• • •

A Matter of Motivation
by Adam McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture

The defining feature of introversion is where you find your energy; introverts, even though we may enjoy social interaction, even though we may really like people and be socially confident and skilled, lose energy in the outside world. We retreat into solitude in order to be restored.

But as I have continued to learn more about introversion, I have also come to see that there is a motivation factor for many of us. Introverts have rich inner lives and we can spend hours in our worlds of impressions, thoughts, reflections, and in the other dimensions of our inner life. From a neurological point of view, introverts have more brain activity and brain blood flow than extroverts, and we have less tolerance for the dopamine that is released from social interactions and activity. So in many cases it actually may be more pleasurable – in terms of the good feelings released in the brain – for us to be alone or at home than it is for us to be at a party or a church activity. In other words, we are more motivated to be alone than to be in a crowd. It’s not that we don’t like people or are anti-social or standoffish, it’s that it actually feels better for us to be alone sometimes. Reading a book on a Friday night may feel better than a night out with friends, especially when we have spent the week in a socially charged atmosphere at work. In that case, it’s not that we are choosing out of something, it’s that we are choosing, joyfully and purposely, another activity.

Often, in Christian circles, we idealize those people that have a “passion” for community. Those people who constantly want to be around other people and who love organizing and mobilizing social events are often considered those people who have the most “love” for people, and by derivation, God. And, let’s be clear, those people are absolutely indispensable for the formation of relationships in a community. Those churches that don’t have those people suffer because of it. At the same time, let’s also acknowledge that there is more than “love for people” that is happening here. For those social galvanizers, it feels good to be around people and to see people connect with one another. They are thriving on the dopamine that is released in their brain from those experiences. And that’s how God intended it for them.

Love for God’s people does not have to look for everyone like an overt, uncontainable passion for being with others. Love, as we know from the scriptures, is self-sacrificial, in which we lay down our rights and place the good of others ahead of our own. Thus, it can be a great display of love for those of us who relish our inner worlds, to lay those things down sometimes and be present with others, when we might otherwise prefer to be alone.

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God…(Galatians 4:9a, ESV)

I’ve been teaching Galatians for over a year, and I happened to cross this verse this week, a week marked by the passing of one of my most significant mentors. She exemplified many things in my life, but one of the most significant was her amazing hunger for the teaching of the Word of God. She had a quick and focused mind that was always taking in a sermon or a book of theology or Biblical teaching. Right up until her last few months, she was accumulating knowledge about God.

It’s interesting to me that Paul interrupts himself in Galatians 4—almost corrects himself—to say that the better way to describe the Christian experience is coming to be known rather than coming to know. People who make this kind of distinction can be a bit irritating.

But there’s a reason to make such a distinction, and it’s very important we make it.

Paul is making a reference to the incredible sea of God’s love and grace in which the believer finds himself. He may be learning about God, but when he looks up, the God that he is learning about has, in fact, dropped a few crumbs of knowledge onto his plate. Surrounding the believer is a vast ocean of God’s immensity, sovereignty, omniscience, omnipresence and goodness. In a lifetime, we see a speck of God in our tiny brains, but the God in whom we live, move and have our being surpasses every measurement and comparison.

This God knew us in eternity. He knew us before birth. His knowledge preceded us and meets us no matter where we find ourselves. His knowledge of us is encyclopedic, utterly honest, complete and compassionate. He will know us a million years from now in the same way, and we will only have begun to know him.

As the universe dwarfs our measly attempts at knowledge, so God overwhelms all the combined knowledge of every knowing being in the universe.

Our knowledge is a grain of sand, and yet we strut proudly. Our knowledge of God is the first crayon’s mark on a page to his million times magnified Shakespearean greatness. And yet we brag.

My friend would have been the first one to agree. What God has graced us to know of him in this life should be our passionate study, but God is not measured by what we know. That is why the most knowledgeable among us may, in the end, be the most humble or the most mystical. What God shows us is true, as true faith is based on truth. But our little books of God-knowledge are documentaries on a few caught reflections from a Sun we cannot bear to see.

If our hope comes to what we know of God, our knowledge has led us astray. What our knowledge has shown us is the wonder of being KNOWN.

The Bible is full of persons who believe they know God and are surprised to discover how little this matters compared to God’s knowledge of them. The lost sheep knew the shepherd, but how little he knew of the shepherd’s love for him. The prodigal knew his father, but never realized his his father knew and loved him.

My uncle was another of my mentors. He was a deep and insightful pastor with a mind that absorbed the scriptures. But the last year of his life, his mind betrayed him. He became someone else. Angry. Profane. It was a terrible time for his wife and friends. We could hardly stand to be near him. What happened to all he knew? What happened to that mind that taught all of us so much?

His brain was dying, as all of us should know. Many of us, sadly, will come to a similar place, often for much longer. What we know will be locked away or gone entirely. We may lose the knowledge of our spouses and children.

What will matter is this: Does God know us?

Many years ago, an aging pastor came to talk to me. He also was a very intelligent man. He taught Latin at our school. He wanted personal counsel. Age was affecting his mind and emotions. He doubted if God loved him. He was afraid of hell and frightened of death. He thought God had abandoned him for his sins. His mind had become a frightful and dark place, filled with paranoid thoughts. I tried to assure him of the love of God; the God he had known, proclaimed and believed in for so many years of faithful ministry.

His mind could not take hold of my words. All that was left were the fears and doubts he had suppressed throughout life. Now he was a caricature of himself, terrified and afraid of God.

A few months later, he was gone.

These were my friends. They read the books. Thought the theological thoughts. They taught, read, preached. They had knowledge of God.

In the end, their minds weakened, rebelled or turned on them. Knowledge disappeared.

But God did not. God knew them and God was with them.

This is the Good News. We are privileged to know God, and he reveals himself to us. But the God we come to know releases us from the trap of holding onto knowledge as our salvation. He comes to us as a Father, lover, mediator, gracious and all-embracing savior.

“I know you.” He said those words to my mentor, my uncle, my co-worker. They were never left to experience what they knew. They were taken hold of by one who loved them before, behind, around and to the uttermost.

An infant does not know anything about his/her parents. Knowledge will come, but life begins in utter vulnerability and trust. It is the love of mother/father for child that dominates our beginning. Recognition will come, but not at first.

So at the end, things are much clearer. Know God in the present and give all of mind and heart to the study of his Word and good thoughts about Him. But, in the end, lay down and rest. Lay down in him and go home.

A few months ago, we adopted a puppy. We had to drive 7 hours in the pouring rain to get home. All the way, she huddled herself in my wife’s lap, and never moved. She did not run, bark or panic. She rested in us and we brought her home.

You do not need to know the way home. Jesus is the way. He knows and loves you. You will be safe.

Read Psalm 139 to hear a beautiful and prayerful expression of what Paul is saying.

By Chaplain Mike

The other day I was reading a blog that will remain unnamed. I’m not interested in interacting personally with the author or “answering” his post. I simply want to use his take on a particular subject as an illustration to make a point here today.

That point is: The Bible simply does not speak to many aspects of our lives.

Even when we think it does. Even when we can take verses and passages and apply them to certain situations and conditions in our lives, the bottom line is that they were not written for that purpose. The fact that we think the Bible is God’s detailed instruction manual for life, containing information, counsel, and specific advice for every bit of need and mystery in life can lead us astray in many ways.

Today I want to talk about one of those ways—about how this view of God’s involvement in our lives and the nature of the Bible’s counsel can lead us to be way too hard on ourselves and to seek “spiritual” answers when in reality, all we may need is a bit of common sense and simple attention to earthly and human realities.

The subject is depression.

The post I read was about battling depression. It got off to a good start, first giving two good disclaimers in its counsel to those who suffer from this malady: (1) See your doctor, (2) Go talk to your pastor.

He rightly notes that there may be physical causes that a doctor could diagnose and treat (an observation that he unfortunately dismisses later when he disparages anti-depressant drugs as “happy pills”). And his advice to see one’s pastor is helpful in the sense that one should first seek out counsel from someone that person knows and trusts. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure this blogger is recommending the pastor and not a counselor because he views the problem as primarily “spiritual” and because he would advocate the “Biblical counseling” approach, with its heavy emphasis on Bible verses as the cure for all that ails us.

He goes on to make one more helpful point. Depression can get comfortable for many people and start feeling like a friend that embraces us, when in reality it is draining all our strength. So we must be aggressive and determined in battling it. This is wise and helpful advice.

But from that point on, the writer’s emphasis is all spiritual all the time.

He starts by saying that if you’re not a Christian, you should be depressed. He has no good news whatsoever for the nonbeliever until he/she gets right with God. Is this really where we have to start every conversation?

Now, I’m in full agreement with sharing the gospel with people, but is it right to say to someone, “You can have no relief from debilitating depression until you embrace saving faith in Christ”? Have I no comfort and support to offer this person as a friend and companion on the human journey? Aren’t I implying that Christians never suffer this life-controlling disorder? Would it not be better to listen to my friend’s complaint, to sit in silence as Job’s friends did, and let him/her know that someone cares and will not abandon him/her? Are there no words of encouragement I can share? No deeds of love and support that I can perform? No practical ideas, no counsel about ordinary means that I may share? No common grace I may extend?

He then addresses Christians, and says it is our Lord’s clear word, revealed in the Bible, that God’s gift to us is joy, and that God’s will for us is to rejoice. Because we are in Christ, we have every reason to be the happiest we could ever be, right now. He then points the reader to an article that says straight out, if we are not experiencing this joy, it is possible that we do not want it. He goes on to question whether we are really believing Jesus if we say we don’t or can’t seem to find joy. The remedy he then suggests is repentance. Of course, he has Bible verses to go along with all of these points.

This author next pinpoints another potential spiritual problem—perhaps we are demanding that God change things first so that we can then receive his gift of joy. He brings out Scriptures that condemn “testing” God as the answer to that. He warns that staying in unbelief will lead to more depression—as it did for the Israelites in the wilderness.

Then our blogger has the reader examine himself, realize and “own” various sins that accompany depression—laziness, stubbornness, pride, wanting to see ourselves as “noble sufferers” or victims, and, the ultimate sin: trusting in our own perceptions and feelings rather than in the Word of God and what it says. All these things are sins, plain and simple, to be repented of and mortified. We must stop embracing them and coddling them.

Bottom line? Depression is the result of lazy, stubborn, habitual unbelief. The Bible says so.

And I say…

It may be.

Certainly a person’s relationship with God can affect one’s mood, emotions, and ability to participate in life with energy, purpose, and optimism.

But it may not be.

And what I object to the most is when someone presents “teaching” that asserts the Bible specifically deals with the subject of depression and provides remedies for it. It does not. The Bible does not address our moods and feelings and tell us how to straighten them out. When Paul wrote churches and encouraged them to “rejoice in the Lord,” he was not speaking of personal depression and how to overcome it. When Jesus told his disciples that he had told them certain truths so that their “joy might be full,” he was not saying that if they ever found themselves depressed, all they had to do was go over their memory verses, believe really hard, fight the devil, and everything would be alright.

The story and teachings of the Bible speak to something deeper than the emotional vicissitudes of our human experience, to whether we find ourselves happy or sad, or whether we struggle with clinical depression or some other psychological malady. The “emotion” words of Scripture speak to eschatological realities. “Joy” is not the opposite of “depression.” Joy is an unquenchable assurance that is ours no matter how we feel. It speaks of the kingdom, the kingdom that has dawned in Jesus, that has begun to take root in our hearts through the Spirit, that will be consummated in the new creation. I can be depressed and still have ultimate joy. I can be depressed and still believe.

This article represents a superficial “Biblical” approach that I find does much more harm than good.

• For one thing, it takes my eyes off God, off Jesus, off the power of the Gospel, off the newness the Holy Spirit brings, off the promises of God’s Word, and puts them on myself. In calling me to overcome afflictions like depression, it turns my attention away from the acts of God that bring me the deepest assurance and my only hope of any kind of victory.
• It calls me to self-examination, to a microscopic focus on my own sins, weaknesses, failures, and flaws. It enrolls me in SMI—the school of morbid introspection—and puts the onus on me to learn my lessons, repent, and get right.
• It enlists me to “battle depression” as some dread spiritual enemy, thus raising the stakes for any setbacks or defeats.
• It intensifies my fear of spiritual failure and bases the way I grade myself on my feelings.
• If you want to talk about the Bible—it takes the Psalms away from me, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and a thousand passages that portray faithful people coming to God in both depression and faith.

Furthermore, this approach is ultimately docetic and world-denying. There are so many things the Bible doesn’t address in life, or if it does, it speaks of them through its Wisdom literature. Wisdom literature like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and so on contains ground level observations about life, people, family, finances, character qualities, decision-making, and other aspects of living in this world. It has a spiritual context: the God who created us and the good world in which we live. It contains observations that arise from “great discernment and breadth of mind” like Solomon had (1Kings 4:29), not just from special revelation about “spiritual” matters.

It is my position that we should deal with matters like depression from the perspective of wisdom. That means taking a person’s full humanity and life in this world into account. If someone should come to me to ask about how to overcome the depression that is disabling him/her, my list of questions and recommendations would look quite different than the ones I read in that article.

• Have you seen your doctor? I recommend getting a full physical and talking with your doctor about your symptoms. There may be a physical cause or causes, and if so, this should be treated, including the treatment of chemical imbalances through anti-depressant drugs.
• Tell me about your eating, sleeping, and exercise habits. Our daily routine and taking good care of ourselves has a lot to do with our mindset and how we feel.
• Talk to me about the stressors in your life and how you deal with them. The way we handle pressure can contribute to depression and anxiety.
• What losses or changes are you grieving over? Grief is our natural reaction to losing something or someone important to us. Even normal life changes involve loss. We may not even recognize the sadness we feel and how it inhibits us from full engagement with life.
• What makes you angry? In many cases, depression involves anger turned in on oneself. Helping people find healthy ways of dealing with anger and conflict can help.
• How are your key relationships? Do you have someone to talk to regularly about what you are thinking and feeling? Are there people in your life you can simply relax and “hang” with? Withdrawal from this kind of companionship can deepen depression.
• What do you do for fun? People who are depressed can have a hard time enjoying life’s pleasures. It may be just as “spiritual” to prescribe pleasure as some spiritual practice for the depressed.
• What are you looking forward to in your future? Hopelessness is one key feature of depression, and helping people find hope in a better tomorrow is a key part of treating depression.
• Tell me about your faith background and how you practice your faith. A general question like this gives people permission to talk about God and spiritual matters without feeling like you have identified their problem as failure of faith from the start. If they reveal spiritual problems that are contributing to their depression, by all means point them to Jesus and God’s promises.

Can we please just learn to be human beings with our neighbors? Can we please discard this semi-gnostic notion that the Bible holds the secret keys to overcoming life’s mysterious and intractable problems? Can we please stop blaming those who are hurting? Can we stop putting the burden on them to make things right? I can’t think of any approach more antithetical to the Gospel. There may, of course, be times when we confront stubbornness and pride, and will need to do so directly with a strong word. But most of the time, I would think we are called to be like Jesus. When he dealt with the afflicted, it was said of him, “He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.” (Matthew 12:20, NLT)

Now there’s a Bible verse that speaks to us.

One of my favorite sports stories of all time comes from an incident that took place in a college softball game between Central Washington and Western Oregon in April, 2008.

Sara Tucholsky, a senior for Western Oregon, stepped up to the plate with two runners on base and did something she had never done in her 21 years of life. She smacked one over the fence. A three-run home run! So excited was she about this unlikely, timely display of power that she missed first base. Turning back to touch the bag, her right knee buckled, and she went down, crying and crawling back to first base.

What could she do? She was unable to walk and her teammates were not allowed, by rule, to assist her around the bases. The umpire let the coach know that if she could not proceed any further, the other two runners who scored would be counted, but she would only be credited with a single.

Then Mallory Holtman, Central Washington’s first baseman, spoke up and asked, “Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?” The umpires huddled and ruled that her opponents could do that within the rules. So, Liz Wallace, the CWU shortstop ran over and she and Holtman picked up the injured Tucholsky and began carrying her around the bases. They lowered her at second, third, and finally home. As both teams and fans brushed back tears to see such remarkable sportsmanship, Sara Tucholsky celebrated her first home run, carried in the arms of her opponents.

What an unusual display of humanity! And of course it is all the more remarkable to imagine competitors bearing up a member of the opposing team, even when it cost them in the game. In this splendid way, a group of college softball players exemplified Paul’s apostolic exhortation: “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

In a January 25 article for the Christian Century, Rodney Clapp puts an another unusual spin on this practice of bearing one another’s burdens.

He writes about times when we feel “spiritually incapacitated.” Have you experienced what he is talking about? When trying to describe what it is like, those well-versed in the spiritual life sometimes use the imagery of being spiritually “dry.” Pictures of the desert, wilderness, and drought come to mind. Others have portrayed this condition by referring to darkness, exile, or alienation. When Clapp speaks of being “incapacitated,” sports illustrations come to mind. Sara Tucholsky became incapacitated when she injured her knee. Playing in the game any further was out of the question. Her opponents would have to carry her. A teammate would have to take her spot on the field and in the batting order.

Whatever metaphor or illustration we use, a key characteristic of such spiritual seasons is that we find it hard to pray. God seems far off, and we lack the energy and desire to seek him. A thousand and more reasons may account for this. But no matter what the cause, we find ourselves without a prayer.

It is at times like this, says Rodney Clapp, that we need to consider the ministry of bearing one another’s burdens.

It is then, perhaps more than at any other time, we need others to pray for us.

I mean the for in two senses. Of course we need others to pray for us in terms of what ails or worries us. We need prayer for the healing of a cancer or for coping with the death of a loved one—or for the return of more robust faith. This is the usual, and highly important, sense in which we think of praying for others. But we also need others to pray for us in the sense of praying in our stead, praying prayers to substitute for our weak or absent prayers.

I found this to be such a gracious and loving thought!

When I can’t pray, my brothers and sisters can pray in my stead. They can fill up what is lacking in my devotion. In sporting terms, they can substitute for me when I’m injured, pinch-hit for me when all I’m doing is striking out. I can go to the bench for awhile and know that someone capable can play my position while I’m out. If I need to, I can go to the trainer and rehab until I’m fit to take my position once more. I’m just one player on the team, and there are plenty to take my place. And the opposite is true as well. As a member of the team I may be called upon to step up and step in to substitute for an incapacitated teammate.

In such situations, Clapp encourages us to give: (1) permission and (2) a promise to each other.

• First, let us give permission to one another not to pray when we are beset by spiritual drought or overwhelmed by life’s burdens. It is OK if we have to go on the spiritual disabled list once in a while. Why should any believer think he or she has to be a spiritual hero, always giving the impression of being on top of his or her game? We can help each other know when it’s time to take a break and that it is alright to do so.

• Second, let us give a promise to one another that we will take up the slack for those who can’t “play” at any given moment. If you can’t pray for awhile, I will redouble my prayers in your stead. As Rodney Clapp says, “This is what the church is for; this is why prayer is plural (Jesus prays to “Our Father . . .”). We are all in this together. Like the marines, we will leave no man or woman behind. We will carry our wounded.”

There are many occasions when I stumble and fall, injured and incapable of continuing in the game. In fact, it could happen that I might be out for the season. And you may find yourself in the same situation.

At such moments, may God grant us grace to carry each other.

The First Mourning, Bouguereau

By Chaplain Mike

Then [Job's friends]  sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

• Job 2:11-13

My dear friend,

Christians believe in words and their power. And well we should. Our sacred book begins with God speaking the worlds into existence. The Gospel begins with the Word made flesh. Our very faith comes through hearing the word of God. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus, went through all the land, teaching and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. Great is the company of those who bring the word!

But we often forget the word of wisdom: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). Fitly spoken, he said.

• Spoken at the right time.
• Spoken when appropriate.
• Spoken after listening.
• Spoken after having given thought to what I’m about to say.
• Spoken with proper understanding of the circumstances.
• Spoken with sensitivity to the other’s feelings and concerns.
• Spoken after listening.
• Spoken after having checked my motives.
• Spoken with due humility, realizing I may not know the whole story.
• Spoken in conjunction with a willingness to do something to help.
• Spoken in as few words as possible.
• Spoken with carefully chosen words.
• Spoken prayerfully.
• Spoken after listening.

Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips. I am utterly dependent on God’s Word to cleanse me. Only through grace and the Spirit can I give a word fitly spoken.

Until then, shh. . . quiet.

Job’s friends did more good in one verse of silence than in thirty-five chapters of words.

That’s something to think about today. In silence.

Set a guard over my mouth, LORD;
keep watch over the door of my lips.

• Psalm 141:3

By Chaplain Mike

My dearest children,

This weekend I had the profound pleasure to visit with the Rev. John Ames, a Congregational minister from Gilead, Iowa. He came to my attention and told me his stories through Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead.

Hearing him speak and weave his tales was a revelation, I must say.

Like you, John was born into a preacher’s family. However, unlike our family, the vocation of minister was everywhere among his kin, on both his father and mother’s side. It was in their blood.

Ames’s father and grandfather were particularly strong influences on him. His father’s father was a legendary, larger than life figure who had moved from Maine to Kansas in the 1830′s to support the abolitionists. Over the years, he kept a lot of secrets about his activities in Kansas–it was a wild and tempestuous era in our history–and it’s likely he had a great deal of human frailty and perhaps downright impiety to confess to the Lord when all was said and done. He joined a graybeard regiment in the Civil War and ended up losing an eye, came home and moved in with his son’s family for a time, and then ran back off to Kansas, where he died in a town that died too, because of the railroad and drought.

One of the formative events in John’s life was when his father took the boy (at age twelve) and set off to find the old man’s grave. They had a hard time of it, travel being what it was then, and the parchedness making food and comfort hard to come by. They put themselves at great risk of dying themselves, out there in that desolate land. But John’s father had to make the journey. The last words he and his own father had exchanged were angry and bitter, and it drove him to find one last way to honor the man.

Father and son finally found the unkempt graveyard, which John describes as “just a patch of ground with a half-fallen fence around it and gate on a chain weighted with a cowbell.” They fixed up the fence as best they could. Then, borrowing some tools from a nearby farmhouse, they tended to the ground, cutting the brush, righting the falling markers, and being careful not to tread on the graves. After scattering flower seeds they had carried from their own garden, John’s father offered a prayer, asking for pardon and remembering his father to the Lord.

It was during that prayer that John had an epiphany. I will let him describe it.

Moonrise, Berberian

Every prayer seemed long to me at that age, and I was truly bone tired. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but after a while I had to look around a little. And this is something I remember very well. At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east; I knew where east was, because the sun was just over the horizon when we got there that morning. Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them. I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I’d have to startle him out of his prayer, and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it. And then I said, “Look at the moon.” And he did. We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up. They seemed to float on the horizon for quite a long time. I suppose because they were both so bright you couldn’t get a clear look at them. And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them, which seemed amazing to me at the time, since I hadn’t given much thought to the nature of the horizon.

My father said, “I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I’m glad to know that.”

And that, dear children, is one of the main things you should know about John Ames. He’s learned what it means to stand squarely between the horizons, and he can describe the light.

Let me tell you a bit more about this fine man.

John Ames married in his youth. But his bride and first child died during childbirth, and the young preacher was bereft for years. He faithfully served his church and community, writing each sermon out by hand, filing them in boxes that eventually made their way to the attic. In his older years, a woman a generation younger than he walked in to church one morning, captured his heart, and they were married. They had a child in John’s old age, and the stories he tells were always intended for the boy to hear first. Having missed the chance to walk through life with a child, to impart wisdom along the way, having never been a living example to his own flesh and blood in home and parish, John Ames saved up all those stories, all those lessons, and passed them on in writing to his beloved son.

Oh! to hear him tell them. He often writes of plain and pleasant matters. Like me, for example, John loves baseball. In fact, I heard him say once that the greater part of his life consisted of “getting by on books and baseball and fried-egg sandwiches.” Now, that’s my kind of man. He describes the beauty of the simple art of playing catch like few I know. Plus, he agrees with me that watching baseball on television is rather two-dimensional compared with listening on the radio.

John also has a dry and captivating way about telling a funny tale. I still smile when I recall his story about how the townspeople, who were much into digging tunnels as secret passages for runaway slaves, had to deal with an unexpected crisis. A man passing through town in his horse-drawn wagon fell right through the earth into a great hole caused by a cave-in of one of those tunnels. The folks from town sweet-talked the fellow into taking another horse in trade, then they fed his poor half-buried animal oats soaked in whiskey so he would fall asleep and give them time to dig him out. I also enjoyed the account about when John’s godson stole one of the first automobiles in town. By the time it was found, it had been sold and traded so many times the law wasn’t sufficient to prosecute all the parties involved.

But, my dear children, what I really want to tell you about John Ames is that he understands where life’s roots take hold. He has the wisdom to know that, in the end, life is all about family. It all comes down to the curses our families lay on our heads and the blessings they give to our hearts. Oh yes, and what we do to pass all of that on to our children. Bottom line, life is about how we deal with the family stuff, what we do with it, where we run from it, how we get reconciled to it.

You can’t know John Ames, or me, or anyone, without knowing about the family. Fathers and grandfathers, brides and babies, generations of strong women, sibling rivalries, and prodigal children slinking home–none can escape the effects of what happened in our heritage and what transpires in our homes.

John Ames’s best friend, another minister in town named Boughton, surprised the Rev. Ames at the very moment John was baptizing Boughton’s son. As a gift to the bereaved young minister, Rev. Boughton announced, right there at the christening, that the child’s name would be “John Ames Boughton.” Having lost his own child, he now had a namesake.

Well, let me tell you, that godson, nicknamed “Jack,” became the black sheep of the Boughton family. As he grew up he was constantly in trouble, and some of his mature sins were so despicable as to bring everlasting shame on his family name. When John Ames began to write his memoirs for his young son, Jack had found his way back to town, and the preacher had a complicated problem on his hands. I won’t tell you here how it all worked out, but suffice to say that Jack’s presence caused a great deal of uneasiness in his own home and in the home of Rev. Ames.

Somehow, it always comes back to family. Our relationships with the ones closest to us shape us most. This is often not apparent until we take time, as John Ames did, to reflect on the journey and discover that the wide open world of choice and opportunity we thought was ours for the taking was, in reality, just scenery along the narrow path we were bound to walk.

And so, my children, I am afraid you are, to a large degree, stuck with what you’ve received. As I said before, that will be both a blessing in your heart and a curse on your head at various times throughout your life. And I don’t mean to imply that you are limited merely to live out a script written for you. Like John Ames, I believe in a living God who takes the material that is present and shapes it in ways most surprising and unforeseen. Yes, he works with what he finds, and none of us are made up of what you might call unblemished stock. But what he can do, children, what he can do!

As John Ames says,“Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who would have the courage to see?”

I hope you will take a courageous stand firmly between the horizons, where the light from the setting sun and rising moon mingles, where even an old graveyard can shine by heaven’s pure light.

For those of you who would like to get to know John Ames for yourself and read the memoir he wrote to and for the son of his old age, I urge you to get a copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Gilead: A Novel, as soon as possible.

You will be glad you got to know John Ames. And perhaps you will get to know yourself a little better too.

By Chaplain Mike

When I was a Christian young person, I heard a lot about “seeking God’s will.” This question was especially prominent at Bible college, where young men and women training to go into ministry were trying to discern God’s leading in several key areas.

First and foremost, we were trusting God to lead us to a perfect marriage partner. Battling our hormones and feelings for the guy or girl we really liked, a lot of times, I might add. (Not me, of course, dear.) And then there was the whole decision about whether or not God was calling a person into missions. If, on the other hand, a person believed God wanted one on the “homefront,” there were questions of location, location, location.

A lot of angst, prayer, counseling sessions, Bible studies, dorm discussions, long walks, and sleepless nights revolved around “seeking God’s will for one’s life.”

Frankly, I don’t hear so much about that any more. The “traditional” view of receiving special guidance from God seems to have faded from prominence. For the better, I believe. In my opinion, we’ve come a long way theologically and pastorally in realizing that God may not have one “perfect plan” that a believer must “find” (as though he’s hiding it from his people, as though one day he might pull back a curtain and voila! there it is) in order to be in “the very center of God’s will” for one’s life.

A classic book that led to a change of emphasis in this area of Christian living was Gary Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View. Friesen emphasized that making decisions in our lives is more a function of wisdom than of special guidance or revelation. In the introduction to the book, Haddon Robinson says,

If we ask, “How can I know the will of God?” we may be asking the wrong question. The Scriptures do not command us to find God’s will for most of life’s choices nor do we have any passage instructing us on how it can be determined. Equally significant, the Christian community has never agreed on how God provides us with such special revelation. Yet we persist in searching for God’s will because decisions require thought and sap energy. We seek relief from the responsibility of decision making and we feel less threatened by being passive than active when making important choices.

In this book, Dr. Garry Friesen insists that we must change the question. Instead of wondering, “How do find the will of God?” a better question to pursue is, “How do I make good decisions?”

Young people, of course, think about these things more because they are at a point in their life and spiritual formation when the issue getting established in one’s life vocations is front and center. In our teens and twenties, matters of education, family, career, geographical location, and so on will be decided. What part does God play in the process?

These questions have become more important for people at all stages of life. Society has changed, and for many of us, choices like these now take the stage at various and multiple ages like never before. The simple fact that we live longer necessitates more life-affecting decisions. People wait longer to marry. More marriages break up. People often take longer to find careers, and they may change career choices several times throughout the course of their lives. Society is more mobile and we have many more options, domestic and foreign, about where to live.

Rarely does a person in our world follow the path many in my father’s generation did—college/military, marriage to one spouse, family, lifelong career with one company that followed a logical course of “climbing the ladder,” retirement. And, I would answer, ongoing membership in churches of one denomination.

• Is it odd that we have more choices and more uncertainty today, but less emphasis on determining the will of God? Or am I just in the other room, missing out on the conversation?

• What are you hearing these days about this subject? If you are a pastor or someone who counsels others about making decisions, how are you encouraging them to trust God and seek his wisdom for choosing their paths?

Self Portrait as a Sick Person, Kirchner

By Chaplain Mike

I had to take a couple of sick days this week. That’s unusual for me. Our entire family has been blessed with good health, and even the sicknesses we’ve had have not been serious.

It becomes easy to take that for granted.

Two years ago I had an experience that opened my eyes a bit to physical suffering. Though the problem turned out not to be serious and the outcome was good, nothing about what I went through for a couple of days was pleasant. I’d rather not have to go through it again.

So, on this past Sunday night, when I realized I had a fever and a few of the same symptoms, I made a decision right then and there to go to the doctor Monday morning. I’m glad I did. I’ve had a few unpleasant moments, but nothing like the agony of the previous experience.

I described that first illness on the blog where I wrote before coming to Internet Monk. I will re-run it here today to remind us of those in sick beds all around us, so easily forgotten.

The Sick Girl, Ancher

From January 12, 2009, at Otium Sanctum
Last Friday after work I came home and knew things were not right. All week long I had a mysterious pain in my right lower back that radiated around to my thigh. I thought I had twisted my back and pinched a nerve. It’ll work out. Except it didn’t. On Thursday I had a strong urge to urinate often, and it burned when I did. By Friday evening, after I made it home feeling dizzy and out of sorts, I crawled into bed with uncontrollable chills.

My weekend plans were set.

Since I couldn’t get in to see a doctor on Friday as I had planned, I managed to scrounge an appointment for Saturday morning. I slumped over to her office, shivering all the way, waited ten minutes and then was invited in to the exam room, after having left a urine sample. When the nurse came in the room, we exchanged a few words about urinary tract infections, and she said coldly, “Now you know what your wife goes through.” I think she had issues.

When the doctor came in, she was much more compassionate. “You know, in men this is often caused by a kidney stone, and I don’t like that flank pain you have.” Great. Two words in the English language I never wanted to hear spoken together, addressed to me: “kidney” and “stone.” “How is your pain tolerance?” she asked. I’m probably average, for your spoiled, middle-class Baby Boomer. I don’t have any. “You know,” she smiled, “women who have had both babies and kidney stones say that they would rather have the baby.”

This day has started with such encouragement.

She sent me to the hospital for a CT scan to check for stones. Maybe that’s not it after all (he prayed). After stopping at the pharmacy to get my antibiotics, I arrived at the hospital (part of the health network for which I work), went dutifully to registration and gave my information, squirming in my chair to find a comfortable position. “Did your doc call and put you on the schedule?” I didn’t know, and when I said so, she shot me a disapproving look. She called the imaging department and apparently the doctor hadn’t phoned. Disapproving look number two. “You’ll have to go to the waiting room until they can call your doctor. Please tell her next time to call; we have to follow the appropriate protocol.” From far away somewhere in a gathering storm of misery, I nodded meekly.

Now to Radiology, where for almost an hour I must have looked like a homeless man taking shelter from the cold as I sat in the waiting room, head down between hunched shoulders trying to stay warm and comfortable. From snippets I heard, the delay was because the young woman at the desk could not get my information to come up right on the computer. She tried and tried again. She sighed and whined and tried again. She called the IT help line. She called in coworkers, who came, punched a few keys, shook their heads and walked out again. Some grating “crisis of the week” movie was on the TV. I had to get up and pee at least five times.

Ward in the Hospital in Arles, Van Gogh

Somehow, the technical problem got resolved. I had my two minute test…then waited…and waited for the results while their people called my people and waited for my people to call back only to have to wait again for their people to call back and talk to my people. In the end, good news—a normal scan. No kidney stones.

Still, I figure I have about a 102 degree temperature, I haven’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch, I ache all over, my back and leg hurt like crazy, and now I get to drive home. Stopping to get a sandwich and a drink, I take two bites of the sandwich and then throw it away. Tastes like dust.

From that point on, the trajectory of my weekend was flat. Lying on the couch watching football. Lying in bed sleeping. Lying in bed watching football. Lying on the couch trying to get comfortable. Etc., etc., etc. We usually make remarks about how time flies and how we can’t believe it’s already such and such a date. These were the longest days of my life.

Life went on all around me, but I honestly don’t remember much about anything. Most of Friday night through Monday morning was like being shut in a closet and subjected to some sick torture treatment with a relentless soundtrack of football talk, games, inane commercials, distant sounds of family life going on without me, phones ringing, cars needing muffler work growling by my window. It was all repeated endlessly, while I turned over and over again in the bed to find a good position, alternately burning with fever and drenched with sweat. All in all, a pretty good foretaste of Purgatory, I’m sure.

I write this not to elicit sympathy. My illness didn’t turn out to be deadly serious or anything. But for one who spends his days visiting people who lie in their beds, I wanted you to know that I gained a tiny bit of perspective over that long weekend. I hope I will never enter one of their rooms again without a new measure of sympathy and a new sense for what might encourage them.

Anger (detail from Seven Deadly Sins), Bosch

By Chaplain Mike

…the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. (James 1:20, NASB)

In my experience, it never helps.

Anger never improves a situation. Anger doesn’t work. Anger always make things worse. And anger has a multitude of unwanted consequences besides. Anger does not enable us to take forward steps in our relationships. Instead, it sows seeds of fear, distrust, and animosity that take root quickly and become nigh impossible to dig out again. Anger hurts. Anger leaves marks. Anger expressed can accelerate rapidly to emotional, verbal, and sometimes physical abuse. Anger held within and allowed to simmer can lead to withdrawal, alienation, and neglect. Anger turned on oneself can spiral down into depression, self-hatred, self-destructive habits or even actual suicide.

According to Jesus, anger toward another is the emotional equivalent of murder.

You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother,  ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. (Matthew 5:21-22)

Anger is the first condition of the human heart and experience that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. Moses, the Lawgiver whose laws Jesus speaks of in this sermon, was kept from entering the Promised Land because of unbelief that exploded in anger. In the Torah, the first sin outside the Garden that Moses wrote about was Cain’s anger, which turned into the actual murder of his brother. When the Apostle Paul wrote lists of vices for the ethical formation of his congregations, anger and related faults are always listed prominently.

“…there is nothing that can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it.” (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 151)

One source that helps me meditate on the perils of anger is Dallas Willard’s discussion of the topic in his book, The Divine Conspiracy.

When we trace wrongdoing back to its roots in the human heart, we find that in the overwhelming number of cases it involves some form of anger. Close beside anger you will find its twin brother, contempt. Jesus’ understanding of them and their role in life becomes the basis of his strategy for establishing kingdom goodness. It is the elimination of anger and contempt that he presents as the first and fundamental step toward the rightness of the kingdom heart. (DC, 147)

Willard reminds us that the emotion of anger is a natural part of human life. It is a spontaneous response that arises within us when someone or something threatens us in some fashion. It alerts us to a person or obstacle that obstructs our way or our will. Anger is an alarm within that goes off, releasing energy that enables us to resist and/or fight back against the threat. It is part of our survival instinct, and in and of itself as a simple feeling, it is a normal and useful characteristic of being human.

However, in the sinful human heart, anger cannot exist without containing some element of malice—the desire to injure, harm, or punish the ones who cross us. This is one reason why anger need not be expressed to be hurtful. Even if I simply know that someone is angry with me, it causes me pain, because I sense that person is harboring some level of ill will toward me. To some extent, I am under attack, even if the angry one says or does nothing to act on her anger.

This is one reason I so regret now the times I was angry with my children. It pains me deeply to think how frightened and under attack they must have felt just to see dad’s furious face, even if I didn’t explode in a tirade. And if in my rage I acted out and caused a scene, it must have seemed to them like an overwhelming onslaught of malicious force. Kyrie eleison!

Anger, Albi St Cecile Cathedral

Dallas Willard also talks about the sinful tendency to indulge our anger. We can choose to hold on to this emotion, to become angry people, carrying “a supply of anger around” with us, ready to pull it out and wield it at any moment.

Why would anyone choose to do that? Because anger often works hand in hand with another deadly sin, Pride. In our self-righteous, self-centered hearts, we believe the universe should revolve around us, that all the breaks should go our way, that people should always agree with us, cooperate with us, coddle us. When my ego gets wounded, when my autonomy is constrained, or when my agenda gets challenged, I feel I have a right to be angry. After all, it is all about me, isn’t it?

One problem with living this way, of course, is that I am only one “sun” among many, and all of us think we are the centers of our own solar systems. If I, an egocentric sinner with a sense of privilege, get mad when one of these other egocentric sinners with a sense of privilege impedes my will, what do I expect in response from them? Anger begets anger begets anger. Is it any wonder we live in such a violent world?

Willard notes that many advocate a “righteous anger” as necessary to confront and overcome injustice in our world. However, where does this lead? Consider the ever-increasing polarization of American culture over the past generation. Proponents of “red state” positions speak with (self-)righteous indignation against “blue state” position supporters, and vice versa. Since each group perceives the other as a threat, advocating against what is “right” (in our eyes), both accomplish little more than raising the ire of the opposition and the temperature in the room. It’s a futile cycle.

Anger never helps. Never. I’m convinced of it.

So, Paul says it as simply as possible: “get rid of anger.” (Colossians 3:8).

Seven Deadly Sins (Anger), Callot

I know what some are going to say: wrath is a part of God’s character, isn’t it? If we are made in God’s image, shouldn’t anger be considered a natural part of our character, a quality that could be “godly” if harnessed properly? And didn’t Jesus get angry? Didn’t he speak and act in anger on occasion? To all of this I say, yes, OK. But I’m still convinced anger won’t ever be good for you and me or the people in our lives. Some will say, but doesn’t the Bible say, “Be angry, and sin not”? Doesn’t that imply that we can be angry in non-sinful ways? Perhaps. All I can tell you is—I never have. I’m pretty sure I never will. Sorry, but with all due respect I feel the same way about you too.

So what do we do with this? I can assure you that what I’m NOT going to do is give you “ten steps for overcoming anger.” If someone tries to sell you that curriculum, hang up on them (not in anger, of course). There is no program, no training that will do the trick. To eliminate anger would mean we would have to cease being human. And to eradicate the sinful tendencies that corrupt our anger and make it so devastating, we would have to be perfected in sanctity.

We come back to the Gospel. I need Jesus’ continual forgiveness and mercy for my anger. I need the cross. I also need Jesus’ victory over the powers of sin, his living presence with me, and the power of the Holy Spirit filling me each day. I need the resurrection, the ascension, and Pentecost. I need a family that loves and supports me, that forbears my faults, forgives my sins, and befriends me in spite of my weaknesses. I need the church. I need to hear and receive and be nourished by the Gospel all the time. I need the Word and the Table. I need to remember my Baptism.

In short, I need a life with Jesus. I need the life of Jesus.

Don’t underestimate a deadly sin like anger. Not only does it not help, but it takes everything heaven has done and can do to overcome and eliminate it.

He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.

(Psalm 91:15,16 NIV)

It was turning out to be one of the hardest days in what was the hardest year of my life. One day in the spring of last year I was coming undone. Emotionally, physically, and spiritually I was at an end. Where was God?

I had spent the morning pouring out my heart over coffee with my friend and colleague Matt. I had then called my friend and colleague Laree and yelled at her for an hour on the phone. Now it was my friend and colleague and fellow iMonk Adam’s turn. (It’s amazing to me I still have any friends or colleagues…)

I saw Adam at our church and dragged him into our prayer room. There I began my lament once again.

“Adam, right here in Psalm 91 it says God will be with me in my day of trouble. Well, today is my day of trouble. Where is he?”

Adam, whose patience is matched only by Job’s, looked at me and said, “I’d give up on him if I were you, Jeff. Obviously he hasn’t come through for you. Who needs a god like that? Now who will you trust? You? How has that worked so far?”

I wasn’t about to be so easily put off. “But God is coming at me in ways I don’t think he could or should,” I said.

“Jeff,” said Adam, “just who the [heck] are you to tell God how he can or can’t approach you?” The word Adam used in place of “heck” was not “hell.” It was the shortened version of “firetruck.” I was starting to calm down, but I wasn’t quite finished.

“Adam, my will is surrendered to God’s will.”

“I know it is, Jeff,” he said. “I know you have surrendered your will to him. But have you surrendered to his teeth?”

And that question has haunted me ever since.

Am I surrendered to his teeth?

For 36 years up to that point I had faithfully, or as faithfully as I could, kept Jesus at a safe distance by keeping his commandments best as I could. By going to church, by being nice and good. Oh I was good. I kept my anger in check and always tried to do the right thing in the appropriate way. And I never would have used the short version of “firetruck” like Adam did. I used my goodness and my good works as a way to keep Jesus at bay. I had forgotten that he is the Great Lion, the Lion of Judah. I had made him into a tame kitty cat, and I set out a saucer of milk called “good works” to keep him happy.

Was I surrendered to his teeth?

Have you ever seen those wildlife shows where the lion kills and eats a water buffalo or such? Like this one. (Warning. This is not for the faint of heart.)

Some kitty cat, huh? How is it that I have for so long made the King of the Beasts into a domesticated cat? How is it that I have allowed myself to think if I would just scratch him behind his ears a couple of times a day he would be happy with me, rub up against my legs, purr, and all would be well?

Was I surrendered to his teeth?

A lion’s teeth are meant for some serious ripping and tearing. They are made to separate meat from bone. If I am going to submit myself to the Lion’s teeth, he is not just going to give me a gentle nick, not even breaking the skin. He is going to devour me bit by bit. I have spent much of my life avoiding just such a confrontation. I hid behind a host of things a good Christian is supposed to do. And it worked—for a time. Three-plus years ago, though, the Lion began to force his way into my life. First came a word shared in my church by iMonk Joe Spann that he titled Dangerous God. I went away that day shaking. If God indeed was dangerous, then was he really just a kitten? I spent much of last year looking into the jaws of the Lion, but still avoiding them. Surrendered to his teeth? But that meant … death. Not just a wound. Not even just a deep cut. Giving myself to the teeth of the Lion would mean the end of me.

The. End. Of. Me.

And that is when I began to see that that was precisely what he wanted. The end of me. The end of my goodness. The end of my righteousness. He wanted me dead. Not dying. Dead.

For only what is dead can be resurrected.

Surrender to his teeth.

I was exhausted spiritually. I couldn’t run any longer. He had me surrounded. I couldn’t avoid him. Here he came, with those horrible fangs, looking at me with hunger in his eyes. As he drew near he said to me, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” I had heard that many times, yes. Only now did I understand the the only way I could come to him was through his mighty jaws. And that the rest he wanted to give me was “rest in peace.” As in my death.

So I surrendered to his teeth. I let him devour me. It takes faith in his goodness to do this. It takes trust not in my ability to please him with my efforts, but in what he has already done for me. I lay down and didn’t fight any longer. He had me. I was dead.

And yet. And yet, I now live. The life I live now, however, is not by my will or by my choice. (Oh I know you are going to go to town on that statement. But before you start in on me, ask yourself, What choice did Lazarus have in rising from the dead?) I am in him. I am dead, and the life you see me living is the Lion living his life through me. How can I describe it? I was dead, but now live. It was through nothing I had done. It had to be the Lion’s doing. But what do I now fear? Once you have been eaten alive by a lion, most of the cares of the world are laughable to you. How can any day be worse than the day you were eaten alive by a lion? It’s all downhill after that.

So, here I am. I am dead, having given myself to the teeth of the Lion of Judah. “I am the resurrection and the life,” said Jesus. “Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.” I believe in him. And I did die. I remember and embrace that death daily. In a way, I die all over again every day. And in doing so, I now know Jesus not only as my death, but also as my life. He has resurrected me, for I am in him, and he himself is resurrection and is life. Yes, I die daily, but in another way I will never die again. Death no longer has anything on me. I live in death, and death has been vanquished by the Light of Life.

I still face my day of trouble. But now I face it not as a foe of the Lion, but as one who has been eaten by the Lion. Now I am on his side. That day cannot stand against his coming. He will satisfy me with long life, as long as his, for I am in him.

Surrender to his teeth. Do it now. Don’t make him chase you, surround you, jump on you and drag you down. He will do that, you  know. He will do it because he loves you so much.

Are you surrendered to his teeth?