R3: radical, revolutionary, different

I am very much an individualist. 

All of my favorite games, movies and history stories involve the lone hero fighting the forces of evil (Chuck Norris I’m looking at you).  To be honest I hate the idea that I need community to live a healthy, productive life.  I don’t want to have to submit my life to other people - I want to be king of the hill. 

But if I want to live out a life of faith, I need to look at everything the Bible says about my life, not just the things I’m interested in hearing.  That’s why I find the Bible’s comments on authority so challenging.  It directly confronts the way I want to live my life.

Yet should I be surprised?  Look at what happens in the world around us.

Since 2000 we’ve been told by one political party that our current president is an idiot.  Comedians re-tell that same joke as if no one has ever heard it.  Companies publish calendars and cards illustrating “Bushisms.”  In response, we’re told that the other political party hates their country.  And hopes that things will be miserable for millions of Americans just to improve their election chances.  

Of course it’s not just politics where this happens.  It’s at home too.  A 12 year old boy was suspended from school for wearing a mohawk to support the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  His response was essentially: “I’d rather be suspended than cut my hair.”  His parents supported his decision. 

Now maybe Bush isn’t the smartest President we’ve ever had.  And maybe one party really does believe in redistribution of wealth.  And maybe the school over reacted with a boy’s enthusiasm for his favorite team.

But is this mocking authority how we’re called to live? 

We  seem to “stick it to the Man” because we can.  And so we cheer for the defiance of a 12 year old.  And laugh at the Bush is stupid jokes.  And nod knowingly that one party wants to take from the rich and give to the poor. 

I don’t pretend to understand everything about how the Bible portrays authority.  Maybe I don’t even know most of it.  But how can we hope to learn what it means to be obedient, when as a society we intentionally mock those in authority?

Right now we find ourselves in a global economic crisis.  And we’re told that we need to trust our leaders.  But why should we when we’ve been told for 8 years that the president is an idiot?  When we mock authority, how can we suddenly turn that attitude off when suddenly we need to trust authority?

The answer is, we can’t. 

There’s a moment when Saul is standing alone in a cave “using the facilities” so to speak.  David, the man who Saul is trying to kill, is hiding in the cave. Saul had been searching for them for a long time.  It would be so easy for David to end his life on the run by killing Saul. At least that’s what David’s men think.  

But David believes Saul was chosen by God, and therefore has all of God’s authority.  So instead of killing him, David cuts off a piece of his robe.  Saul leaves without knowing how close to death he was.  As Saul walks back to his soldiers, his protection, David appears, saying, “I could have killed you, but I didn’t because God chose you to be king.”

David knew that if he started ignoring God’s authority because it was convenient, he’d be walking down a dangerous path.  He respected Saul’s authority so much that he’d rather live a life on the run, then counter what God might be doing through Saul.  He knew he couldn’t turn his obedience on and off.  That’s a very different place to be than how we seem to be living.

Like I said, the Bible’s view of authority is difficult for me to grasp.  Especially as someone who prides himself on individualism.  I do know that with the election in a few days, this is something we all need to wrestle with.  No matter who wins the presidency, serious problems face this country and the world.  And I don’t want to reject authority simply because I don’t like it.  I’m committed to God, no matter where that leads me.

I want God to be my king of the hill.

In the last post, I spoke about David’s belief that God would be with him when he faced Goliath.  He didn’t need any more evidence. He didn’t have to wait for “just one more reassurance.”  He just took past experiences and applied them to his life.

Yet so often we don’t act with that same assurance.  Sometimes we want to wait for absolutes before we act.  We play it safe and ask, “God, should I do this, or should I do that?”  Waiting until God gives us some kind of definitive answer. 

Now on the one hand, this is a very valid and legitimate question to ask.  It can be a very bad idea to act without knowing God is there to support you.  But in many cases God has already told us to act, he doesn’t need to repeat himself.  For instance, Jesus already told us to love our enemies.  We don’t need to pray about whether we should love them, we just need to do it.

No matter what decisions we make, or what actions we decide to take, we must always move with God.  As bold as David was, he never would have survived without God’s help.  In fact, that’s the whole point of the story.  David was much smaller than many of the Israelite soldiers.  He was the youngest child (which Israelites viewed as ‘inferior’).  If David had come up to you or I, we would have laughed at him, and said, “sure whatever kid.”  He didn’t fit the mold of manly man, let alone hero.

Which is exactly why God chose him to act.  No one could confuse God’s action as something David did on his own.  Casting Crowns sums up David’s attitude saying, “I’ll go, but I cannot go alone.”  This was David’s life philosophy.  He was aware that it wasn’t his own abilities that would take down Goliath (or the bear, or the lion) but it was God.  He went, but he didn’t go alone.

In Me

If you ask me to leap
Out of my boat on the crashing waves
If You ask me to go
Preach to the lost world that Jesus saves
I’ll go, but I cannot go alone
Cause I know I’m nothing on my own
But the power of Christ in me makes me strong
Makes me strong

Cause when I’m weak, You make me strong
When I’m blind, You shine Your light on me
Cause I’ll never get by living on my own ability
How refreshing to know You don’t need me
How amazing to find that you want me
So I’ll stand on Your truth, and I’ll fight with Your strength
Until You bring the victory, by the power of Christ in me

If You ask me to run
And carry Your light into foreign land
If You ask me to fight
Deliver Your people from Satan’s hand

To reach out with Your hands
To learn through Your eyes
To love with the love of a savior
To feel with Your heart
And to think with Your mind
I’d give my last breath for Your glory

With God’s backing, we can accomplish anything.  As David found out even giants are no match for God.  Or as Peter discovered, even walking on water is possible when we live out a life of faith.  What can God do with our lives, if we choose not to walk alone?

Sometimes people don’t always see how their faith impacts their life.  “It’s a personal thing” or “it’s between myself and God” are expressions of this idea.  But faith, and the way you live your life, can never be separated.  What you believe impacts how you behave.

Just look at the financial mess the world is facing.  While there are so many factors, perhaps too many to understand, that have triggered these events there is one thing we can look at: human behavior.  We see executives taking huge amounts of money while their companies go under.  Is there anything wrong with this?  Maybe not.  But can you imagine Jesus doing this?  The point of being a Kingdom person is that we are willing to sacrifice everything for our brothers and sisters. 

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15: 13)

The same should be true of the people we place in government.  Unfortunately it’s not.  By the time this is all said and done we will find politicians on both sides of the aisle (and other world leaders) who knowingly acted for their own welfare, sacrificing the welfare of their countries.  God warned Israel that the minute they put a king over them instead of God, the best of everything they had would belong to the state. 

But Christians can change this.  Not by forcing non-Christians to live by God’s rules, but by living out those rules for ourselves.  There is nothing more powerful than witnessing a life lived out in faith.  Nothing more convincing that God exists.

So in the midst of all of this, remember that faith applies to your life, just as much as it does to CEO’s and Senators. 

Today the Dow dropped almost 1,000 points.  And then it gained 800 points back in a matter of minutes.  Things are uncertain, unexpected, and probably some other word that begins with “un”.  There’s no question that this is a tough time.  Maybe not the toughest, but certainly not the easiest.  But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean there’s not opportunity to show people what the Kingdom looks like. 

Christians should always look different from non-Christians.  And I’m not talking clothing here.  I’m talking about our behavior.  As people become more enraged, and more depressed about their financial losses, their behaviors are going to become more extreme. 

How we respond to our own financial losses reflects on how we view the Kingdom and how God operates.  If we act in love despite losing everything, that’s a more powerful example of God’s existence than all the intellectual arguments in the world.

When we live differently the world notices. 

Getting stuff and having things isn’t bad. 

Being consumed with getting stuff and having things is. 

Right now people are tapped out.  They are spent financially, emotionally, and for many, relationally.  How can it be otherwise?  We are constantly told that we need more to fill our lives.  That no matter what we have it isn’t enough, or it’s not the right size.  So we go out and try to lose more weight, or buy more gadgets, or have more dating relationships.  But it’s never enough.  We need more. 

Frankly that’s a tough place to be because the more we embrace a consumerist mindset, the more we believe we have a right to wealth, prosperity, and happiness.  And now that we might not be able to get our next fix, we’re terrified. 

As much as I wish it were true, God never promised that just because we beleive in him, everything will be fine.  In fact, just the opposite may be true.  It seems that the closer you get to God, the more likely “bad” things are going to happen.  Of course that’s only if you define “bad” as not getting gadgets, toys, and pay raises.  Losing our toys may be annoying, losing our jobs may be difficult, losing our lives may be unfortunate.  But losing our souls?  Devastating.   

The thing is, God can still use each of us.  God still wants to be in a relationship with us.  No matter how far we’ve fallen into debt.  No matter how bad the country’s (or world’s) economy looks, there’s always something we can be doing for God.  There is always a way to advance the Kingdom.

And where the Kingdom advances, there is hope. 

Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean it’s not hard to watch the economy fall apart.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t any stress involved with facing hard times.  What it does mean is that we need to remember to trust God.  He knows what we need, and frankly it’s not really another video game or a new car - what we really need is a stronger relationship with him. 

I don’t always find that comforting as I enter into a crisis.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.

Lord - I pray for all the people who are being affected by this financial crisis.  The people who are losing their homes, their jobs, and their financial security.  Encourage them.  Help them to lean into you, so that they can overcome any obstacle.  And for the rest of us, help us to remain generous, to stay bold, and to act in love.  Amen.

R3 is currently running a series entitled “Phrases.”  Today, however, I’m going to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming.  Mostly because I lost power over the weekend (like tens of millions of people) which makes it difficult to write things on the internet.  So today, instead of business as usual, I want to just take a breath and comment on something I’ve been thinking about since 3:00 yesterday.

Every time I lose power I’m shocked (no pun intended) at just how much of my life revolves around electricity and technology.  It seems everything I do from waking up in the morning to relaxing in the evening requires electricity.  I couldn’t even spend time reading because my apartment was too dark. 

While I’m not alone in this realization about electricity, it does drive a point home for me: the people who wrote the Bible lived so differently from me it’s hard to even imagine their lives.  How can I relate to someone who lived their entire life without electricity, running water, or most importantly, Google? 

Yet they wrote of such profound truths that their advice - the wisdom of the Bible - is still relevant today.

Of course Christians would argue that it wasn’t simply people who came up with the advice, but God.  And judging by just how relevant the Bible is to modern life, I have to agree.  It’s a bit humbling to realize that God knows us so well he can predict our current behavior from thousands of years ago.  Despite all of our modern conveniences and ways we’re still the same people who rebelled against him in the Garden of Eden.  Humanity hasn’t changed, only the shape of our daily lives.  If this doesn’t drive home the relevancy of the Bible, nothing will. 

I may be without power.  And that may last a few days or a week.  But with each passing moment I thank God (literally) that his patience is more reliable than my electric company!

Another phrase I use is something I recently heard.  A few months ago I heard Harvey Carey (pastor of a church in Detroit) talk about dead people.  Not the “I see dead people” kind, but living as dead people.  Which is entirely different than the living dead.  And yes, I really have no idea what I’m talking about right now.

But moving right along, lets focus back on the dead people.  Carey’s main point was this: there would be very little complaining about the clothes we wear, the people we’re around, or even the places we spend our time.  Because, well, dead people don’t complain.

When I heard him say it, I realized it was simple, short, and most importantly, true. 

The minute someone believes in Jesus they become dead to their sins.  Yet we spend so much time complaining that other Christians “don’t do this” or that they “do do that”?  Dead people don’t care if the band plays with the volume at 11, or if people wear suits and ties to church.  They are too focused on what matters - being dead.

I know I don’t always focus on being dead.  All too often I’m caught up in my preferences for things.  That wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t completely distract me from living a sacrificial life style.  If I wasn’t so wrapped up in getting new toys to play with, or competing with the Jones’s, I wouldn’t be so hesitant to drop everything and help my friends. 

God’s Kingdom is one that focuses outwardly.  It’s not about collecting the most, or even looking the best.  It’s about allowing our self importance to die, so we can help people who need it (for the record, that would be all of us). 

So when you get right down to it, that’s the advantage of being dead, you can really focus on other people.

“Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right”

Those are wise words from (of all people) Alanis Morissette. 

I’ve always admired those characters in books or TV who seem to be one step ahead of everyone else.  I’ve always wanted to be like Sherlock Holmes, anticipating events before they happened.  But I’m not.  Some days I’m barely anticipating events after they happened.  There are just some moments in my life that seem to sneak up on me.

I suspect this is called “life.”

Sometimes these events are so stressful, so overwhelming, that they change everything.  No matter how well prepared I thought I was, it wasn’t enough.  That’s hard to take.  It can shake your faith, your vision, and even your relationships.

There’s an adage in the military that you’re always preparing to fight the last war, not the one coming.  This is true of our lives.  We respond to the dangers, threats, and problems we’ve faced in the past, not the one’s that are to come unexpectedly at 3 AM.  Because then they wouldn’t be, um, unexpected…

If I’m going to make a major mistake in my life, it’s usually in these situations.  I tell myself that I don’t have enough time to think things through.  That I must act immediately.  Sometimes I don’t even think at all, I just go with the flow.

That’s a dangerous place to be.

No matter the excuse the bottom line is simple: I don’t turn to God when my life gets out of control.  Sadly, I usually don’t even think about turning to God.  I’m too busy trying to reduce my stress and fears.

Obviously that’s a problem.

The last few years I’ve worked hard at trying to remember to take a deep breath, say a prayer, and wait just a bit before I plunge into activity.  Sometimes this works, sometimes not so much.  But I’ve learned the hard way (which is apparently my preferred learning style) a simple trick.  I’ve learned that if I say a simple phrase, it’s usually enough to get me at least on the right path.

I have a friend who has trouble talking to girls.  To not look like an idiot he tells himself, “use your words.”  It’s a little goofy, and I don’t know if I really believe him, but it’s the same theory I use.  There’s nothing wrong with reminding yourself of the things you hold dear.

Over the course of the next few days we’re going to take a look at some of the phrases I use.  They are all designed to make  me stop, think about God, and then act in a much better way.  And because I recognize that I don’t know everything, I’d like to hear if you guys have phrases as well.  Consider it a collective project.  Maybe we can all learn a little something from each other.

Phrase 1: The joy of the Lord is my strength
Phrase 2: Are you dead?
Phrase 3: Have you prayed about it?
Phrase 4: What’s the point?

 <comments are open>

I was thinking about something today, and it’s not exactly theology, so humor me for a bit.  As much as I’ve tried to escape the reality of age, I am finally coming to the depressing conclusion I’m getting older.  I have reached that stage of my life where my body simply doesn’t respond like it once did.  (And it never returns my phone calls.)

Some of you know what I’m talking about.  Others of you are just waiting for me to discuss walking uphill both ways in the snow.  (By the way, I did this when I was going to high school - there was a valley between my house and the HS.)  As my body changes, the way I think about things is also changing.  You see, sitting here typing this is causing me physical pain because I have an old chair.

Until recently I had never given any consideration to my posture, how I sit, or certainly not what I sit on.  But that’s changing.  The obvious solution is to buy a new chair.  And that would be great, if I hadn’t just resigned from my job.  So right now I can’t afford to buy some fancy, comfortable, ergonomically correct chair. 

When I chose to resign I knew there would be sacrifice involved.  Although this wasn’t exactly what I expected! 

As I sit here thinking about my chair, my job, and my back I can’t help but realize I’m still in better financial shape than 99% of the world’s population.  At least I have a chair to sit on.  This is forcing me to think about the so-called “less fortunate.”  Have I ever stopped to consider the physical pain they go through because they can’t afford new clothes, a warm bed, or even a car to get to work?  Have I stopped to wonder what random issues they have because they don’t have the money they need?

For the first time I think I’m starting to understand that suffering sometimes happens just because we can’t afford to “upgrade” the things we have.  That it’s not simply about “not having” but also about not have the right things.  Owning a pair of shoes doesn’t do you any good if they are a size too small. 

Like I said, this isn’t exactly theological in nature.  Just an observation about the weird ways life (and God) teaches you important lessons.