Thursday, September 8, 2016

Pastor Heck: Wounded Healer



The following is a brief summary that I found about the book Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen:

“For Nouwen, ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional role and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering -- in the image of Christ. In other words, we heal from our own wounds.”

Growing up I had many misconceptions about pastors.  I used to think that pastors had it all together.  I used to think that only the cream of the crop in terms of holy and righteous living were the ones that got chosen/called.  I say ‘used to’ because my pastor, Ed Heck, corrected my lenses about what a minister of the gospel looks like.

A few years ago things changed for Ed.  Even though he had been a minister/pastor for many years, God was doing a new thing in his heart and life which was readily apparent to everyone.  Even though he had been the pastor at Kankakee First Church of the Nazarene for more than 10 years there was the deep sense that many of us were just getting to know Ed for the very first time.  Ed was always one to share stories but now more than ever before the stories were about him.  His life.  His past.  His hurts.  His wounds.  That’s where the stories started anyway.  Those same stories about him ended up about being about Him, his heavenly father.  Time and again Ed would transition from his personal experiences of pain or difficulties to the workings of God in and through his life.  This type of vulnerable story telling was transformational for Ed and those he shared with.  The more he opened up the more he saw God at work.  And the more he saw God at work the more he opened up. 

I spent quite a few years where a large portion of my life was unknown to most everyone because I refused to share it.  When that finally changed everything else changed.  The largest hurdle to overcome was the deep sense that the area of pastoral ministry was off limits for me because of my story.  Those misconceptions about what a pastor is like and who can be a pastor were well rooted.  That is, until I heard Ed and others like him share their stories.  Each story helped root up weeds that didn’t belong in my life, weeds that for years choked the life out of a call to ministry.  Ed was a major part in my weed removal process.

Even though I had known Ed since he arrived in 2000 it wasn’t until these past couple of years that I had the opportunity to sit across from him and share my story.  Knowing his story made sharing mine so much easier and the encouragement and affirmation that Ed provided was like water in the desert for my soul.  His brokenness coupled with the humility and openness to share it became an avenue of healing for me and many others.  Ed had become, as Nouwen called it, a Wounded Healer. 

Back in March I had the opportunity to go before a group of elders on the church district for my district licensing interview.  It was no coincidence that Ed was a part of that group.  I needed him there and he was a big motivator of me being there in the first place.  Sharing my story with that group of elders was so much easier knowing that there was a wounded healer in their midst.  It was like having reinforcements that had my back if I needed it.  When I think of Ed that is the moment I will always go to.  Ed provided an element of peace for me in a situation that years earlier would have terrified me.  He provided peace because that moment was preceded by his love and affirmation along with the humility and boldness to talk about his walk.  All of it.  Even the tough parts.  Because that’s what a Wounded Healer does. 

Thank you so much, Ed!  You are dearly loved and will be deeply missed. 

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Good Things Vs. God Things


#spoileralert

If you are a teen that is a part of the Kankakee First Church youth group please stop reading right now because these thoughts are being formulated into a message you will be hearing in just over a month. 

For the rest of you………. 

As a new year is fast approaching there is a phrase that has been rattling around in my head for the past month or so. 

“A Good thing becomes a Bad thing when it gets in the way of a God thing.”

When people look back on their year they usually divide it up into the good things that happened and the bad things that happened.  And when they look ahead toward the next year the hope is that there will be more good things and less bad things.  We would gladly trade in a bad thing in order to receive a good thing but here’s a really tough question.  Would you trade in 2 or 3 good things for a ‘God thing’?  Sacrificing something bad for something good is an easy exchange but for some reason or another exchanging good things for great things, or ‘God things’, isn’t as easy as it should be. 

We live in an age with no margins.  Our time from the moment we wake until the moment our head hits the pillow is filled.  Our budgets have every dollar accounted for and assigned before it even comes in.  In the event of an opportunity or an emergency we are immediately faced with the issue of trying to fit it into our calendars and pocketbooks.  We all have time and money that is wasted on things we don’t even need or may even be harmful to us or those we love and by all means we should work to be more effective stewards of our time and resources in regard to those sorts of things.  But this post isn’t about those things.  This post is about the good things you need to give up. 

This past year has been the busiest year of my life which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I’ve had plenty of lazy years so it’s definitely time for me to get my butt in gear but there are limits to my time and energy.  Right now I’m in the midst of figuring out my new normal which means I need to find a healthy balance for how my time, energy, and finances are spent.  One of my big additions this past year has been getting back into shape.  The number of ours spent at the fitness center was a helpful addition when it came to my physical health but it also put a unhealthy crunch on my time and energy for other things.  This year I’ve also added some new involvements such as working with a small group ministry.  While this addition has been a tremendous blessing it also has a time cost associated with it.  And so, with each addition I’ve made this year I’ve moved closer and closer to the sad realization that it’s time to make some painful cuts. 

This brings me back to the phrase that has been rattling around in my head. 

“A Good thing becomes a Bad thing when it gets in the way of a God thing.”

As I look ahead toward 2016 it is vital that I identify the ‘God things’ I currently have or need to have in my life.  If I am going to ‘seek first His Kingdom’ then it only makes sense that I put those Kingdom things on my calendar or in my budget first.  All of the other good things in my life are going to have to compete with the time and space I have left because I don’t want those good things to compete with or get in the way of the Kingdom things I desperately need.  When I get to the end of 2016 I don’t want to look back at a year where I was busy with a bunch of good things but didn’t have time for the ‘God things’. 

Unfortunately, being overbooked with good things is something I see people doing All. The. Time.  I know people (I’m one of them) who have difficulty saying ‘No’ to things.  “Can you help with this?” Sure.  “Can you go to this?” Absolutely.  While on the one hand I think that it’s great that people have such a willing heart to help, on the other hand I’m concerned that in their busyness they may be missing out on something they may need more.  Something bigger.

The irony is that we reach a point where we do finally say “No” to things. Indirectly.  When we are busy shuttling from one event to another we miss all of the things in between.  We are too busy to notice a person who needs our attention but they did not make a pre-scheduled appointment with our calendar so there is no place to fit them in.  There is a serious financial need of a family member/friend/co-worker that comes to your attention but your monthly budget has already been calculated.  Your church is starting up some new small groups in a month (which is definitely a ‘God thing’ that you need #shamelessplug ) but sacrificing one evening of your week a couple times a month is difficult because good things have a way of giving you a yearly itinerary 3 years in advance and so it got on the calendar first.  Instead of saying, “No, I won’t.” or “No, I don’t want to.” our indirect “No” is disguised by the lingo of, “I would but I can’t.” or “I wish I could but I’ve already got something that night.” People who are busy with good things don’t feel bad brushing off opportunities because good things make for good excuses and most people won’t press the issue if there’s a good excuse. 

I don’t want to be like most people so I’m going to press in a bit. 

YOU’RE TOO BUSY!  YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON WHAT GOD HAS IN STORE!

God’s not going to force his way into your schedule. God invites.  It’s what God does.  God invites us to be a part of His Kingdom and what His Kingdom is up to.  I’m reminded of the people Jesus encounters in Luke chapter 9 where he invites them to follow.  They respond with the indirect “No.”  They will follow but there are some other things that come first.  I need to bury my father.  I need to say good bye to my family and get things in order.  Good things.  The invitation that Jesus offered raised a major conflict for those seeking to follow him.  Would they be willing to sacrifice a good thing in order to be a part of a ‘God thing’?  I think that this is an excellent question for you and I to tackle on the brink of a new year.  Are we going to put the ‘God things’ to the front of the list for 2016?  There are ‘God things’ we can plan for in advance and ‘God things’ we can’t.  For the sorts of things that you can’t put on the calendar in advance, do you have the space and freedom to respond without hesitation to an awesome and unpredictable opportunity to be like Jesus to someone?  Don’t settle for good things in 2016 because the invitation of Jesus is for you to be a part of some ‘God things’.

 

Blessings and a Happy New Year! 

Monday, September 21, 2015

Hiking the Trail of Faith

Rainbow Falls

 
 
This past week I had the opportunity to take some time off from work and enjoy the first real vacation I’ve had in years.  My wife and I have grown fond of going to the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg and this was our 3rd trip there together. The proximity of shopping and enjoying the outdoors is too good for us to pass up.  Since I have been on a pretty significant fitness journey for over a year now, one of the things I really wanted to take advantage of on this particular trip was the variety of hiking trails in the area.  Being from the flatlands of Illinois this was an excellent opportunity to enjoy being active in a way that I really can’t be a majority of the year via hiking.  On our first full day we stopped at the information center for the Smokey Mountains National Park and picked up a trail map and talked to an older gentleman that was an excellent adviser as we made our plans.  On an earlier visit we went on a hike to see the Grotto Falls and so I thought it would be a nice goal to try and see all of the waterfalls in the area at some point during this visit and future visits.  One of the things that our adviser used to help us in our decision making was a little pamphlet that showed a picture of each of the waterfalls.  Some waterfalls were more grand than others and some trails were longer and more treacherous than others so weighing out what you would see on the other end of a long hike was critical.  Over the course of our 4 complete days we went on 3 waterfall hikes.
On our second hike we got up extra early because we wanted to go on a longer trail and wanted to be sure we could finish in plenty of time to recuperate and enjoy our evening in town.  At the onset we knew the length of the trail and what Rainbow Falls looked like but we didn’t know how treacherous it would be.  Even though I have been very physically active recently it was still challenging.  I was extremely impressed with the perseverance of my wife throughout the strenuous ordeal. I’m confident that much of her resilience was due to my promises of untold shopping funds that would be made available at the completion of this trail.  True to my word, I didn’t veto a single shopping request the entire week.  She deserved it.
Along this particular trail we came across 2 or 3 much smaller waterfalls where we’d stop and enjoy the sound of the water running by and then continue on our way.  Along the way we would also cross paths with people who got up even earlier than we had gotten up and were on their way back from Rainbow Falls.  As we passed, we would greet each other and I would usually ask one of a couple questions.  “How much further?” and “Is it worth it?”  We were greatly encouraged when the answer to the first question got shorter and shorter and we were consistently energized when the answer to the second question each and every time was, “Absolutely!”  Because it was a long and strenuous hike we were ready to be done and we wanted our efforts to be worth it in the end.  Even though it wasn’t the rainiest part of the year, Rainbow Falls was still worth it and on our way back down the mountain we got to be the ones answering the questions of people still on their journey.  As we passed some hikers near one of the much smaller waterfalls I jokingly told them that this waterfall was it.  That this little itty bitty waterfall was what they were looking for.  Apparently they had seen the same picture of the falls that I had seen and chuckled.  Nobody in their right mind would go to such effort for such a small waterfall.  It wouldn’t be worth it. 
This exchange got me to wondering.  What if they had believed me?  What if they didn’t know what Rainbow Falls looked like? Surely they would have been disappointed!  They certainly wouldn’t be coming back on this trail again and would instead go searching for something more visually appealing.  If it weren’t for that handy pamphlet with a picture of the falls and the travelers on their way down reassuring me, I can see how I could easily be tricked into thinking that the smaller waterfalls were Rainbow Falls and in fact miss out on the real falls.  How sad would that mistake be? 
When it comes to God, this mistake happens All. The. Time.  I know plenty of people who either don’t believe in God or don’t pursue God relationally and when I hear their description of God I can’t help but think, “I wouldn’t pursue that God either.”  At the same time I can’t help but think that they’ve not really experienced the presence of God.  It’s almost like they’re disappointed with a small substitute waterfall that pales in comparison to the mighty falls around the bend.  Of course you’re disappointed with that God but don’t give up and turn around.  Keep hiking!
I’m thankful for the people in my life who have been hiking on the trail of faith much longer than me.  Those are the people who have seen much more than me and can reassure me based on their experiences that this path is worth it.  They are the ones that can tell me about a majestic, holy, loving, gracious, merciful and sacrificial God that is bigger than I can fathom while I’m in the midst of tripping over rocks and trying to stay on the path.  They help me decipher between the wannabe gods and the real God so that I don’t end up turning around because I come across a phoney excuse for a God that doesn’t amount to much. 
And lastly, I’m also thankful for scripture which very much acts as that guide and pamphlet we saw at the information center.  Scripture has been extremely helpful over the years as I’ve tried to navigate my way in this world but it’s important to note that seeing a picture of a waterfall is no substitute to being in the actual presence of a waterfall.  Spending time in scripture, even memorizing scripture, so that we have a clearer picture of what God is like is not even remotely close to being in the actual presence of God.  Scripture is ‘living and active’ but not because it has some intrinsic life of it’s own.  It can be just as static as any hiking trail map.  Scripture is living and active because it continually and reliably points people in the direction of the God who is living and active in this world.  Don’t mistake scriptural knowledge of God for being in the presence of God.  Be informed by the former but transformed by the latter.    


Friday, March 13, 2015

Finish on a Miss?


Nick Young thought he nailed it but missed the mark.

Those that know me know that I’m a basketball junkee.  Since I’ve been on a health and fitness journey for over 8 months now I’ve used my love of basketball as an incentive to get my butt into shape.  My weight loss journey started in July by simply moving more and eating less.  It’s a simple plan I hear preached all the time by my uncle Chet and it has worked great.  When the temperature outside dropped as winter neared I had to deal with an obstacle to my walking and jogging routine so I decided to join a fitness center and move my work indoors.  The biggest perk of this change has been my access to a basketball court.  Every time I go to the fitness center I face the temptation to skip my cardio workout and weight workout so I can simply shoot around or play in some pick-up games.  Because I love playing I’ve turned it into my reward for doing the work I need to do.  If I do the work I need to do then I get to do the thing I love to do.  On the mornings that I leave work and want to go home and crawl into bed it is basketball that gets me to stop by the fitness center and burn more calories.

A couple of weeks ago I was shooting around with some guys at church when something very common in the basketball world happened.  As we were finishing up, pastor Brandon wanted to ‘finish on a make’.  I don’t know when this shooting concept started but it is something that predates me because I definitely remember as a 7th grader being told by a coach at practice to ‘finish on a make’.  Basically you want to make your last shot of practice.  I’m not sure if it’s something superstitious or if it is supposed to be about leaving on a positive note but it’s something reinforced with basketball regulars. 

It was in this moment at the church gym that I let pastor Brandon and the other guys with us know that I had been doing something particularly odd.  Since joining the fitness center and getting quality basketball practice time I had been finishing my practices on a miss.  If I’m shooting free throws to end my morning, I leave after a miss.  If I’m practicing a dribble move into a jumpshot to end my practice, I finish on a miss.  I received some confused looks from the guys when I told them my new routine because it is counter cultural in a basketball sense.  So why do I end on a miss instead of a make?  Because for me it is a reminder that there’s still more work to do.  There’s still room for improvement and the only way for me to improve is for me to get back out onto the court and keep practicing.  Finishing on a ‘make’ lends itself to the attitude of ‘I’ve got this’.  ‘Nailed it!’  Why would someone with that attitude need to come back the next day to practice?  Finishing on a ‘miss’, however, is a lesson in humility.  It is a very real reminder that even though this particular practice session is finished, my abilities as a basketball player are not, and judging by that last ‘miss’ I should be back as soon as possible to work on my game.  While missing a shot can seem negative on the surface, it can be in many ways a motivational tool for future success.

This leads me to the topic of repentance and the Christian life.  Repentance is, or at least should be, woven into the fabric of a believers spiritual life.  The aim of a believer is to look more and more like Christ and repentance is about when we miss that mark.  In the court of life you have numerous opportunities to look like Jesus.  On which of those daily opportunities did you ‘nail it’?  How many of those opportunities were a ‘brick’ that were nowhere close to looking like Jesus?  Maybe instead of trying and failing, or trying and succeeding, you didn’t even try at all.  Perhaps instead of taking a shot you passed on the opportunity altogether.  When it comes to looking like Jesus there is always room for improvement.  There’s always more work to be done.  Another day has another set of challenges.

What I want to suggest is that you, as a person desiring to look more and more like Christ, should end your day remembering a ‘miss’.  As your head hits the pillow say a prayer of repentance.  Not because of the children’s prayer ‘If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take’ but because a prayer of repentance at the end of the day can set your course for tomorrow. The Spirit isn’t done shaping you into Christlikeness.  You aren’t done growing. That’s the whole point of this blog!

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. 2 Peter 3:18                 

This blog is how I work through the ways in which God is stretching me because He’s not done with me yet and repentance is a part of that growing process.  The fact of the matter is that as I try to imitate a guy that so sacrificially loved others that he allowed himself to be nailed to a cross on their behalf, I most definitely haven’t ‘nailed it’.  If anyone needs to grow in grace it’s me, and I’m not going to grow if I walk into each day arrogantly remembering only my ‘makes’.  Remembering the ways in which I missed the mark reminds me of my need for the work of the Spirit.  Perhaps today needs to start with an “I’m sorry.” to someone you wronged yesterday.  Perhaps you passed on the opportunity to be an agent of peace in the workplace yesterday but a new opportunity is on your doorstep today.  I don’t know what yesterday was like for you but I’m certain it wasn’t all ‘makes’.  And that’s alright.  Don’t beat yourself up over it but also don’t deny that you could have done better.  You could have had more grace.  You could have had more patience.  You could have listened more.  Remember your ‘misses’ and lean in to the work of the Spirit as you grow in Christlikeness.  It’s an odd way to end your day but it just may be what you need to change how you go into your tomorrow!  Grace and peace!

Monday, November 24, 2014

New Year's Invitation


Have you ever been stuck on a word?  Stuck on a word in such a way that every time you aren’t fully engaged in something else you get back to thinking about that particular word?  Yesterday I found myself stuck on the word ‘invitation’. ‘Invitation’ is a word that is connected to many of the significant moments in our lives.  We receive invitations to baby showers, invitations to weddings, and invitations to graduation parties.  Even funeral announcements are in essence an invitation as information in regard to times and places are announced so that people can gather together and remember the life of the deceased.  None of these events would be what they are if it weren’t for the invitation.  Imagine if someone were throwing a baby shower and planned the decorations, planned the games, and prepared the snacks, but in their busyness they forgot to actually invite people to be present?  How ridiculous would that be?

As we inch closer to a brand new year I have to wonder if we don’t in many ways do something as ridiculous as forgetting to send out invitations.  We make our plans for the upcoming year, we set our personal/financial/spiritual goals, and we consider what we want 2015 to look like, but in our haste we forget the most important part of the process:  The invitations.  Scripture is full of invitations and in the New Testament we see invitations offered by Jesus.  “Follow me” is an invitation.  “Come to me all who are weary and are burdened” is an invitation.  When Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray he teaches them to send out an invitation.  “Thy Kingdom come” is a prayer of invitation.  Some invitations are ones that we send out and others are invitations that we respond to.  Let me first focus on the invitations we send out.  

For someone like me, guests showing up unannounced or uninvited is a huge stressor.  I like to have everything straightened up and in it’s place even if it is just for a casual gathering with close friends who could care less if things are a bit messy.  When I look back over the years I’m fairly confident that many of the most difficult things I have had to deal with did not show up uninvited.  Directly or indirectly, actively or passively, I sent out an invitation that brought difficulty to my doorstep.  The only thing worse than an unwelcome guest is an unwelcome guest you actually invited into your home.  How many undesirable situations are having a negative impact on your lives and relationships?  How many of them did you invite into the confines of your home and life? 

What invitations are you responding to?  Each day is filled with enticing offers that sound too good to be true because they probably are.  We encounter invitations that promise much but provide little.  We accept invitations that cost us much more than we thought they would.  There are also plenty of invitations, even seemingly good invitations, that we should take a pass on.  If you’re not careful you can have your time filled with ‘good’ things and have no room for the ‘God’ things.  Is 2015 pre-occupied? Is it occupied in advance with your plans?  If you really want to respond to the invitation of Jesus in 2015 you may need to clear up space in your life.  That may mean some difficult choices.  Are you willing to sacrifice good things for God things? 

As we quickly approach 2015 I would encourage you to consider it a year of invitation.  The invitations we send and the invitations we receive will have a tremendous impact on our year. Don’t wait until January 1st to send out your invitations.  Start now!  What things are you wanting to invite into your life? Into your relationships?  Don’t just imagine the kind of year you want or the kind of person you want to be or the kind of relationships you want to nurture.  Invite God’s Kingdom, with all of it’s power, into the fabric of your life.  Thy Kingdom come.  And as you pray that prayer of invitation, step forward in response to the invitation of Jesus.  The invitation of Jesus isn’t deceptive.  He doesn’t make false promises.  In this world you will have trouble.  However, His grace is sufficient for you and He invites you to follow. 

Friday, November 7, 2014

Seesaws and Suicide


Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of media attention concerning a young lady named Brittany.  She was suffering from an aggressive form of brain cancer and desired to ‘die with dignity’ by utilizing her ability to decide when and how she will die.  This past Saturday she followed through with her plan surrounded by loved ones.  I will come back to her situation later but first I need to talk about Eric.

Eric is a significant person in the story of my life.  Every story has a beginning and when it comes to my faith story it starts with a good friend committing suicide.  One moment I’m getting ready to run the final leg of a relay race with my friend Eric sitting on a bench a few feet away and a couple hours later I receive a phone call saying that he took his own life.  You can read my previous post where I go through how God revealed himself to an angry and hurting boy in the midst of a horrible situation here:  http://growgraceknowledge.blogspot.com/2014/04/good-news-on-good-friday.html
 
Despite the fact that somehow through that ordeal I found ‘Good News’ there was another troubling side to the coin.  What about ‘Good News’ for Eric?  Over the course of most of my life I’ve had a mix of sorrow and joy when it came to my story.  My understanding of salvation early on made it impossible for me to hope for Eric.  He had committed what I believed was, and what many believe still is, the unforgivable sin.  Suicide, as I understood it, was a sin that had certain and eternal consequences.  Because there was not an opportunity, between the pulling of the trigger and his immediate death, to ask for forgiveness, how is there any room for hope of salvation? 

There are a couple of things that I would like to appeal to when it comes to hope in the midst of suicide situations and neither of them have to do with the grace and mercy of God.  It’s easy for us to impose our views of grace and mercy onto God and how he should respond.  Appeals to God’s grace and mercy are sometimes made with the deep sense that God is going to do exactly as I would do if I were God.  That’s not exactly a biblically sound foundation to build on so I’m not going to do it.  My first appeal will be to the connection of our salvation to a relationship instead of works and the second appeal to the completeness of God’s work in Christ in regard to our sin.

Not By Our Works

You don’t have to be around church very long before you hear that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works.  Hopefully that is the case!  However, if you’ve been around the church long enough you’ve also probably heard plenty about what Christians do or do not do in regard to personal behavior/works.  Despite our head knowledge that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ there is still a consistent infatuation with works as it pertains to our salvation.   This infatuation with works has our salvation teetering back and forth between ‘saved’ and ‘damned’ as our lives cycle from sinful acts to holy acts like praying a prayer of repentance.  This is what I call ‘seesaw salvation’ or ‘teeter-totter salvation’, depending on your childhood familiarity.  I call it seesaw salvation because it’s a visual way to see the cycle of sin and repentance as some understand it.  The end result of this ‘works’ logic is that you are saved or damned according to what you’ve done last, which is why suicide is such a huge deal when it comes to determining someone’s salvation.  You don’t need to have any insight into a person’s relationship with Christ because it is pretty clear what the final ‘work’ of their life was.  Presuming a person’s relationship because of an act is simply not our place.  Their salvation is intimately connected to their relationship with Christ and not in any way to their works, good or bad. 

The Complete Work of Christ

Here’s an amazing thing about Christ dying for all of our sin.  We weren’t even around when he did it!  We hadn’t even been born yet, much less sinned yet, when Christ died on the cross.  All of our sins were future sins when Christ died for them and he paid for them all in advance.  All of my sins are covered by his blood because of my being united with him. Jesus doesn’t take care of our sins incrementally with each and every prayer for forgiveness.  He took care of them all once and for all.  If, upon my death, the Father sees me as spotless it’s not because I entered the pearly gates spotless but because I’m covered by Jesus who is spotless.  “Dressed in his righteousness alone.  Faultless to stand before the throne.” as the hymn says.  Even if the last action you or I have in this world is sinful there is still room for hope if we are united with him.  Our relationship status with Christ, along with our salvation, doesn’t precariously seesaw back and forth with each and every action.  And so, for the believer in Christ, we can be assured that all of our sins have already been paid for. 

Once again, our salvation is anchored in the work of Christ and not in our works.  A works based system of salvation is the root of bold declarations as to the certainty of peoples eternal destinations.  That is precisely the kind of thing I see people doing when it comes to suicide, among other things. 

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t actively confess and repent of our sin as if it doesn’t matter.  We definitely should do that, but it must be pointed out that our act of confession is in many ways a response to something that has already happened.  Christ isn’t going to die again for the new sin you have just committed because his one death is sufficient.  For those already in Christ the debt has already been paid.  In many ways you are asking for something he has already done. 

“Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”—1 Corinthians 12:3

We can’t even say “Jesus is Lord” apart from the Holy Spirit already being at work in us.  We can’t even open our mouths to confess our sin to the Lord apart from the Lord already doing a work in our lives.  Salvation is an immediate reality that is not bound to our confession but is bound to our being united with Christ.  Christ died, once for all, and his work is complete.  It is finished.  Sin and death don’t get the last word.  

So what about Eric? Jesus get’s the last word, not Eric’s sin.  My hope and prayer is that he was united with Christ.  I don’t know what kind of work the Spirit was doing within him so I won’t speculate.  It’s not my place, nor is it anybody elses.  No matter how selfish or sinful his final actions were, they did not place him outside the reach of Christ. 

And what about Brittany?  Her situation was different than Eric’s because she had terminal cancer and knew that barring a 11th hour miracle she was going to die and in many ways knew what the dying process was going to look like for her particular disease.  But is it different because she knew she was going to die?  We all know that we’re going to die. No surprise there, although many times we do live in denial about that fact of life judging by the way we drive our vehicles.   It’s not that she knew she was going to die that makes her situation different from suicides like Eric’s but that she knew with more precision than most the likely details of her death and chose a different way to die.

Because I am a violent person in a violent world it is very difficult for me to keep in step with the persistent inner drum beat that calls me to non-violence.  Despite my desire to delineate between one killing and another, to justify one and not the other, the drum beat within says that killing is killing.  Physical pain and suffering is horrible but should it be avoidable?  When it came down to it, even Jesus asked his Father if the path of suffering laid out before him was avoidable.  In Jesus’ acceptance of the path of suffering he made himself accessible to us.  Later on his followers would rejoice in their suffering.

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”—1 Peter 4:12-13

Jesus had intimately participated in the human experience of suffering and now his followers were sharing in the experience of Christ through suffering.

Two final things before I stop my rambling.  First, I want to clarify that this is not about providing any sort of justification for anyone killing themselves.  Just because I believe such a thing does not put someone outside the reach of grace does not mean that this is an appropriate way for our lives to end.  To quote a friend of mine:

 "If we truly love Jesus and have trusted him with all that we are and ever will become, our desire is to please the Lord with our lives, not out of a sense of "works" but because we love Him so much. Therefore, we aren't thinking about whether or not we can "get away with" committing suicide or any other questionable act.”

This is, in large part, for the great number of people I know who have already been impacted by the tragic death of loved ones and struggle to find hope as I did in the case of my friend Eric.  In the final equation Jesus gets the last word and not our works.  For that I’m not only grateful, but hopeful.      

Second, in regard to those who insist on using variations of the word ‘coward’ when talking about people like Brittany or Eric.  Stop.  Please.  My honest assessment is that people who use such words in this context lack understanding and compassion and are ultimately of no earthly comfort to people in pain.  This isn’t about cowardice versus heroism.  This isn’t about the absence of courage but the presence of unbelievable suffering and there’s nothing more disturbing to me than taking what I consider to be a verbal cheap shot at people considering death with dignity or people who have already committed suicide.  There are far greater ways to encourage and comfort the terminally ill and bring joy into their life than by challenging them to not be a coward. 

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Obedience: Fast Acting or Long Lasting


Have you ever heard your mom say that she has eyes in the back of her head?  On one fateful day when I was little I found that to be painfully true.  I was sitting in the living room when I fully understood that I should be upstairs getting ready to go somewhere.  Mom had already told me once that I needed to be getting dressed and this was now her second trip into the living room because of my stubbornness.  I didn’t want to go wherever we happened to be heading and after she turned and headed off across the house the idea popped into my head that I should do something I had recently learned.  I still don’t know who designated the middle finger as an inappropriate appendage to stand alone but I let it fly.  As I defiantly held my finger up in opposition to the parental regime requiring my compliance my mother did an immediate about face.  As she started her turn I immediately put my hand down but I’m pretty sure that I had a horrified look on my face at the likelihood that she knew what I had done.  Sure enough, she did.  To this day I don’t know how she knew, although I’m betting that my reflection on a window or perhaps the glass door on the China cabinet was the key to my undoing.  I don’t remember where we were going or why I was being so stubborn or even how she caught me but what I do know for sure is the penalty for my crime.  I don’t remember being spanked much as a kid, much less why I got spanked, apart from this particular occasion.  I don’t even remember how bad the spanking hurt because the entire time I was being spanked I was asking myself, “How did she know? How did she see me?” An inquiring mind wanted to know.

In light of the Adrian Peterson situation and since I recently wrote a blogpost on obedience as followers of Christ I feel that this parenting topic is of particular importance and worth writing about.  If you haven’t read my post entitled “The Heart of Obedience” I’d recommend that you read it first because what I will say here in regards to nurturing obedience in your children flows out of what I discuss there, namely the relationship between love and obedience.  You can find my previous post here:

http://growgraceknowledge.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-heart-of-obedience.html    


Let me first state that I in no way feel like I was traumatized as a child because I was spanked.  I don’t think that spanking should automatically be considered abusive.  I do consider what Adrian Peterson did to be more than just a spanking, or a whooping, or whatever term you prefer using.  By all accounts, and by virtue of the graphic photos, what he did was extreme and abusive.  I have plenty of scars by virtue of being a boy doing stupid things but none of my scars come from a beating or from trying to avoid a beating.  What he did was wrong and many times the discussion of spankings get turned into discussions about whether or not they are right or wrong.  What I want to talk about here is not about whether spankings are right or wrong but whether or not they are the best way to raise a child. 

If you were to ask a Christian parent if they wanted to raise their child to be like a Pharisee or a follower of Jesus Christ they would unanimously agree that they want to raise their child to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  Here’s the thing about Pharisees: They were extremely obedient.  In regard to the law they were about as faultless as you could get and yet they were far from the kind of people Jesus wanted them to be.  Jesus desired an obedience from his followers that flowed out of their love for him.

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.”—John 14:23-24

The path of obedience for Jesus’ followers is rooted in the love of Jesus.  The Pharisees were on a very different path of obedience.  They loved the law itself, not Jesus, and their obedience to the law resulted in a very different lifestyle than that of Jesus and his followers.  These are two very different paths of obedience.    

I think the same holds true when it comes to raising obedient children.  There are various paths to raising obedient children but they don’t all bear the same fruit in the same way that the Pharisees and disciples of Jesus bore very different fruit.  As a parent, would you rather your child obey you because they love you or because they don’t want to be punished by you?  On days when patience may be wearing thin you probably just want obedience in any way that you can get it and that, it seems to me, speaks to the heart of the problem.  If the goal is any kind of obedience as long as it is immediate obedience then spanking works.  You get your desired results and you’ve gotten obedience from your child.  However, the discussion here is not whether it is right or wrong but whether this is the best way and I don’t think that it is.  The problem with rule loving, follow my laws right now, parenting is that you end up with a bunch of Pharisees.  They learn the rules of how far they can go (or how slowly you can count to 3) before they will get into trouble.  Doesn’t this remind you an awful lot like Pharisees arguing over how far you can walk on the Sabbath?  It does to me!  Somewhere along the line someone got in trouble for doing something on the Sabbath and it became the new rule to enforce on others.   

Another problem with this discipline approach is that the behaviors are maintained only as long as there is an enforcer and punisher present.  When a child grows up and can no longer be punished by their parent for the things they grudgingly couldn’t do when they were younger they are now free to do those things spanking free.  Far too often we see kids leaving the homes of their parents only to break every single ‘rule’ they had lived by for years.  There are a variety of factors involved in that but I’m confident that one of them is that kids get raised to follow rules because they have to, not because they want to.  With the possibility of parental punishment removed we see that their obedience wasn’t anything lasting. 

Above all, parents want their kids to have a lasting obedience to something that will bear fruit throughout their lives.  That obedience is the fruit of a different path but what does the other path look like?  There are plenty of more qualified people who could answer that question and I would love to hear how ‘non-spanking’ parents navigate through their particular discipline and behavioral issues.  Instead of offering up specific non-spanking approaches to behavior issues what I would like to draw your attention to are some of the roadblocks to this better and more fruitful path.       


Problem #1

Your kids don’t misbehave in convenient places.  There are reasons that meltdowns happen with an audience and it is in those moments that the desire for immediate obedience overrides the desire for lasting obedience.  The options in these inconvenient places boil down to bribery or a spanking preceded by the slowest counting to 3 ever.  Neither of these will get you the best results in the long run. 

Problem #2

You don’t want a conversation.  You want them to listen to you the first time.  You don’t need to give a reason.  The reason is simply that you told them to do, or not do, what you told them to do, or not do.  The problem with this approach is the fact that conversation leads to understanding.  Want to know why college kids ditch many of the rules they followed as young kids?  They were never given legitimate reasons for those rules in the first place.  They may have followed them previously but not because they understood or agreed with them.  Understanding and agreements happen in the adult world because of conversations.  This is something our government could learn a little bit about.   In this parenting context, however, it gets tricky.  Explaining thing to kids can be challenging.  Using words that very little kids can grasp onto can be ridiculously difficult.  Conversations also take much more time than the usual exchange of spanking threats and immediate obedience.  However, if you’re wanting the kind of obedience bears fruit past the age of 18 you’re going to have to invest more time in the parenting conversations you have with your kids.

Problem #3

I don’t know any other way.  I get it.  I’ve already said that spanking works.  I never flipped my mom off after my spanking.  I did learn something.  While spanking is fast acting, it isn’t long lasting.  If you’re wanting to find something that is longer lasting then you’re going to have to find other ways to discipline your children.  This involves creativity, and unfortunately, also usually involves more time as you have to spend time considering what those options are and what works best with your kid(s).  All kids are different and what works with your older child will probably not work with your youngest.  How you discipline your child should be molded to each child if you want the best results.  If you aren’t creative or struggle for time I would suggest you seek out people who have already found helpful alternative methods.  You can probably find something on Pinterest.

Spanking isn’t the ‘one size fits all’ as it has been described by some.  For every person saying it made them better there is another person saying it has destroyed them.  The question here is about whether or not there are better and more lasting ways to go about disciplining children.   I think there are better ways but it’s going to require your time and I know you are busy.  Fast acting methods are blatantly tempting but I want you to invest in parenting patterns that are longer lasting.  You may not see the fruit until years down the road  but such is life.  My prayer is that the fruit produced later on would be attributed to the time and attention paid by a parent who desired much more than strict obedience.  That happens, I believe, when obedience is rooted in the path of love.