Winning the World

In today's society, we are surrounded by competitiveness.  "Win or go home" ... "The one with the most toys wins" ... "We are the champions."  

The competitiveness of others often brings out my own competitiveness.  This creates a vicious cycle where, in the end, no one wins.  In fact, the physical objects that we are competing to attain have very little value and certainly no eternal value at all.  

Why do we do this to ourselves as humans?  It is like we are race horses with blinders on.  We are so focused on the narrow track that it is difficult to see the big, eternal picture.  

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The Battles

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The life of a Christian is not easy.  Jesus himself told his disciples that "in the world you will have trouble."  But then he added, "take heart; I have overcome the world.”  What a glorious thought.  

In this world, we are bombarded by challenges ... temptations, jealousies, pain, suffering, loss.  We can be attacked for our beliefs, or attacked for no reason at all.  Challenges can manifest themselves at work or at home.  The world is a broken place, and as a result, challenges abound.  But God's grace abounds "much more".

In fact, pain and suffering are mechanisms for our own growth.  God often uses our most pressing challenges as ways to turn us back to Him.

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The Narrow Path

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As we lean on the Holy Spirit to help us become the people we are designed to become, we need to be mindful of the easy and accessible paths of this earthly life.  In several instances in the Bible, we are told of the easy paths to destruction.  In fact, there are so many references to the ways in which we can go astray, that I often feel like I don't have a chance at keeping it together.  Jesus went as far as to say, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

What we see is in the Bible is not doom and gloom but rather a reminder that we need the Holy Spirit to take help us "enter by the narrow gate."  We really do not stand a chance on our own.  Left to our human instincts, and our fleshly desires, we will certainly find ourselves heading for the wide gate ... the easy way.  Why is that way so easy?  

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It Won't Be Easy

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There is a school of thought that once you are Christian, life is easy street.  This is far from the truth on many levels.  One of the immediate realities is that as you become the person you are designed to be, you may experience rejection and ridicule from those whom you have known for years.  The Bible is clear that not everyone will see the truth.  Some will have their eyes opened, while others will not.

If you are on the path to becoming the person you are designed to be, then people you have known for years will accept it, while others will have a very negative reaction.  Living a life of faith and demonstrating that faith through your actions can be seen as wonderful for some of your peers, but may very well bring the scorn of your other peers.  Just keep in mind, the alternative is worse.  

Not a Reference Guide

Being the person that we are designed to become is not easy.  Our human instincts pull us toward temptation.  The world doesn't exactly help either!  We wander down paths that are not rewarding, and paths that are downright damaging.  Often we have to trudge back to the right path as there is no positive outcome from our current path.

We are fortunate to have a God that cares about us and is right by our side.  Too often, we treat God as a reference guide, and not like the partner that he is.  Every once in a while we will pray to God, listen to Christian music, or read the Bible seeking some reference type of advice.  Imagine wandering through the woods, making mistake after mistake, getting lost over and over, and only once in a while turning to the expert next to you for help.  

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Be the Joneses

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There is a saying that more people read the Christian than read the Bible ... or something to that effect.  The reality is that, for many non-believers, the ways of their Christian friends are the main source of initial knowledge about Christianity and its impacts.  We can't expect that they are just waltzing into the library and picking up the Bible to explore.  In most instances, they are studying us first!

So does this mean that we are supposed to be perfect all of the time?  Do you feel a bit of stress at the thought that others judge Christianity by your actions?  Well, don't be stressed.  It is important to know that we are on display, and others are watching us to see if Christianity is real or just a show.  But it is also important to know that we will never be perfect.  What we want to be is different!

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Easier Said than Done

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"And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  Disheartened by the saying, the man went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”  And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?”  Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” "

This message in the book of Mark is powerful.  At first, the message seems to be an Occupy Wall Street style rebuke of the wealthy.  But, the last couple of lines are key.  

The Gentle Slope to Nothing

My son and I recently went to Disney World.  The big topic each day was which rides we would be targeting.  Specifically, my son wanted to know whether the rides had big drops and were super fast ... those he wanted to avoid.  

On the plane ride back from Orlando I was reading C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, within which he talks about the small sins that take us slowly and quietly away from the people that we are designed to be, towards what Lewis calls "the Nothing".  In Screwtape Letters, Lewis notes:

"...the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

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I thought it was supposed to be easier....

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Life here on planet earth is not always easy.  As we begin to know our current selves, we begin to see that we are flawed, those around us are flawed, and collectively ... well ... you get the point. 

So often, we see things go well for some, and really poorly for others.  When you read the news, there are so many people who suffer so greatly.  As Christians, we want to believe that everything will be easy street for us, but really it is far from easy.  "But I'm a Christian ... God will take care of me right?"  Well, the answer is yes and no.  God will certainly take care of us, but this does not always follow the path that we would imagine.  

The reality is that we exist to serve God, not the other way around.  God is not a grandparent who spoils his children.  God's main job is not to orchestrate a storybook life for each one of us.  God wants a relationship with us, he wants us to lean on him and find rest in him, and he wants us to be with him for eternity.  Eternity is more important than an A on a test, a promotion at work, or a call back from that girl.

We assume that we understand exactly what we need and the way that things should work. But we are small in the vastness of everything, and frankly we don't have a clue.  Timothy Keller noted, "God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything he knows."  Basically Keller's point is that the God of the universe knows a lot more than we do, and as we pray and ask for things, the things that we seek may not be what we would really want if we knew the outcomes.  God uses each of us in so many ways, to do so many things, that we may never realize while on earth how many times we have been used to do God's work.  How God directs our life, including the tough times, has purpose, even if we cannot comprehend the why.

C.S. Lewis noted, and I paraphrase, that we tend to drift away from God when everything is going well.  God uses trials to pull us back closer.  The tough times in our lives are a blessing and an amazing grace.  God could let us drift off to terrible eternal conclusions, but he cares enough to pull us back in.  Christianity is the only major religion / world view that looks at suffering in this way.  The Bible shows us over and over how pain and suffering are used to bring people back to a closeness with God.  These tough times are not punishments, they are blessings.  In the short time that we are on earth, these tough times might be catastrophic and unbearable.  I understand this.  If we take the eternal view, we can use even the most catastrophic events to forge us into a stronger relationship with God.

Bottom line is that things do go bad and will go bad, even for Christians.  God's job is not to pave our roads with rose petals and candy and help us avoid all pitfalls.  In fact, God shows us amazing grace to pull us back towards him.  At the moments when we deserve it the least, he is still right there, showing us grace and helping us back to him.

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It Takes More than Sunday Church

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n my recent review of J.C. Ryle's Thoughts for Young Men, I noted how effectively Ryle advised that it is not enough to merely know of Jesus, you must know his mercy, grace, and power.  I can speak for many when I note that I sat in churches for decades thinking that attendance was what I needed to do to cover my spiritual bases.  If I showed up, I would make it.  If only I had read Ryle's additional commentary:

"...if you think the mere carrying of your body to a certain building, at certain times, on a certain day of the week, will make you a Christian, and prepare you to meet God, I tell you flatly you are miserably deceived."

The truth is that it is not about our actions, it is about our relationship with Christ.  I find that Churches today are not spending enough time focusing on the nature and dynamic of our human to Christ relationship.  

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Can I Get a Little Help?

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Once you really see yourself for how you have been, and see the person you are designed to become, the real action starts!  "Being yourself" is about living what you have come to understand as your designed way of being.  We are meant to be humble, selfless, and giving towards others.  What does this mean?  It means no longer pursuing happiness in the search of what we call the deep idols: (1) power, (2) acceptance from others, (3) comfort, and (4) control.  These deep idols were critical items to many of us, until we came to understand that they are fleeting and ultimately lead to misery.

Living a humble, selfless life is tough stuff.  It is clear to me that I am completely unable to do this on my own.  I need more than a little help ... I need a lot of help to live my life in this way.