Month: February 2016

An Evangelical Revisionist’s Take on the Bible

It’s dizzying to think about how many people have read the Bible cover to cover, and how many different perspectives there are on it’s overall message.  Some read it as a legal document, laying out in great detail how one should live in a way that makes God happy – pleased to lay His lightning bolts aside, momentarily at least.  Some read it as a way to get into heaven, with little regard for life in the here and now – and only those with the proper theology are accepted.

Others read it as a document of war, releasing them into the world to point fingers, judge others, and be an agent of God’s wrath, only to find themselves batting for the wrong team.

I was once asked to lead a study on the historical happenings of the Bible – the places, people, events, etc., of the Old and New Testaments.  I rebelled and instead made an attempt to teach both Testaments as one story – which it is by the way, but I didn’t do a very good job.  I started with a room full of people and quickly whittled it down to a small gathering – a little too counter-cultural for this conservative crowd.

In preparing for the class, my perspective on the Bible, and ultimately what God really wants from us, was forever changed.

At the time, my wife and I were about to experience a huge life change, an adoption that would bring challenge, hardship, and joy in one big heaping helping of a little girl named Hannah.  Before her arrival, we decided to go to Brazil, relax and spend some time together.  I read the Bible, uninterrupted, cover to cover, very quickly, on one very long flight, paired with boxed wine and airplane food.

I was taught in Seminary to pick each passage apart, to read the “original” languages, consult multiple resources, etc., before making a decision about what that passage might mean.  Reading it cover to cover in one sitting was something I hadn’t done before.

There’s one theme that pops up over and over again, with alarming repetition, something I would call one of the most prevalent, if not the most prevalent themes of the Bible.  It’s one that, interestingly enough, doesn’t get a lot of air-time from Sunday morning pulpiteers.

Over and over again, in the Old Testament, and in the teachings of the New, God says to everyone He runs into, “Trust Me.”  “I’m on your side.”  “I want things to work out in your favor.”  “Please, whatever you do, wherever you go – TRUST ME.”    It’s hard to catch if you read the Bible slowly, but I dare you – read it fast, really fast, cover to cover, not stopping to ruminate over the parts that bother you, or the ones that don’t immediately make sense.  And drink some crappy boxed red wine.

Sure, there are passages in the Bible that talk about God’s unconditional love, His unlimited power, and how He worked it out so that anyone that wants to go to heaven can go.  There are statements about right and wrong, instructions about how to live, etc., but these are all subtexts in submission to the overarching principle that God wants us to trust Him.

Since my “conversion” on the flight to Brazil, I now hear God saying to me “I know more about what you want than you do.  I won’t give you life on your terms, it’ll be on mine, because my way will get you where you want to go quicker and more completely than yours.  If you’ll trust me I’ll write a story for you that will be amazing.  We can do things your way if you want – you can write your own story, but I write better stories than you do.  Trust me.  It won’t be easy, but it’ll be great.”

If you don’t believe in God, that’s cool, I respect you.  I have great friends who don’t believe as I do, not to mention the fact that they’re the ones who know how to really party.  But imagine for a minute what would happen to the world if everyone believed that there was this “thing up there” that could do anything it wants, loves unconditionally, and is interested in everyone’s life the way a really good parent is interested in her children.

There would be peace.

Peace is the biggest issue in our world.  Always has been.  When people are set at ease about their lives, their finances, their relationships, politics, how things will ultimately shake out, etc., they’re less likely to do bad, and more likely to do good.

I know people of peace, people who look at God this way.  They see what they have instead of stressing about what they don’t.  They’re comfortable in their skins – it doesn’t matter what other people think when you believe that everything will turn out OK.  They’re hard workers. They know work is good, but they don’t stress about it because they have trust, which, ironically, makes them more effective at what they do. Their peace derives from their belief that everything will work out in their favor, which is dependent on their view of God and ultimately their trust in Him.

God doesn’t want you to be a flaming, irrelevant, religious person by the way.  The other guy wants that.  It’s a truly crappy way to live.  Remember that Jesus’ first miracle was to make 180 gallons of wine at a party full of already drunk people.  He doesn’t want you to blindly adhere to a life-numbing list of rules and principles.  He doesn’t want you to be unhappy.  He does however want to change you – to remove the things that are keeping you from being free, from being the person you’re supposed to be.  This process isn’t “easy,” or “safe.”  Trusting Him will mean facing fears that you’ve been chained to most of your life.

But when you believe that He’s on your side, and that He’s a badass who’ll fight for you, with you, and against you when you head in a direction away from freedom and peace, you can face anything.

Jesus said something akin to, “I have peace inside of me – My peace.  God’s peace.  This peace I’m giving to you.  Therefore, don’t be scared.  Of anything.”

There’s one hitch though.  When God sets people free, He wants those people to go and free other people.  God’s freed ones are to be like a vaccine in the jugular vein of a world that’s ever-hurdling towards more fear, anger, suspicion – ever decreasing peace.  What we receive from God we’re to give to others, like Jesus did.

That might sound like a lot, but when you’re at peace, you’re also at strength – your resources aren’t tapped by fear, anger, etc.  I think that’s why religious people look so tired all the time – always trying to bring good into the lives of others, but doing it from a place of obligation, fear, and spiritual stress – not peace.

I had a very troubling conversation with a Gay woman several months ago.  She was afraid that God hated her because she was Gay.  It made her feel gross.  Unlovable.  I very quickly relieved her of that lie and laid on her the truth that God’s love for her has no boundaries or conditions – no barbed wire.  You wouldn’t believe how it changed her – the idea that God loves her, that she can now trust Him to walk alongside her.  Boom.  Peace.

May that kind of peace be with you, and extend far beyond you.

 

 

 

 

How I Plan to Win a Fight

A few weeks ago I went to the Dallas area to stay with a friend, get away from the kids for awhile, watch the Superbowl, and try to relax.  The trip went really well until the last day when we got into what seemed to be a small tiff.

He came home from work and took me to lunch.  He was having a bad day and seemed distracted, so we didn’t talk much.  When we got back to his place I took my shoes off and began to relax a bit before leaving for the airport. He had to get back to work but wanted me to move my car out of his garage before he left.  “Why?” I said.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to get the garage door closed when you leave.”

“What?  I can close a garage door.”

“But you need a remote to close it when you’re leaving.”

“No, I can hit the button from the inside and walk out while it’s closing.”

(Him, getting ramped up because I’m not listening)  “But you’ll trip the sensor and the garage won’t close.”

(Me, getting ramped up but not stopping to ask why) “I know about the sensor, I close our garage door that way all the time at home.  If nothing else I can just come back in the house, close it, then leave through the front door.”

My friend, “Fine.  Bye.”  Walks out the door

Me, thinking “Wow, we’re not going to see each other for another year and that’s how you want to leave it?  Ok, jerk.  Have a nice life.”

Now, I’m a Christian man, meaning that I think things like this should be handled the way Jesus wants me to handle them, which means I should’ve just moved the stupid car.  I got really convicted about the whole thing and sent him a text saying that I was sorry and should have moved the car.  No response.  I left a similar note on the kitchen table next to the key to his house.  Still haven’t heard anything.

I know, it all sounds really stupid.  When I got home and told my wife about it she looked at me like all wives look at you when you’ve done something stupid.  “Why didn’t you just move your car?  Wouldn’t that have been easier?” Me (like a dog who just got caught drinking out of the toilet) “Yeah…”

But this fight’s not over – there’s still some fighting left to do.

First, I’ll need to call my friend and let him vent about what happened.  I’ll have to fight against my need to always be right, and my need to never lose – at anything.  I’ll have to ask him questions that give him the freedom to tell me how he feels.  What I’ll probably find out is that what pissed him off had little to do with the garage door, and more to do with him feeling disrespected and un-listened to.  Most fights have little to do with the issue at hand, and more to do with old wounds and unresolved anger.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some really sad stuff they’re carrying around day-to-day.  I’ll need to make sure he’s in a good place before I move to the next step, which might take awhile, so I’ll have to fight my tendency to “fix” things quickly.

The next step will be to explain to him why I got so ramped up.  To do this, I’ll have to fight the fears I have of being vulnerable, of sharing my weaknesses with other people.  Here’s what I’m scared of sharing.

I spent most of my life being treated like a fuck-up, mainly because I was the guy who fucked things up alot.  So, I grew up feeling like a fuck-up.  It’s not a good feeling, so around my college years I decided to no longer be a fuck-up, and every time someone treated me like a fuck-up I’d get really mad.  Really. Mad.  I’ve managed to transcend the image in my later years, just a bit at least, but I still get really mad when treated like an incompetent.  So, when someone communicates to me, for example, that I can’t do something simple like close a garage door, I get really ramped up.  It’s not their fault, they’ve just unwittingly traipsed into a very old wound that I haven’t quite managed to redeem yet.

I’ll have to share all of that with my friend, and I’m scared to death to do it.  What if he doesn’t listen?  What if I can never get him to the point where it’s time to talk about my side of things?  What if I can’t control all of this?  I’ve laid out this nice little plan about how things should go but who knows how he’ll respond.  Who knows where this will land?

It’s hard for me to articulate how important my relationship with him is.  I’ve known him most of my life and can’t imagine life without him.  What will ultimately win this fight for me is my commitment to our relationship.  When I deem the relationship more important than my pride, or prevailing over someone so I can feel “right,” I win.  Every. Time.

But it’s also important for me to tell my side of the story, for him to understand what happened with me.  For me to have a voice.  He could have easily trusted me to close the garage door but he didn’t, and that hurt my feelings.

That’s right.  I said it.  It hurt my feelings.  Regardless of why I got my feelings hurt, I got my feelings hurt.  I wish I didn’t.  I wish I was more mature than that.  But let’s be honest – we hate to talk about getting our feelings hurt, it makes us feel childish, not-so-mature.  Weak.  Unfortunately it happens all the time in adulthood.  That’s why we get angry.  Anger, most of the time, especially in interpersonal conflict, is a symptom of hurt feelings.  How many times did you get angry in 2015?  That’s how many times you got your feelings hurt – hate to break it to you.  But telling someone that they hurt you will get their attention much faster than if you say, “hey dickhead, I’m an adult, you need to trust me to close the stupid garage door.”

He might say something akin to “I hurt your feelings?  What are you a three year old?”  At that point I’d recite what I’ve stated above.  If that doesn’t go anywhere I can remind him of multiple episodes of where his anger was driven by his hurt.  Like I said, I’ve known him for a really long time.

But it doesn’t matter how he responds.  I call it a win if I 1) let him vent and 2) get to a place where I can tell my side of the story.  If all of that happens and he’s still mad at me, I’ll remember that there are deeper things at play here.  I have some intimate knowledge of the unresolved hurts that he walks with day-to-day.  If he’s not willing to let this go, or forgive me, it will be because there are things at play that are darker and deeper than a garage door.  If our future encounter doesn’t go the way I plan it to go, I’ll have compassion, and I’ll forgive.  That’s where being a Christian comes in really handy by the way.  I believe God has forgiven me for all infractions – past, present, and future, regardless of whether or not I deserve forgiveness.  For me to un-forgive someone, regardless of whether or not they deserve it, is the deepest act of unbelief, according Jesus’ teachings (click here for a verse that illustrates this perfectly).

It’s tempting to live in the extremes – either cutting the other person off and walking away, or apologizing for everything.  Both are easy but neither is an investment in the relationship.

So yes, I’ll try and get him to vent, and I’ll try to tell my side of the story.  If things don’t go my way, I’ll remember what he’s dealing with and forgive.  More than likely, I’ll be closer to him and more committed to him than I was before. That’s what happens when you put this kind of risk and work into a relationship.

Either way, I’ll win.  That’s what conflict is all about

 

Making Sense of Struggle

I’ve always struggled with a passage in the Bible claiming that if I can manage to persevere through my various trials, I’ll find hope.  I’d love to have more hope, we all know it changes everything, but the following’s always been tough for me:

“…we also rejoice in our struggles, because we know that struggling produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope…” (St. Paul in his letter to the Roman Christians 5:3-4).

I know many people who have courageously persevered through trials and difficult times and yet aren’t people who you would classify as “filled with hope.”  I’ve also had a few occasions where I managed to hold fast and did what was right (although not as many as I would like).  While my times of “successful” struggling have paid certain dividends, hope is usually not one of them.  I typically find myself relieved but looking over my shoulder for the next hard thing.

I think it all came together for me as I watched a scene from “The King’s Speech” a few days ago.  The scene has King George VI addressing his country with the news that Hitler has decided to conquer the world and that England’s in the way.  In addition, the King has struggled with a debilitating stammer – he can’t speak clearly, especially under pressure.  The movie portrays him as a good man, a great leader, but scared to death.   In this portrayal of his now famous speech he faces a fear that’s hounded him for the majority of his life, while fulfilling a duty that no leader desires, with Hell bearing down on him and Beethoven’s Symphony #7 in the background.  I dare you to watch it and not come close to tears.

At first I couldn’t figure out why this was so moving but a few days later it hit me.  This man’s decision to struggle through such a nightmare might not bring hope to him, but it brings hope to me.  It helps me to feel like the world isn’t such an impossible and overwhelming place, that I too can stand fast and make it through.  My understanding of St. Paul’s words (above) is now something like the following: “Perseverance in times of trial might not bring hope to me, but it almost always will bring hope to others.”

Oddly enough, this gives me hope that my life is about more than just making it through the next struggle.

I’m pretty sure I’ve missed Paul’s meaning here, but I’m now convinced that my struggles are not just about me and the consequences or dividends that might result from how I respond.   They are, at least in part, an opportunity to effect the lives of people around me – to usher in a measure of hope that otherwise wouldn’t be here.

Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92: II. Allegretto (Instrumental)