“Is this all?”

Photo by Mysi

Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — “Is this all?”

— Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)

Since then, millions of women have entered the workforce. I wonder if they’ve discovered what millions of men have known for centuries:

Each working husband struggles with this alone. As he made his sales quota, shopped for office supplies, matched the new brochure to the corporate colors, ate lunch with his co-workers, chauffeured Clients and VPs, sits at his desk at day’s end — he was afraid to ask even of himself the silent question — “Is this all?”

— John Tabita (The Masculine Mystique)*

* Not a real book

“We are not unaware of his schemes...”

When I came back to the Lord in the late 1980’s, I had a couple of “conditions.” First, I didn’t want to go around telling people how Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons really weren’t Christians. Second, I didn’t want to know anything about the end of the world, and in particular, the devil.

Funny… God didn’t honor any of my conditions. One of the first books I read shortly thereafter was Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth. I also ended up teaching a class at church about the Jehovah Witnesses and their beliefs, but that’s another story.

But about the “devil” part…

Now, I’m not the type of Christian that sees a devil behind a hangnail, but at this time in my life, a series of events occurred that was hard to chalk up to coincidence. First of all I needed to move from where I was living into a condo I’d been renting out. My tenant left owing me 3 months rent and an abandoned Volkswagen bus in the garage (minus the engine, which he had apparently tried to rebuild on the living room rug… as evidenced by the large grease stain).

On top of this, going from sharing rent with a roommate to paying the entire amount myself was a financial burden in itself, but then, the company I was working for laid off our entire customer service department to relocate it at the corporate headquarters in Louisiana. Soon afterwards, the transmission on my car went out. I couldn’t get a job without a car and I couldn’t get a car without a job. I felt stuck.

But the clincher was a girl I’d been interested in. Despite having mutual feeling for one another, she had a some issues she was dealing with, so we’d decided to just be friends for the time being. (Although that didn’t diminish my feelings for her.) But soon afterwards, she approached me at a gathering we both happened to be at and began telling me how she could see herself married to me, having children with me and being happy… and I thought to myself: “Yes! See’s finally seeing what I’ve being seeing for months now!”

Then she proceeded to tell me that she had been dating “George” and that she and “George” were moving in together, and that she wanted me to know because she really did care about me.

You can imagine my drive home that night. About halfway there, I was about as low as you could get, and I begin telling God that if this is the life he had for me, that I was better off without him. I started to say that if Satan really wanted me that bad, he could just have me…

But I stopped short of saying the words. It was as if the Holy Spirit rose up in me and I suddenly shut my mouth. Even as low as I was, I recognized that it was Satan, not God, who was orchestrating all of this. It seems I wasn’t going to be able to ignore him, after all.

Incidentally, “George” turned out to be obsessive, possessive, and physically abusive. She eventually moved out and got a restraining order against him.

Life or Lord?

Photo by gustaffo89

Recently on Facebook, a relative posted the following in her status box:

Okay, Life… I give up. Do whatever the ?#@*&%! you want with me.

I guess she was having a bad day. I probably didn't help. I commented that, if she substituted “Life” with “Lord” and eliminated the “?#@*&%!” then she had nailed it.

It occurred to me how we as Christians can fall into this type of thinking…

We act as if Life and Lord are the same thing, interpreting everything that happens to us in life as God’s will.

But God is Love, not Life. God is separate from his creation. The idea that God and his creation (i.e., Life, Nature) are the same is not Christianity, but Pantheism.

You see, Pantheists do not believe in a creator God. They believe that God and Nature are one, that all living things contain a divine spark within them. But the Bible teaches that God created the world and that the world is fallen. The Bible calls Satan “the god of this age,” and says that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” So why do we assume that whatever Life throws at us must somehow be God's will?

One Thing I Hate about You

I’m tempted to dislike someone. Not just anyone, but a particular someone. The source of my dislike is a person who mouthed off to my nine-year-old boy. I didn’t hear it, but my son told us about the incident. On two separate ocassions, this person told my son to “shut your mouth” during baseball practice.

Not long after the first occurrence, I was outside doing some yardwork, when this snippet of a verse ran through my head:

“Regard no one from a worldly point of view...”

I recognized the verse. It’s from 2 Corinthians 5:14-16:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

Paul is saying that he and others once regarded Christ “as just a person” and not as who he really is — the one that died for everyone’s sins. So, in the same manner, I ought not to regard this other person from a worldly point of view, but as one for whom Christ died.

So now I’m busted. That means this person is not really just the loud-mouthed jerk I think she is. It means she’s either a Christian or she’s not. If so, then she’s my sister in Christ. (Ouch.) If not, then I ought to be more concerned about her salvation than how much I or my son have been wronged. (Ouch again.)

The Bible talks a lot about suffering as a Christian. Many people take that to mean bad things, like sickness, are going to happen to us. But I think otherwise. Godly suffering is suffering for doing the right thing. And that manifests both externally and internally. Externally, we can suffer pursecution for doing the right thing. But internally, we suffer in the flesh by doing the right thing.

Here’s what I mean.

While this issue with my son needs to be addressed, my flesh would like to handle things quite differently than the Spirit of God would:

For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. - Galatians 5:17 (NIV)

While neither the sinful nature (i.e., the flesh) or the Spirit referred to in this verse are me, the conflict takes place within me. I suffer emotionally while this takes place, as I stuggle to yield to the Spirit within me rather than my flesh.

Ergo, the suffering...

He Gives and Takes Away... or Does He?

I had a discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine regarding the Haitian earthquake. He had linked to a video in which a Haitian pastor quoted Job 1:21:

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

My friend was impressed with the pastor’s spirituality, and even made this statement: “Everything is by God, through God, and for God’s glory.”

Perhaps you agree with that. I don’t. The problem with The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away is that it cannot be applied to the situation in Haiti. Let me explain why.

Job had a covenant with God and, if you recall, Satan made this accusation about Job:

“…stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and surely he will curse you to your face.”

You see, God specifically allowed Satan access to Job in order to prove that Satan’s accusation was not true. And while many religious leaders have come forth with their opinions on why it happened, this cannot be the case with Haiti, because the nation of Haiti is not in covenant with God.

Others believe that is God is “dealing” with Haiti’s sin, because of voodoo. But there’s a problem with that as well: God is currently “not counting men’s sins against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:19). There will come a day when God will judge men’s sins (Acts 17:31), but that day is not today.

Romans 1:18-32 clearly states how God pours out his wrath — by giving Men over to the sinful desires of their hearts, to shameful lusts and to a depraved mind. God does not pour out his wrath in the form of earthquakes or natural disasters. Nor does he allow man-made disasters, such as 9/11, to occur to punish a nation’s sins.

The problem with getting our theology from the book of Job is that most of it consists of Job and his friends expounding incorrect doctrine. Verses like, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,” are often quoted as examples of the proper attitude we should take in the face of tragedy. Yet if we are to accept these words from Job as “the true nature of God,” then what about the other things he said about God, such as:

You formed me with your hands; you made me,
yet now you completely destroy me. (Job 10:8)

You have become cruel toward me.
You use your power to persecute me. (Job 30:21)

God hates me and angrily tears me apart.
He snaps his teeth at me
and pierces me with his eyes. (Job 16:9)

If I hold up my head, you hunt me like a lion
and again show your terrible power against me. (Job 10:16)

When a plague sweeps through,
he laughs at the death of the innocent.
The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked,
and God blinds the eyes of the judges.
If he’s not the one who does it, who is? (Job 9:23-24)

Why is it that pastors never quote these verses as an accurate description of God’s character? Could it be because they sound more like a description of Satan rather than God? (See 1 Peter 5:8.) Scripture calls him the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and says that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19)

That’s why I disagreed with my friend when he wrote, “Everything is by God, through God, and for God’s glory.” James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.” There’s nothing “good” or “perfect” about what’s happening in Haiti right now.

God will certainly use tragedies like this to his greater glory, but I do not believe that he in any way ordains them for the purpose of building the character of his saints, judging the sins of unbelievers, or furthering his glory.