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.

 

 

 

Love Your Neighbor

 My neighborhood

Arriving home from church around 8:30 on a Wednesday night. Noticing two police cars parked in front of a house down the street. No flashing lights. No other emergency vehicles. Just dark, silent, ominous police cars.

Ominous because I’d seen them twice before in the last ten years or so. Both times, the officers were responding to a suicide.

What kind of neighborhood do I live in, if there might have been three suicides in a small cluster of homes in just ten years? What kind of terrible, painful, unendurable suffering is going on here?

It’s an upper-middle-class development. Homeowners buy new cars, remodel their houses, and upgrade their landscaping on a regular basis. Pay hundreds of dollars a month just to watch television through cables and satellites and streaming services. Hire people to clean their homes and mow their lawns. Send their children to private schools.

Me and my neighbors, we have it all. All the money anyone could possibly need. And it hurts.

My response

I begin praying for the situation, whatever it might be. I know that a young man who lives across the street from the police cars has been struggling with depression lately. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but the fear and shock of what might have happened hit hard. My first prayers are for him and his family.

I also pray and think ahead about what I would say if it turns out that a neighbor's loved one took his own life. I’m not good at speaking off-the-cuff. I know the best thing I can do is listen, but I want to be prepared to offer a few words of sympathy and support. Not a memorized speech, just something to get me past that tongue-tied feeling to where I can maybe minister to a suffering friend.

I reflect on two ideas from my own experience with suicidal depression that have helped when I’ve talked to someone who’s lost a family member in this indescribably painful way. The thread that connects them is that we don’t have as much power over other people’s lives as we think we do.

First, people have a natural tendency to accept more blame than they actually deserve when someone kills herself. Yes, parents and peers can inflict terrible emotional injuries by their words and actions. Distant or harsh relationships, abuse, and bullying can trigger changes in the brain that result in major depression and suicidal thinking.

But a person can also have a genetic tendency to that same faulty brain chemistry, leading to symptoms right from birth or ones that get switched on by a relatively mild trauma. Someone without this vulnerability has the resilience get through the same kind of trauma without becoming suicidal.

In my case, my genetic makeup, combined with a period of unusual stresses, created a chemical imbalance in my brain that compelled me to indulge in obsessive thoughts of self-harm. I couldn’t blame my parents or anyone else for the depth of my gloom. My natural brain chemistry was at fault more than they were.*

I don’t have any formal training in psychology. I can’t analyze every situation to determine what factors, either in-born or environmental, lead a particular person to kill himself.

But the few people I’ve known who’ve blamed themselves for a loved one’s suicide were taking far more responsibility than the situation logically demanded. I can use my experience with suicidal thoughts to help alleviate any undeserved guilt that family members may be carrying for contributing to a death.

Second, people have a natural tendency to blame themselves for not recognizing when a loved one is close to suicide. But depressed people can be very good at hiding their pain.

I was. Partly out of shame. (What would people think if they knew what I was really feeling?) Partly as a way of coping. (If I acted happier, I felt a little better. This strategy has been proven to boost a depressed person’s spirits, but it can also be a function of unhealthy denial.)

I don’t think any of my friends or family members even suspected that I was actively suicidal.

In a support group for depression and anxiety that I was leading at my church many years ago, my group members were often smiling. They seemed so normal, even happy. I had to remind myself that they were hurting more deeply than they appeared to be or they wouldn’t be in that room.

When someone blames herself for not realizing how much a loved one was suffering, it might not be her fault at all. That person might have put on a very good show of being okay, just a little down. It’s always easier to see the warning signs after a suicide has occurred.

I can use my experience with suicidal thoughts to help alleviate any undeserved guilt that someone may be carrying for not recognizing the depth of a family member’s depression.

(As it turned out, it wasn’t a case of suicide this time.)

My responsibility

My mind moves on from “What do I say?” to “What’s going on here???” In my neighborhood and my country.

We have so much. So much more than we could ever possibly need. And yet we’re missing something vital. More people are dying “deaths from despair” (from alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide) than ever before. Even with all our material advantages, we’ve lost our sense of hope and purpose. How do we pull out of this?

I’ve wondered in recent years whether I (or any Christian) should live in an affluent neighborhood. Wouldn’t it be more biblical to give away more of my income and live more modestly (Matthew 19:21)?

I’ve been through some relatively lean times lately. I’ve struggled to pay all my bills. I’ve cut my expenses as drastically as possible.

I’ve looked into many options for moving into an apartment or a smaller, less expensive house in a different area. But God has locked every single door that I’ve tried. Instead, He’s provided for my needs.

Maybe I really am where He wants me to be. Maybe I can have an impact for good and for God if I stay right here. Wealthier developments can be the most godless ones.

About a year ago, I started walking in my neighborhood more often. I’ve met a few new families that way. They’ve shared some of their sorrows and challenges with me. I’ve struck up friendships with, and silently prayed for, people who support some of the most unbiblical worldviews.

Maybe I really do belong here. Maybe I can make a difference.

And yet I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to live among people who see Christians as ignorant haters. People who disdain the very idea of the God of the Bible. It hurts too much.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say when the conversation turns to divisive topics. I want to experience the comfort of having neighbors like the person described in Proverbs 30:8-9. Those who aren’t poor enough to turn to crime or rich enough to believe that they don’t need God.

And so I circle back to praying. This time for myself.

For the compassion and strength to share a neighbor’s pain without being destroyed by it.

For the wisdom and guidance to know what to say when awkward subjects come up.

For the sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s leading to make small changes in my habits, like walking around my neighborhood more often, so that God can increase my ministry to others. It’s amazing how much He’s already used that one little choice.

And for a heart that truly desires His will for me even when it hurts, not one that puts a higher priority on my own comfort.


*For a compassionate, Christian perspective on the vast difference between normal highs and lows vs. the warped thinking of major depression, check out Why do Christians Shoot Their Wounded? by Dwight Carlson.

 

 

Perfection

Seeking perfection

A recovering perfectionist. That’s what my friend/mentor called me.

I see signs of a desire for perfection, not just in my own heart, but all around me. Complaints when the government fails to fix a problem completely. Impatience when a server forgets one little item on an order or when a clerk hits the wrong key on the cash register. Frustration when a computer is slower than it should be.

Maybe this is our natural human state. Craving perfection. Not being satisfied with anything less. Maybe it springs from our longing for God, who is perfect, and our desire for heaven, where there is perfect peace and joy and love.

But can it ever happen on this fallen planet? It never has. Doesn’t seem likely that it ever will. “To all perfection I see a limit” (Psalm 119:96).

Jesus and human perfection

And yet sometimes the Bible itself makes it sound like perfection is possible on this side of heaven. Jesus prayed toward the end of His life for His followers to “be brought to complete unity” (John 17:23 NIV) or “become perfectly one” (ESV). Has that ever occurred in the history of the church? Was His prayer answered? Could Jesus pray a prayer that wasn’t answered?

I don’t know. On the one hand, some would say that He was only referring to our spiritual unity, which is perfect. On the other hand, can we really be “perfectly one” if there's any kind of division at all?

Then there’s His command in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How could He demand this of us when He knows it’s impossible? Maybe He set the bar as high as He did, not because He expected us to reach it, but so that we’d have no excuse for aiming lower.

What if Jesus had said instead, “Always do the best you can”? I know what I’d do. I’d cling to that favorite sin of mine with the idea that I couldn’t possibly resist or overcome it. I’d say I was living up to His command, then go about my merry way stifling any attempt of the Holy Spirit to get my attention and convict me of my need to change. I have to hear Him say, “Be perfect,” or I’ll make excuses for my faults, rather than doing my part in attempting to correct them.

In the same way, maybe Jesus prayed for complete unity for His people, not with the expectation that we would ever reach it, but as a challenge for us to be continually working for greater oneness.

The results of expecting perfection

God obviously included these verses on perfection in His perfect Word for a reason. But when we fallen humans demand perfection from ourselves and other fallen humans, it always leads to suffering, because we can never achieve it. Sometimes it results in refusing to accept good answers to our problems in search of a perfect and unattainable solution.

A few years ago, I read somewhere online about a newly published memoir. The author wrote about growing up in an American culture that was telling her not to settle for second-best in dating and marriage.

There was a time when many women felt like they needed to be married for the sake of financial security and social status. They were willing to agree to an okay or difficult marriage out of fear of remaining single, and therefore lacking both money and respect. As women became more self-confident and financially independent, the new goal was to avoid the pain of divorce by finding the perfect husband.

Unfortunately, the author never found him. Instead, she entered midlife regretting her earlier choices and expectations. She could look back at some of the men she’d dated and realize that a few of them might have been good enough, if not perfect. She might have had the pleasure of sharing her life with someone special, rather than spending it alone. She wrote her book to encourage younger women to have a more realistic view of the men in their lives.

Expecting perfection can also lead to giving up on finding any answers at all. Becoming cynical and bitter. Turning to drugs and alcohol and other forms of escape. In recent years, the death rate among middle-aged adults has been increasing in the United States. Statistics show that the change is due to larger numbers of “deaths from despair”—alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide. Too many people have given up. Is it because they were longing for perfection and couldn’t find it?

Overcoming perfectionism

So how did I become a recovering perfectionist, rather than a frustrated one? The main factor was a plunge into suicidal depression. Clinging to perfectionism would have led to my death. In addition to my severely depressed mood, I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t remember simple things, I was making embarrassing mistakes in front of everyone around me, and I didn’t have the energy to keep up with my responsibilities. I was failing in every area of my life. The disappointment in myself and frustration with my new shortcomings were so intense there were only two ways out—learn to let go or kill myself.

Through other people, through God’s Word, through His Holy Spirit within me, I began to release my unrealistic expectations of myself and others. To accept and even love myself just the way I was, with all my faults and limitations. To appreciate the good (even though imperfect) things—the beauty around me, my friends and family members, the prosperity of my nation, the freedoms that I enjoyed, and all the other blessings that God had generously provided. It took years to learn and grow like this, but it saved my life.

I lowered my standards to a more reasonable level, where they remain today. Following Jesus’ command, I still aim for perfection—while accepting the fact that I’ll never reach it. By doing so, I’m working for greater improvement in myself, the church, and the world around me than I would if I set the goal any lower.

And I'm learning to be content with the imperfect results. Although I haven't reached perfect contentment, I find joy in seeing the good, no matter how small, that comes from my efforts. And I look forward to the moment when I’ll enter the next life, where I’ll find the perfection that I’ve been yearning for all these years.

 

 

                                          

Delight or Despair?

 God’s revelation

    Recently read through Psalm 119. All 176 verses. Normally, when I read it, I can relate to Sam Williamson’s initial thoughts in his blog post about this “dreaded psalm,” especially the “dull repetition.”

    But God has been changing my perspective on His Word and His commands in the last few months (as He changed Sam’s). Sometimes when I open my Bible in the morning, I have a sense of awe that this is the very Word of God! Not just another book. Not just a bunch of stories and sayings that I’ve heard a hundred times. Not just something fallible written by a variety of human authors expressing their own opinions.

    The actual Lord of the universe, He who created all that exists, is communicating with us in this book that I’m touching with my own hands and seeing with my own eyes. He’s revealing who He is and how we can have a relationship with Him. What kind of God would make such a privilege available to so many? He didn’t have to do it. But He gave us this amazing revelation because of the intensity of His love for us.

His answer to my prayer

    So when I came to Psalm 119, I was praying that this time I wouldn’t see it as a repetitive compilation of praises for a legalistic lifestyle or as a list of unrealistic expectations, like in the first few verses: “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways. You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed” (italics added). Somehow, that just doesn’t describe me. But, in answer to my prayer, here’s what I realized: I can and should delight in His law. Not just His love and His grace, but His law.

    He gives us that law as both a guide to the best possible life in this world of suffering and a revelation of His character.

    Does God say “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14) to cruelly forbid us the excitement of multiple partners? No! He issues that command so that we can have the deeper pleasure and fulfillment of a good and lasting marriage. Marriage at its best gives a man and woman a hint of the joyful intimacy that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit experience among themselves through all eternity.

    Does God say “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15) to deny us the pleasure of owning something without the pain of paying for it? No! Stealing destroys trust. Our personal relationships are far stronger and more satisfying when we can trust each other. If my friend can’t depend on me to respect his private property, will he share with me the things that really matter? We can better understand and rejoice in the trustworthiness of God when we experience a less perfect form of it in our human relationships.

    Does God say “Remember the Sabbath” (Exodus 20:8) so that once a week we have to sit back in boredom and worry about all the things that we’re not getting done? No! He’s removing the burden of laboring seven days a week, He’s reminding us that everything we have ultimately comes from Him, and He’s providing time for us to draw nearer to His kind and loving presence without the distraction of a to-do list.

    Every command that God has given us has an equally good and valid reason behind it. It leads to a happier, more fulfilling life. It helps us to better understand and appreciate His character.

    It’s incredibly hard to obey His law because I’m so self-centered. I want what I want and I want it now. But it’s well worth the sacrifice to aim for Jesus’ high goal of being perfect (Matthew 5:48), even though I know I won’t reach it in this life. As I grow in my relationship with Him, He will develop within me a greater ability to love my neighbor as myself, to step back from that little voice inside that insists on having my own way, to understand that the fruit of obedience today is greater joy and peace and contentment tomorrow.

    Modern research supports the idea that following God’s law is good for us. Recent studies have shown that “deaths from despair” (suicide and deaths related to drug and alcohol abuse) are significantly less common among those who attend religious services on a regular basis than among those who don’t. These religious people experience better overall physical health and better psychological well-being. Whether they’re Christians or not, they’re the ones most likely to be attempting to obey God’s commands.

    Contrary to the promise of the 1960s that freeing ourselves from the restraints of traditional moral values would bring greater happiness, that “freedom” has led to a decrease in life expectancy, largely due to an increase in deaths from despair. Happiness has declined. Despair has grown.

My new prayer

    I’m nowhere near the point of approaching my Bible reading with eager anticipation every day, especially the Old Testament. Seeing God’s law as something negative and dread-full is too prevalent in our evangelical culture with its emphasis on grace. We’ve forgotten that the law was given to draw people nearer to Him. We see it as a harsh relic of the past. All that matters now is that God loves me. As a result, we’ve lost the sense of the beauty and joy and delight in His law that the writer expresses in Psalm 119:

    “I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. . . I delight in your decrees.”

    “My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.”

    “Your statutes are my delight.”

    “Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.”

    My new prayer is the same as the psalmist’s in verse 18: “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (italics added).

Poor Little Rich People

Prosperity leads to suffering

    Came across yet another Christian pundit scratching his head and trying to explain what went wrong with America. How could a culture so grounded in biblical values do such a u-turn to become one of the most secular communities ever, promoting entertainment and sexual freedom above all else?

    What happened? Where did Christianity fail? As with other pundits, he tries to pinpoint the key decisions and events that took us down the wrong path. If only church leaders had said and done just the right thing at just the right time, all this could have been prevented. If we had only trained up our youth in just the right way, they would all have remained faithful to God.

    Got news for you, guys: This is normal. This is how human beings respond to prosperity. It happens every time. There is no prevention, no cure. Affluence leads to arrogance and the illusion of self-sufficiency and to more time and opportunity to indulge in our lusts. We then abandon God’s ways for what we think will be the much more pleasurable ways of man.

    Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23-24, emphases added). This concept isn’t just true of individuals; it’s true of nations. Wealthy countries rarely follow God.

    In addition to Jesus’ teaching, we have the Old Testament record. The Israelites went through multiple cycles of being obedient to God, becoming affluent, rebelling against Him, losing their abundance as a result of His judgment, and returning to obedience. In ancient Greece and Rome, prosperity led to abandoning the values that gave them their strength in favor of pleasure and corruption, which triggered the collapse of their cultures. Money also tends to become concentrated in the hands of the few, who neglect or oppress the majority as their greed and pride blind their eyes to other people’s needs. In the end, great riches produce suffering, not utopia.

Obedience leads to prosperity

    Why don’t we as Westerners recognize this fact? Somewhere back in our history, we bought into the ideas that humans are smart enough to solve all the problems in the world and that material abundance is the highest goal, providing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. We dove wholeheartedly into the project of creating paradise on earth.

    Science was our biggest hope. New discoveries and inventions would cure all our diseases and provide all the physical goods every human being could ever need. I think it was C. S. Lewis who observed that one of the obstacles to preaching the gospel in the early twentieth century was the belief that modern medicine would soon conquer death. Why worry about the next life if this one was going to last forever?

    Even today, most Americans think that more money means a happier, more fulfilling life. Never mind the endless stories of those who have it all and yet feel empty. The alcoholism, the drug addiction, the suicides among the wealthiest. The lack of long-term, meaningful relationships.

     In Proverbs 30:8, Agur prays, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” Americans recognize the obvious—poverty leads to suffering. But we’ve missed the boat in thinking that riches will solve all our problems. Both lead to worse conditions than we experience when we have just enough.

    Making things more complicated, following God faithfully often leads to greater affluence. Under the Old Covenant, this link was made explicit, as many of the promises in that agreement involved material blessings (for example, Deuteronomy 28:2-13). God clearly said, “Obey Me, and I will give you a good life on this earth.”

    He also set up the world so that those who submit to His values will be more likely to succeed. Lying and cheating and stealing might have their temporary advantages, but people who frequently resort to these tactics earn a reputation for not being trustworthy. When others don’t trust you, it’s harder to get ahead.

    Some young people would point out that many actors and musicians succeed because they flaunt God’s standards for sexual purity and sobriety in their lives and their roles and their lyrics. They think anyone can follow this same path and get the same results. But these celebrities are an extremely small percentage of the overall population, who happen to be incredibly talented. They’re the rare exceptions, not the rule.

    In addition, a biblical lifestyle contributes to better physical and emotional health, increasing earnings and reducing expenses. Those who are committed to loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30) will avoid drunkenness, addictive drugs, smoking, overeating, sexual immorality, and taking foolish risks just for the thrill of it. They will build strong, loving relationships with each other and support each other through the tough times. They’ll learn to trust God more and more, instead of stressing out over the cares of this world.

Slowing the decline

    Western wealth is a direct result of our Christian heritage. But self-centered materialism is a result of that wealth. And meaningless lives are a result of that materialism. Just as Israel’s initial faithfulness to God ultimately led to their abandoning Him.

    The decline may be inevitable, but maybe we’re being too critical and too negative. Maybe the behavior of previous leaders and previous generations delayed the process in ways that we don’t recognize. One example: My generation assumed that marijuana would be legalized in this country by the end of the 1970s. Forty years later, it’s just beginning to happen, state by state. Was the unavoidable postponed by the behind-the-scenes prayers and actions of Christians? Can my prayers and actions today have a greater impact than those pessimistic pundits seem to expect?