out to one of the old quarries I used to play in. I imagined my son there doing the same things I used to do and I felt panicked. I’m not kidding, I felt sick. What if he falls off the edge? What if he twists his ankle at the bottom and can’t climb out? What if he’s climbing on that rock and it gives way? What if…?!?
So now I’m in this weird spot. As an adventure lover I desperately want my kids to have fun in all the exciting parts of life. I want them to be brave and wild. I want them to laugh after riding a bike downhill so fast they aren’t sure if they were in control. I want them to embrace the thrill of risk. I’ve loved all of that and now I want to share it with them.
But as a parent I also want to protect them. Even though I look at every one of my broken bones as a worthwhile adventure, I want to prevent pain in my kids’ lives.
So I’d like to apologize to my parents. I can’t believe neither one of them had a heart attack before I graduated High School. And I’d like to see of anyone else feels this tension between protecting kids yet letting them live adventurously. Anyone?

Pfather’s Day

Fatherhood is an amazingly complicated thing. I always knew I would love being a dad, but it brings more joy and fulfillment to me than I ever could have imagined. That being said, man is this gig hard sometimes. I find myself more often than I would like going to one of my kids and saying something along the lines of, “I’m so sorry. I dropped the ball on that one.” Or “Dad handled that/spoke/responded/acted poorly there.” Or “You were right kids, using two umbrellas for a parachute doesn’t work any better than using one. Walk it off sweetheart.”

Being a good dad is important to me for about a thousand reasons. I thought I’d write about two of them. First, it weighs heavily on me that a person’s view of God is deeply tied to their view of their father. People who have a physically abusive dads often have a hard time seeing God as anything but harsh and scary. Someone whose father walked out is more likely to feel abandoned by God when life sucks. So I feel the weight of reflecting God as accurately as possible to my kids. I know I’ll mess up, but I’m terrified of messing up so royally or so consistently in one area that it makes my kids misunderstand who God really is.

Second, I look around and am incredibly saddened by the decline of “manhood” in our society. By manhood I don’t mean anything machismo. I’m not referring to how much a guy can bench press, how quickly he can chop a tree down or how much his chest resembles a German Shepherd laying on a bear-skin rug; hair with a backdrop of hair. When I say the “decline of manhood” I’m not referring to these external caricature like ideas of manhood. I mean something much deeper. The declines I see the most that trouble me are in things like responsibility, commitment, priorities, courage, honor and self-sacrifice. These things go into the definition of true manhood. You can look like 1984 Burt Reynolds on steroids on the outside, but be a boy. And you can have the physical stature of Mr. Burns and be an absolute stud.

I have a friend who would blend in to most crowds pretty easily. He’s somewhat tall, but skinny, not noticeably muscular, wears glasses and has graying hair. Physically he is the epitome of average. He’s shy, soft-spoken, unassuming and, in general, easy to miss. Here’s why this guy is awesome. You’d never guess by looking at him that he is a detective with the local police department who often runs down and tackles drug addicts and violent criminals. He’s on a task force that stakes out and conducts stings on local drug rings. What’s more impressive is my friend’s family life. Unable to have their own biological children he and his wife have adopted 7 kids, all of whom came from abusive or problematic situations. Listen up kids; that is a man. My own step dad is another great example. I grew up with a dad who loved, provided for and protected me as a matter of choice, not biological expectation. I had no idea growing up that we weren’t rich because I was involved in every activity I wanted and had incredibly generous birthdays and Christmases. I didn’t realize as a child that this was only because my dad worked multiple jobs to make it happen. And tired as he was he made sure to be involved in everything I was doing. That is a man.

I hope to be a good man and a good father. Happy Father’s Day everyone.

Have to

The other day I sent out this simple tweet: “Pondering the implications of adding ‘have to’ to my view of responsibility. Someone else will clean it up vs someone else will have to…” Since then I have not been able to shake this simple thought from my mind and I think it may warrant some more attention. It really is a simple shift in thinking, but I feel like its one of those “profundity wrapped in simplicity” things, like a Shakespearean sonnet in a fortune cookie. I was going to say one of Shakespeare’s plays, but then I realized the print would have to be so small nobody could read it, and that’s not profound at all. I suppose you could put it in a really big fortune cookie. But that would be weird. Regardless, I truly believe the act of incorporating “have to” into our daily thinking is one of the most simple yet complicated, easy yet difficult, quick yet time consuming things we can attempt.

Here’s what it looks like. In seemingly meaningless situations that we encounter everyday we pass over opportunities to be courteous, kind, responsible or generous because we assume (usually subconsciously) “somebody else will.” For example, I don’t need to stop and see if that person on the side of the highway needs help because somebody else will. It’s not a big deal if I leave my trash here. Somebody else will clean it up. I could cook up a thousand vague examples, but you get what I mean. If not, somebody else will.

But what if we add the tiny phrase “have to” to the end of those thoughts. If I don’t help that person somebody else will have to. If I don’t clean this up somebody else will have to. Those two simple words shift the responsibility in everyday, casual situations from other people to me. Instead of assuming someone else is responsible for something, what if we volunteer ourselves to be responsible? In a culture that despises the idea of personal responsibility, and especially among people who view certain acts and responsibilities as beneath them, adopting this view would be truly countercultural. It would be quietly radical. It would be a lot like Jesus. What this idea really boils down to is servanthood. Are we servants to others in daily invisible ways, or only in grandiose and theatrical ways? Are we willing to feel the responsibility of things that have not been named our responsibility? Or do we secretly and inwardly love the idea of being so important that others serve us?

I think the simply difficult addition of “have to” to our thinking is more Jesus-like than most realize. Why did Jesus wash his disciples’ feet? Because if he didn’t somebody else would have to. Why did Jesus choose the agony of God’s judgment on the cross? Because if he didn’t somebody else (me) would have to. Why did Jesus curse a fig tree that had no figs? Probably because he was really hungry. Ok, that one doesn’t fit here. But why did Jesus say he came to dwell among us? To serve, not to be served.

So I leave you with this final thought (JERRY! JERRY! JERRY! I wonder who will understand that reference). From now on try to look around you and be more aware of chances to engage in acts of kindness and service, not because it’s your job, but simply so someone else does not have to. That is true service.

Weirdo

I am the father of a 7-year-old boy. For those of you who currently have or have had a young boy you know what I mean when I say my son is in the “weirdo” phase. Everything is weird! He is literally incapable of speaking or acting normally. He can’t say “Mom, can I have a glass of water?” Instead, he feels the need to strike a crazy pose and say, “HEY MAMMA! Coulds your boy have a glash of WATAAAAHH!?!” He does not simply walk from point A to point B. Its like he’s perpetually stuck in the final round of the world parkour championship. I’m convinced there is a 24/7 action movie playing in his head. He’s constantly displaying his kung fu prowess against invisible foes and providing spit laden sound effects for the battle. These examples may not fully express the state of weird I’m living in. Lets just say he is weird.

Now, lets get one thing clear. I love my son. No, you don’t understand. I love my son more than life. I would take a bullet to the face for him right now. More than that, I would be tortured for that kid and not think twice about it. Seeing him, or anything related to him puts an immediate smile on my face. That being said, dudebro is so annoying right now! Go ahead, label me a horrible parent. But we all know I just said what parents of 7-year-old boys across the world have thought and never said.

The last thing I want to do is stifle his creativity or discourage finding fun in every moment of life possible. I know this is just a normal phase. It’s part of growing up. I know that without even trying my son is easily the coolest person I know. I know that soon enough this phase will be over and he’ll most likely go back to the super chill, cerebral, tenderhearted dudebro he was 7 months ago. I see glimpses of that kid peak out from behind the weird every once in a while and think, “Ah, there’s the boy I know.” But for now I often find myself rolling my eyes and being a little more aware of how people react to my weirdo in public.

This makes me think two things. First, I’d like to apologize to my parents for dragging the weirdo phase well beyond the acceptable 7 to 11 age range and extending it through high school without permission. Second, I wonder if I went through a similar phase in my faith. I think I did. When I think back on who I was two years into my faith I feel my face turn red and I can easily imagine God rolling his eyes. I imagine he thought things like, “You think that is important to me? You think that is a good way to witness to someone? You think that is what faith looks like?” Then I imagine God planting a palm on his forehead and being excited for that phase to be over. I think, or at least I hope, I’m mostly out of the weird adolescent phase of faith. That’s not to say I fully understand God and faith or that my faith is somehow superior to anyone else’s faith. I am, however, hopeful that I’m getting better at deciphering who I really am, what parts of my faith are genuine and what parts were just part of a weird phase. I hope I’m getting closer to the point where God takes his hand off his forehead and says, “There’s the guy I know.

Happy Memorial Day

At church this morning I saw a friend who is a fellow combat veteran. Out of pure habit I said, “Hey buddy, happy Memorial Day.” As the very words were coming out of my mouth I regretted them. I had already said that same phrase to at least 15 other people. It’s what you’re supposed to say. But as I said those words and looked in the vet’s eyes I realized he feels the exact same feelings I feel on this holiday. This day is designed with the specific intention of remembering the fallen. For most it is like a junior 4th of July. A day to cook out and feel patriotic and say “I’m grateful for those who paid for freedom.” And that’s great. We SHOULD feel and express those things. I love celebrating a country I’m very proud of and the heroes who have defended it with their lives.

But in that moment I realized that “Happy” was not the correct word to describe this day. For some, like my friend at church and I, the major thought on this day isn’t cookouts or a generic form of patriotism. For those who can picture the faces of the people this day was created to remember, the day is not happy. For some, Memorial Day is more heavy than happy. It is a day of gratefulness, reverence, remembrance and sadness. It’s amazing how the same day can mean different things and feel so differently to various people.

I’m not sure what the point of this post is. I don’t want to offer any advice or say I have some deep insight on anything. I guess I’m just sharing a moment and some thoughts. Today I’m thinking of brothers who didn’t make it home with us. I’m thinking of widows, parents, children and fiancés that I know who aren’t having a happy day. I’m thinking of other veterans who feel the same heaviness I do right now. I wish all of these a very “meaningful” Memorial Day.