Good Company

Despair

Rereading books from my personal library, deciding which are keepers and which can go. A Reason to Live, edited by Melody Beattie (1991), is my current choice.

Two quotes on page 125:

“So if you [God] are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once.”

“It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life.”

The title of the article in A Reason to Live: “You’re in Good Company.” These words were spoken by Moses and Elijah in Numbers 11:15 and 1 Kings 19:4. Many of the readers of the book could relate to their despair.

Glory

Where’s the one place in the New Testament where these two great men appear together? With Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9).

I’ve always wondered why they were sent to the Lord at that time. I’ve heard a couple of good explanations, but you know me. I continue to question God’s choices (or man’s explanations for God’s choices).

I’ve heard some say that Moses represents the Law while Elijah represents the prophets. That makes sense, since Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the prophets. But a little part of my brain asks, “Why should Elijah represent the prophets? Was he the greatest of them all? He doesn’t even have his own book, like Isaiah or Jeremiah.”

I’ve heard some say that one link between them is that neither had a definite burial place, just as Jesus’ tomb is empty. A good observation. Moses died on Mount Nebo and was buried “in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is” (Deuteronomy 34:6). Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind without ever dying (2 Kings 2:11). But if that was God’s reasoning, why wasn’t Enoch on this mountain, too (Genesis 5:24)?

I’m fine with these explanations. There may be others that I’m not familiar with.

But as I read these words of desperation from the lips of the two who came to Jesus on that mountain in the final days before His last journey to Jerusalem, I see God’s choice from a different perspective.

In Matthew 16:21, “Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” He repeats this message in 20:17-19. In between is the transfiguration.

His coming suffering must have been on His mind even as His glory was revealed to Peter, James, and John. And then Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus.

Good company for Jesus

According to Luke 9:31, they “spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.” Jesus would be in control of His departure, but we know from His experience in the Garden of Gethsemane that it wouldn’t be easy.

As I read this article in this book I think, What do we all crave when we’re facing a difficult trial? The good company of someone who can relate to our fears and our pain.

Is that maybe one of the reasons the Father sent these two particular men to be with His Son at this particular time? Did they remind Him of their own trials and struggles, their own despair? Did their presence and their words strengthen Jesus as He faced both human and divine judgment at the end of His life on this planet?

(I don’t mean to imply that He was so dependent on help from human beings that He would have failed in His mission if He hadn’t had this encounter. Sometimes God sends us unnecessary blessings out of the abundance of His grace.

I’ve had times when I really would have been okay without any encouragement or strengthening from others, but the Lord has gone beyond my need and blessed me through someone else’s words. I treasure those moments.

The presence of Moses and Elijah wasn’t necessary for Jesus to have enough strength to face His coming trials. It was a gift from a loving Father to His Son.)

The background

When the Israelite slaves suddenly escaped from Egypt, they’d spent hundreds of years living in poverty and in terror of their masters, with few opportunities to make meaningful decisions. As a result, they understandably experienced fear and doubt and stumbling on their initial journey.

God was patient with them and provided for their needs during their many periods of grumbling. In the book of Exodus, He rebukes them for their complaints, but the only time He punishes them for their attitude and behavior is when they worship the Golden Calf at Mount Sinai in chapter 32.

The next book, Leviticus, is mostly peaceful. The only rebellions described are by individuals and are dealt with individually (chapters 10 and 24).

Then we move on to Numbers. The first ten chapters concern commands from the Lord and the departure from Mount Sinai. But something changes in chapter 11. The outline in my 1985 NIV Bible labels it, “The Beginning of the Sorrows.” Now the Lord becomes “exceedingly angry” with them for their complaints. He sends fire to consume “some of the outskirts of the camp.”

What’s happening here?

Through every trial, God had demonstrated His tender loving care for Israel. On Mount Sinai, He made a precious covenant with them to be their God. Their departure from that mountain signals that they have everything they need to enter into a deeper relationship with Him than any group has had since the fall of mankind.

It’s time for them to grow up, stop grumbling, and start trusting Him. Time for God to start using different teaching methods.

This is when Moses asks God to take his life. He doesn’t see how he can possibly bear “the burden of all these people.” And yet he does. For forty more years.

At the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus knew He would soon be bearing a great burden involving many people, on the cross. He and Moses could relate to each other.

In 1 Kings chapters 18 and 19, Elijah experiences a powerful victory over the false god, Baal. Queen Jezebel sends him a message vowing to kill him within twenty-four hours. He runs for his life and prays that he could just die by God’s hand. Elijah quickly plummets from the heights of success to the depths of sheer terror.

As they were talking, Jesus knew that He would soon go from the glory of the transfiguration to the intense suffering of the cross. He and Elijah could relate to each other.

In Mark 9:19, Jesus expresses exasperation with His disciples’ lack of faith, asking how much longer He’ll have to put up with them. Kind of like Moses and Elijah telling God they’re ready to be done with this life.

Jesus could relate to both Moses and Elijah. They provided good company for Him.

Good company for the disciples—and me

Shortly after the incident with the Golden Calf, Moses asks to see God’s glory. The glory of the Lord passes by him while he’s covered by God’s hand in the cleft of the rock. Moses only sees God’s back.

After asking the Lord to take his life, Elijah hides in a cave on Mount Horeb. (NIV note: probably an alternate name for Mount Sinai.) God says to him, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Elijah experiences God’s presence in a “gentle whisper.”

Moses and Elijah had indirect, yet intimate, encounters with God’s presence and glory. Peter, James, and John are there when Jesus is transfigured in all His glory. It wasn’t only Jesus who could relate to Moses and Elijah. These three disciples were in good company, too.

And I’m in good company. In both my despair and my joy. Moses, Elijah, and even Jesus went through deep emotional suffering. I can relate to them.

Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John all had intimate encounters with the glory of God. I don’t expect to ever see some kind of vision of God’s glory, like Jesus’ transfiguration, in this lifetime. But with the Holy Spirit within me, I can have a growing sense of His glory. I can relate to these men. I’m in good company with them in both their pain and their joy.

Part of that glory, part of that joy, is the Wow! I experience when I see new connections between different Bible passages. Moses and Elijah both despaired to the point of asking God to take their lives. That same Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus shortly before His agonized prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane. God’s Word and His working are amazing.

 

 

 

Rejecting Wisdom

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Recently came across a 2023 article by Jon Haidt on his Substack, “After Babel.” He shares how his friend, Greg Lukianoff, a defender of the free-speech rights of college students, made a brilliant connection between policies implemented by American universities and declining mental health. (The irony—the policies were intended to improve mental health.)

Lukianoff had learned to apply Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) while being treated for depression. CBT focuses on thinking patterns, called cognitive distortions, that can be both causes and symptoms of depression. They’re referred to as distortions because they don’t accurately reflect reality. Learning to overcome these habits (including catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, and emotional reasoning) contributes to psychological healing.

When we catastrophize, we look at a current issue or situation and jump to the conclusion that something catastrophic will happen if we don’t stop it or fix it immediately. I remember when I was learning to drive and the price of gasoline was threatening to skyrocket all the way up to two dollars a gallon. I thought the world would end.

It didn’t.

Most of the things we catastrophize about aren’t nearly as destructive as we imagine they’ll be. Human beings are amazingly resilient, both individually and as groups.

Black-and-white thinking means there are no gray areas. For example, every person is either good or evil and every action illustrates either love or hate. But in the real world each one of us is a mixed bag of thoughts and motivations. Even good people do bad things. Even bad people are capable of doing good things.

My dad used to say, ”Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.” Wikipedia describes this as an “error in which something good or of value is eliminated when trying to get rid of something unwanted.”* Black-and-white thinking often leads to making this mistake.

Emotional reasoning uses feelings, rather than logic, in making decisions. Rational thinking alone can lead to trouble if we don’t take into account the psychological impact that a seemingly logical action can have on someone. (As a nerd, I’ve done this too many times.) But basing decisions solely on emotions rarely leads to the best solution to a problem.

Lukianoff suggested to Haidt that the behavior of many college students and the policies of many college leaders is, in effect, reverse CBT. (I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but you can explore this idea in more detail in their 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind.)

Expressing deep concern about microaggressions is catastrophizing. Refusing to allow someone to speak on campus in their field of expertise because of a comment they’d made in a tweet concerning a completely different subject is throwing out the baby with the bathwater due to black-and-white thinking. Emotional reasoning is used to demand the removal of important textbooks from a college syllabus.

Universities are training and encouraging students to think in ways that have been proven to contribute to and prolong depression.

The Serenity Prayer

Then I happened to reread the “Serenity Prayer.” Originally composed in the early 1930s by Reinhold Niebuhr, a Protestant theologian, the prayer opens with, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

This prayer has been used successfully for many years (most famously by Alcoholics Anonymous) to help people overcome mental health issues and live better lives. But do we value its insights today?

Are we willing to accept that there are some things that we cannot change? Children have been told for at least a couple of generations now that they can do and have everything they want in this life. The message they’re hearing: Don’t accept the idea that there’s anything that you can’t change in order to get your own way.

Those who attract the most attention for trying to change the world often act like bullies or like spoiled children throwing a tantrum. Have bullies or tantruming children ever been considered courageous?

Do we desire wisdom, or would we rather just rush on to the next big thing without taking any time to contemplate whether it’s best to go there? Are we allowing wisdom to die out as we encourage electronic devices and artificial intelligence do more and more of our thinking for us?

Do we value wisdom and courage and the serenity of acceptance anymore?

Rejecting the past

Why is our culture rejecting the proven wisdom of the past? Wisdom that’s led many to better mental health. The fruit of that rejection can be seen in the increasing rates of mental health issues and deaths from despair.

A culture that lives this way weakens itself. (I’m tempted to say that it’s headed for destruction, but that might be catastrophizing.)

We seem to have adopted a definition of progress that means automatically dismissing anything old when something different comes along. No need to evaluate whether to accept the new. It’s always better simply because it’s newer. That’s how evolution works.

I saw this blatantly stated in a book about Robinson Crusoe and its imitators many years ago. (I no longer have the book, so I can’t identify its title and author with certainty.) There are probably other sources that I’m not familiar with that make the same assertion.

C. S. Lewis, in Surprised by Joy, calls this “chronological snobbery … the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.”

In contrast to this attitude, Lewis writes in The Case for Christianity, “Progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

What if we thought more carefully before taking that wrong turning in the first place? If we automatically reject the past, can we even recognize that old right road? Or will we build a new one that takes us even further from the truth?

I’m not saying that there was ever a golden age that we can go back to if we just overcome current ways of thinking and pass the right laws. I’m skeptical of any viewpoint that claims that there was once a time and a place where a majority of people were true Christians.

When Christianity is acceptable and popular, I have to question how many people are actually born again and how many are simply following the current philosophy without thinking it through and without any real repentance and change of heart. Jesus said, “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14).

And I’m not anti-progress. I’m thankful for the developments in human thinking and technology that have occurred within my own lifetime.

Advances in medicine have led to longer, fuller lives. Personal computers have simplified the writing and rewriting process (thank You, Lord!), among many other benefits. We’re seeing greater equality between the races and the sexes. Pollution has been reduced and cleaned up.

Several decades ago, experts made great strides in understanding and treating mental health disorders. Talk therapies, like CBT. Medications that, when used wisely, can save lives. Now those advances are being replaced by newer ideas. Not because they didn’t work (when applied properly), but simply because they’re older.

Just as certain college policies can be seen as the opposite of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, rejecting the wisdom of the past can be seen as the opposite of progress.


*Recently, other writers have called my attention to some painful examples of how Wikipedia distorts the truth and refuses to change their story when their bias is pointed out to them. With those examples fresh in my mind as I was editing this post, I was tempted to find a different source for the explanation of this expression.

But then I realized that that might be a perfect example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Should I use Wikipedia for its beneficial articles? Or should I stop referring to it because of the obvious bias in other entries? Does citing Wikipedia in this blog imply that I trust it completely? What if I can’t tell how inaccurate an article is and I accept, and even spread, the false teaching that it promotes without realizing that I’m doing that? I’m still struggling with these questions.