Have You Ever Given Grace The Stiff Arm?

When we're grumpy, we want other people to pay. Have you seen this? Have you seen other people do this? Have you noticed you doing this? Why do we do this?

Let's say you've had a bad day. You've paid a greater emotional or physical or relational or vocational or financial cost than you wanted or were prepared to pay. You're feeling emotionally bankrupt and you resent it. What do you do with these emotions? 

Sometimes we try to make the happy or at least the less malcontent people around us pay.

“Give me some of that emotional capital!”

We do it not so much so that we can be happier, but so that they will be less so. We want them to feel a little of the impoverishment we feel. Or, we at least want others around us to know how much we’ve had to pay. They should know how much emotional capital has been required of us. They should feel sorry for us. They should not ignore our sacrifice. Our sacrifice ought to be noticed and appreciated. (Can I get a witness?)

And yet, when those people around us actually respond, how often do we resent their paltry sums offered in the currency of compassion or kindness? Their compassionate inquiry appears patronizing. Their kind gesture of encouragement or service we rebuff and dismiss. We want more.

Or, when we are grumpy, we want others to prop us up. And then they try, and we slap their supportive hand. “What are you saying?! I’m not your charity case! I’m fine!”

Now here’s the interesting thing I noticed on my way home from work one day about 6 months ago (it obviously takes me a little while to get around to writing these things up). I was feeling overworked and overwhelmed. I was tired of having to do all that I was having to do. I wanted to mope. I wanted to come in the door and subtly (or not so subtly) show it. Why? So I would receive some pity and props.

I knew this was wrong. My family didn’t need this from me. They each have their own loads and burdens. I don’t say this in some stoic, stiff upper lip, don’t-ever-show-you’re-struggling sort of way. I say it in the sense that husband and fathers ought to strongly depend on the strong grace of God and be strong in the grace of the Lord Jesus so that they can bless their wives and children with strong and steady and reliable and proactive and sacrificial and joyful love. Anyway…

I knew I should preach the gospel to myself and rehearse the blessings and promises that are mine in Christ. I knew God could meet me right there in the car and enable me to walk through the door with joy and contentment. I even knew that God was beginning to do so as I prayed for it!

And then I found myself resisting his grace! I didn’t want to yield my claim to pity. If I came in happy, then they might not realize all I’ve had to deal with today. They might think I paid no cost. They might not pity or prop me at all. What pathetic pride. What prideful self-pity.

So, I found myself teetering between a desire for the consolation and encouragement of God and a desire to resist that grace in favor of my family’s pity and props. What?! What am I doing resisting grace?!

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). True. True. True. And there is a corollary. The proud oppose the grace of God, but the humble welcome it.

If you can't relate to what I'm saying, just pray for your foolish pastor who needs to grow up and always humbly welcome the grace God gives.

If you can relate, let's forsake all our foolish and prideful resistance to grace. We do NOT want to be grace-resistant, grace-repelling people! We want, we need! to be grace-welcoming, grace-receiving, grace-attracting people. Grace repelling people are repulsive. Grace attracting people are attractive.

Lord, give us more grace! Make it always irresistible to us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Alignment

“The difference between an unconverted man and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other does not; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.”

William Arnot, Laws From Heaven for Life On Earth (London, 1884), page 311.

HT: RO

Spiritual Hardiness in a Cushy World

Rick Chapman brought my attention to this article recently. It's well worth reading. A couple quick quotes to encourage you to go and read the whole thing:

In a culture where comfort and convenience reign, relatively minor inconveniences — burned lasagna, flat tires, long post office lines, a lost Internet connection, or an unexpectedly tough hike — can seem overwhelming. If we can’t cope with these “first-world problems” without a meltdown, how will we handle a serious crisis?

...

In The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom attested to God’s loving presence, even as she faced illness and death in World War II concentration camps. She contentedly trusted that nothing separated her from God’s love — not nakedness, beatings, starvation … not even fleas.

Corrie and her sister Betsie would huddle with women at Ravensbrück reading the Bible and living its truth. As the sisters processed the horror of this concentration camp, they came across 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and its command to give thanks in all circumstances. At first, they thanked God for the few things that seemed positive, such as the fact that they remained together in the same barracks or the Bible they smuggled into camp. But Betsie pushed her sister to thank God even for flea infestation.

Corrie balked. “Betsie,” she replied, “there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

“Give thanks in all circumstances,” Betsie repeated. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.” With that, Corrie stood next to Betsie, and the two  gave thanks for the swarming fleas in Barracks 8.

For reasons the sisters didn’t understand at the time, prison guards never stopped them from holding hushed services in that space. Betsie and Corrie took advantage to read aloud Scripture, pray, and sing hymns with the women. Much later, Betsie overheard some guards talking. One admitted he was afraid to enter the barracks. Why? Because of the fleas.

As much as we might resent the label, it's really true that we 21st century Western Christians tend to be pretty "soft." It's good to have a soft heart, but it's not good to have weak wills and drooping hands and weak knees and thin skin and wet-noodle backbones.

Our Father loves us enough to drive that softness out of us. If we, as Christians, read the hardness of life in this fallen world as incompatible with the love of God, suffering will surprise us (or drive us crazy wondering what we did to deserve this). We need to prepare now so that we can will endure with grace and joy and love and gratitude, glorifying the great God who never leaves us nor forsakes us, even in the valley of the shadow of death. That's what the article is all about. That's what the Bible is all about (for instance here and here, just to name a few). You might already know this. I do. But, if you're like me, you need to be reminded of it again and again until soaks down into your bones and really strengthens your soul.

If Only

(Photo found here)

Over the years, I have been helped immensely by Paul Tripp's writing and speaking ministry (in addition to admiring his stylish mustache). I signed up awhile ago to receive his "Wednesday's Word" weekly devotionals. Here's a good one that came through not too long ago.

"If Only..."

It's so easy to slip into an "if only" lifestyle. I find myself slipping into it often. The "if only" possibilities are endless:

If only I'd been from a more stable family...

If only I had a more understanding spouse...

If only my children were more obedient...

If only I'd been able to find a better job...

If only I'd come to know Christ earlier...

The seductive thing about our "if onlys" is that there is a bit of plausibility in all of them. We do live in a fallen world. We all face hardships of various kinds. We all have been sinned against in a variety of ways.

None of us ever lived in ideal circumstances or in perfect relationships. The world is a broken place and we have all been touched in many ways by its brokenness. Yet, the "if only" lifestyle tends to say, "My biggest problem in life exists outside of me and not inside of me."

In Psalm 51 David says something very radical. It's counter-intuitive to a culture that tends to say that we all are the result of what our experience has made us. David says, "Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5)

David is saying that his greatest problem in all of life is not the result of what he has suffered in the situations and relationships of his life. Rather, David is saying that his biggest problem is internal and was there before he had any of these experiences! And David gives this deep and internal problem a name - sin. How humbling!

Think about it this way. It's the evil that is inside of you that either magnetizes you to the evil outside of you or causes you to deal with the evil outside of you in a way that is wrong. It's only when you begin to accept that your greatest problem in all of life is not what has happened or been done to you, that you begin to get excited about the rescuing grace of Jesus Christ. It's only when you begin to accept that your greatest need is something you came into the world with, that you will begin to hunger for the help that only God can give you.

It's only then that you begin to hunger for more than changes of situation and relationship. It's only then that you begin to accept the most radical and personally liberating truth that you could ever conceive. What is that truth? It's that what you and I really need to be rescued from is us! We are the biggest danger to us. That's why God offers us the gorgeous promise of his grace which has the power to change us from the inside out.

Are you embracing that promise or are you still saying, "If only..."

Make a list of the "If Only's" that you find yourself repeating. ... If you're honest, who do you blame most? Circumstances, relationships, situations (outside), or a heart that's corrupt (internal)?

How can you become more self-aware that your biggest problem exists inside of you, not outside of you?

God bless,

Paul David Tripp

You can find lots of resources by Paul Tripp at www.paultripp.com. If you're interested in the Wednesday's Word emailings, you can scroll to the bottom of the page, left hand side, and see the link to sign up.

On the Nature of the Gay Marriage Campaign

This is very interesting piece by Brendan O'Neill, especially considering O'Neill writes not as a Christian, but as an atheist.

Hat tip to Justin Taylor who summarized as follows, including several representative quotes:

Journalist Brendan O’Neill, who is an atheist (in terms of religion) and a libertarian (in terms of politics), recently wrote about “the peculiar non-judgmental tyranny of the gay-marriage campaign, which judges harshly those who dare to judge how people live.” He writes, “Opponents of gay marriage are now treated by the press in the same way queer-rights agitators were in the past: as strange, depraved creatures, whose repenting and surrender to mainstream values we await with bated breath.”

He thinks this is more “conformism” than “consensus”:

I don’t think we can even call this a ‘consensus’, since that would imply the voluntaristic coming together of different elements in concord. It’s better described as conformism, the slow but sure sacrifice of critical thinking and dissenting opinion under pressure to accept that which has been defined as a good by the upper echelons of society: gay marriage. Indeed, the gay-marriage campaign provides a case study in conformism, a searing insight into how soft authoritarianism and peer pressure are applied in the modern age to sideline and eventually do away with any view considered overly judgmental, outdated, discriminatory, ‘phobic’, or otherwise beyond the pale.

Later in the piece he writes:

In truth, the extraordinary rise of gay marriage speaks, not to a new spirit of liberty or equality on a par with the civil-rights movements of the 1960s, but rather to the political and moral conformism of our age; to the weirdly judgmental non-judgmentalism of our PC times; to the way in which, in an uncritical era such as ours, ideas can become dogma with alarming ease and speed; to the difficulty of speaking one’s mind or sticking with one’s beliefs at a time when doubt and disagreement are pathologised. Gay marriage brilliantly shows how political narratives are forged these days, and how people are made to accept them. This is a campaign that is elitist in nature, in the sense that, in direct contrast to those civil-rights agitators of old, it came from the top of society down; and it is a campaign which is extremely unforgiving of dissent or disagreement, implicitly, softly demanding acquiescence to its agenda.

And here’s his conclusion:

The conformism around gay marriage cannot be put entirely down to handfuls of campaigners, of course, and certainly not to any conscious attempt on their part to enforce political and moral obedience. The fragility of society’s attachment to traditional marriage itself, to the virtue of commitment, has also been key to the formulation of the gay-marriage consensus. Indeed, it is the rubble upon which the gay-marriage edifice is built. That is, if lawyers, politicians and our other assorted ‘betters’ have successfully kicked down the door of traditional marriage, it’s because the door was already hanging off its hinges, following years of cultural neglect. It is society’s reluctance to defend traditional views of commitment, and its relativistic refusal more broadly to discriminate between different lifestyle choices, that has fuelled the peculiar non-judgmental tyranny of the gay-marriage campaign, which judges harshly those who dare to judge how people live. Through a combination of the weakness of belief in traditional marriage and the insidiousness of the campaign for gay marriage, we have ended up with something that reflects brilliantly John Stuart Mill’s description of how critical thinking can cave into the despotism of conformism, so that ‘peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes, until by dint of not following their own nature, these [followers of conformism] have no nature to follow’

Michael Jordan is Miserable

I loved watching Michael Jordan play basketball. I loved watching him win the slam dunk contests. I lived in Chicago and cheered on the Bulls during the second three-peat. So what's Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all time, doing these days?

This ESPN Magazine article by Wright Thompson is a fascinating answer to the question (Warning: there is some uncouth language contained therein). It is fascinating, and it's sad. It's journalistic proof that Jesus' words in Mark 8:34-36 are true and spoken for our earthly and everlasting good:

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

The conveyor belt of time is moving all of us either toward the glory days or away from them. May Jordan's misery serve you by helping you set your mind and heart on things above (Colossians 3:1-5); on solid joys that moth and rust and aging bodies can't steal away from you.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, I don't blame you. But I would suggest you consider the following excerpts (all boldface emphasis added):

On growing up: 

This started at an early age. Jordan genuinely believed his father liked his older brother, Larry, more than he liked him, and he used that insecurity as motivation. He burned, and thought if he succeeded, he would demand an equal share of affection. His whole life has been about proving things, to the people around him, to strangers, to himself. This has been successful and spectacularly unhealthy. If the boy in those letters from Chapel Hill is gone, it is this appetite to prove -- to attack and to dominate and to win -- that killed him. In the many biographies written about Jordan, most notably in David Halberstam's "Playing for Keeps," a common word used to describe Jordan is "rage." Jordan might have stopped playing basketball, but the rage is still there. The fire remains, which is why he searches for release, on the golf course or at a blackjack table, why he spends so much time and energy on his basketball team and why he dreams of returning to play.

On his Hall of Fame Speech:

The anger that drove his career hadn't gone away, and he didn't know what to do with it. So at the end of the (Hall of Fame induction) speech, he said perhaps the most telling and important thing in it, which has been mostly forgotten.

He described what the game meant to him. He called it his "refuge" and the "place where I've gone when I needed to find comfort and peace." Basketball made him feel complete, and it was gone.

"One day," he said, "you might look up and see me playing the game at 50."

Chuckles rippled through the room. His head jerked to the side, and he cut his eyes the way he does when challenged, and he said, "Oh, don't laugh."

Everyone laughed harder.

"Never say never," he said.

On the glory days...and his fiercely nostalgic longing to return:

When he mentions that Yvette (his new wife) never saw him play basketball, he says, "She never saw me at 218." On the wall of his office there's a framed photograph of him as a young man, rising toward the rim, legs pulled up near his chest, seeming to fly. He smiles at it wistfully.

"I was 218," he says.

The chasm between what his mind wants and what his body can give grows every year. If Jordan watches old video of Bulls games and then hits the gym, he says he'll go "berserk" on the exercise machines. It's frightening. A while back, his brother, Larry, who works for the team, noticed a commotion on the practice court. He looked out the window of his office and saw his brother dominating one of the best players on the Bobcats in one-on-one. The next morning, Larry says with a smile, Jordan never made it into his office. He got as far as the team's training room, where he received treatment.

On the larger-than-life icon, whose life just keeps getting smaller:

There's no way to measure these things, but there's a strong case to be made that Jordan is the most intense competitor on the planet. He's in the conversation, at the very least, and now he has been reduced to grasping for outlets for this competitive rage. He's in the middle of an epic game of Bejeweled on his iPad, and he's moved past level 100, where he won the title Bejeweled Demigod. He mastered sudoku and won $500 beating Portnoy at it. In the Bahamas, he sent someone down to the Atlantis hotel's gift shop to buy a book of word-search puzzles. In the hotel room, he raced Portnoy and Polk, his lawyer, beating them both. He can see all the words at once, as he used to see a basketball court. "I can't help myself," he says. "It's an addiction. You ask for this special power to achieve these heights, and now you got it and you want to give it back, but you can't. If I could, then I could breathe."

Once, the whole world watched him compete and win -- Game 6, the Delta Center -- and now it's a small group of friends in a hotel room playing a silly kid's game. The desire remains the same, but the venues, and the stakes, keep shrinking. For years he was beloved for his urges when they manifested on the basketball court, and now he's ridiculed when they show up in a speech.

His self-esteem has always been, as he says, "tied directly to the game." Without it, he feels adrift. Who am I? What am I doing? For the past 10 years, since retiring for the third time, he has been running, moving as fast as he could, creating distractions, distance. When the schedule clears, he'll call his office and tell them not to bother him for a month, to let him relax and play golf. Three days later they'll get another call, asking if the plane can pick him up and take him someplace. He's restless. So he owns the Bobcats, does his endorsements, plays hours of golf, hoping to block out thoughts of 218. But then he gets off a boat, comes home to a struggling team. He feels his competitiveness kick in, almost a chemical thing, and he starts working out, and he wonders: Could he play at 50? What would he do against LeBron?

On aging:

Aging means losing things, and not just eyesight and flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others through cultural amnesia. Most people live anonymous lives, and when they grow old and die, any record of their existence is blown away. They're forgotten, some more slowly than others, but eventually it happens to virtually everyone. Yet for the few people in each generation who reach the very pinnacle of fame and achievement, a mirage flickers: immortality. They come to believe in it. Even after Jordan is gone, he knows people will remember him. Here lies the greatest basketball player of all time. That's his epitaph. When he walked off the court for the last time, he must have believed that nothing could ever diminish what he'd done. That knowledge would be his shield against aging.

There's a fable about returning Roman generals who rode in victory parades through the streets of the capital; a slave stood behind them, whispering in their ears, "All glory is fleeting." Nobody does that for professional athletes. Jordan couldn't have known that the closest he'd get to immortality was during that final walk off the court, the one symbolically preserved in the print in his office. All that can happen in the days and years that follow is for the shining monument he built to be chipped away, eroded. Maybe he realizes that now. Maybe he doesn't. But when he sees Joe Montana joined on the mountaintop by the next generation, he has to realize that someday his picture will be on a screen next to LeBron James as people argue about who was better.

On being quiet and alone:

He hates being alone, because that means it's quiet, and he doesn't like silence. He can't sleep without noise. Sleep has always been a struggle for him. All the late-night card games, the trips to the casino during the playoffs, they've been misunderstood. They weren't the disease, they were the cure. They provided noise, distraction, a line of defense. He didn't even start drinking until he was 27 and complained of insomnia to a doctor. Have a few beers after the game, he was advised. That would knock off the edge.

***

I'll leave it to you to contrast the solid, weighty joys Jesus gives his disciples, with the fleeting, chasing-after-the-wind vanity of living for the praise and pleasures and prestige of this world.