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On April 28, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Theology

Who Am I?

Who are you? Whether you realize it or not, whether for good or for ill, you have been told who you are all of your life, and you have grown up into that identity. Being given an identity, defined by others, is not evil in itself. It is part of being a creature. We are made in the image of God, and, from the beginning, we have been told who we are. As image-bearing creatures and procreators, we define the lives of our children, and we have been defined as children by our parents. We have been taught our identity, and we have grown up into it.

Sin sees an opportunity with this created order and seizes upon it. Sin knows that if it can determine the answer to the question, “Who are you?” then it can control your life. If sin can damage you through abuse as a child, it will. Furthermore, sin will take those horrible instances and tell you for the rest of your life that you are a victim, you can never have a good relationship with anyone, you must always protect yourself from being hurt again, and you must look for love in all the wrong ways. You answer the question, “Who am I?” with “the victim of abuse,” and from that point on, you relate to everyone around you in terms of your victimhood.

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On April 20, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Theology

Holy Saturday: Joyful Tension

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth in the space of six days. On the seventh day, he rested. The Sabbath was a time of enthronement in which God enjoyed his work. Man, created as the image of God, was to follow God’s pattern of creative work in six days followed by a day of enthronement rest. After six days of work, man was called to ascend with God to be enthroned with him and enjoy the fruits of his labor with God.

The purpose of man’s labor was to develop the world so that it looked like God’s heavenly throne room. As man’s work progressed, God drew nearer, drawing heaven and earth together at the Tabernacle and, eventually, the Temple. God’s throne was established in the Holy of Holies, above the cherubim who sat atop the ark of the covenant (2Kg 19.15). This was the footstool of God’s throne, uniting heaven and earth. This was God’s resting place (2Chr 6.41). In worship each Sabbath day, man ascended to the throne of God through the mediation of animals, grain, oil, and fragrances, there to enjoy Sabbath rest, celebrating the work of the previous six days.

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On April 14, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Politics

Palm Sunday Meditation

When Jesus draws near things happen. When Jesus enters Jerusalem, hearts are exposed as the sun into a dark room. Palm Sunday means we are compelled to decide whether this donkey-riding messianic figure is who he claims to be.

When Jesus comes, our hearts are opened. What does he expose in us? Is it our sense of insecurity? “My Lord is coming! What if he sees me for who I really am?” Or perhaps when the Lord comes, we hide in fear like Adam and Eve believing that if we hide just long enough, perhaps our Lord will just keep riding his donkey to another town.

When Jesus comes, as He does this morning, we ought to feel exposed, but we ought not to feel shame. Shame is the exposure of our nakedness. Shame happens when we think that our exposure means our death; when we think that our ugliness has been revealed and there is no reason left to live. Ultimately, shame is rooted in our inherent preference to trust false gods rather than depend on God for each and every moment of our existence. What happens when we are exposed by Jesus’ coming? The answer is, “We lay down palm branches before him.” That is to say, we affirm that he controls everything; that does not come to us to crush our dreams, or to make us miserable, but he rules over us to make us strong in our weakness. In fact, shame happens when we think we are too strong. The message of Palm Sunday is to expose yourself to the king of love. He came to Jerusalem to die for your sin and shame. He came to Jerusalem so you may have life and life more abundantly.

[1] See Alender, Cry of the Soul, 195[2] Alender.

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On April 10, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Scribblings

Lenten Journey, Day 31; When heaven breaks through

“But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. (Ps. 5:11)

Every time heaven breaks through our daily life, it is a reason to rejoice. It breaks through with tremendous regularity in big events, like the birth of a child, the provision of our financial needs, recovering through severe pain, or whatever it may be, we see heaven given to us regularly. But heaven also breaks through in many little things, like the response of a child to the wisdom of God, the beauty of a sunny day, the note or word of encouragement. Are we responding to that joy when heaven breaks through? It is common for people to talk to one another to report the sad details of other people’s lives; it is not so common to rejoice in the details of other people’s lives. We need more of that. We need to be genuinely joyful over the joy of others. Instead of lamenting the joy of others, let us rejoice in their well-being. Our lack of joy may stem from our lack of joy for other people’s joy.

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On April 9, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety

Lenten Journey, Day 30, Love as Ethics

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love…” Gal. 5:22

Love is not a possession of some kind; it is not an abstract idea, it is not only the motivating factor for behavior, rather love is behavior. In simple terms, love is action, or we may say: “love is ethics.” It is concrete and visible; it is covenantal and relational. In fact, it is so concrete for Paul that he says I Corinthians 2 that “(he) decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Love, for St. Paul, is most clearly demonstrated in the concrete suffering of Christ for us. He gave himself for us, while we were yet sinners. To love is to act; anything short of action is not love at all. A husband can say he loves his wife 100 times a day, but if he refuses to connect his words to his actions, there is no fruit to his love. Our mission is to pursue the fruit of love in word and deed.

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On April 8, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety

Someone Has to Die

I once was having a conversation with a woman who was having difficulty in her marriage.  Her husband was consistently struggling to bring his home into order. The problem was two-fold.

First, he was allowing a certain sin to set up camp in his heart.  It’s not as though he was overjoyed at the struggle he was having, but he was not exactly kicking the scoundrel out with a swift boot to the backside either.  This tolerance of sin is what created the bigger problem in his home. When a man is truly taking his duty of godly dominion seriously, the result will be a degree of beauty and order.  His home will be slowly and steadily growing in these areas. When a man allows sin to get all comfy in his garden, then chaos and ugliness will result. It will follow him in whatever his hand touches.  His wife will be infected by it, his children will be infected by it, his work will be infected by it. Everything will start to wither and fall apart. Something has to die. Either sin and self has to die or the things around him will die.  Death is inevitable, which leads me to the second problem.

Her second problem was the struggle to allow sin to have its natural consequences in his life in order that he might wake up to the seriousness of the situation.  She was concerned that if she stopped bailing him out then others would suffer. The children would suffer if she didn’t pick up the slack and provide for the family.  Others within the extended family and the church would have to sacrifice to take care of her and the kids if the consequences of his sin were allowed to come to the surface.  This is true. The man is called to lay down his life for his family. He is to die to himself that he might give life to those under his care. If a man will not do this because of a love for his sin and a love of self, then someone else has to do it.  Life only comes through death. Abundant fruit only comes from dying seeds. If a man will not die to himself that his family might be blessed, then someone else will have to do it in his place. Others will have to sacrifice, others will have to serve. No amount of enabling or pretending can prevent this.

And a man can only do this if he has first looked to the One who suffered and died in his place.  Christ was crucified and buried that all us men once enslaved to our lusts and in love with our own lives might be raised as servant-kings.  And the people who continue to live under the care of such men can only endure with grace and hope if they also have looked to the One who endured undeserved hardship for the joy of redeeming and restoring an undeserving people to glory and honor.

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On April 7, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety

Dealing With Shame Faithfully

“For we walk by faith and not by sight.” So says the apostle Paul in 2Cor 5.7. Paul is, of course, dealing with a particular issue there in that context, but this statement is a general principle of the Christian faith that he is applying to that context. Paul is laying down the way that all Christians must walk in every area of life: by faith. Faith is relying upon what God says and having your thoughts, actions, and desires shaped according to his word. Faith is thinking Christianly.

Learning this way of life is a struggle. We have enemies within and without. Our own sin that seeks to exalt itself and our own word of authority fight submission to what God says. We hear the voices of the world echoing the words of the devil, “Has God really said?…” God’s authority is challenged in our lives at every turn. We are tempted not to listen to him and exalt our own word or the words of others above his, conforming our lives to those words.

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On April 6, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Scribblings

Lenten Journey, Day 28; Sacrifice and Love

I John 3:16: This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Laying down our lives is a distinctly Christian commitment. Only the Christian can truly say they follow a Lord who died for them. The sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is the model of Christian existence. The Christian faith is self-sacrificial. The saint looks at his brother and says, “You are a follower of the crucified Lord and my duty is to lay down my life for you.”

Now, at this point, it is tempting to list ten examples of sacrifice, but one would naturally feel like once he completes the list his sacrificial disposition ends. Laying down our lives for one another is not always calculated, it is generally an act of service at a time when we least expect.

True love sees an opportunity to lay down our lives and seizes it with wonder at the Lord of glory who gave his body on a tree. In communion with one another sacrifice becomes the language of love. As C.S. Lewis describes: “When God becomes a Man and lives as a creature among His own creatures in Palestine, then indeed His life is one of supreme self-sacrifice and leads to Calvary.”

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On March 21, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Scribblings

Lenten Journey, Day 14; What does it mean to be anxious for nothing?

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On March 10, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety

The Need for Approval

In the beginning, after the final act of creation was done, God saw everything that he made and declared it “very good.” This declaration included man himself, man and woman. Since that time man has had the need to be approved, vindicated, or justified in the eyes of God himself and those who represent him in our lives. Children need to hear “Well done” from their parents, reflecting the divine pleasure of God himself. A spouse needs to hear approval from the lips and attitude of his wife or her husband. The employee needs approval from his employer in the form of praise or pay. A peer needs vindication from his peer group that he is accepted. We are beings created with a need to be judged and found acceptable.

One of the problems we have in our sin is that we set up false gods, gods who make themselves readily available, to judge us by the wrong standards and give us the acceptance we crave. This vindication is quick and easy. The echo chambers we create in our society through social media and other avenues gives us a great cloud of judges surrounding us to tell us that we are accepted, that we are justified because of the way we think, act, talk, and the positions we take on issues. These gods are all too happy to grant us quickly the justification we long for, and we are all too happy to be satisfied with their judgments. The more they approve of us, the deeper our affection for these gods.

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