My Country Torn Apart

Like millions of Americans I watched the hearing from the Senate yesterday, finding myself deeply moved by the powerful emotions of both persons.  I’ll leave opinions about the outcome to those better informed. The conclusions you and I will reach are influenced by multiple factors – gender, political persuasion, age – to name a few.  The fear and fury in that hearing room yesterday seemed, to me, a summary of what my beloved nation has become:  millions of aggrieved people fearfully and/or angrily talking across huge divides in understanding of the most basic values.

We have lost the ability to talk reasonably, with any attempt to understand the ‘other side’ seen as betrayal, sell-out, or disloyalty. The other party (as seen from both sides) is not just different or mistaken, it is now ‘evil’ and dangerous.  As my son noted yesterday in a sad post on his Facebook feed, we have descended into tribalism. Sean is about as fair a thinker as I know, but because his coffee shop hosted an event that encouraged ‘coffee with a cop,’ he lost a customer, this in spite of many events that embrace differing kinds of groups.  His comment is insightful. “Tribalism has overtaken us. It’s not the dems or repubs. It’s YOU and them picking sides and excluding, giving up on thought, productive action and compromise because sticking with your tribe is the easier option. Drawing lines in the sand is clearer.”

Why am I writing about this today, you may be asking? Isn’t this a blog about spiritual matters? It is! And, the toxic, angry, fearful, hate-filled atmosphere in America is a spiritual problem, one that Christ’s disciples should care about earnestly.  How have we forgotten Jesus’ words that tell us one of our priorities is to build bridges, to become those who seek peace?  “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family." (Matthew 5:9, The Message)

Could we start by eliminating absolute conclusions about huge groups of people from our thoughts and words?

When we say, “All of those …” you fill in the blank, “are stupid, or evil, or …” we shut down reasonable conversation that could lead to clearer understanding. I had a difficult conversation with a young woman yesterday about gender.  It was a remarkable thirty minutes when two generations, an older man and a younger woman, tried hard to see the world through the eyes of the other, deepening our understanding a little bit.  If that kind of conversation was multiplied by millions, if we would allow another to say things we find ‘stupid’ or ‘offensive’ without jumping to rage or cutting them off,  we may both find ourselves richer in the end.

Near the conclusion of yesterday’s hearing, Senator Flake (R.- Arizona) spoke briefly and a word in his comments took hold of me- humility. 
Could we humble ourselves enough to listen?
Could we humble ourselves and admit that none of us has all the answers?

Could we humble ourselves and reach over the divide even if it costs us friends? 

No matter who we are – male, female, young, old, black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, progressive, conservative – we have a stake in the survival of our country. Whatever we perceive as wrong we can learn by listening and, if we are humble, can discover the art of finding common ground to advance the good.  We do not have to give away all our convictions and live in a land of complete compromise, but we can learn to humbly admit that we do not possess all the wisdom needed for life.

I pray for my country this morning with a broken heart.  I confess that I have been a part of the problem, too often rushing to proclaim what is ‘right’ before I have fully understood what is wrong. I have failed to know how the world looks to those who do not share my background, my place, my religion, my gender, my race. I pray to recover the heart of Jesus, shaped by fearless love.  I ask Him to lead me to a solid place of assurance of my God’s love so that I will live in bold love for the ‘other.’

The word from the Word is lengthy. Read it with a prayerful heart.

"This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead.

Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them. We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God." (1 John 3:11-19, NLT)

Go build some bridges to others today to keep America from being torn apart.

Take care of #1!

Conventional wisdom teaches us to make sure we take care of ourselves, never letting self-interest slip away. My uncle told me a long time that if I wanted to go anywhere in the world, becoming anyone of importance, that I would need to learn the art of self-promotion.  He humorously put it this way – “He that tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted.”  It would seem to be ‘wisdom’ widely accepted given the polished resumes, the carefully chosen schools, the positioning for ‘success,’ the not so subtle shoves of others in the race for the top of the heap.

God, the Spirit, speaks to us through Pastor James, of Jerusalem, challenging us to consider a ‘heavenly wisdom’ that points in an entirely different direction.  "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." (James 3:13-18, NIV)

Those who seek the insight of God about life will come to the necessity that they must die to Self!  They will reject the power games, the office politics, the careful image building that are so common in the world, choosing a genuinely good life fueled by humility.  Humility? Ugh. Who likes that word?  Who is coached in the art of being humble, of becoming self-effacing?  But there it is.  When we hang onto envy of those we perceive as ‘successful,’ when we give ambition a place to grow in the secret place from which our life is shaped, we cannot claim to be like our Savior, nor can we say we are insightful in a godly way! 

James goes beyond just saying that pushing our own agenda, being full of concern for Self, is undesirable. In brutally direct language, he tells us that the ‘wisdom’ that shapes that kind of life is demonic, reducing us to behaviors of animals who live by tooth and claw.  Those consumed with reputation and power ultimately tear apart the world they live in dividing others into ‘for me’ and ‘against me,’  friend and foe.

There is a beautiful shift in his pastoral instruction as he outlines the qualities found in the life of that person who has learned about life and success from Jesus. 

• He is pure, an innocent. Yes, the sophisticates of this world mock the pure, pouring contempt on their goodness.  But, “the ‘pure in heart’ will see God,” Jesus said. 

• He is a person who works to create networks of cooperation, unconcerned with his own resume, working for the best of the community.  Is that something we really do, or just an ideal to which we give lip service?

• He is able to understand how others are feeling, able to perceive their reactions, their needs, because he is ‘considerate.’  

• He understands the proper role of authority and chooses to readily accepts direction. 

• He is merciful, knowing full well his own weaknesses, he does not condemn without grace. 

• Where correction is necessary, he does it with the desire to restore wherever possible.

• He does not pick and choose between people based on beauty, wealth, or social status. He is impartial.

• And, he is the same ‘all the way to the core,’ refusing to play image games that do not match his core values.

Yes, James says that this is the kind of person who has come to know the wisdom of God!  My prayer is that He would write His Word on my heart and, leading me through life’s experiences, teach me to be wise in His Ways. Will you say “amen” in agreement?

Here are words from the Word.

"Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city." (Ecclesiastes 7:19, NIV)

"The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7, NIV)

Are you merely smart or truly wise?

__________________

Be Thou my vision,

O Lord of my Heart.

Naught be all else to me

Save that Thou art

Thou my best thought

By day or by night

Waking or sleeping

Thy Presence, my Light.

-public domain

Faulty foundation for faith leads to failure

I spend my days in a church building. Does that make me a person of faith?  Of course not.  I pray but even that does not necessarily mean I have developed faith.  Does faith mean that I try to "think positively?" No, again!  Faith is more than "having a good feeling" about something.  In that difficult day that was yesterday, in addition to asking God for wisdom, I examined my ‘faith’ to see if a common substitute – positivism-  had slipped into its place. Positivism focuses on outcomes. Faith rests on a Person!

Faith must be part of the life of one who would be a  follower of Jesus. But, we cannot make it about saying certain words, being religious, or even believing something. Faith is both a choice and a gift – God’s Spirit meeting our surrender – to create a foundation for a way of life in which the True North is fixed outside of the visible world on the invisible God. The famous line of Scripture from Hebrews tells us that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (11:1) Faith causes us to live with hope for eternal life in a place we have not seen, leads us to invest our time and resources in efforts for which the full return will not come until after we die, and to serve a Savior whose Kingdom is yet to be fully seen.

Faith that is healthy must be expressed in the context of whole-hearted submission to God. Some people express a self-fueled faith that is really just deep determination to force what they want into existence. Though they may quote Scripture verses to support their positions, if you dig deeper, you discover that what they are passing off as ‘faith’ is really just their own will wrapped in words that they believe will make God act as they wish!  Often they use the Scripture like a ‘magic incantation,’ thinking if they say certain things often enough, they can create their desired outcome.  That is, in reality, the very opposite of living faith that seeks God in complete surrender – “I am Yours to do with as You choose.”  God didn't give us the promises of the Bible so we could find a phrase, seize on it, and then 'make Him do what we want.' He gave us the promises of the Scripture so we would trust Him and submit ourselves to Him.

Faith sometimes takes us onto a road where the way ahead is obscured by fog of uncertainty!  In that challenging, awful, awesome story of Abraham’s faith, he was asked to take the son of promise, his beloved Isaac, to Mt. Moriah, for a sacrifice. It was senseless to natural thinking, terrible even to think about, but he was faithful. He responded with an obedience that must have been crushing. "It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac." (Hebrews 11:17, NLT)  We know the  rest of the story. God had a substitutionary ram prepared.  Abraham did not know that still he obeyed. Then, God gave him his son back!

So much of what passes for faith in our 21^st century Christianity is sold around experience of the miraculous.  “Look God is real and He is good because He healed me of cancer.”  I’m thankful when He does that, but He is as much the God of those who die of cancer as He is those who are healed. A 'faith' that requires lists of 'answered prayers,' (translate that – “I got what I wanted.”) is at best a shallow faith, and really not much faith at all because it is shaped around results rather than living as a servant of the Person of God.

Genuine Faith steadily trusts God in the middle of uncertainty, when the way ahead is lost is enveloped in the unseen and the unknown, as much as when the blessings of health and great victories are evident. That is the kind of faith that I desire and admire. The strongest faith does not give you or me an exemption from the ordinary human experience that includes disappointment, hardship, and unexpected outcomes.   

Faith does not always even provide a good reason for the suffering. Real Faith hears the Lord’s invitation to ‘trust’ and based on Who He is, and responds like Samuel of old who said, “Speak, Lord, I am listening.”  "It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him. " (Hebrews 11:6, The Message)

The writer of Hebrews, in the 11^th chapter, gives us a powerful summary of faith and some wonderful examples of those whose faith was rewarded with joyous outcomes.  But, there is a part of that same chapter that is not often read where we learn that faith also has another side. "Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:35-40, NIV)

Got faith? Make it a faith in God. Here is a word from the Word.

"Since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love." (Romans 5:1-5, NLT)

God teach us to live faithfully. Amen.
______________

Trust In You

(a song about faith to help you worship)

Letting go of every single dream

I lay each one down at Your feet

Every moment of my wondering

Never changes what You see

I've tried to win this war I confess

My hands are weary I need Your rest

Mighty warrior King of the fight

No matter what I face You're by my side

When You don't move the mountains

I'm needing You to move

When You don't part the waters

I wish I could walk through

When You don't give the answers

As I cry out to You

I will trust I will trust

I will trust in You

Truth is You know what tomorrow brings

There's not a day ahead You have not seen

So in all things be my life and breath

I want what You want Lord and nothing less

You are my strength and comfort

You are my steady hand

You are my firm foundation

The Rock on which I stand

Your ways are always higher

Your plans are always good

There's not a place where I'll go

You've not already stood

Lauren Daigle | Michael Farren | Paul Mabury

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