Community Living

“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other…just as the Lord forgave you...Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” – Colossians 3.12-13

The presence of such commands in the New Testament epistles implies something glaring about myself and my neighbor: we are both sinners, sinners to the core. One does not say to a bird, “Chirp!” or to a horse, “’Whinny’ and ‘neigh!’” These things come naturally to both creatures.

But to a human being, God must make a point of saying, “put on” compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross means we can do so – relying not upon our own nature, but upon His. To exhibit these qualities is not natural; I am not innately kind or humble, gentle or patient. Instead, I am prone to think a man rightly earned whatever hard lot has fallen upon him. I am more often callous and indifferent than compassionate and kind. It takes no effort for me to assert myself; but I must practice humility!

Further, the fact that I am commanded to demonstrate gentleness or patience inadvertently implies that God will sprinkle my path with individuals whose behavior naturally incites the opposite within me. It is easy enough to be gentle and mild with a helpless babe; but put me for five minutes in close quarters with someone brash or haughty and I must exercise all my powers of self-restraint to keep from throwing punches or baring claws.

Of all the virtues, patience is, in our culture, perhaps the nearest to extinction. We are eager, hurried, impulsive, and rash; who has time for patience when you are so used to having the thing you want now? Patient people, we feel, are passive people. Not so for the Christian! It is patience which breathes wind into the sails of faith. The dictionary says patience is “the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties.” We must put on patience if we are to persevere in the Christian life.

Finally, to know that I must bear with others and forgive means that others will try my patience and sin against me.

Why should I? The most natural thing to do, when I am face to face with a conflict between myself and my neighbor, is to withdraw. No need to fight it out – aren’t we above all that? Instead, I will remove myself from the presence of my enemy! My sense of justice tells me that such forms of retribution – whether active or passive - are only fair. After all, don’t I have a right to protect myself?

But the Scripture says I have no such right because my sense of right and wrong have been distorted by sin (Lam. 3.39). I have become not only my own worst enemy but I have also made myself an enemy of God: "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge" (Psalm 51.4).

Thus when commanding Christ's church to "put on" His natural virtues, the apostle appeals to a higher law than the law of justice.

Christ’s sacrifice on the cross – through which perfect Justice was completely satisfied – renders my sense of justice obsolete. I am now under a new law – the law of love (Mar. 12.28-31). Thus, in Him, I am compelled to forgive just as I have been forgiven; to love without regard for myself; only then can we begin to know and experience what is meant by “…the perfect bond of unity.”

Staying Home

"Where am I? Who am I?
How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director?
I want to see him."

- Soren Kierkegaard

One morning last spring my friend Madeline dropped by for a visit. We sat in lounge chairs in my front yard on the little circle of synthetic green that, in Arizona, constitutes our ‘lawn.’ Our babies, born a week apart, ogled each other beneath their silk sunhats, groping now and then at a loose thread that sprouted between the faded squares of the quilt spread between us.

Lizzie, Madeline’s three-year-old, quickly made a game of tossing pennies into the stone fountain that stood beside the lawn. Occasionally, she trotted lightly round the fountain’s base and made us guess at her ‘wish.’ When I suggested that perhaps, since it was so terribly hot, she might have wished for a cold soda or an iced cream cone she said, “No,” more solemnly than I thought any three year old capable. “I asked God to make me more grateful.”

Madeline and I exchanged glances, at once baffled and delighted by her innocence and depth.

In between slow sips of iced tea we chit chatted about this and that – the books we were reading, a newly discovered recipe for chocolate dipped coconut macaroons – and at 11 o’clock shared a snack of fresh strawberries and crackers and cheese. By 11:30 the babies began to rub their eyes. “I believe our window is closing,” I said.

Lizzie looked at me quizzically. “Miss Heather,” she ventured, searching stoically about the yard, “which window is it?”

I started to ask what she meant, then stopped myself, having grasped her meaning. “Oh, sweetheart,” I said, making little effort to conceal my amusement, “that’s called a metaphor.”

“A meta-what?”

“A metaphor. For example, have you ever heard anyone say, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs?’

“Nooo.”

“I forgot. We are in the desert. How about: ‘She has a heart of stone?’”

Lizzie shook her head.

“Please,” interrupted Madeline, “stop while you’re ahead.”

“I don’t believe I ever was. Oh, Madeline. She's a dream.”

Madeline smiled. “Moments like this make it all worth it,” she said. Her voice trailed off. “…which is why I am embarrassed to admit I sometimes fear I will wake up one day and wonder if I wasted my life. I’m terrified that perhaps staying home was the easy answer.”

I squeezed Madeline’s arm and told her I didn’t think there were any easy answers.

But after we waved goodbye I lingered a few moments on my front step, feeling a stab of regret that I hadn’t a better response to my friend’s admission. If she could only see herself through my eyes, I thought. If only she knew the superiority of what she had gained compared to what she had lost…

Madeline met her husband in law school. They clerked together, graduated together, and after their marriage took a job together with a Phoenix firm. When they got married, Madeline was sure she’d return to work after having children. But two weeks into her maternity leave, her husband began to rethink his convictions regarding childrearing. He felt it was important for children to have their mother at home, particularly during their earliest years. Contrary to her own preferences, Madeline submitted to his wishes, choosing to honor him at the expense of her career.

Needless to say, she was anything but the kind of person who looked for easy answers to life’s difficulties.

I knew she loved being a mother. Yet I resonated with her fear - not because I disliked motherhood – but because I shared what I believed was Madeline’s underlying desire to live a purposeful life. I considered that all people harbor such desires – to live lives that have impact and, as worn out as the phrase may be, make some lasting difference in the larger world.

The desire for meaning and purpose are intrinsic to human nature. But how, I pondered, does one go about attaining these things? More specifically, how does one do so as a Christian?

THE PROBLEM

As a woman, the culture tells me that I should be able to have it all – love, career, children – and that I am justified in pursuing my dreams regardless of the cost to my husband, child, and – above all – my relationship with God. Moreover, I am given the subtle but unmistakable message that doing something “important” and being a full-time mother are mutually exclusive.

In contrast, Christianity teaches that in order to find my life I must lose it; and that the key to living is dying. Thus the two states are directly opposed. To live a life of temporal significance – according to the world’s value system – I must devote myself to self-actualization, whereas, to follow Jesus Christ, and live a life of eternal significance, requires self-sacrifice.

Madeline chose to sacrifice her own plans by submitting to the leadership of her husband. According to the outline I've just set out, she made the right choice.

But if so, why are there lingering doubts in her mind, and the minds of so many women like her? If what we are doing as wives, mothers, and children of God is really meaningful in His eyes, why does it so often feel mundane and purposeless?

THE SOLUTION

I have come to believe that life often feels meaningless because it is meaningless. King Solomon surveyed the nature of existence and concluded that all things are absurd, futile, and without meaning. Whether you are a lawyer a mother or a world-renown bird caller “all is vanity and striving after wind.”

A man may build an empire today but tomorrow no one will remember his name. Today’s bestseller is tomorrow’s trash. As the Psalmist says, “[There is] no remembrance of former [things]; neither shall there be [any] remembrance of [things] that are to come with [those] that shall come after. The Bible teaches that we cannot effect any lasting change in the universe. Whatever impact we are to have is in, through, and by the power of Christ at work in us “to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Galations 5.6 says, “…In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

I thought again of Madeline. She was but one of a great many of the women I knew who had “put to death” their own plans in order to be obedient to the thing which they believed God had called them to. Madeline was staying home with her girls even though her preference was to practice law. Lucy, a surgeon, was working faithfully despite the fact that her real longing was to be a wife and mother. Jane, a doctor of history, had made great domestic sacrifices in order to care for her aging parents. And Elizabeth, who had been thrilled at the thought of quitting work after the birth of her first child, continued part-time after her baby was diagnosed with a serious illness, just so the family could maintain their health insurance!

All of these women have drastically different circumstances; none of them is living the life she envisioned for herself. Yet each is stewarding her circumstances with a faith that is expressing itself through love.

Thus it is neither working nor staying home, mothering nor remaining single that have any value. What is valuable is being faithful to God through the circumstances He gives – believing Him, hoping in Him, and staking our lives upon His Word.

Hebrews 4.2 says, “For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they [the Israelites] also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.” If we are to live profitable lives, lives that, in God’s kingdom, “amount to something,” we must spend our energies believing in the gospel that was preached to us and the God which it reveals: a God who became man and died a sinner's death in order to reconcile the world to Himself. It is this gospel which must become the single, unifying power that holds our lives together; the framework upon which our life is built, and our every decision made.

Ephesians 2.10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has chosen beforehand that we should walk in them.” The American mindset is that I am my own workmanship. The world is my oyster. My destiny is my own. I must set my mind on the thing I want and work relentlessly until it is my possession. To do less is to prove myself a coward or, even worse, mediocre.

But if the Word of God is reliable and true, if we are His workmanship then, like any master artist, He decides precisely what we are to be. He chooses the medium (whether oil, watercolor, charcoal), the subject (perhaps a portrait or landscape) and the period in which the work that is my very soul is rendered. We choose whether to comply with Him in the making, whether – in faith – to persevere through the circumstances He chooses, letting Him have His way, or whether we will dig in our heels and in defiance say, No, You must use this color! And how about sketching me in a grand old house by the sea instead of out here in the desert or the mountains or the swamp?

What is more, if we are His workmanship – His works of art, living stones being built up into a spiritual house – then it is fair to say that He made us for the same reason that the painter paints her painting, or the sculptor sculpts her clay – she does so for the sheer joy of the thing! The process is certainly painstaking, but it is also delightful! And the outcome remains forever afterward something that brings glory to the Painter.

Proverbs 16.4 says, “The Lord has made everything for its own purpose. Even the wicked for the day of evil.” The clause “for its own purpose” comes from the Hebrew word maaneh which, when translated literally, means “for Himself, for His answer or response.” Thus the King James Bible says, “The Lord has made everything for himself.”

Thus we find our life’s purpose in being the thing God has made us to be. Specificities of application aside, He has made us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ; to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourself. Such love, if it is genuine, is demonstrated through obedience: “This is love for God: to obey his commands” (1 John 5.3). Like Christ, ours should be an obedience that persists, regardless of circumstances and irrespective of cost.

If we believe Him – and spend our lives seeking to conform to His will – then we will become increasingly immune to the oft-times alluring but hopelessly mistaken values of our world.

“Having it all” will always be defined as having all of Him. John 15.5 says, “Abide in me and you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Only God can effect change in the universe. He accomplishes the work; but I – with Madeline, Lucy, Jane and Elizabeth beside me – can participate by allowing Him to take and use the meaningless tasks that form the substance of my days to shape me into something beautiful, something that brings everlasting praise to His Name.

Finding Your Purpose in God's Will

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification..." - 1 Thess. 4.3

“Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him..." - 1 Peter 4.19

Knowledge of God’s will is something men have made claims toward for thousands of years. Religions have been forged and factions formed by those who claim to possess it. It is a subject over which wars have been fought, and are being fought still. But perhaps the apostle Paul gives us the greatest insight into unlocking what this ‘mysterious’ will of God truly is: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12.2).

To know and do God’s will one must first and foremost surrender one’s own will. This surrender is not passive, but active: do not be conformed…but be transformed. One must actively resist conformity to “the pattern of this world,” turning away from or breaking out of the natural or inherited mold. At the same time, one must actively pursue the kind of transformation which – by the Holy Spirit’s power – leads to the state of having a “renewed mind.” We do this by immersing ourselves in the Scriptures and always seeking to interpret our circumstances through the lenses of biblical truth.

God’s will is rarely something concrete and easily defined. It must, in the host of situations which each of us face over the course of a lifetime, be “test[ed] and approve[d]” over and against the parameters (i.e. biblical commands) outlined in Scripture.

The question is here raised: How did Christ exemplify this process while walking the earth? Scripture tells us bluntly: “…Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; …while suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2.23).

Christ submitted to God’s authority by following His thread, the thread that led Him to the Cross. He did not seek new and better circumstances for Himself. As His the narrative of His life so clearly proves, His life was not His own; His destiny - a word which for most Americans is impregnated with false notions - was not His to create. As He submitted, He suffered; but rather than resist such suffering, or give way to fear, He entrusted Himself to the God who judges righteously.

This is the will of God in the life of His saints – not that we pursue suffering, nor rejoice in it for its own sake; but that when He brings it into our lives, we make it our aim to suffer like Him. "...[Y]ou were called for this very purpose, that you may inherit a blessing" (1 Peter 3.9).

The Elder Brother II

“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” – Luke 19.10

It is very difficult, if you are in the class of people whom society would likely term (even moderately) ‘successful,’ ‘intelligent,’ or ‘morally upright,’ to read the story of the Prodigal Son without feeling some measure of indignation at the father’s treatment of the Elder Brother. We feel that he was treated unfairly; that he was, as so often happens in families when one child screws up and the other sucks it up, overworked and underappreciated; and we shake our heads knowingly and mutter something about how “such people” (by which of course we mean, ourselves) are always getting the short end of the stick.

And yet our very act of commiseration tacitly reveals and confirms our guilt. Those, like myself, who at first glance read the story of the Elder Brother only to find themselves overcome with a sense of vicarious self-righteous anger must recognize the smoke and follow it to the fire: for the fire is fueled by our belief that we are good, that we have proven our goodness by our actions, and that these actions entitle us to a certain standard of treatment. In this our hearts are exposed as Pharisaical, brimming with pride and self-righteousness.

We have not only failed to grasp the meaning of the Cross, but our need for it. Our faith, however sincere, is largely misguided, being built on an improper foundation (Luke 6.46-49).

Whereas the Prodigal is a personification of Immoral Man, the Elder Brother personifies the Moral or Religious person. Each is in error, each has ‘turned to his own way’ and, apart from the divine intervention of a gracious father, each is headed for an eternity separated from him.

Whereas the prodigal is preoccupied with gratifying the needs of his flesh, the Elder Brother is preoccupied with gratifying his own ego. He is out to prove his own goodness or rightness before his father and as a result becomes obsessed with his sense of what he believes is owed him – namely, his father’s recognition and his father’s things.

What is more, he is oriented toward obeying a set of rules and performing to meet a set of standards, rather than cultivating a relationship with his father. As a result, he is filled with a sense of entitlement: 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you and…{yet} you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.' When he does not get what he believes he deserves, he is filled with malice and self-pity.

The Elder Brother simultaneously demonstrates his hubris – for who but Christ can justly say to his father, ‘I have never neglected a command of yours?” – as well as his total failure to comprehend that the primary means of acceptance in any relationship is grace and not works. Because of this failure, the Elder Brother proves incapable of genuine love and compassion, toward his brother or anyone else. He is too busy judging the failures of others to realize his own (Romans 2.1).

But perhaps the primary difference between the Prodigal and his Elder Brother is their varying levels of self-awareness. The first ultimately apprehends that he is lost and returns to his father begging mercy; the other, as far as we know, remains entrenched in his own false perceptions of himself and by the end of the story has drifted further astray than when we first met him. In the end, he is more to be pitied.

Certainly, the abruptness with which Christ ends the story - relaying the earnest Father's appeal without mention of the Elder Brother's response - is meant to serve as a kind of stimulus. Perhaps we are meant to finish and act out the ending in our own lives.

How will we respond? Will we allow ourselves to be truly converted, or will we harden our hearts, to God and men?

A God Worth Fearing

“And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” – Exodus 1.21

David and Solomon understood that: “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1.7). Thus one of the most obvious indicators that a man is lost is his total absence of any fear of God. In his condemnation of all men, Paul uses the words of David as a proof: “There is no fear of God before there eyes” (Rom. 3.18).

The fear of God is critical to being rightly related to Him. To fear God is not merely, as our society would like to think, to display reverence – though of course we should conduct ourselves reverently in His presence. God is awesome and should therefore inspire awe. However, to fear God also and more precisely means exactly what it says: to be stricken with fear or terror, exceedingly frightened, terrified.

When Christ was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, the Scriptures tell us that “they were terrified” (Mark 9.4). Peter was so filled with fear that he began to mumble nonsensically. Similarly, when the disciples saw the wind die down in response to Christ’s direct order “they became very much afraid” (Mark 4.41). Both words – “terrified” and “afraid” – come from the same Greek root, phobos, from which is derived the English word phobia. It literally means “to be struck with fear or to be seized with alarm.”

But objects of fear are also sources of hope. All human beings tend to display fear toward those persons or thing in which they also invest hope. For example, I may fear for the safety of my child because I also hope in her future well-being. My husband may fear his employer because he hopes the man will one day grant him a raise. In this sense, fear and hope are conversely related; the more I fear X, the more my hope is in X.

But if I am rightly related to God I fear nothing and no one but Him because I hope in nothing and no one but Him. In Christ we are liberated from the fear of “those who kill the body and after that can do no more” (Luke 4.3). Instead, as Luke instructs, “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (Luke 4.4). It is to God, not man, before whom we will one day give an account; and whatever praise we receive will come from Him. Thus we also hope in Him, believing that He alone – through Christ – is capable of offering us salvation from Hell and grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4).

The Egyptian midwives demonstrated this kind of fear; and God rewarded them for it. They protected the Hebrew women at their own risk because they feared God more than Pharoah. Those who truly possess a fear of God will often demonstrate this kind of courage because they know either explicitly (via God’s word) or implicitly (through the work of the Holy Spirit) that only God is worth fearing.

The Abolition of Fear

"To those who reside as aliens…who are chosen…to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood...” --1 Peter 1-2

To those who are chosen. To do what? To obey. And to be sprinkled with His blood. This is well worth repeating because it sheds profound light on the vocational purpose of those who would identify themselves as Christians. We devote exorbitant amounts of time and energy to talk of vocation, and of finding one’s purpose, without recognizing that the predominant part of our purpose on earth, our raison d’etre, so to speak, is simply to obey Christ and to live as marked men and women in a world that is perishing.

Peter goes on throughout his epistle to highlight the various ways in which Christians are called to demonstrate their allegiance to Christ by submitting to earthly authorities: citizens to governments, servants to masters, wives to husbands, and young men to elder men. The application may differ depending on one’s station in life, but the essential call is the same for all people: obedience to Christ displayed through obedience to authority, even when that authority is unreasonable.

Lest there be any confusion about this, Peter states very clearly: “…this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly’ (2.19). He goes on, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps” (2.21).

We do not submit because we feel like it; in fact, if submission corresponded with our natural inclination it would not be submission at all but preference. Neither do we submit because we are convinced that, in doing so, we will achieve the particular outcome we think best at the time.

We submit because we believe that the best things emerge from obedience. Just look at the Cross and all it accomplished. Every single act of obedience, however small, is a profound demonstration, an overt testament of our belief that God’s way is the best way, that His ‘good’ is the only good worth having, and His ‘freedom’ the only kind that truly makes us free.

“Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him her lord;” but just because she called him lord does not mean that she mistook him for the Lord. Sarah’s hope was in God just as Christ’s hope was in God. She knew, just as Christ did, that obedience to any earthly authority – in this case, her husband – could only work in her favor. Perhaps preempting the words of the Psalmist, “This I know that God is for me,” Sarah, when threatened by Hagar, called upon God to be her advocate, not Abraham. She knew that no man, not even her husband, could thwart His purposes for her as long as she remained submitted to Him.

When in faith we obediently submit to the leadership of any earthly authority it requires us, at a certain point, to confront our deepest fears. But if we remember the words of God – “Do not fear…I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great” – we will prove ourselves master over them.

Making History

“…Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” – 1 Peter 3.6

What sort of children are Sarah’s? They are those who “do what is right without being frightened by any fear;” in this context, they are submissive to their husbands. For the modern woman, this is a bitter pill which slides crookedly down the throat, if it slides down at all. If, however, we choose to place ourselves in the category of those who choose to submit, we can expect to face adversity, both within and outside ourselves. But it is imperative to remember that all Christians, regardless of sex, are called to submission, even when doing so results in suffering, not vainly, but in order that we may “obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled…reserved in heaven for [us]” (1 Pet.1.4).

The same Peter who wrote these words stepped out of His boat and – contrary to reason and instinct – walked on water in obedience to Christ’s bidding (Matt.14.29). Like so many before him, Peter understood that believing God means obeying Him, regardless of cost. He learned from experience that when we obey God we may be assured of two things: 1) we will suffer; 2) we will be afraid. When we choose to obey God by submitting to those in authority over us we are filled with a sense of unease. Call it anxiety, nervousness, or apprehension, the root of the emotion is the same: we are afraid.

Sarah’s life demonstrates this principle. She began her marriage by following a man who admittedly “did not know where he was going.” Twice he asked her to enter the household of King Abimelech; she went (for all we know) willingly – with no assurance as to whether she would be left unharmed. Later, weary from Hagar and Ishmael’s mocking, she did not demand that Abraham comply with her wishes and expel the pair, but insisted that God act as judge an arbiter between them. Lastly – and perhaps most tellingly – Sarah watched her only child, the son of promise, the boy for whom she had waited so many years, depart with Abraham to Mt. Moriah to offer sacrifices with only a saddled donkey and a thatch of split wood. We cannot help but wonder whether she knew what word God had spoken to Abraham to test him by commanding him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice? Certainly, if anyone understood that submission is frightening, Sarah did!

The history of Christianity is filled with such persons, flawed persons without knowledge of the future, yet standing up against extraordinary odds, all because they believed God enough to put themselves at risk in order to obey Him. Moses stood before a hard-hearted Pharoah; Esther risked her head by entering the court of the dreaded King Ahasuerus; and David, full of passionate zeal for God, fought the giant Goliath and endured persecution under the voluble king Saul. None of these people were perfect; but all were obedient. It is worth considering that we might not know their names if they had said, ‘no’ or ‘I will not,’ to God. The landscape of biblical history would be just as variant and rich, but it would be peopled with other names and stories.

God does not need us to accomplish His purposes; but in His goodness He offers us opportunity to obey and become part of the great lineage of those who, like Sarah, “considered Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11.11).

Do you trust God enough to submit to the leadership of your husband? Do you believe that He is not only sovereign, but good? If you do, you will submit, not dejectedly or resignedly, but with a hopeful glimmer in your eye. You will be among those blessed few who realize that He is not out to get you, but to remake you, and in so doing make you a living part of that Great History that is, most simply, His.