Thinking of Others

Thinking evil

“In your hearts do not think evil of each other” (Zechariah 7:10).

But it’s so easy to do that!

There was this friend (Frank) of a friend of mine. My friend, who’d known Frank for several years, approached me at one time to ask if Frank could stay in my guest room temporarily.

In his late thirties, Frank was the victim of an unjust lawsuit. Most of his income went to his lawyer. But he was a hard worker and a good guy. He could no longer afford to rent an apartment and was planning on living in his car until things turned around again. I said okay.

It wasn’t just the lawsuit, though. It was the middle of the COVID pandemic. Frank’s income had dropped even lower because he couldn’t work as many hours as he had in the past.

And then one day Frank came home in a much nicer car. I was stunned. Angry. Hurt. Had the lawsuit been settled in his favor? Was he keeping that from me in order to take advantage of my hospitality? Was he simply using me?

I didn’t know how to approach the subject with him. He worked so many hours, I didn’t see him often. Even though he was living in my house, we hardly knew each other. Should I say something to him? Should I ask my friend what was going on?

I prayed, and did nothing. I didn’t want to make a false accusation.

And I was glad that I’d waited. Later, I overheard him talking on his phone in his room. He was explaining to an advisor that he’d accidentally missed a few payments on his car. It was supposed to be on autopay, but something went wrong. It had been towed away to be repossessed. He was borrowing one from a friend just to get to and from work.

He was polite and attentive during the phone call. No anger. No whining. He repeated the steps he needed to take to get it back. He was taking responsibility. Doing the right thing. Demonstrating that my friend’s evaluation of him was accurate.

Soon his car was in my driveway again. I never said a word.

I thought I was pretty good at not thinking evil of others, as Zechariah advises. A year or two ago a family member who’s not a Christian commented on my tendency to think the best of others, which he obviously didn’t agree with. I hope I was able to draw him a little nearer to God and to salvation in my response.

But there I was, assuming the worst about Frank. And it was all a lie.

The full verse in Zechariah says, “Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.” I’ve never tied those two ideas together before. But now I realize that thinking evil of Frank was a form of oppressing the poor.

How often do we do that? Most of us don’t actively oppress the widow or fatherless or alien or poor. But what about our hearts?

Do we think evil in our hearts of those who are struggling? Do we judge them for the bad decisions that they’ve made? For their appearance? For their dependence on government assistance? For their inability or unwillingness to hold down a job?

We might vigorously deny that we oppress them in any way, but Zechariah and Jesus both make it clear that the thoughts of our hearts are just as important as the words that come out of our mouths or the actions that we take.

Thinking the best of others

In the case of Frank, I was clearly wrong. Should I always try to think the best of others, though? Is that naivety? Am I setting myself up to be used and hurt?

Years ago I knew a couple who took in a man who had shown up at their church asking for a place to stay. He said he was a Christian who was in town to look for a job. They invited him into their home. All seemed to go well. He lived with them for a couple of weeks and then left.

A few days later, the police knocked on their door, asking about their recent guest. He’d been arrested for armed robbery. He was later convicted, having used a knife from my friends’ kitchen in attacking his victim. He’d done the same thing in other cities.

God protected my friends while they were unknowingly harboring a dangerous criminal.

But it doesn’t always work that way. Other Christians have been killed by those they trustingly tried to help. “Everywhere the kindest people go, the most calculating ones follow” (from WORLD magazine Opinions). How do I reconcile this with the verse from Zechariah?

In Matthew 10:16, Jesus says, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” I’ve always been drawn to the second half of that verse.

In your innocence, think the best of others. But be prepared. There are wolves out there. In your shrewdness, keep your eyes open. Expect some people to try to take advantage of you. Watch for signs that they can’t be trusted. But don’t jump to the conclusion that everyone you see is a wolf, intent on devouring you.

First Corinthians 13:7 says that love always trusts, always hopes. If we love someone, we’ll trust them and hope for the best for them. And we’re supposed to love everyone. But if we do that, won’t we just get hurt?

Yes, we’ll get hurt. Guaranteed. God doesn’t put us in this world and save us so that we can be safe. As Jesus continues teaching His disciples in Matthew 10, He tells them they’ll be flogged, arrested, betrayed, and hated. Hurt.

Yet love always trusts and always hopes. Why and how can we do that?

We can do it because the Lord loved us when we were untrustworthy and hopeless. We can do it because the Holy Spirit within us enables us.

We can do it because it works. I’m not going to cite any specific studies here, but over many years, I’ve learned from many sources that the way we treat others has the power to change them.

If I treat someone as if I trust her, she’ll become more trustworthy. If I treat someone with respect, she’ll become more respectable. If I treat a student as if she could learn the material, she’ll be more likely to learn it. If I believe the best about someone, and treat her in ways that reflect that belief, I’ll be a factor in bringing out the best in her.

(This is a general principle. In the case of someone like the armed robber, his heart had become so hard, it probably didn’t matter how anyone else treated him. But most of the people we know haven’t yet reached that stage. We can still have a positive impact.)

We all want other people to change. They’re never quite good enough for us. No matter how much we love someone, there’s always something about him that irritates us.

I addressed this issue many years ago in a support group that I was leading. And I gave them the key to changing others. There’s a catch, though. She won’t necessarily change in the ways you think she should. But it will bring out the best in her.

The best way to change another person is to love him just the way he is.

God loves us just the way we are. He doesn’t tell us we have to change before He’ll love us. He doesn’t stop loving us when we turn against Him.

That love has the power to change us for the better. If we follow His example, we can have an impact for good on the people around us.

And when we treat them as if we trust them and have high hopes for them, we’ll change, too. We’ll be less likely to think evil of each other in our hearts.

 

 

 

A Perfect Father

Our attitude

Parents might just be the most difficult people to forgive.

We can usually forgive children when they mess up. That’s what children do.

Most of us forgive the simple, everyday offenses that others commit against us. We couldn’t have meaningful relationships if we didn’t.

Some go even further and forgive the bigger hurts inflicted by coworkers, friends, siblings, and spouses.

But parents? Parents can be so hard to forgive.

How many adult children are still walking around with unhealed resentment toward their moms and dads long after the damage has been done? Long after they’ve reached an age where they should be mature enough to work through their pain and let it go.

Growing up

We have an intense longing for perfect parents. Part of this seems to be inborn, but we also quickly learn to expect our parents to always understand us and always meet all of our needs.

Right from the start they feed us when we’re hungry, comfort us when we’re upset, and change our diapers when they’re messy. The natural conclusion: These people take such good care of me, they must be perfect.

As time goes by, we become disillusioned. We’re understandably hurt and disappointed when they fail us. Which they always do.

And yet they expect us to obey them, as most of us do most of the time prior to adolescence. A perfect foundation for internal conflict. Which we later blame on them.

The Ten Commandments don’t tell moms and dads to raise their children well, but they do say to honor our parents. Parents have a natural tendency to want to raise their children well. We all have a natural tendency to remember their failures.

The blame game

In the twentieth century, “blame the parents for everything” psychology became common and powerful. I remember reading an article in the 1970s. (I’m pretty sure it was in Reader’s Digest.) It concerned a condition that hadn’t been talked about much up until then: autism. The behaviors associated with the condition had been blamed on poor parenting. But new research showed that they actually had a biological basis.

Around the same time, in my first job working with special needs children, I was told that kids with Down syndrome are naturally sweet and easy-going and loving. Therefore, if they misbehave consistently, it’s because their parents have been lax in their discipline.

Just recently, though, I was informed that the condition itself is associated with a tendency toward stubbornness. They do have a sweet, loving temperament that responds well to kindness. But they often present real behavioral challenges that can’t be due to their environment alone.

I look back in horror to a time when parents (especially moms) were blamed way beyond what they deserved for their children’s troubles. How did they live with the guilt being heaped on them?

Psychologists seem to have backed away from the insistence that every single issue stems from poor parenting, but it’s still easy to blame our own moms and dads for our troubles.

Freya India, a young author in the United Kingdom, describes a new twist on the blame game. Because most of them are not mental health care professionals, parents are now looked down on as incapable of being “helpful” to their children. Members of Gen Z (those born from about 1997 to 2012) are being encouraged to back away from their parents, who are obviously incompetent and usually harmful, and let therapists take on the roles—and the emotional connection—that used to belong to Mom and Dad. 

Instead of being counseled to understand their parents, take responsibility for building better relationships with them, and forgive them for the mistakes they’re bound to make by simply being human, these young people are now advised to transfer the relationship to their therapists.

Forgiving

I hope I’ve forgiven my parents for their very real sins against me and my siblings. (Just to be clear—my childhood was mostly good, mostly happy. Overall, I think my parents did a good job. They definitely had their faults, though.)

As a Christian, I have all the tools I need to forgive my parents.

(I’m not going to discuss here why we should forgive, but a good book that deals in-depth with cancel culture’s blindness to the precious value of forgiveness is Timothy Keller’s Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?. The following thoughts aren’t taken directly from that book, which I read after I’d written the original draft of this article, but of course some of them will overlap, since we’re both writing from a Christian perspective.) 

I can forgive those who harm me because God forgave me. The enormity of my sins against Him far outweighs any debt anyone could ever owe me.

Every time I flaunt His commands, I’m replacing the sublime God with a measly little idol, blaspheming the name of the loving creator of the universe, defiling His image before the watching world, and giving the devil a foothold in my heart and mind. If a holy God can forgive me for all that, surely I can forgive those who sin against me.

I can see my parents as God sees them—as my fellow fallen human beings. They’re not any more perfect than I am. They need grace as much as I do. Of course they made mistakes. We all do.

When I was a support group leader at my church many years ago, I was taught that one way to forgive Mom or Dad is to grieve that which we long for but never had and never will have. We needed something from them that we didn’t receive.* They weren’t perfect.

I like that idea. It confirms that real harm has been done, but it leads us to recognize our own mistake in expecting perfection from imperfect people. And it provides a process for working through the issue. We can never heal from any emotional pain as long as we maintain a victim mentality instead of doing whatever we’re capable of doing to repair the damage to our souls.

As a Christian, I have a deeper appreciation for the value of suffering. God can use it to draw us closer to Him and to bless others, if we turn to Him in our need and grow in His likeness as we heal.

I heard a story many years ago from a young woman. (I think it was on a Christian radio station.) She had been raised by “perfect” parents. In her perception, they did everything right.

Then she left home, and she was totally lost. She had no idea how to cope with a world that didn’t love her unconditionally and meet her every need, as her parents had.

Children become better people when their parents do their job well. Paradoxically, though, they also become better people when their moms and dads mess up. We learn and grow because we’re forced to deal with parents who do the wrong thing sometimes. (Of course, this doesn’t excuse any form of intentional mistreatment.)

God as our Father

And then God goes and reveals Himself to us as our Heavenly Father. How does that affect our relationship with Him?

For those who’ve been abused or abandoned by their dads, thinking of God as a Father can lead to rebellion against Him and make it incredibly difficult to trust Him.

All of our dads disappointed us in one way or another. It can be easy to carry over that disappointment and lack of trust to a Father God, often without realizing what we’re doing.

At times, we might blame Him for hurting us. We can struggle with finding a way to forgive Him.

Some people—even Christians—will need months or years to work through the harm done by their earthly fathers. As a body of believers, we need to recognize that and do what we can to contribute to their healing.

At the same time, we all long to have a perfect father. To know his unconditional love. To be able to return to him when we’ve rebelled, knowing that he’ll welcome us back again. To know that he understands our sorrow and anger and fears and failures. And still loves us.

We all have that powerful desire. Only God can fulfill it.


*The handout from that group credits “Robert Bly, in the video ‘A Gathering of Men,’” for this insight.

 

 

 

A Blended Family

Mixed marriages

The annual Thanksgiving Eve service at my church will be starting soon. I’m volunteering in the Children’s Department. Most of the kids are attending the service with their parents, but the pastor wanted to offer birth-to-fifth-grade child-care for those who prefer it.

As a retired teacher, I miss being around these young ones. I don’t even know most of the children in my own church. That’s why I’m here. To get a dose of kid-time and maybe build some new relationships (as well as lending a helping hand, of course).

The first two people walk up to the sign-in desk. White mother. Asian child, nine years old, named Molly. The last name sounds Chinese. Cool. A mixed marriage. In these days of racial division and strife, mixed marriages remind me that peace can prevail, at least within one family.

The next group arrives. White mother. Eight-year-old African-American girl named Connie. Two-year-old blond girl named Cherry. Another interracial family. This is what the church should be. A place where people with different skin colors can have intimate relationships.

Confusion

We’re meeting in the gym so the children can have some play time before we start more structured activities. With a bouncy ball and plenty of space, the kids spontaneously begin a game, making up the rules as they go along. The older children adapt to the limited skills of the younger ones when their turns come up. I smile at the close connection between Connie and Cherry, as they talk and laugh and hug each other, even in the middle of the game.

Eventually, Molly looks at them with a puzzled expression, seeing their special relationship. She asks how they know each other. “We’re sisters!” they both exclaim with pride and joy (and another hug).

“But. . . but. . .,” Molly stammers, glancing back and forth at the two of them, then looking around as if it should be obvious to everyone that they couldn’t possibly have the same parents. No response from anyone else. A close scrutiny of their name tags, then a triumphant expression. “But you have different last names!”

All three girls look puzzled now. Connie and Cherry honestly don’t understand what the problem is. I hesitate for a minute, allowing the girls a chance to sort it out among themselves. But they remain silent, so I ask, “You have the same mother but different fathers, right?” They nod. The game begins again.

Heaven and the first Thanksgiving

I love this living illustration of the holiday we’ll be celebrating tomorrow. As we chow down on our turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, the most basic reason for our rejoicing tends to get lost—the coming together of two different races, with two very different sets of life experiences, to share a meal in peace and harmony.

My thoughts also turn to heaven. I smile as I realize that in the next world no one will see two girls who look so different on the outside and wonder how they could possibly belong to the same family. It will be more like those two girls themselves—unable to understand why anyone would question their relationship.

The blood of all the races and ethnic groups will be blended together in one Father and His children. We’ll be so intimately united that we’ll understand each other perfectly and love each other perfectly. Nothing as superficial as skin color, and nothing as deep as vastly different life experiences, will ever separate us again.

And yet we’ll each retain our own unique identity. When Jesus was confronted with the question of life after death, His response was that God is the God of the living, not the dead, specifically naming Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 22:32). He implied that the three of them are still living their own individual yet transformed lives in another realm.

Revelation 7:9 says, “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” It sounds like there will still be some distinguishable differences among members of different nations, tribes, peoples, and languages even in heaven. I’m not sure exactly what that will look like, but the Bible is full of hints that we’ll each retain our own unique identity there, in perfect harmony with a wide variety of equally unique brothers and sisters.

We don’t handle our differences very well in this life. I need to remember to pray more often, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” in regard to race relations in my country. But sometimes, such as when I look at these two families within my church or when I see children of mixed ethnic and racial backgrounds playing together happily, I get a glimpse of the life to come, with its perfect blend of unity and diversity. The same glimpse that was clearly visible on that first Thanksgiving.

 

 

The Body is More Important

My body is important

Noticed something for the first time today in Matthew 6:25. Jesus says, “Is not . . . the body more important than clothes?” (my emphasis). Jesus Himself is actually calling my body important. Never really thought about that before. In verse 33, He promises to provide for it. When He walked this earth, He spent much of His ministry healing physical bodies. Sounds as if our bodies matter to Him, as if He has a special affection and purpose for them.

I know the Bible tells us that we’re created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). But God is a spirit, so I’ve always spiritualized that idea. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the possibility that my physical body somehow represents God.

Rebelling against my culture

As a young Christian, there were times when I was absolutely dogmatic about the unimportance of the body. I’d seen the idolatrous way many believers were bowing down to the god of appearance and I’d gone to the opposite extreme.

Well, not quite all the way to the opposite extreme. I still showered and washed my clothes. I didn’t wear rags everywhere I went. But I chose a less-than-fashionable, easy-care hairstyle and inexpensive outfits. I gave up on makeup, and I went through one period when I no longer shaved my legs even though I wore shorts in the hottest weather. Here in America, that seemed pretty radical. It made me feel holier than the Christian women around me who spent hours doing their hair and faces, and big bucks financing their wardrobes.

Have I ever mentioned that pride is one of my greatest spiritual challenges?

If I’d been honest with myself, I would have had to admit that my response to America’s insane emphasis on appearance is actually more nerdy than spiritual. I’d probably overreact to it just as much even if I wasn’t a Christian.

I don’t really get fashion. My style has always been more practical than pretty. And it doesn’t help that my proportions aren’t what they’re supposed to be for a woman. I’ve got wide shoulders, a long body, and short legs. The latest fads usually look all wrong on me. (Think shoulder pads.)

The negative impact of my church

It also didn’t help that the youth pastors in my church chose the most popular, best-looking students for leadership positions. Not the ones most dedicated to Jesus. The pastors’ hearts were in the right place. They thought that the attractive kids would be more likely to bring large numbers of friends to our youth group. More souls saved. But they weren’t following a biblical model.

Where are those formerly popular kids now? Most of them are experiencing the effects of shallow roots and choking weeds (Matthew 13:3-23). Few of them are still professing their faith. Almost all of them are divorced or have live-in lovers, suffer from poor relationships with their adult children, and appear cynical and unhappy.

They’d had their reward many long years ago in the attention given to them by the youth pastors, rather than storing up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:1-21). I didn’t know it at the time, but all through high school they were leading double lives. They put on an appearance of obedience while filling important roles within our group, but when no one was looking they were rebelling against God’s commandments in their lifestyles.

I was deeply dedicated to Jesus as a teenage baby Christian. But within my church, I was a nobody. The youth pastors snubbed me in favor of the good-looking kids. The pain that I experienced in my church as a new believer was a powerful factor in turning me away from a biblical view of my body.

My body is a temple

But Jesus tells me that my body is important. Paul even says that it’s a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Sounds mind-bogglingly important when you put it that way.

As I try to grasp this incredible concept, two aspects of the temple come to mind. The first one has always been emphasized by evangelicals: The demand to keep God’s temple pure. During my high school years, this idea was used to support all the rules on how to live. Don’t smoke, don’t have sex outside of marriage, don’t do drugs, don’t get drunk, and so on.

That’s one way that our bodies are important. They should reflect the purity and holiness of God.

But the body is more important than those don’ts. We should also be reflecting His image in our positive behaviors. Treating others with love and kindness and respect. Reaching out to those who are hurting. Being peacemakers. It takes a physical body to feed others with the spiritual fruit growing inside us. By placing all the emphasis on the negatives, my youth pastors failed me in this area, too. They didn’t have, and therefore couldn’t pass on to me, a biblical view of the body.

The second aspect of the temple relates to its physical design. In the Old Testament, God gave David and Solomon detailed instructions on how to build a temple filled with beauty (see “Joy From Sorrow”).

Humans everywhere demonstrate a desire to make their bodies look better. We have a natural tendency to decorate, to bring beauty, to everything within our reach. Just as God does. He wasn’t content to create a practical but plain or ugly universe. By His very nature, He dressed it up in loveliness. We’re imitating Him, acting as His image-bearers, when we care for and decorate our bodies.

So maybe it's okay to wear a little makeup and jewelry and to spend some time choosing outfits that look good on me. Maybe I’m simply enhancing my body as God enhanced His universe. Taking delight in creativity and beauty, as He does.

The challenge is to treat my body as a temple, a dwelling place for the Creator of this vast and beautiful universe, without turning it into an idol. To value it as something important and precious in His sight, but to seek God first and to worship Him alone.

 

Changing Churches

Suffering seniors

    Things I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard:

    ● Committed Christian baby boomers, the backbone of evangelical churches for decades, joining the ranks of the unchurched and the church-shoppers. Or switching to more liturgical churches, with their greater sense of reverence.

    ● A local evangelical church demanding that every activity must be intergenerational. Never mind that the older folks have long periods of lonely availability during the daytime and hesitate to drive after dark, while the younger ones work all day and can only participate on evenings and weekends. Seniors have been forbidden to gather without younger generations being present. Result: Older members have felt unwelcome and unheard, and have left.

    ● Men and women in their eighties and nineties sensing that their lives are no longer valued by the very churches that they’ve supported for years. That which was most precious and meaningful to them within those churches has been discarded, leaving them feeling like they’ve been discarded, too.

    I don’t think our worship leaders realize how much real suffering they’ve brought on our seniors with the radical changes that have occurred in the last twenty years or so. Based on the biblical model, they expect mature Christians to graciously accept the authority of the pastors and elders when decisions are made. Those who complain or criticize are seen as selfish, disobedient, and unwilling to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

    I think these leaders are honestly seeking to please God and are trying to do what they believe is best overall. But the pain is there and it’s often unrecognized. It’s not just a matter of stubborn resistance springing from rebellious hearts, although I’m sure that happens in some cases. For many, though, important theological issues are at stake.

God's expectations

    One assumption made by those who support more modern worship styles is that God doesn’t care how we worship Him. Style is irrelevant in His eyes. But if that’s true, why was He so specific about how the Israelites were to worship Him when He brought them out of bondage to Egypt? Part or all of the following chapters provide His specific instructions on worship: Exodus 25-30 and 39-40; Leviticus 1-8, 16, and 22-23; Numbers 15, 18, and 28-29; and Deuteronomy 12 and 16-17.

    Was the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? No. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Psalm 102:27, James 1:17). How we worship matters. It matters to God. It should matter to us. One weakness in today’s evangelical churches is the lack of a theology of worship that is based on examples of worship in the Bible.

Our focus

    What is it about modern worship styles that mature Christians object to? One big issue is the focus on self, which naturally leads to less emphasis on God—who He is and the deeper reasons for worshiping Him. If I worship Him solely for what He does for me, as much Contemporary Christian Music seems to imply, what happens when He doesn’t live up to my expectations? I have nothing solid to stand on during the tough times. In contrast, many hymns of the past praised God’s unchanging character and nature, His working throughout the world and throughout history, His thoughts and ways that reach far higher than satisfying the needs in my little life.

    It’s been ten years or more since I heard a derogatory comment on National Public Radio about those “narcissistic evangelicals.” First I was startled and offended, then I was embarrassed and humbled by what I knew to be a somewhat accurate assessment. Roughly ten years before that, Christianity Today ran an article in which they stated that there were more songs starting with the letter “I” in the contemporary files used in evangelical worship services than with all the other letters of the alphabet put together. What happened to Jesus’ teaching that “if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24)?

    Many seniors struggle with this stress on self and lack of emphasis on God. At a time when they’re suffering multiple losses—family members and friends, mobility and independence, physical health—they have an increased need for a transcendent God who rules the universe and whose love and justice extend far beyond simply pleasing individual human beings.

    I don’t expect our churches to turn back the clock as far as worship styles are concerned. Every era, every generation, has its flaws and shortcomings, including those found in the ways Americans worshiped in the past. While I pray that we’ll find a better balance in communicating both the intimacy and the transcendence of God, this is primarily a plea for mercy and compassion and healing after the pain inflicted on our seniors for the last two or three decades. A plea for a greater understanding of that pain and its origins, and for attempts to be made to treat our seniors with greater love and respect.

But I Still Feel Like an Anomaly, and It Hurts

(You might want to read “Ann O’Malley, Anomaly” and “Anomaly No More” before reading this post.)

The separation continues

    So I’m a Christian. So I belong to God, to His family. I fit in. I’m part of His crowd. Forever. Nothing can change that. So why do I still feel like an anomaly when I’m with other Christians? Wasn’t that whole anomaly thing supposed to end when I came to Christ?

    The bad news is that it doesn’t end. We’re still fallen human beings, even when we’re saved. We’ll experience separation from others, even other believers, until we’re with Jesus.

The healing begins

    The good news is twofold. First, after 45 years as a believer involved in both Christian and secular groups, I’ve found greater acceptance, greater fellowship, greater love among Christians than in any other group. Where the Holy Spirit dwells, this is the natural outcome. I know there are some people who’ve had very negative experiences within the church, who’ve been rejected by those who should support them, who’ve felt hated by those who should love them. That’s one of the issues that I’m trying to address in this blog. The church could and should do a better job of expressing God’s love for those who are hurting. But overall, in general, for the most part, I’ve seen greater acceptance and love, greater fruit of the Spirit within the Christian family than in any other group.

    That’s not to say that every individual Christian is more Christlike in this area than every individual nonbeliever. There are some very kind and generous and loving people who do not (yet) believe in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior. There are some Christians who fail to demonstrate God’s character in their treatment of others. My observation pertains only to groups in general, and I know it’s limited by my limited experience. But I find it encouraging to be able to say that I see a definite difference, as there should be, between believers as a group and the world as a whole.

    I once knew a Christian boy I’ll call Phil who was in junior high school. He had a big heart for others, and was disturbed by the lack of love that he saw among his Christian friends. They weren’t as accepting as they should be of those who were different from them. Didn’t Jesus say to love both your neighbor (Matthew 19:19) and your enemy (Matthew 5:44)? Phil didn’t see much of that going on.

    He was a friendly kind of guy and quickly got to know other boys in each of his classes. Christians, kids of other faiths or no faith, athletes, nerds, the well-behaved, the ones who were generally in trouble or who struggled to learn new material. He could get along with almost anyone and appreciate them just the way they were.

    One of his new friends was on the radical side. Spiked hair, attitude. But very smart. Phil got the impression that Spike and his crowd were more accepting of others than Phil’s Christian acquaintances were. They had some interesting conversations. Phil wasn’t buying into the radical stuff, but he had a certain respect for this group.

    One time, Spike invited Phil to hang out at the mall with him and his buddies on a Saturday evening. In spite of their apprehensions, Phil’s parents agreed to drop him off and pick him up. As far as they could tell, everything went fine. No emergency phone calls. No police officers knocking on their door.

    When they went back to the mall and Phil got in the car, he had a whole new perspective on the radical crowd. They weren’t as nonjudgmental as he’d thought. He’d had the gall to turn down the cigarette that they offered him. They taunted him for it and made fun of all the other mall-goers. After less than an hour of hanging out with them, Phil had run into a different set of friends and decided to spend the rest of the evening with those boys instead.

    There are plenty of groups that talk the talk of acceptance, tolerance, peaceful co-existence. But once you get to know them, once you hang out with them at the mall, you almost always find that they have their own ideas about what’s acceptable and what will be tolerated. When you voice your disagreement with their standards, when you politely turn down a cigarette that you’re supposed to accept, the group as a whole is no longer so accepting and tolerant. It’s normal.  It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome this natural tendency of fallen humanity.

Making a difference

    Which leads to the second half of the good news: I can be part of the solution. I have the Holy Spirit within me. Therefore I can be growing in the fruit of that Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). I can treat others as I want to be treated (Luke 6:31), with patience and kindness and gentleness. I can help reduce that sense of anomaly, that feeling of being weird, of not fitting in, of not being a part of the crowd, whether I’m at home or at work or at the mall, whether I’m with a fellow believer or an atheist or someone of another faith. I can make a difference.

Anomaly No More

(You might want to check out my first post before reading this one.)

Fitting in

    It hurts to be an anomaly. There’s so much pressure today to keep up with what’s trending. Forget what’s important or what’s meaningful. What’s trending is more crucial to our lives, more significant, more urgent. The unspoken message: if you’re not up on the latest trend, you’re an anomaly. You’re on the outside. You don’t fit in. And that’s bad.

    But isn’t every one of us an anomaly to some degree? Won’t I always feel different in one way or another from every single person around me, even when I follow all the latest trends? How do I cope with this?

The bad news

    When I look to God’s Word I find bad news. In Genesis chapter 3 Adam and Eve defied an express command from God and ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Several things happened as a result, but they all relate to God’s statement, “When you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Sometimes the Bible uses the word “die” to symbolize separation. Adam and Eve didn’t physically die the moment they ate the fruit. But they instantly experienced separation.

    They “made coverings for themselves” (3:7). Separation from each other. “They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (3:8). Separation from God. The man blamed the woman (3:12). Separation from each other. The woman blamed the serpent (3:13). Separation from personal responsibility, from self. They were banished from the garden of Eden (3:23). Separation from paradise.

    Sadly, the Fall resulted in humans becoming separated from all that had been most precious to them, including each other. Adam became an anomaly to Eve. Eve became an anomaly to Adam. The pain began. And it will continue until this world ends. We will always feel like anomalies in regard to our human relationships.

The good news

    But I also find good news in God’s Word. In spite of being separated from the presence of God, in spite of the inability of sinful man to have a relationship with God, no one is separated from the love of God, the love that provides a way back to fellowship with Him. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. . . . We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:9-10, 19). “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

    While we were in such a state that there was no way we could live up to God’s righteous standards, Christ died for us. This is so freeing. God loves you just the way you are. You can come to Him without having to clean up your act first. You can come to Him with all your doubts and fears and anger and bitterness. Jesus loves you so much that He offers His own blood to cover your sin even while you’re enjoying those sins, even when you’re shaking your fist in His face, even before you begin to regret the brokenness and separation that sin brings in its wake. Even when you’re His enemy. The ultimate demonstration of how to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44).

    God’s desire is that no one will feel anomalous or left out in relation to Him. “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4). “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). He wants everyone to be saved. He wants everyone to belong.

    When you come to Him, when you recognize your inability to be worthy to stand before a perfect and righteous God, when you accept His free gift of forgiveness through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, you can leave your sense of anomaly behind. You now belong to Him and are a part of His family, as fully acceptable to Him as the most saintly people in the Bible.