9.12.2020 - week 71
“the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”
1 timothy 1:5
cynicism leads to destruction.
one of the great battles that we must fight as we hit our 30’s + 40’s + beyond is the battle to continue to see good out ahead and not falling into endless negativity.
i have had good friends get divorced this year. had people who i thought i could count on let me down. struggled in ways i didn’t think i would. felt my own humanity + weakness more deeply than ever during the long tricky days of repetition in late march - late may. all of that stuff can lead us down a path toward assuming that more friends will fall apart and more people will let us down and i will keep struggling. negativity breeds negativity.
it’s easier to assume bad things about the future than to be surprised by them,
we protect ourselves that way.
one of the dynamics at play in jesus assertion that you must ‘become like little children’ to find Him, is that kids believe in stuff. they put their whole weight on the new chicago bears qb or a new friend they made at school because they haven’t been beat up enough by life yet not to. they live life from a place of optimistic trust.
adults tend to move towards their perceived high ground of never being let down because we never fully lean in. the verse above calls us to something different. with love set as the highest goal, paul unveils a triad of HOW we live out this love:
pure heart — a life unfettered by hidden struggle + sin.
good conscience - alignment between your public + private perception in community
sincere faith - a genuine belief that is ahead is good.
the way out of cynicism is doing the hard work internally to stay soft to the things of god.
if we simply follow the news, consume the facebook feed, are carried along by the stories of today, we will inevitably slide into long term frustration and misery.
the way to be happy is to work on the (wo)man in the mirror.
KG Korner
(a few wise words from lady kristen macdonald)
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13:12
Sometimes it hurts to hope. We’ve all heard of being heartsick but what about being ‘hopesick?’ The very feeling of having the desire to hope in something but by the sheer reality of the details you can see you shy away from it because it doesn’t seem possible.
All of us hope to be like the tree that this verse describes: thriving, fruitful, having the ability to provide shade for others when they feel the heat of the day, beautiful to look at, both the inside and the outside is healthy. But often there’s a gap between our hopes and our reality.
And really hope is a good thing. It’s just that when our circumstances dash it so many times we start to feel like the desire to hope in anything is going to get squelched. I heard from one dear reader of this newsletter last weekend after my words on God being a God of restoration and how she needs prayer. She is praying and hoping for restoration here on earth and while she is praying for it and hoping for it she cannot see it yet. And that’s why this proverb came to mind because even in our prayers we can get to “God, it just hurts to hope right now.”
There are many verses on hope in the Bible and as I looked at them and prayed through this writing I came back to a realization I’ve had before: I can hope in circumstances but the only one that will never cancel hope is God. I’m sure you experienced a ‘cancelled’ something big or small during this pandemic and the feelings that follow of “wow I really wish I could experience that right now” are real. I think that hoping for the right mate to come along or hoping for a promotion or hoping for a tax return check are all fine things to hope for, its just when we go overboard and put all our hope in one thing. We miss it completely when we are too focused on the here and now, eternity is coming and it’s not that far away.
At the beginning of 2020, I shared my verse for the year and it couldn’t be more applicable as I have walked through this year. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.” I have it on a little note card by my kitchen sink that I look at so many times a day. It reminds me that day that I confessed my hope and trust in Christ and reminds me of all the times in the last 19 years that he has been faithful.
As I have thought about it, it’s almost like hope is the baton that you were handed when you became a Christian. Sometimes you remember when you are running your race that you have it in your hand and sometimes you run with it knowing that you have it but not needing to grasp tightly to it, but it’s there. When you finish your race off hopefully that baton will be passed to those that remember you because it was vibrant and unmistakable in your life. But by the spirit you always have hope so that you may endure until you see all you were hoping in with your own eyes as your faith becomes sight.
food for thought
a paragraph i read this week that i’m pondering that i think is worth considering especially because i don’t agree with its implications
“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.”
~ Pastor Dave Barnhart, MDiv., PhD
book review
this book was a re-read for me, while i prepare some new concepts and ideas. the simple premise is that most of what we remember from life both good + bad is short powerful moments. when we think about 9/11 (like most of us did the last few days), most of what happened is boiled down to a couple snapshots. when we think about the best part of our college or a friend unexpectedly dying or the high school prom, the best or worst part is likely all that remains.
so then, in our parenting and in welcoming new employees and how we celebrate a good report card, we should elevating adding a layer of specialness so that the people we have influence have the great memories of the good and find us useful to them in the bad.
kristen + i have a middle schooler. and i’m trying my best to understand him. as he is growing and changing through this weird time and the start of his 6th grade year, this book from a friend and mentor was tremendously helpful. marko works to normalize what you see happening in middle schoolers around you. he combines a bit of science, a bunch of anecdotal research, and a biblical framework to help us discover and enrich what has been entrusted to us. if you have a 6-8th grader right around, this is a quick read and really will help you.
super christian guy
stuff for you to click on
1. this article blew me away, one of the most helpful things i have read in a long time, check it out why facts don’t change our minds —
2. fantastic new song from phil wickham … ‘the battle belongs’
3. my mid-week service this week i think will be an encouragement to you. its a punchy 45 minutes of music + teaching + some guest fun. watch it here!