Christian Living

Showing Jesus to the internet

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If you’re a Christian, then wherever you are is a mission field. That includes social media. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter or Google+ or anywhere at all where others can see what you say and do, then you’re testifying something about what it means to be a Christian with every key you press. That’s a sobering realization, but it’s also a pretty cool opportunity. In a world where it is hard to find openings for meaningful conversations with unbelievers, you probably have dozens and dozens of people who watch and listen to whatever you want to say, every day, through your social media account. We ought to make the most of that opportunity!

Beyond posting Bible verses
We have to think bigger than the content we post. That is a testimony, sure. But you are most compelling when you are least prepared. The give-and-take of a discussion thread shows far more about who you are in Christ and what you believe. Remember: If people know you are a Christian (and they should!), then every time you hit “Enter,” you’re showing people something about what it means to bear that name.

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Toward not despising the day of small things*

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I was on the mock trials team in college, but I was not very good at it. Well, I actually was pretty good when I was playing the role of a witness, but when I competed as a lawyer, I just couldn’t seem to get it right. This was a bit demoralizing for someone who, at the time, thought he wanted to go to law school. It was also odd, because I had done well in high school debate. I could not figure out why mock trials lawyering did not “click” for me, but in hindsight I think I know. Unlike debate, mock trials is a team event. There are three “lawyers” and three “witnesses” on each team, and you are judged as a group. It is literally impossible for one person to win it or lose it, and everyone has to do their part. When I was playing a witness it was easier to just focus on my piece and let the lawyers manage the big picture, but when I was a lawyer my debate instincts and competitiveness kicked in and I was always looking for the one killer argument or perfect point that would win the case for us all–and therefore I wasn’t a very good lawyer, because I was trying so hard to do our job that I wasn’t focused on my job.

Is there anything that the people who made Just Do It one of the most successful advertising slogans in history hate more than outcomes that are in someone else’s hands? It’s part of what makes marriage and parenting so hard; the fact that you are making something with someone else, like two pianists sharing one instrument. We cannot stand the feeling of responsibility without control.

I think a lot of Christians are feeling that way about our culture. We know all the Bible verses about evangelizing the nations, about being ambassadors for God in a lost world, and we realize they are talking to us. Meanwhile, we see our country falling away from any sort of Christian identity and enthusiastically and publicly embracing every flavor of sin, and we think, hey, the church needs to do something about that; I need to do something about that. But what can you do about a problem made up of hundreds of millions of people, most of whom have already heard the gospel and consciously rejected it?

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Serving God in a world full of needs

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Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. –Galatians 6:9-10

We all know Christians are called to serve. In fact, loving service is so integral to the Christian walk that James said “Faith without works is dead,” and Jesus declared that the distinguishing characteristic of His people in the day of judgment would be that “I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.” If you are a Christian, if you have the Holy Spirit living within you, then you have felt the urge to “do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” But here’s the thing: all people is a lot. Anyone who takes the time to look will find needs and opportunities for service stretching far beyond our ability to help and give. It is quite simply overwhelming.

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Learning to wait in an efficient world

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Earlier today, I had a few minutes free so I decided to run out to make a deposit at my bank, which is located across town. Twenty minutes later, on the way home, I realized I might have made a mistake with the deposit slip. I was at a long traffic light so I whipped out my smartphone and checked to make sure it went through properly. Sigh of relief. Then I wondered if I’d gotten any new emails, so I checked, because why not?

It’s become a commonplace to observe that technology has practically removed time and space from our calculations. You can be there and have that, right now. You want to be in Virginia by lunchtime? Sure, hop in the car. You want to be in Tokyo by tomorrow? Sure, hop on the airplane; you can save time by buying the tickets with your phone on the way to the airport. We live in the age of instant gratification, when, if you feel a sudden hankering to watch SportsCenter and you don’t happen to be near the television in your living room or the television in your bedroom or the television in your kitchen, you can just whip out your iPhone to enjoy live streaming straight to the palm of your hand. Amazon Prime rakes in millions of dollars by getting Season 4 of Downton Abbey to you three days sooner. We have learned to expect everything to be here and ready with an urgency that rivals a nicotine addict reaching for his next cigarette.

Now, it’s true that all that speed and convenience aren’t necessarily bad. Time is limited, and tools that help us invest it well can be a good thing. But it’s worth considering how living with our own, personal technological genie in a bottle affects us. Among other things, it has made simply waiting feel strange and almost wrong. One of the great lessons of Scripture is to wait on the Lord; and waiting on Him is a lot harder when He’s just about the only thing left that expects us to.

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About modesty

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I read an article recently which explained that the Christian ideal of female modesty justified sexual assault by making a man’s self-control the responsibility of the woman. My interest today isn’t in offering a lengthy rebuttal to that argument. In fact, I’ll confine myself to noting the Lord’s scathing response to King David over his adultery with Bathsheba, regardless of how he might have been tempted beforehand by her decision to bathe in plain sight of the palace. Clearly, divine appreciation for “she made me do it” excuses hasn’t increased since Adam tried it. Strawmen aside, though, the article’s underlying perspective that encouraging modesty means putting on women a responsibility that rightly belongs to men is one that I’ve seen frequently echoed in recent discussions among Christians.

In some ways, it’s an appropriate correction. There have certainly been segments of evangelical Christianity which have, in practice if not usually in theory, placed very disproportionate responsibility on women for maintaining sexual purity. I still recall hearing a young lady matter-of-factly describe how, when her boyfriend groped her while they were kissing, she would always swat his hand to help him remember (apparently unsuccessfully) not to do it again. It didn’t seem to occur to either of them that the fellow himself might need to exercise some self-control, perhaps with accompanying reading from Matthew 5:30 for motivation. And it’s absolutely heartbreaking to hear some women describe growing up terrified of predatory males whose inevitable lustfulness it was the girl’s job to prevent by becoming a social nullity swathed in protective layers of cloth. So, yes, absolutely: if we forget that the biblical model for men is Joseph with Potiphar’s wife, not David with Bathsheba, then we have gotten things badly off-balance. However, it’s awfully hard to avoid overshooting the mark as the pendulum swings back, and I’m afraid we may be seeing that happen.

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When your child sins

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Teens do a lot of astonishingly foolish things. They also do a lot of sinful things, and one of the great challenges of parenthood is the question of how to react to the inevitable foolishness and sin that come with learning how to be a man or a woman.

It’s easy for our love for our children (more charitably) or our pride (less charitably) to make us expect a sinlessness from them that we know is beyond our own reach. Every one of us could list persistent sins with which we’ve struggled for years: pride or lust or gossip or lack of faith. We can think back to sins we’ve committed that nauseate us with their selfishness or perversion or rebellion. The Christian is never satisfied with anything short of holiness, but we also recognize that sanctification is a process and the presence of sin does not nullify the promise of salvation. “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” Your children are born sick, just like you. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t need a Savior.

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Feeling what God feels

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As anyone who’s ever been cut off in traffic knows, our emotions aren’t the best guide for our behavior. Whether we’re doubting God’s goodness or struggling to turn the other cheek or fighting the urge to check out the girl in the bikini, the gut-level pull is often in the wrong direction. However, even though feelings shouldn’t point the way when we make our decisions, they can’t be ignored either. Holiness is much easier if it goes with the grain of our emotions rather than against it.

When I’m browsing the web and stumble on a pornographic popup ad, I can choose to close it regardless of what I’m feeling. It’s certainly an easier choice, though, if Christian anger and pity over violated innocence are there to counter the baser emotions the ad is meant to arouse. When my church goes to minister at a local nursing home, I can and should make myself go along even if I struggle to feel anything but revulsion for the unfortunates wasting away, but I’ll do more good if the choice grows out of genuine affection and sympathy. 

Which raises an interesting dilemma, because there’s really nothing I can do to directly change my emotions. A good argument can change my mind and a teeth-gritting choice can shift my will, but, at any particular moment, the best that can be done with my emotions is to overrule them. That’s not to say our emotional composition cannot be changed–it’s just a longer process, more like shaping a bonsai than like turning a steering wheel. And since our emotions are so closely tied up with our moral decision-making, it’s worth thinking about how our feelings can be included in the process of “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.” There are a few things that we can do. 

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Show, don’t tell

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Your children badly need to see your faith making your life unpleasant.

You see, real things make demands upon us. A puppy is not the same as a stuffed animal, and even a little child can feel the difference when a play date is cut short to go home and take Fido out for a walk. When my wife was a little girl she had a paper cutout “husband” with whom she played at times, and then at other times she would pack him away in a drawer. That’s not an option with her real husband–I may need to talk, or need dinner, or need a hug, even when she’s tired and out of sorts. Even something as basic as gravity tells us it’s there by restricting what we can do. Real things disrupt your life.

In some parts of the world, Christian children hear their parents telling them God is real by hand-writing copies of the one village Bible, or gathering in hidden rooms to worship, or being carted off to prison or death because they will not deny their Lord. In America, we tell our children God is real by having an Easter egg hunt.

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Doing the right thing for the (sort of) wrong reason

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I recently watched a video of a fellow talking to a group of young women about whether or not they should wear bikinis. You shouldn’t, he explained, because it makes men objectify you. He even cited several neurological studies showing that male brains literally process images of bikini-clad women as if they were things, rather than people. Thus, if you want to be valued for who you are, you ought to dress modestly, he concluded; men will be more likely to find you attractive if your own scantily-clad body isn’t running interference. In related news, recent studies have shown that water is wet.

Despite the obviousness of the advice, something about it didn’t feel quite right, for the same reason that I’m always a little troubled by warnings to young men that they shouldn’t look at porn because it will make them less suitable for godly young women. Well yes, obviously… but. If you tell a girl she shouldn’t wear a bikini because it will make young men objectify her, what happens when she wakes up one day and realizes she wouldn’t much mind being objectified if it means having someone to hold her? What happens when you tell a boy he shouldn’t look at porn because porn now will harm his relationship with his wife later, and he concludes he’s mostly just interested in porn now?

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Virtue, vice, and double negatives

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You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

Christian virtue offers just one example of the mysterious coexistence of divine sovereignty with human freedom and responsibility. Even for those who are saved, any attempt at self-reliant virtue promises to be about as successful as Peter’s stroll on the Sea of Galilee. We cannot foster our own holiness any more than a bee can conjure honey through sheer willpower. Yet on the other hand, the Christian walk is described as a fight, a race; we are exhorted to “run in such a way that you may win.” Like Peter, we’re entirely dependent on Christ for any hope of reaching our destination, but, also like Peter, it’s still our responsibility to fight our way over the waves.

Part of that fight is to resist sin. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit”; being a Christian means learning to hate what our Father hates. In fact, one might easily imagine virtue as a sort of path threaded safely among various “thou shalt nots.” So we pray that our children will not fall into bad company and we exhort teenagers to avoid premarital sex and we counsel men on how to avoid being pushovers, and very often we completely miss the point.

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