The Intensity Dynamic

Today (August 29, 2011) I read an article that provides an interesting follow-up to last week’s post, “Feeling the Impact.” The article, “Infographic Of The Day: How The Virginia Earthquake Spread On Twitter,” demonstrates graphically the spread of tweets across the East Coast in relation to the actual shockwave of last week’s quake. Interestingly, the intensity of the tweets was not the same as the shockwave expanded. This paragraph from the article sums up their conclusions:

“It seems that somehow people further and further from the epicenter are finding the earthquake less and less interesting. The most obvious reason is this: For one, the feeling of the earthquake isn’t quite as dramatic, and the damage it’s causing isn’t as severe (if it even caused any damage at all; New York, for example, was totally unharmed). So people are tweeting less about earthquake when it feels less threatening. Let me repeat that: They’re tweeting less when the earth quake feels less threatening. That sounds rather innocuous, but that single insight allows you to see the chart in a totally different way. For one, the map above actually doesn’t just show the spread of earthquake-related tweeting, but actually the emotional impact and physical damage. Human beings, processing the information about the earthquake, are basically acting as sensors, as SocialFlow elegantly puts it.”

Once again, the situation provides some interesting parallels to our Christian walk and witness. Naturally, when we are talking about God, we aren’t talking about factors like emotional impact (only) and certainly not physical damage. The parallel I want to make is with regards to the intensity of tweets in relation to the impact felt. Let me repeat the conclusion:

They’re tweeting less when the earth quake feels less threatening.

I suggest that the intensity of people’s witness for Christ could be directly related to the spiritual impact and the degree of life change experienced as a result of coming into contact with God’s revelation (whether directly through His Word, or by hearing the witness of others about His Word). Or, to put it another way, our passion for communicating God to others (intensity) is directly related to the degree of life change produced by God’s Word in our lives (impact). The deeper the impact, the greater the intensity.

Passages like Matthew 13:3-9 teach us that the Word of God will have different results in different people’s lives. The difference isn’t the seed or the sower, but the quality of the soil in which the seed lands. We need to beg God to break up and soften the soil of hearts to fully receive His Word and be changed by it. We need to plead that His impact be felt deeper than just an emotional reaction, that we can be drawn near to the epicenter of earth-shaking, life-altering change revealed in His Word.

We need to be truly shaken to our core, and set firmly on our Solid Rock. Then, and only then, we will intensely proclaim to others the impact of God in our lives.

Feeling the Impact

(Leia este post em português.)

Bad news travels fast.

Practically the moment the east coast felt the impact of yesterday’s earthquake (08/23/2011), others were reading about it, and not necessarily from the news sources. Amidst the normal things people do in these situations—find cover, look for family members, panic—many found the time to update their Facebook and Twitter accounts to give the rest of the world an up-to-the-second account of what was going on.

These days, any news travels fast. From the important to the very, very mundane, millions of people have added to their routine the concept of announcing from the virtual rooftops anything and everything that is going on. It reminds me of this strip from one of my favorite comics, Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin announces his activities loudly as he walks through the house.

Sound familiar?

But going back to the earthquake…

I was in an earthquake once, back in ’95, when I was visiting friends in Costa Rica. I don’t remember what it scored on the Richter scale, but it was a substantial quake. Damage was minimal, but it was what everyone was talking about that night at church. Even when we are bombarded by the mundane all day long, when something BIG happens, we want people to know. Good or bad, we share it, and if we hear of something BIG, we pass it along. Twitter is just a digital voice to what humans have done for centuries.

So the question is: of all the things that have ever happened to you, that are happening to you, and will ever happen to you, is there anything BIGGER than the impact God has in your life? Is there anything WORSE than our sinful condition, anything GREATER than His love, anything MORE AMAZING than Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf?

If you have felt the impact of knowing and being known by the Maker of the Universe through a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ, is anything else more newsworthy?

Bad news travels fast.

The Good News needs to travel faster.

No Cause for Alarm

Just when it seemed that so much hype about the Mayan calendar had died down (when the History Channel stops doing specials, it must be old news), we get a more disappointing doomsday prediction: yet another rapture date-setter on the loose. Not content with his round one predictive failure (Sept 1994), Harold Camping is back with the prediction that tomorrow, May 21, the Rapture will happen. He even gave a time: 6 p.m., but there appears to be some confusion over what time zone.

Don’t worry, I don’t plan to try to refute him in this post. I don’t see a point, really. What he and most people who over-analyze prophecy seem to forget is that when God wants us to know specifics, He tells us what the specifics are. I believe that what God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy still holds true: what He chooses to keep to Himself is for Him to know, but what He chooses to reveal is very important for us to know and obey (Deut. 29:29). Applied to the current situation, we know that Christ’s return is imminent, but the only certain thing we know about the time is that we don’t know when it will be (Matt 24:36).

So why the post? Just wanted to remind everyone of two interesting verses:

Jeremiah 28:9: ”The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him.”

Clearly there is a context in which this was said, but the latter part is still applicable: a prophet is known to be from God when what he says actually happens. This doesn’t mean that if your fortune cookie is uncannily right about something it’s God speaking, but certainly, if someone predicts something that doesn’t happen, it isn’t God’s message, or His messenger. We don’t even need to wait until May 22 to get an idea about Camping. Just recall that what didn’t happen in 1994.

But more importantly, consider this:

Deuteronomy 18:22: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”

I really like that last part: don’t be afraid of him.

It’s God saying, “Nothing to see here, folks. I didn’t tell him to say that. There’s no cause for alarm.”

[Something important to remember: the Biblical prophecies that Camping and others misinterpret are real, and are important. The message of God's wrath against sin, His love for the sinner, His Son's death, burial, resurrection, ascension into heaven and imminent return is something to take very seriously. Unfortunately, these date-setters actually distract people from the reality of Christ's return, and have the opposite effect, of leading people to lose faith in the Bible by mishandling the truth.]

We, They, and Him.

As far as we can tell, Osama Bin Laden, America’s most wanted for ten years, is dead. When I heard about it via the social network, I turned on my TV and watched as crowds gathered to cheer and chant “USA! USA!” in front of the White House. I understand the sentiment, but couldn’t help but think that the scenes were eerily reminiscent of the celebration that went on in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. I again thought of one of my favorite Kipling poems, called “We and They”:

Father and Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But-would you believe it? –They look upon We
As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
Are horrified out of Their lives;
While they who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn’t it scandalous? ) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun.
They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!

I understand, in part, why people celebrate these things. An enemy is dead; a threat is removed; a victory is won. Am I talking about celebrating Bin Laden’s death or the attacks of 9/11? Oh, that depends on who you are — We or They. Patrick, that’s outrageous! Clearly, they killed innocent blood! They murdered civilians! They are infidels! I’m sorry, who are we talking about again — We or They?

In human affairs, We always think We are on the right side, and They are not. Actually, it can be further distilled to a simpler formula: I am always on the right side, and You are not. Whether it is two kids in the same family, struggling over a toy on their living room floor, or warring heads of state, investing billions of dollars (or other currency) and countless human lives in a similar struggle over a much larger, more expensive toy, if you listen, the conversation can be whittled away to its most basic element, and in both settings (and every setting in between), it boils down to two sides saying: “Mine!”

It is hard to do, but we must divorce our personal feelings from the equation, and attempt to see this from the only perspective that really matters: His. I am aware of the immediate problem with this — MY “His” and YOUR “His” may not be the same, and most certainly isn’t the same as THEIR “His.” It is important for us (We and They) to allow Him to speak for Himself:

“As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ez. 33.11).

I realize this particular reference is limited to the wicked in Israel, but I believe the Bible, both specifically and universally, speaks a characteristic quality of God, that while He is perfectly Holy, and therefore must bring His Holy wrath against all evil, He doesn’t take pleasure in doing so. It is so much His desire to see the wicked repent, that He is incredibly patient with man (2 Peter 3, especially v. 9). He doesn’t just tell us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-45), but He practices it (John 3:16-21). (Let’s not forget the whole story of Jonah: God’s grace toward the wicked nation, the wicked nation’s repentance, and the prophet’s sorry attitude about it all.)

I realize that the following is my opinion, based on my understanding of these and other passages of Scripture, but I simply cannot imagine God cheering when Osama Bin Laden left this world without knowing His Son, Jesus Christ. His holiness was vindicated, His justice served, but I believe He would much rather have us cheering because Bin Laden bowed at the foot of the cross, repenting of his sin (not his sins against America — but his sin against God). And at the same time — still my opinion — I can’t imagine a scenario in which Bin Laden would have been received into American churches as a brother in Christ had he come to know Him. If the book of Acts happened today, only divine intervention would keep Saul alive when the “brothers” got their hands on him. The last part is all speculation, of course.

How should we view the death of a man like Osama Bin Laden? And when I say “we,” I mean believers in Jesus Christ. I can understand patriotic, unbelieving America and it’s perception that an enemy is dead. But we believers are citizens of another country, no matter what our citizenship here on Earth is. Lest someone misunderstand me to be sympathetic with men like Bin Laden, note that I am putting him soundly in the category of “wicked.” But from God’s perspective, He is not wicked for being against the American way of life. He is wicked, first of all, in the way we all are — wicked by nature: “There is none righteous, no not one” (Rm. 3:10). He is also wicked for acts that he has committed. What all those acts are is between him and his Creator, but we should have a pretty good idea  what some of those might be from a few lists God has made. From our human standpoint, what a person does makes him “good” or “bad;” from God’s perspective, it is who a person is that is “good” or “bad.”

But having established even that much — that Bin Laden was, in fact, wicked — what then? If our God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked, should we? Let us mourn the loss of yet another casualty of this war — not the human war, full of people screaming “Mine!” the loudest. I mean the war of man against his Creator God; the war that has been won by Jesus Christ, who, through His blood, offers amnesty to His enemies. His plan is that WE love THEM, and, despite our differences, WE take HIS love to THEM, so that together, in Jesus Christ, WE (WE and THEY together) can be united in HIM (Eph. 1:3-14, esp. v.10).

He’s Making a List…

(Leia este post em português.)

(No, it’s not about Santa.)

Usually we make lists to outline something important, for ourselves or for someone else. We make grocery lists to summarize what we need to buy; teachers make lists of necessary materials for their students; bosses make lists of rules to direct the task to be accomplished. In short, we make lists to summarize important stuff.

So imagine what it’s like when God makes a list. When He writes a list, it’s because He is giving us a brief overview of what He wants done (or not done). Whenever you come across a list in Scripture, you can be sure God is saying, “Hey, just to be clear, I’m going to sum it up for you.” Below are some important lists we find in the Bible that can help us evaluate our priorities and see if they square up with God’s priorities. They are organized in order of appearance in Scripture.

The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-19; Deut. 5:6-21). Just because we are under grace now doesn’t mean that this list doesn’t count. Jesus came and fulfilled this law, and if anything, He raised the bar regarding our obedience to it (see Matt. 5:21-29 if you’re in doubt about this). The important thing to remember is that obedience to this law doesn’t save; rather, we are saved to obey it.

1. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make any idols.
3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. Don’t kill (murder, really).
7. Don’t commit adultery.
8. Don’t steal.
9. Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor
10. Don’t covet (your neighbor’s wife, or anything else of his, for that matter).

Things God Hates (Prov. 6:16-19) For God, who is the very definition of holiness and perfection, any and all sin is abominable. But God decided to include a list in Proverbs of the ones He particularly hates. A couple of points of interest: all of them are spoken of in terms of something or someone that commits them; look at all the body parts! Also, lying must really, really bad — it made the list twice.

1. Pride (haughty eyes)
2. Lying (a lying tongue)
3. Violence against innocents (hands that shed innocent blood)
4. Premeditated evil (a heart that devises wicked plans)
5. Propensity toward sin (feet that rush to evil)
6. Lying again, this time in a legal setting (a false witness that spreads lies)
7. Discord (the person that stirs up strife among his brothers)

The Ones God Blesses (Matt. 5:3-11; Luke 6:20-22). Actually, the word “blessed” in Greek speaks of “happiness” (read more about it in my other post “Truly Happy People”). In His famous Sermon the Mount, Jesus explained that people could be truly happy if they made God’s priorities their priorities instead of experiencing the fleeting happiness of society’s priorities.

1. The one who is poor, yet godly;
2. The one who is sorrowful, but expectant of God’s comfort;
3. The one who is meek;
4. The one who is hungry and thirsty for righteousness;
5. The one who is merciful;
6. The one who is pure in heart;
7. The one who is a peacemaker;
8. The one who is persecuted and falsely accused for His sake.

The Shortest List (Matt. 22:36-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:26-28). Jesus said three important things regarding this list of commandments. In Matthew, He said, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (22:40) In Mark, He said, “There is no greater commandment than these” (12:31). In Luke, He explained to the one who asked about eternal life, “Do this and you will live” (10:28). This list is just two commandments, but they are REALLY, REALLY important ones.

1. Love God (with all your heart, soul, and understanding)
2. Love others (at first this command was to love your neighbor “as yourself”; but Jesus changed it when He told His disciples to love one another “as I have loved you;” cf. John 13:34)

The Works of the Flesh (Gal. 5:19-21). Once again, we have a list of things God doesn’t want in our lives. Notice that this is a list of “works,” yet it’s negative. This is interesting because so many people emphasize works as a means of salvation, and God is pretty clear that it isn’t (Eph. 2:8-9). Another thing is that a work is an action; a product of our will. In other words, we want to do it, so we do it. This will come into contrast with the “fruit” in the next list, since “fruit” is a natural and spontaneous product. The fruit produces good works, certainly, but the mere presence of the Spirit in our lives should produce these results. (There are some natural thematic divisions in this list, so they are grouped to emphasize this.)

Carnal relationships

1. sexual immorality
2. impurity
3. sensuality

Relationship with God

1. idolatry
2. sorcery

Relationship with others

1. enmity
2. strife
3. jealousy
4. fits of anger
5. rivalries
6. dissensions
7. divisions
8. envy

Excesses

1. drunkenness
2. orgies
3. and things like these

The Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). As we saw with the list above, Paul contrasts the “works of the flesh” with the fruit of the Spirit. These things are not only pleasing to God, but are signs of the truly regenerate person (in whom the Spirit dwells). The prolonged or constant absence of these things could well indicate that someone does not truly know Jesus Christ.

1. love
2. joy
3. peace
4. patience
5. kindness
6. goodness
7. faithfulness
8. gentleness
9. self-control

If we really meditate on these lists God has made, we will have a pretty good idea of what His priorities for our lives really are.

“Real Men” ad campaign fails to address real issues.

Before I get into this, one might wonder — as my own wife did — Why does Patrick care enough about this to blog about it? Well, the truth is, this article could have been a about any number of charities, good causes, or “let’s eradicate problem x” campaigns going on in the world. It just so happened that I was up earlier today, and caught an interview on CNN, and it struck me as a particularly good example to use in my blog.

The interview I happened to see was Piers Morgan talking to Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher about their video ad campaign, “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.” If you are not familiar with this, visit their YouTube channel to get an idea of what I’m talking about. Go ahead, watch one or two right now. I’ll be here when you get back.

Let me begin by saying I admire and respect what they are trying to accomplish. Obviously, sex trafficking is a deplorable practice, and any efforts to stop it should be applauded and encouraged. Unfortunately, I’m not sure exactly what to applaud about their campaign, because it’s not super clear what they plan to do.

Don’t take my word for it. Visit the Foundation’s main site, and you will see a link for the “Action Center,” which one would assume is “the plan.” Step #1 (as in, the first thing you can do “to end child sex slavery”; see picture on the left) is to promote the video ads. I understand that these ads are meant to raise awareness, but as you will see, the ads themselves do very little toward that end.

So here’s the formula used in the video campaign: They try to use humor to talk about something serious. They get big-name, male celebrities to do mildly funny, stereotypical “manly” stuff (ironing a grilled cheese sandwich, punching a robot, buying new socks instead of washing), and then, in a complete non sequitur, tack on “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls,” followed by a shot of someone who is a real man (man’s photo) or prefers real men (woman’s photo), while some glamorous, big-name, female celebrity tacks on one last, guilt-ridden, peer-pressure tactic, “So and so is a real man, are you?”

Problem #1 – They aren’t really funny. Most, if not all the gimmicks have been done before (I mean, grilled cheese on an ironing board goes back to “Benny and Joon,” when people were still trying to figure out if they liked Johnny Depp or not, possibly earlier); and the ones that haven’t (or at least I wasn’t familiar with) are just plain odd: “Real Men are Distrustful of Robots”? What does that even mean? This, in itself, isn’t a huge problem, but it adds to the childish feel of the whole campaign.

Problem #2 – Because of the humor above, it appears that the ads aren’t serious. It feels like Kutcher is going to jump out any moment and say to the whole world, “Ha! You’ve been punked!” I’m not suggesting they aren’t being sincere, I’m saying that’s the vibe they give off. It is really hard to take their very serious subject very seriously because it doesn’t seem like they do.

Problem #3 – Do they really expect such a transparent peer pressure tactic to work? “David Spade is a real man…are you?” Honestly, people. When you take on something like sex slavery, you aren’t dealing with people that are sitting on the fence, guilt-ridden, and ready to cave in and repent because Jessica Biel wants them to be real men. Anyone that fits that description isn’t your real problem. The seasoned offenders, the predators and pimps, etc., already think they are real men by doing what they are doing; they derive their sense of manliness through the domination and degradation of others for money. Do they really expect a guy making $150,000-$200,000 a year from sex slavery is going to be swayed by a sort-of funny commercial with big-name celebs to sell it?

Problem #4 – Here’s the big problem: These ads fail to address the root of the issue. They are aimed at the end-user, the buyer, telling them they need to be “real men” and stop doing what they are doing. Am I wrong in thinking that by the time these kids are facing a buyer, quite a number of men (and women) have failed in their responsibilities towards these kids? This is why this campaign is so crucially wrong-headed.

Take one step away from the buyer, and you have a man who shouldn’t be selling girls;

one more step and you have a girl that shouldn’t even have access to this seedy underside of society;

another step and you have a family that should have protected and guarded that child against that underworld;

take one more step and you have men and women who are bringing children into the world with no plan to take responsibility for raising and protecting them;

yet another step back will reveal a society that teaches that responsible sex is wearing protection and making sure your partner is “the right one,” but not emphasizing true responsibility or morality.

This campaign simply doesn’t address those key issues. Their action plan, as I mentioned above, starts with promoting the videos. Step two is a rather vague goal: “end child sex slavery on the internet.” But of the three steps, it’s the only useful one in that talks about reporting sites that lead to human trafficking. Step three — get this — is “buy a t-shirt.” Wha–? I’m going to stop human trafficking by buying clothing? I realize it’s a fund-raiser, but it is raising funds for a foundation whose clear goals are muddied by an unclear plan.

Again, why do I even care about this? And why should you?

I’ll bottom-line it: I care because this is yet another glaring example of how non-biblical solutions to human problems fail to address root issues. Oh, I’m not doubting that Kutcher and Moore, with their millions of fans, will raise huge amounts of money, and that they will achieve a certain amount of good from this. But I have no doubt that the fundamental issue: human immorality, or sin, will not be addressed in a way that will bring lasting change.

We need to promote biblical teaching:

That establishes solid, healthy, companionship, including both physical and emotional intimacy, within a  lifelong covenant called marriage. This teaches a healthy, godly view of sex, within the bounds God established. It leaves no ambiguity about whether there is an age at which prostitution becomes an acceptable life choice (as Ashton Kutcher clearly said to Piers Morgan).

That establishes the biblical roles of men and women, and teaches them how to be parents who recognize and own up to the full responsibility of raising and nurturing their children, which includes guarding their eyes, ears, hearts and minds from the evil that seeks to prey on them. This will also guard these children against becoming predators later themselves.

That establishes that true life change can and will only happen when one thing is true: when, through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, our hearts are transformed to know and be in fellowship with our Creator God. When this happens, and only when this happens, we will see predators abandoning their hunt, prostitutes leaving the streets, pimps giving up their trade, and all of them experiencing the restoration and healing that only the God who created our souls can offer.

I don’t expect real answers from the likes of Kutcher and Moore. Anyone that has followed their acting careers will surmise that their moral compass is as iffy as Jack Sparrow’s (today must be a Depp day). But if you’re going to try to make lasting change, I would expect even them to come up with something better than “promote the ads, block the sites, buy a t-shirt.”

I sincerely hope that this foundation grows into something more productive, but I fear this is yet another campaign that treats symptoms and ignores the real disease. The cancer is sin. Sex trafficking is just an ugly sore on the surface. No amount of funny footage will make it go away; and a t-shirt won’t cover it for long.

Truly Happy People

(Leia este post em português.)

So many people want to be happy. Society will tell you a number of ways you can be truly happy, often with conflicting messages. One glaring example of this conflict is how many messages we read or hear about doing your own thing; you are the key to your own happiness; your way, right away, and other equally individualistic (selfish) messages; while at the same time we read or hear how much we need each other for things to really work. We can see the undertones of the most basic self/others axiom: “Do unto others as you would have them to do you” — the Golden Rule — and yet it has a considerably selfish twist, so it comes out sounding more like: “Do what you need to do to be happy; and oh, if you happen to be nice to someone — bonus!”

The Bible actually has quite a few straightforward formulas for happiness. In most translations they are kind of masked by the wording. The Hebrew word ‘esher and the Greek word makarios both convey the same idea: happiness. Because they are often used when speaking of happiness due to God’s favor, they are usually translated as “blessed” or “blessing.” I’m not saying this is incorrect; I’m suggesting that you read “blessed” in these contexts with an added factor — think “happiness”! Otherwise you will miss this important nuance when you read the word “blessed.” (Please note: this does not work for every instance of the word “bless” and its different forms in English, since the English term translates several words in both Hebrew and Greek. I am referring specifically to the two words above, both of which are translated bless in the examples below.)

In the examples below, the word “blessed” could be translated “Oh, the happiness of the one who…” or “How exceedingly happy is the one that…” My point here isn’t to change the words you read, but to add the implied “happiness” factor into these verses. God is saying, “Here’s what can make you truly happy people!” Consider this: God didn’t just create us, He also created our ability to experience happiness. That makes Him rather an authority on the subject, so it’s worth stopping and seeing what He says.

God says that there is happiness in store for the person:

• Who doesn’t associate or listen to ungodly people, but delights constantly in God’s Word. (Psa. 1:1-2)
• Who doesn’t hide personal sin, and experiences God’s forgiving grace. (Psa. 32:1-2)
• Who is one of God’s chosen people. (This verse is specifically about Israel, but we know that the New Testament believers also have a similar “chosen people” status; cf. 1 Pet. 2:9) (Psa. 33:12)
• Who experiences God and finds shelter in Him. (Psa. 34:8)
• Who trusts God and doesn’t look for help among the ungodly. (Psa. 40:4)
• Who cares for the needs of the poor (includes a promise of deliverance in times of trouble). (Psa. 41:1)
• Who is chosen by God, and allowed to live in His presence. (Psa. 65:4)
• Who find strength in God, and desires to be in His presence. (Psa. 84:5)
• Who trusts in God as sovereign ruler of all. (Psa. 84:12)
• Who worships God, experiencing His favor. (Psa. 89:15)
• Who is instructed by God. (Psa. 94:12)
• Who delights in obeying God (keeping His commands). (Psa. 112:1)
• Who is an obedient, loyal follower of God (keeping His commands). (Psa. 128:1)
• Who listens to wisdom continually. (Prov. 8:34)
• Whose priorities are God’s priorities: who is poor, yet godly; sorrowful, but expectant of God’s comfort; meek; hungry and thirsty for righteousness; merciful; pure in heart; a peacemaker; persecuted and falsely accused for His sake. (Matt. 5:3-11; cf. Luke 6:20-22)
• Who is not offended by Jesus Christ (contextually, accepting His claims as Messiah). (Matt. 11:6;  Luke 7:23)
• Who works diligently with or without the master’s presence (spiritual application of diligence in serving God until Christ’s return). (Matt. 24:46; Luke 12:43)
• Who places giving above receiving. (Acts 20:35)
• Whose sins are forgiven by grace through faith, not works (quotes Psa. 32:1-2). (Rom. 4:8)
• Who endures various kinds of troubles (includes promise of crown of life reward). (James 1:12)
• Who is alert and ready for the second coming of Christ. (Rev. 16:15)
• Who keeps the words prophesied in Revelation. (Rev. 22:7)

This is not an exhaustive list, but hits the majority of the references. If you analyze who God deems as happy, you will come to the conclusion that

A truly happy person
believes in God (of the Bible),
believes and loves His Word,
believes in His Son,
trusts His provision,
believes in His salvation (and forgiveness),
obeys His commands,
and follows His priorities.

As condensed as this list, it can be condensed even more. If you take a step back and understand the entirety of God’s revelation to man, it could be said that true happiness comes from understanding your place in the existence God made for His glory. That is why God could sum up all of what He has to say to man in two simple statements:

Love God
Love others

Do so, and you will truly be “blessed” — I mean, happy.

“Where is God when…?”

(Leia este post em português.)

It is a question that is asked every time tragedy strikes, no matter what the scale. It is asked when thousands die, or when one baby fails to take its first breath. It can be accompanied by the other common questions, “Why, God?” or “How can a loving God allow…?” It is a heart-cry, a desperate plea for something that might give us our bearings in the confusion of our grief. To some it is an honest, God-seeking question, and ends in the comfort of God through an understanding of His Word. To many, unfortunately, it is an accusing, God-hating question, and ends in the despair that comes from turning from the only One that can make any part of our existence make sense.

In the wake of yet another world tragedy, people are asking this question, and the others like it. And there is an answer–a biblical answer–to these questions. But before getting to it, consider how bad the situation truly is:

Statistically, in the days since March 11, 2011, more people have died worldwide than the highest estimated number of deaths resulting from the earthquake that hit Japan. How many more? According to the CIA World Factbook, on average, roughly 150,000 people die worldwide each day. That’s almost 2 people each second. At the time of this writing, the highest estimates of deaths resulting from Japan’s quake and tsunami were around 10,000. Take the number of days since the quake on March 11 and multiply them by 150,000, and then compare. The numbers are staggering.

Please do not misunderstand. The point here is not to downplay the tragedy in Japan, but to get a clearer picture of the global tragedy that occurs daily. In my lifetime there have been numbers of tragedies, with relatively low numbers dying in airplane crashes and similar accidents, to the higher numbers of deaths resulting from terrorist attacks, to the insanely high numbers brought on by natural disasters. And yet even the highest numbers rarely touch the average daily death rate of 150,000.

The connection between these grim statistics and the original question, where is God when all this is going on, is this: we tend to ask about God’s whereabouts when an inexplicably large number of people’s lives are taken in one event and its aftermath. The truth is, if we understand the horribly fatal condition we call life, we should be asking about Him all the time.

God is not afraid of the question. In fact, He expects it. And He has already answered it, too.

So where was God when the earthquake hit Japan?

The short answer is: where He has always been.

I know the answer is simple, and perhaps simplistic, but I will explain.

First, we should understand a little about why bad things happen in the first place, before we will look at what the Bible says about God’s involvement in all of it. The first two chapters of Job give us an excellent summary of the bad things that can happen to people. In one chain of events, Job lost:

• five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, that were stolen by Sabeans, who also killed his servants (1:14-15);
• seven thousand sheep and more servants, that were all consumed by “fire of God” from heaven (v. 16);
• three thousand camels, that were stolen by Chaldeans, who also killed his servants (v. 17);
• all his ten of his children by a “great wind” that destroyed the house they were in (vv. 18-19);
• his health (2:7-8);
• and his wife’s support (vv. 9-10).

Job’s life was changed in a series of disastrous events which covered most of what I have come to consider the “bad things that can happen to me” list:

Things that happen as a result of man’s sinful actions. Since we are all sinners, we do sinful things (Rom. 3:10, 23). From petty annoyances to brutal violence, we are capable of inflicting massive amounts of grief on one another. Things that fall in this category: neglect, abuse, any manner of violence (which includes terrorist acts), bullying, browbeating, backbiting, and so on. Sabeans and Chaldeans stealing your stuff falls under this, as does a wife that tells you to “curse God and die.”

Things that happen as a result of sin’s curse on the natural world. When Adam sinned, it wasn’t just mankind that suffered for it. All of nature was placed under a curse (Gen. 3). Our chaotic weather and natural world is a result of this. Further chaos was added when our world experience the cataclysmic, worldwide Flood as a punishment for great sinful acts of the first category in Noah’s day (Gen. 6ff). Romans 8:18-24 even explains how creation both suffers (Paul compares it to birth pains) because of  sin’s curse, and looks hopefully toward the day that it will be delivered from the corruption. This category would include all the natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and the like, but also sickness and birth defects which demonstrate sin’s curse on the natural order of things. In Job’s story we see the great wind (and possibly the “fire of God,” depending on what it was, exactly) and Job’s illness as this sort of thing.

Things that happen as a result of supernatural action. We are not alone in this world. There is a whole spiritual realm that can, in a very real way, affect our daily existence. God Himself chooses, at times, to act in the world He created. He is seen in Scripture to act miraculously, which is when He alters the natural order of what He created, i.e. works contrary to the laws that He established. Picture the plagues in Egypt (Ex. 7-12). He can act providentially, in which case He operates within the natural laws He established, but shapes events to result in something purposeful. My favorite example of this is the way He worked through many generations of men so that at the appointed time Jesus would be born to the fulfillment of all the prophecies told about Him. God can do this to both benefit mankind, or to judge sin. In addition to God, there are the angels: powerful, spiritual beings that God created, that capable of altering natural law to perform amazing feats (ex. the one angel that killed 70,000 Israelites with a pestilence in 2 Sam. 24). Satan and his host of demons are angels who work against God and His people (the story of Job). Neither Satan nor His angels are God’s equals, for they are created as well, but when allowed to act, they demonstrate all the power God has granted angels. In Job’s story,  we see where the first two categories can be manipulated by a supernatural being. God allowed Satan to act, using the actions of sinful men and the events of the natural world to inflict harm on Job. (Technically, this means that they weren’t in the first two categories, but were a subset of this third category, but I think you get the idea.)

Things that happen as a consequence of individual sin. This is what Job’s friends said Job was going through. They interpreted all the events of chapters one and two as acts of God against sin in Job’s life, not knowing that it was precisely because of Job’s righteousness that he was undergoing those problems. While it wasn’t Job’s case, individual sin has its consequences. When we sin, we set off a chain of events that will have consequences. Some are pretty dire. When the consequences come, we shouldn’t ask ourselves, “Why does God allow this to happen to me?”, since clearly we did it to ourselves. I am not even talking about judgment from God. That’s category three. For example, let’s say you sin against man by driving under with a blood alcohol level that exceeds the legal limit, as well as breaking the speed limit. In doing so, you are also sinning against God by a) surrendering control of your body to a substance (Eph. 5:18); and b) by failing to obey the civil authority God placed in your life (Rom. 13:1-6). Consequences from this could range from fines and jail time, a wreck that hurt or killed you, a wreck that hurt or killed others, and so on. Consequences of individual sin can be short-lived, or life-altering.

The reason it is important to make these distinctions is not necessarily to find out why something happened, but more so to understand how our sin-cursed world functions. The danger is to see individual sin as the cause of anything bad, i.e., God is judging these people with a natural disaster; the 9/11 attacks were a judgement against sin in America; I can’t walk today because I was sinning against God and He crippled me; etc. We must distinguish between consequences of individual sin and repercussions from man’s original sin and its curse of the natural order of creation. It is important to learn is that we won’t always know why something happened, and that’s okay. The important part is to respond biblically to our circumstances. Job didn’t get all the background story, at least not to our knowledge. He still responded biblically (for most of the story).

We could use Japan’s earthquake as an example, or, not so long ago, Haiti’s. Why did it happen? I don’t know. What possible explanations do we have?

It was either

God judging some national sin (which, unless He reveals this as a reason, we won’t know),

or

God allowing Satan to inflict destruction using natural disasters (for reasons He only knows),

or

God allowing a natural disaster resulting from the disorder at work in a sin-cursed natural world (the most likely option),

or

some other option I haven’t considered.

The bottom line is, we don’t know. What do we know? We know that God is still in control (that’s why He is involved in some way in each option), and that He loves us (John 3:16), and wants to us to be reconciled with Him (2 Pet. 3:9). We know that all His children involved in that disaster will see Him working through their circumstances to bring about His plan and ultimately good for them (Rom. 8:28). We know that we should love the Japanese (and the Haitians), and pray for them, and help them materially as we are able. We know that tomorrow, or the next day, another disaster will hit somewhere, or another bomb will go off, or another war will start (things in Libya started while I was working on this post), and people will once again ask, “Where is God?”

And as an average of 150,000 of us die each day, I pray that more and more people ask, in a soul-wrenching, heart cry, “Where is God!?”

And in response, God’s children need to be ready with the answer, and in love, we need to tell them what God is saying in His Word, ”I am right where I have always been. I haven’t changed… Here is my Son, who died to bring you back to Me. You’ve been away long enough. Come back to me.”

(As I was finishing this post, my wife told me that just about an hour ago Japan was hit with a 7.1 earthquake, which only goes to prove what I was saying about “another disaster” hitting somewhere. Any doubts about where God is? Read this post again.)

“Peacemaking for Families” now in Portuguese!

 

I just confirmed with Pastor Jayro that “Peacemaking for Families” by Ken Sande is in print in Portuguese! It can be ordered from Igreja Batista Pedras Vivas.

If you are not familiar with this book in English, I highly recommend it. It deals with family conflicts, from raising small children, to dealing with issues with your children as adults. It was a huge blessing to be a part of translating this book into Portuguese, and I am excited to see God use it to bring peacemaking solutions to Brazilian homes.

Shrek’s Onion

(Leia este post em português.)

Of course, it’s not really Shrek’s onion. The multilayered quality of the onion has been used before, in sociology, psychology, self-help guides, and even computer programming. It only makes sense: an onion is layered, therefore can be used to describe something that is multilayered or complex. I call it Shrek’s onion because Shrek made it memorable to me. Perhaps you remember the scene. The ever-talkative Donkey keeps prodding Shrek about why he doesn’t just “lay some of that ogre stuff” on his rival and attack him directly. And so Shrek explains the complexity of being an ogre:

Shrek: For your information, there’s a lot more to ogres than people think.

Donkey: Example?

Shrek: Example… uh… ogres are like onions!

[holds up an onion, which Donkey sniffs]

Donkey: They stink?

Shrek: Yes… No!

Donkey: Oh, they make you cry?

Shrek: No!

Donkey: Oh, you leave ‘em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs…

Shrek: [peels the onion] NO! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

That did it. From the time I watched this, any time I think of a complex situation that can must be examined layer by layer, I think, “It’s Shrek’s Onion.” And naturally, I hear Donkey piping up in the background, “Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. What about cake? Everybody loves cake!” And, even more classic: “You know what ELSE everybody likes? Parfaits!”

It’s the strange way my mind works.

So why am I writing about Shrek’s Onion?

Recently at our church we have been talking about the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the study has uncovered all kinds of interesting and very revealing information about people and their understanding of the Bible. The message to the sermon series was simple, yet fundamental: God gave us truth in His Word which is sufficient for “life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3), and it is God-breathed, therefore profitable for “doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness” for the purpose of making a believer complete and completely equipped for all good works (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Clearly, this should be a core belief of any Christian. God didn’t just create us and leave us hanging, but gave us sufficient instructions in His authoritative Word so that we could understand and operate in this world we live in.

Let me stop for a moment and explain something about myself. This point is essential to me; it is the fundamental presupposition upon which I operate: either the Bible is God’s absolute, authoritative Word, or I just have another great collection of human literature, as valuable as any other thing man has written. Yes, I realize I am putting all my eggs in one basket, and I take the “risk” gladly. I always think of what C.S. Lewis said so wonderfully, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else” (quoted online, apparently from ”Is Theology Poetry?”, 1945). He spoke of Christianity as a whole, but it clearly, even more aptly, could be said of Scripture. The Bible is our spiritual sun, not only because we see it, but because by it we see everything else.

So when I passionately share this truth that is to me so basic and necessary, and am answered with complete ignorance of even the most basic things about the Bible (i.e., where to find the Gospels), or stories of personal experiences with God (that go contrary to God’s Word), or Chicken Soup for the Soul quotes, or what Paul Tripp calls “cut and paste” reading of Scripture (Instruments, 24), I am faced with Shrek’s Onion: I realize that there are lots and lots of layers to peel before I can apply this truth to the heart of their belief system.

I’m going to be using the word “ignorance” quite a bit in this post, so let me explain something about the word. I don’t mean it in a condescending or insulting way. I remember being offended once in a high school chemistry class when I made a very obvious mistake and said, “Yeah, that was stupid.” The teacher said to me, “You’re not stupid; you’re ignorant.” Ouch! He was right, of course. My ignorance–absence of knowledge concerning whatever it was (I remember, but I’m not going to tell you)–led to a miscalculation, which fortunately for a chem class, didn’t go boom! Discovering you are ignorant in a subject shouldn’t offend you, it should motivate you to knowledge.

So let’s say we start with the layer of general biblical ignorance–people who just don’t know the first thing about God’s Word. I am not talking about new Christians, but complacent ones. People who hopped on board for God knows what reason (I mean that literally, not flippantly), and now attend and participate in church functions with absolutely no real basis for doing so. Their spiritual diet of God’s Word consists of soundbites and tweets; of the crumbs that get thrown to them as they pass through life. They are indiscriminate in their diet, and so their spiritual constitution is wrecked. They can’t be protected by the shepherds of their flock because they regularly visit the wolves themselves. To this ignorance you present knowledge of God’s Word. You stress the importance of reading God’s Word.

That layer peels away to reveal another layer of ignorance: people don’t know how to read God’s Word. Let me quote Tripp a little more extensively here:

“Many Christians simply don’t understand what the Bible is. Many think of it as a spiritual encyclopedia: God’s complete catalog of human problems, coupled with a complete list of divine answers. If you turn to the right page, you can find answers for any struggle. A more sophisticated variation views the Bible as a systematic theology text-book, an outline of essential topics you must master to think and live God’s way. In either case, we tend to offer each other isolated pieces of Scripture (a command, a principle, a promise) that seem to fit the need of the moment. What we think of as ministering the Word is little more than a spiritual cut-and-paste system” (Instruments, 24).

He goes on to explain that we need a complete view of Scripture, one that understands the whole redemptive history of God and puts individual passages and verses in that context. People stuck at the first layer, just wondering where to start, will get blown away with this information. “What? I have to read the whole thing?” Baby steps, baby steps. But yes, eventually, you do. The beauty of Scripture should not be condensed down to tourist trap art–a collection of pet phrases on doilies, plaques and in chain emails that help us survive the day. It should be seen in its marvelous, cohesive entirety, with all its interconnected parts, like Monet at work on a much grander scale. At close range, we see dots and colors of God’s truth, but as we learn more and step back, we see the hand of an infinite, all-wise, all-powerful, loving God, bringing all those apparently random things together into a master plan of epic, eternal proportions that should just blow our minds. Forget 3D. Put on some omni-dimensional glasses and soak in the mastery of it all.

I could on, but won’t. There are layers of personal experience valued above God’s truth; layers of false information from well-meaning people or straight-up deceivers; layers of personal perspectives and self-absorption and self-focus that choke out whatever God has to say; layers of laziness and lack of discipline. They are there, in your life and mine, and they all must be peeled away, to get to the heart–the core of our beliefs.

The good thing is that this works the same way salvation does. In salvation, we see that no amount of peeling is going to get through all the layers of what keeps us from God. It is God that has to penetrate all of that, and transform us from within, to change the heart. The result is that some layers just fall away, and others become easier to peel. When it comes to knowing God’s Word, the change is no different. God is again aiming for our heart. Yes, there is much to learn about how to read and understand the Bible, but you can’t go wrong by starting here: read it. Approach it willing to learn what God has to say to you, and not what you want to hear God saying. What better way to cut away the onion’s layers than a two-edged sword? (Heb. 4:12)

______
Paul David Tripp: Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change. P & R Publishing, Philipsburg, NJ: 2002.