03.26.21 - week 98
the foolishness of
single mindedness
Proverbs 14:12
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
there is a great temptation to see every situation you encounter through your favorite or most intuitive lens. the problem is that not every issue comes from the same root cause. this may be stretching it, but notice in the verse that the ‘way’ is singular. if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
of course, Jesus is the singular only way, but candidly those who love Him are often guilty of applying that singularity to everything. we wear glasses that show every problem as being sourced in our favorite cause.
are racism + sexism + class elitism the cause of some of our societal woes? sure
but selfishness + lying + jealousy + covetousness + various other forms of idolatry are certainly still raging just fine.
for your consideration from my (trying to be) humble perspective … if you don’t learn to see complex things for all their nuance, you will be a clanging symbol.
is it possible that some of your punishing of 90’s era ‘purity culture’ is cover for your lack of control over your personal sexuality?
is it possible your rage against the vaccine + doctors in general is actually a deep seated anti-authority streak incompatible with god’s word?
is it possible your use of mental health jargon is something helpful you re-formatted into a justification for selfishness?
is it possible your perpetual obsession w. spiritual formation + sabbath is a repackaging of the modern idol of self-discovery?
is it possible that all your talk of race + justice while good hearted is also a distraction from an unfruitful + evangelistic life?
maybe … just maybe, a lot of what you are saying is from the flesh + not the spirit. you see it through the lens that makes you feel good.
you of course answer to God and not me, but just because its popular + gets lots of plaudits, doesn’t necessarily mean its good .. fwiw, love you. if you only see the world through the lens that makes you feel good .. you aren’t loving your neighbor as yourself.
KG Korner
(a few wise words from lady kristen macdonald)
Chicagoland was gorgeous on Monday so we made our way to the zoo. It was Fefe’s first time that she would be able to remember and I must have set my expectations high for the day. Shortly after we arrived my hopes were a bit dashed. The boys were being boys, most of the indoor exhibits were closed due to COVID and at one point one of my sons looked at me and said, “Mom, why are there barely any animals here?!” All I could do was shake my head and say, “I know buddy, I’m disappointed too.” It all climaxed shortly after we ate lunch, as we started to walk toward the exit I felt something wet touch my hand. Immediately, I looked down with laughter and feelings of disgust when I realized it was a good- sized glob of bird poop! Ironically an inch away my bracelet read: EVERY MOMENT MATTERS.
But do we really think EVERY moment matters or just the shiny ones that we can display on Facebook and Instagram? I think that we are in need of a paradigm shift, self included. The way that our culture has taught us to think is that if our life is going well then we are doing something right but when we face adversity (whether trial or consequence) that we are doing something very wrong. Here’s what I found this week in Proverbs 24:10. It says, “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” Later on in verse 16 it says, “for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.” Adversity is promised in this life and I am sorry if you were sold a Christianity that said it included a life with no more troubles! That isn’t included but God’s presence in the midst of your pain is the humongous benefit that is in fact included. Psalm 34:19 says quite the opposite, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”
While we want to believe the lie that only prosperity will build our faith; adversity will indeed prove your perseverance and faith. But have you ever felt like you were going to faint in the process of adversity? I know I have and here’s the great news, there are many Bible characters that found themselves right there with you asking God why on earth they were born if they had to face something so difficult! Isaiah 40:29 says, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.” If you are in the midst of struggle for the strength to get through today all you have to do is ask, he wants to flood you with the strength and grace you need to get through. Sometimes I think that God allows us to see that we are trusting in ourselves too much or how much we value exterior things over him and in difficulty we are able to reprioritize what really matters to him.
Romans 5:3-5 brings much encouragement if you feel weighed down by the season you are in, it says,“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” You may not be able to see it yet or maybe just an inkling but God is at work in you through all your circumstances, every moment does matter, not just the shiny ones but also those humbling moments that bring you to your knees while you cry out to God and say HELP! If you have fainted, get back up again or ask for a friend to lend their hand to borrow their strength for a minute. God will bring you through and be faithful but if your strength feels small and you need prayer, feel free to send your request back to this email and luke and I would gladly pray for you this week!
#cupofleadership
(this concept is memorably shown in an old monty python skit my dad used to quote with his brothers, it’s dated but does hold up)
there is a temptation in our age towards a culture of inverted bragging. rather than boast of our success or money or possession, many younger folks engage in ‘trauma trumping,’ a performative exclamation of how difficult their life has been. because modern society pays attention to victims (which in many ways is a positive development), there is a race for those who have had a fairly healthy + happy upbringing to come up with a narrative that paints them as a victim.
whether it’s t-swift claiming to be unpopular (because rich thin girls are always at a disadvantage?) or lebron saying ‘nobody believes in us’ (when he was on cover of sports illustrated as a teenager?) or andrew cuomo claiming to be a political outsider (even though his father was governor of new york?), finding a way to seem damaged or hurt or unsupported in the social media realm is an easy way to induce attention + sympathy.
similar to the time when 5 girls in the same cabin sprained their ankles the same day at a junior high camp i was leading in 2011, the more this behavior is paid attention to, the more it will proliferate.
every time someone who wasn’t really abused forces those who were to pretend their experiences are equivalent, our societal ability to care for the truly hurt is lessened just a bit. we simply must live in reality, not try to brand build or deal with life by exaggerating the negative.
let me go first. i had wonderful parents. so did kristen. we are blessed to live in a family of healthy marriages + loving relationships. i was raised in a great church. i was educated in some good institutions. a few years ago, some really difficult things happened in my life. some of it was my fault. a lot of it wasn’t. i was treated unfairly and poorly by some people, i was also sacrificially loved by some others. i had to re-draw my plans for the future and i am starting to see some wonderful blessings out of it.
did i have some trauma? sure.
do many many people suffer more? yes.
as long as i had an attitude of ‘trauma trumping’ whereby everyone i talked to had to contort their narrative around my pain, i was moving both of us backward, not forward. that doesn’t mean the things other people did are ok, but that my desire to talk about it didn’t lead me to healing. and my desire to compare it to others, really only frustrated me + those around me.
1 Corinthians 7:17
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
book review
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
this short little book (100 pages) written in 1949 examines life for the unprivileged when juxtaposed against the ethics of Jesus. how can those whose lives are filled with hate + fear possibly love their enemies? how can those who have been mistreated by the system love the same Jesus as those running the system?
rather than human anger or strength, Thurman thoughtfully contends with the Sermon on the Mount, ultimately unfolding Jesus example as the answer to these questions. the paragraphs are rich + dense, i highly recommend this book, not as another book about race, but rather as how someone not from the white upper middle class religion many of us grew up with can read the same bible + love the same Jesus.
#superchristianguy
stuff to click on
sunday sermons from good news in the neighborhood are now on podcast … would love for you to follow along if it would help you :)
my childhood obsession with the mighty ducks movies has been rewarded with a re-boot. rooting for something good :) … i found this ranking of the players from the old group hilarious. (a few iffy words)