Suffering requires perspective

Isaiah 1:18

“Come now, let us reason together,”

says the LORD.

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson,

they shall be like wool

Last year I lost a friend.  His death frightened me and sobered me to the reality of my mortality.  My faith had been corrupted by my own selfish ambitions and all it took was for one unexpected tragedy and I was lost.  Life has a tendency to do that.  It hits you when you least expect it.

Britt Merrick is a pastor from a church in Carpenteria called Reality.  Last year his daughter fainted and become unresponsive while at school.  Turns out she had a tumor.  Six months and a whole lot of chemo later and the Merrick’s were celebrating her remission.  They were praising God thanking everyone for their prayers.  The family jolted off to Hawaii for a vacation to celebrate.

The cancer returned almost immediately.  Daisy developed a new inoperable football sized Wilms tumor.  Imagine the heartbreak they felt when they found out that their nightmare was far from over.  As a father I can only imagine the feeling of total helplessness as you watch your daughter suffer an indescribable amount of pain and suffering. I know that Britt would carry her afflictions on him if he had the option.  He would take the chemo and the surgeries in a heartbeat if God would just let him bear her burden.

I have been praying for Daisy and for the Merrick family but I have to admit that I have also been quietly observing how he handles this crisis.  Britt’s life is a living testimony that faith is not something we cling to when things are going great in our lives.  Here are a collection of some of his recent Tweets from the hospital…

Enjoy Jesus & know that He is able to be enjoyed even when your health & loved ones fail

“This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me.” – Ps. 119:50

“When my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” – Ps. 61:2

Cling to God’s word in times of struggle

I am so foolish.  As I sat staring at my friend’s grave I thought about me.  How was I going to be able to handle this?  How was I going to be there for his children?  How was I going to be there for his mother who had lost her only son?

In this world you will have trouble, Jesus promised.  Although we know this, we don’t really know it sometimes.  We become deceived by our own good fortune.  We feel as though we are immune to suffering and that God’s creation was designed as a playground for me and my pleasure.

Britt Merrick is a true man after God’s own heart.  A modern day Job who cries out to God when all hope seems lost, ”Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” ~Job 13:1

Find God’s perspective

We can’t know everything about God or about why things happen.  I understand the cynics who say that there can’t be a loving and powerful God if we so many innocent suffering needlessly.  But I have learned that there is one fatal flaw in their reasoning: they don’t know God’s perspective.

If the Bible is true and that we will live for eternity with God in his presence, then the afflictions of this world are but a bump in the road.  Will Daisy even remember her chemo a thousand years from now?  How much joy will God give to this family for their faithfulness through this season?  Consider the lyrics of the classic song Amazing Grace…

When we’ve been here ten thousand years

Bright shining as the sun.

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we’ve first begun.

Filed under: Bible

Servanthood

Isaiah 1:16-17

wash and make yourselves clean.

Take your evil deeds

out of my sight!

Stop doing wrong,

learn to do right!

Seek justice,

encourage the oppressed.

Defend the cause of the fatherless,

plead the case of the widow.

My wife sees herself as the solution to everyone’s problems.  I’m always amazed by her selflessness.  The other day a single mother wrote on Facebook that she needed to paint her nursery and my wife immediately was ready to volunteer herself without being asked.  Another woman recently burned herself with scalding water.  My wife had a meal ready for them almost instantly.  Or consider the care ministry she started where if someone has a child or has to go to the hospital two weeks worth of meals can be filled up in a matter of hours.  Or maybe consider the moving ministry she started where as many as a dozen husbands show up to a stranger’s house and help ease the burden of moving.

She has a genuine love for God’s people.

I usually find myself in the role of telling my wife that we have too much on our plate to help another person.  But she continually pours herself out for people, like the apostle Paul who referred to himself being poured out like a drink offering to God (2 Timothy 4:6).

It’s so easy to be concerned with our own stuff.  Especially when we think our stuff is the most important.

Our lives should be a constant pursuit of fighting sin and pursuing holiness.  For it was God who told his people “Be holy for I am holy (Leviticus 11:44).”  Sin, in its very nature, is an act of selfishness.  The more we sin the more we care about ourselves and filling our cup.  I talked to a friend recently who said every time he sins he shuts down for the whole day, riddled with guilt.  Sin takes us out of the game and turns us into bench warmers.

An outpouring of thankfulness

We cannot judge the heart.  When we see an act of charity we tend to think, wow, what a great person so-and-so is.  But if our core is rotted in sin and selfishness then our good deeds are nothing to God, they are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).  Our motivation if not an outpouring of thankfulness for what God has done then becomes tainted and suddenly we want to show the world that we are the solution and not Christ.    This is to deny God, the greatest of all trespasses.

A season of silence

This year, for the first time in years, I’m sitting out of ministry this fall.  My wife and I agreed that it was time for me to sit back and be still and return the place of listening to God’s voice and to grow.  There is much work to be done and I see the people I love overwhelmed by their ministries right now.  I want to be the solution.

…and that is the problem.

Filed under: Bible

“Rejected” by God

Isaiah 1:15

When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even if you offer many prayers,

I will not listen.

Your hands are full of blood;

Sometimes we feel as if God is not listening.  We think that he is mean or doesn’t care about us.  What if God really was ignoring your prayers?  What if our persistent rebellion makes God pack up shop and move on from us?

We know the Bible promises us “the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deut 31:6  It is the promise for his chosen people that he will be with us through our valleys as well as our mountain tops.

But consider Acts chapter 13, Paul expresses God’s frustration with how Israel has rejected the Gospel.

“We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.” Acts 13:46

In this verse, “we” refers to both the Apostles and, by proxy, God’s Word.

Last weekend, my pastor talked about how sometimes in the Bible there is a healthy tension that, on the surface, can feel like a contradiction.  This is one of those moments, I think.

Does God give up on us?  How is that even possible for a God who knows the future?  Why would he invest in us to begin with if he knew we would fail?

These are the mysteries of the universe and I don’t pretend to have a sound answer here.  But I think what we CAN take from this passage is that we need to shut down our rebellious behavior immediately.  I’m not making an argument for Arminianism here, since I believe God saves people without any precondition (not the other way around) I don’t believe God then un-saves people.

But how about something as being ordained, or selected for ministry.  What if God removes his anointing from you because of a secret sin or a rebellious heart that can’t seem to find peace when working with others?  This week a pastor said to me, “It’s your job to be faithful and it’s God’s job to take you where he wants you to be.”  I like that.  It’s a simple concept our minds can grasp.

Application: Be faithful where you are

Wherever you are right now, be faithful in that role.  If you are a janitor, be a faithful and responsible janitor.  If you are the pastor of a mega-church, be faithful in that role as well.

We do not need to lobby for a job or a position of leadership.  If we are faithful, God will put us in the right place.

I believe the opposite is true as well: if you are unfaithful, God will pluck you from that ministry.  And that hurts.

Filed under: Bible

No Depth

Isaiah 1:11

“Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?”

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want.

I have many skills.  I’m not bragging, it’s true.  I get bored easily and therefore I have learned how to do many things.  Last year I learned how to sing and how to use Final Cut and make movies. This year I’ve studied Aristotelean logic, comedy and how to use some different techy web things of which I won’t bore you with the details.  It seems every year I’m learning a handful of new skills.

I get puffed up easily by the abundance of things I can do.  ”Oh, I can do this better than that guy,” I think as I watch someone’s video, read someone’s code or watch someone try and crack-up a room full of people.

But last year I realized with all the things I’m learning, I have no depth.  I read a fantastic book called, Outliers: The Story of Success which talks about the incredibly unique people who have shaped our world.  It also proposes the 10,000 hour formula for mastery in a field of expertise.  If you do something for 10,000 hours, you will become an expert.

I couldn’t think of very many things I had spent 10,000 hours on.  Except work, of course.  But not within a single language, technology or employer.

I am an expert in nothing and mediocre in many things.

I’m a fast learner, but what’s the value in that if I don’t stick with something?  I tend to drop whatever I’m doing after 2 years and start something new.  I want to be applauded for the breadth of my knowledge and talents, but because I spend such a fleeting amount of time on each thing I have no time to plant roots and grow in any area.

I can play guitar.  So what.

I can play bass. So what.

I can sing.  So what.

What’s lacking in me is a person who is actively being developed and shaped for God’s purpose.  What’s lacking is the maturity to stick with things when the road looks different than the road I envisioned.  I lay these unrefined talents at the foot of God and repeatedly find that none of them are useful to him.

Filed under: Bible

Do we really know Him?

Isaiah 1:9-10

9 Unless the LORD Almighty

had left us some survivors,

we would have become like Sodom,

we would have been like Gomorrah.

10 Hear the word of the LORD,

you rulers of Sodom;

listen to the law of our God,

you people of Gomorrah!

I love Facebook.  I don’t care if it’s a huge time sink.  One of my favorite things on Facebook is connecting with people you haven’t seen in 20 or so years.  I remember telling my mom that I just found an old childhood friend and he was recently released from prison.  She reflected back on the young boy who used to come over to our house and throw temper tantrums.  ”That sounds about right,” she said.  It’s funny how you can see the writing on the wall with some people at an early age.

Have you ever found an old friend on Facebook who you thought was a really close friend only to have them say something like, “Oh yeah,  you’re that kid from school.”

Wait…what?  I thought we were like best buddies when we were kids.  I wonder if this is a precursor to the experience many will have as they stand before God at the end of their life.

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ – Matthew 7:22

There is an application on Facebook called “On this day, God wants you to know …”.   I see a lot of well-meaning Christians using it as a substitute for reading the Bible and seeking wise counsel.  The truth is, this application is really no more than a horoscope, spitting out randomly generated “prophetic” words.  Here are some examples of things “God” is telling people:

• Touch the Earth with your feet, lift your face to the sun, breathe the air, listen to the birds and the wind through the trees. Glory in the creation that surrounds you.

Since when did God promote pantheism?

I wonder if people think this little application is a sufficient replacement for the real God.  I see people reposting these little messages with comments such as, “Oh, this is exactly what I needed to hear today.  Thank you, God!”  While I don’t doubt its encouragement, similar encouragement could probably be found reading the musings of spiritualists like Deepak Chopra:

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.  - Deepak Chopra

If I want it, then it’s gonna happen!  Wow, thanks Deepak!  Pantheism is loving creation rather than the creator.  It’s like adultery against God.

For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil - Proverbs 5:3

I like the way Mark Driscoll tackles this issue with mega-guru Joel Osteen.

Filed under: Bible

Avoiding isolation

Isaiah 1:8

The Daughter of Zion is left

like a shelter in a vineyard,

like a hut in a field of melons,

like a city under siege

I like to be alone.  I think it was a natural product of my upbringing.  I didn’t have any siblings at any early age and I think I got used to creating my own little worlds with my Transformers and He-Man toys.

In my world, the bad guy always lost and the hero was always victorious.  Justice was swift and always executed perfectly.

When I got older and I found out that life sometimes leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth, I think I had this natural inclination to draw back into the solace of my mind where there was more predictability.  Eventually I got a Nintendo and this only fueled the desire to stay indoors.

I remember my dad knocking on the door of my room urging me to “come outside and play some catch.”  I think he was concerned about my high level of solitude.  I turned him down much more often than I should have I think, looking back on it.  What a fortunate child I was to have a dad so interested in spending time with me.

As Christians, isolation is an open door to temptation and struggle.  A lot of idle time can either lead you into secret sin or can give you a lot of time to stew over things you wouldn’t waste time thinking about had you kept your mind busy on productive things.

Here are some reasons I think fellowship should maintain a high priority in our lives:

Encouragement

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching – Hebrews 10:25

I think the hidden implication in the verse above is that we need encouragement from people.  A pastor once flipped the tables on me when I asked him for encouragement, berating me as one who is easily discouraged saying, “You are so needy, you need me to say ‘good job’ every single day.  Why do you need so much positive reinforcement?”  I think the writer of Hebrews knew that the Christian life is hard and thankless.  If you see the donut table at church was well stocked, or you liked the way the stage was decorated, tell somebody.  And don’t do it in a passive-aggressive way, “This was much better than last week!”  Leaders should be thankful and recognize the hard work of others as often as possible.

The flip side of this coin is take a compliment correctly.  If you goofed a guitar part and somebody says “Good job” don’t say “Nah, I messed up that intro.”  Last weekend was the 4th of July and I told a Marine I appreciated his service to our country.  He looked me in the eyes and said, “It never gets old to hear that.  I appreciate it every time.  Thank you.”

Wisdom

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. – Proverbs 15:22

I’m not going to lie, I’d like to one day be considered a wise person.  I have a long way to go.  I rely heavily on counsel, more so with each passing year.  In your 20′s you really feel like the world was designed with you in mind.   Then you hit 30, you look back at the devastation left from your 20′s and realize you have a lot of learning to do. After 30, your character flaws, hand-in-hand with your physical flaws, become more and more evident with each passing day.  I now see myself at 20 and realize what an obnoxious little twirp I was.

Here’s my advice.  Find somebody older than you who you see as where you would like to be when you are their age and learn from them.  How do they make decisions? Are they instinct people or are they slow and methodical?  How do they handle conflicts?  How do they communicate their frustrations?  How does it compare to you? How do they communicate with their spouse, co-workers, ministry partners and children?

I find that a lot of the people I look up to don’t really have a lot of appreciation for my emotional, from-the-hip sort of style.  That makes me want to slow down and try and employ some of their sober rationale.

…

There are many more things I could have listed here, time permitting.  Here’s a rapid fire list of the benefits of fellowship within a local church:

• Friends celebrate with you
• Friends mourn and comfort you in your struggles
• Friends rebuke you when you are led astray

Filed under: Bible

God’s Justice

Isaiah 1:7

Your land is devastated,

your cities burned with fire.

Right before your eyes your crops

are being destroyed by foreign invaders.

They leave behind devastation and destruction

Does God provide us with protection?  Sometimes it’s hard to see.  We can all cite tragic events that would make a compelling case that God allows some horrible things to happen.  It is very easy to take a tragedy inventory of what we see going on around us and know that something is not right.

What about protection from ourselves?  Have you ever wondered why God allowed you to make decision x that caused so much frustration and heartache?

What about protection in ministry?  Have you ever wondered why God has put him over me in this ministry ? Doesn’t God know how much better this ministry would function, how much more fruit would be produced if I were in charge?

For me, I often find these sort of immature thoughts usually prove themselves to be false.

However, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of things in life don’t make a lot of sense.  I think we try really hard to read the tea leaves and connect the dots between event A and event B so as not to fall into the belief that everything is a product of randomness or simple causality.

Put faith in God’s justice

If the Bible is real and this life is truly just a blip on the radar, when we look back on the injustice a thousand years from now, we will see that God dealt the perfect justice.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)

Have compassion for others

I started listening to the audio book of Crazy Love.  And although I’m going to butcher this quote, the author talks about how many of us would like to stand before God and ask him, “Why are there so many starving people in the world?”  God may just turn to us and show us the bounty of our possessions and turn the question right back on us, “Why are there so many starving people in the world?”

A history of civilization

Civilization began with the development of agriculture.  As people learned that they could plant crops they stopped moving around.  Eventually, it was discovered that the strongest could make the weakest do the work at the threat of force.  This was the invention of slavery.  Although slavery has been abolished for a hundred and sixty years, we still have a form of indentured servitude in our country that keeps the cost of a head of lettuce under .99 cents and a cheeseburger even less than that.  We have a lower class of non-citizens who we exploit with one hand and with the other say that they’re a drain on our society.  They have no access to medical care, they can’t drive a car, vote or participate in society.

We are, by far, not the worst.  In fact, we may be the most compassionate of all countries.  Be all that says is that the most just land in history is still riddled with injustice.

I don’t know how God will make things right.  I think about this a lot.  The Bible talks about how God has different levels of punishment for everyone (Rev 20:11-15) in the afterlife.  The punchline of all this is that nobody will look at their sentence and say with honesty, “This is unjust.”

Trust in the justness of God.  While we wait for God to impart his justice, live with compassion for all people because God is compassionate.  Although we cannot stop injustice, we can certainly do more than stand idle.

But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)

Filed under: Bible

On emotion

Isaiah 1:6

From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness—only wounds and bruises and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil.

I’m an emotional guy.  It’s no secret to those who know me.  I’m a laugher, a cynic, a crier, prone to mountains of joy and deep seas of sorrow.

I’m not a psychologist, but I feel that I have a textbook fear of abandonment.  I’m terrified of rejection and when I smell it coming I pickup my things and move on.  If it weren’t for my wife keeping me on the ‘straight & narrow’, I’m sure I wouldn’t have a single friendship.

I lookup to people who have this ‘soundness’ as described in Isaiah 1:6.  People who stick with one job for a long period of my time.  My dad, for example, has worked with essentially the same company for 30 years.  Why don’t I have this soundness?  Is it not in my DNA?

Depression cripples me and I want to lay in bed and wait for it to pass me over like a tornado.  Other times I can’t laugh enough and I get drunk with silliness and stupid conversation.

Some may say this is immature.  They’re right

Some may say I’m an “artisan” and this is merely what artistic guys are like.  They’re right as well, I think.

It’s true I love to create things.  I love to play music, write, dream, experience, make movies, and, from the earliest days, it was all about drawing.  It seemed I always had a pencil in my hand every night.  My dad would catch me lying in the center of a pile of papers.  I drew heroic things: comic book characters equipped with muscles and perfect superpowers, all things I wish I could have but knew I never would.  I now realize I was drying myself.  Or at least, what I wanted to be.

When I was 16 I heard a song called “Art In Me” by Jars of Clay.  Their music immediately made a connection with me and has grown up with me ever since.  I could feel this sort of longing for acceptance in Dan Hasteline’s pain-ridden lyrics.  Here are some I remember making an impact on me…

“Art In Me”

In your picture book I’m trying hard to see

Turning endless pages of this tragedy

Sculpting every move you compose a symphony

And you plead to everyone, “see the art in me”

“Redemption”

We look out way down past the road we came from

We’re looking at redemption

It was hidden in the landscape

Of loss and love and fire and rain

These songs, to me, tell about how we look at ourselves in the mirror and we sometimes we just see that something’s not right.  I feel I’m always looking through God’s “Picture Book” trying desperately to understand how this bizarre story of a lost and lonely boy ends in a beautiful reunion with his maker.

I think some people get it.  They don’t have a thousand wounds on their body, they don’t feel as if they’re walking around with a heart barely concealed beneath their skin. Words cut me instantly and I find myself having to quench a million raging brush fires because of something someone said, didn’t say, or transmitted a message concealed within a look or just a flat-out rejection.  There has to be a purpose for this, I think.

Most of the musicians I’ve met are broken people.  Some of them don’t know they’re broken.  Those who know they’re broken play their instruments with a kind of masterful artistry like a child sketching out the muscular contours of a super hero fantasy.  They play every note not as if it fit within some mathematical formula, but because it properly tells their story in the brush of audible frequencies and tones.  I love imperfect people.  I love people who have messed up.  I’m never afraid of being rejected by messed up people. We are like trolls that only come out at night and find our solace underneath the quiet overpass of a bridge…the place where the perfect people walk.

People often thank me for my “openness” and my “transparency.”  I feel as if what they’re saying is, “I wouldn’t reveal that much about myself.  That would be unsound.”

Filed under: Bible

How many times?

Isaiah 1:5

Why should you be beaten anymore?

Why do you persist in rebellion?

Your whole head is injured,

your whole heart afflicted.

My dog has taken up the habit of pooping in my daughter’s room instead of going outside.  We think there is some sort of protest going on here.  So we demoted her to an outside dog because constantly cleaning up her messes was really frustrating.  So now she sits at the screen door and whimpers, “Please let me in.”  But we do not.  Yesterday she got in the house for a few minutes.  She was so excited that she began to dart around the house, wildly happy to be part of the family again.  And then she did something unexpected.  She immediately went to my daughter’s room, squatted down and dropped a stink bomb on the carpet.

Out you go, dog…

Why do we do these things to ourselves?  When my dog is finally given a chance at redemption why does she immediately sabotage herself?

See the pattern

For some of us, our lives our like a hurricane.  We move wildly and violently forward never looking back at the path of destruction we’ve left behind.  Isaiah appeals to Israel to stop and look at the devastation.

My son (2) has a habit of getting into my wife’s purse every morning and likes to apply mom’s lipstick while the rest of the family sleeps in.

I know…

Morning after morning we would catch his face covered in red lipstick as if he were a kabuki warrior or The Joker from Batman.  Every morning his face was scrubbed, his rear end paddled and he’d be sent to his room where he would sob loudly into his hands.  But every morning, there he was again.  The temptation of the wonders awaiting inside mom’s purse are too much to see what damage awaits his decisions.

Your sin is not a surprise to God

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 1 Tim 1:15

Sometimes we can feel as if we have messed up so badly that we might as well give in to our sinful desires again and again.  But today is a new day, and while there may still be collateral damage, today could be the turning point.  Yes you messed up…again.  Repent, learn from it and move on.

Nothing you do is surprising God right now.  And if the Bible is to be trusted, your poop is exactly why he sent Jesus (I think there’s a T-Shirt in there somewhere).

Perseverance builds maturity

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:4)

I recently made a trip to the Getty Center in Los Angeles.  I was amazed by some of the sculptures in the Leonard Da Vinci exhibit.  In junior high, I received a ‘C’ in wood shop and I think THAT was more than generous.  I’m not very good with my hands when it comes to handiwork.  Which is why I was so impressed as I looked at an exhibit about John the Baptist made from bronze.  Three towering figures stared down at us mere mortals each telling a complicated story with their highly detailed dispositions.

As I stood back I wondered, how in the world did they make something so lifelike out of something so inanimate as bronze?

Tt’s important to remember that Jesus was not sent to earth so you could live your life to the fulfillment of your greatest desires.  These times of “spiritual spankings” are an important tool in the refining process.  Just like the bronze used to construct these magnificent statues, you too are being shaped and put on display for His glory.

Filed under: Bible

Indulgence and greed

While I appreciate and encourage comments, please refrain from turning this into a political debate.  The point here isn’t about 1 party or president versus another.  I think there is plenty of blame to go around…

Isaiah 1:4

Ah, sinful nation,

a people loaded with guilt,

a brood of evildoers,

children given to corruption!

They have forsaken the LORD;

they have spurned the Holy One of Israel

and turned their backs on him.

Then

I wrestled with this idea for the last six months, why didn’t God just come right out and say “never ever ever own a slave?”

I recently listened to a debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Christopher Hitchens where D’Souza told the story of how the Portugese invaded India and began converting the native “Goans” to Christianity.  While the “Portugese Inquisition” might have done many things wrong, one of the appeals to the Indians was that those at the bottom of the caste system could find equality with all men.  Christianity was the first to introduce this topic.  Slavery was a universal economical necessity in the ancient world.  It was Christianity, long before the words were penned to Amazing Grace, that began to teach the world about equality.

In Philemon, we have Paul asking that the slave Onesimus be treated, not as a slave but “as brother in the Lord” (Phil 1:16).  These words were revolutionary.  Slaves had existed for millennia, often conquered in battle, and never were they to be treated like your brother.

It was not God’s design for us to spend 30 years of our lives in debt to a lender.  In Jewish law, if a man found himself buried in debt, he could sell himself or his family to his lender and live as a slave (it was better than death).   God ordered Israel to free slaves every 7 years at the festival of Jubilee.

Always

As a nation, we must avoid living to feed our insatiable desires.  We must learn to do without, to sacrifice.

The average American watches 4-6 hours of television daily.  What an incredible waste of time.  Not to sound like a blowhard, but my wife and I cancelled our cable last year because we wanted to do more with our lives than sit and watch television.

Now

Gluttony

American obesity is on the rise.  Our President hopes to turn this around by focusing on this generation of young people and reversing the trend.  I hope he is successful, but I am skeptical because I think attacking the food isn’t as effective as dealing with the heart that wishes to indulge.  As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I am trying to reverse this trend in myself as well.  I still struggle.  Yesterday in a meeting, someone ordered sandwiches (I haven’t had much bread in 3 months).  I noticed how quickly I devoured my sandwich.  Much faster than everyone in the room.  I still need to learn to slow down and not indulge.

Greed

Recently it was announced that the US has hit WW2 levels with our debt.  Fears are beginning to rise that the US Dollar should be abandoned because of the instability of our economy.  Both liberals and conservatives fear we may be on the brink of the toppling of the largest nation in history.

I’m not making a political statement here, as I feel there are many to blame for the state of our current economy (even ourselves).  My point is that I think it’s fairly easy to connect the dots between our economic crisis and sin.

In 2002 Alan Greenspan (and others) encouraged Americans to “tap into their equity” and borrow against their own homes as if the four walls they lived in represented some kind of free money store.  The result, many Americans have lost homes, some of which have been in their family for multiple generations.  Banks were devastated as home after home suddenly foreclosed causing catastrophic losses.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7)

Final Thoughts

Last year I went through Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover.  It’s a simple program that preaches living without debt.  It is possible, but requires something that is so difficult in the 21st century: self denial.

Teach your children about money.  Teach them how to balance their checkbooks, to avoid buying things on credit, and to learn to carry cash.  Teach them how to put their expenses in Quicken.  I’m always surprised at how much I spend at Starbucks in a month.  It’s equivalent to a chronic smoking habit.

Teach your children that money is merely a tool, not a source of happiness nor is it an end in itself.

-Robby

Filed under: Bible