Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 95

Am I Still Crazy Busy?

As I’ve done interviews, engaged in conversations, and read a few reviews about Crazy Busy, one on the recurring questions is whether I am actually any less crazy busy after writing the book?

It’s a fair question.

The book doesn’t end with a dramatic “that was then, but this is now!” chapter. In part, that was a deliberate choice. There is place for personal books that end with clear success–the dieting book where the author loses 50 pounds, the financial planning book where the author gets out of debt and saves a million dollars, the book on conflict where the writer applies his principles to his real life problems.

There is also a place for personal books that finish by focusing on something other than the author’s personal transformation. I don’t think the only way to write a marriage book is for the couple to be having the time of its life by the end of the story, or for a book on prayer to wrap up with a testimony about how many hours the author now spends on his knees. I chose to have the book end with an exhortation to sit at the fit of Jesus in the midst of our busy lives, rather than with a snapshot of how much my life had changed.

But to be fair, the choice was only partly deliberate. It was also a choice made out of necessity. I really did write the book to learn and grow, and at the end of the writing process–which was when the manuscript was due–there were still plenty of things I was learning and lessons I was trying to incorporate into my life. There wasn’t an opportunity to look back and evaluate the big picture of my busyness.

Perhaps now is a good time. It is certainly legitimate to wonder if the author of Crazy Busy is a little more sanely busy almost a year after writing the book. So here’s a picture of the work in progress.

Spiritual Diagnosis

The most helpful aspect of working on the book for me was better understanding why I so often feel the way I feel and why I have gotten myself into such predictably busy patterns. I didn’t set out to write a “how to” book as much as a “how come” book. I wanted to find an answer to the question, “Why are we the way we are and why do we feel so overwhelmed?” Diagnosis is often more than half the cure.

In particular, I see how pride subtly influences ministry decisions and pushes me to be busy with things I could leave alone. I’ve gotten better about planning for others to preach at least one of our services when I know my week is going to be full. I’ve gotten better at letting other pastors or elders care for members of the body without feeling like I need to be present in every difficult circumstance. I think I’ve also improved when it comes to the “terror of total obligation,” realizing that there is no reason to feel guilty for simply doing what I can where I am.

The insight that we are, in a way, made to be busy has also been helpful for me. Instead of descending into a cycle of distress, discouragement, and self-pity when the busyness dam breaks on a given day (or week or month or season), I try to remember that God said there will be days like this. While God has made no promise to bail us out of every stupid mess we get ourselves into, I’m learning to trust that when life is overwhelming and there is nothing I can do about it, that his grace will be sufficient for today and his mercies really will be new every morning.

Bad Habits

Last week at our monthly prayer meeting for area pastors, I spoke for a few minutes about busyness. The men shared where they are prone to feel overwhelmed and make poor decisions. For me, my worst habits have to do with technology, rest, and rhythm. For better or worse (probably a lot of the latter and a little of the former), I am a compulsive email checker. I check dozens of time every day–in the morning, at night, at home, at work, in lines, during commercials, walking to work, before I got to bed, when I get up, pretty much all the time. That means my inbox is usually remarkable empty. I don’t leave emails sitting around. I feel under compulsion to take care of them immediately or very soon after I get them. I respond as promptly to personal emails as anyone I know (don’t tell Justin Taylor!). The price for this fastidiousness is the debilitating sense (addiction?) that I can’t stay away for long. What if a really cool message comes in? What if they all pile up on my day off? What if I miss something I need to know right now?

I was talking to a friend at church on Sunday who had an emergency in the family and had to miss the better part of three weeks at work. He was lamenting how many emails he had when he got back. But then had made the comment I suspected he might: “You know what, by the time I got back, most of those emails were old news and had been taken care of without me.” That’s a lesson I need to learn. I’ve always considered it wise counsel to set aside certain hours to take care of email, and then to shut it down the rest of the day, but living by this good advice has proven harder than giving it.

If there is one simple, yet increasing difficult thing, I could do to feel less busy it would be distance myself from the screen more consistently and for longer stretches. This would help tremendously with the rhythms of work and leisure, with a more restful Sabbath, and with the gnawing sense that there is some new task or new fulfillment waiting for me in the palm of my hand.

Practical Steps

So in the midst of this internal reflection and self-diagnosis, what practical steps have I taken to be less crazy busy?  Have things actually gotten better? Several things come to mind, in no particular order.

1. No more tweeting at the dinner table. That’s not a mistake I was going to make twice.

2. I will spend a little money if it saves a lot of time. Twenty bucks for the high school kid to mow the lawn every other week is money very well spent.

3. My elders put me on a “no blurbing” diet. Most of us have a hard time saying no to certain requests. My elders saw my struggle and made it simple: you can’t do this for the foreseeable future.

4. We have a wonderful babysitter lined up for every other Tuesday so my wife and I can go out on a date.

5. It hasn’t been my initiative, but we are getting better as church about canceling meetings when the agenda can wait or when the few items can be taken care of over the phone.

6. I find it helpful to do my sermon prep and the rest of my work in different locations. You’ve probably been going to the coffee shop for years. I don’t drink coffee, but even finding another room in the church–away from my computer and my phone–has been hugely beneficial.

7. I try to put my evenings at home into different categories. If I don’t plan ahead, I can feel guilty that I’m not getting work done once the kids are in bed. It’s helped to think this night is for bills, this is for catching up on housework, this is for watching HGTV with my wife, this is for reading PhD books. It doesn’t always fall into such neat patterns, but establishing the categories has made the productive nights more productive and the ones that are supposes to be fun more fun.

8. We just established an extremely important committee at church. All along I assumed I would be on it (and likely do most of the work). In the end, we didn’t put any of our pastors on the committee. Several elders and deacons volunteered and are eager to get to work. They will do a fantastic job. I’m grateful not to be on the committee and wonder how many other committees I didn’t have to be on!

9. I try to come home for lunch more often. I eat better. I get to see the kids. Once in awhile I even take a short nap.

I still have some of the struggles with busyness. I can’t help but think of Ruth Graham’s tombstone “Under Construction: Thank you for your patience.” I’m not there yet, and I won’t get there until I’m Up There. But by God’s grace, I think there’s been progress in the last year.

What about you? What practical suggestions do you have for making your crazy busyness a little more sane?

Monday Morning Humor

It was a good Sunday to be with the saints at URC. I love our church family, and it’s always a privilege to preach the word morning and evening. In between the services…that was a different story. The Bears lost. My fantasy team lost. And I was awoken from my Sunday afternoon nap by something crawling under my shirt, which turned out to be a bee. And boy did he sting–with duration and a good deal of attitude. Still hurts like the dickens.

Speaking of bees, I thought of this old bit from Brian Regan. I could live without the animation, but still very funny.

Theological Primer: The Simplicity of God

The oldest of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed churches, the Belgic Confession (1561), begins with the declaration “that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God” (Article 1). This may seem a strange way to open a confession. There is only one single being called God; that makes sense. But God is simple—what’s that all about?

The simplicity of God is an important truth few Christians think about any more. By “simple” we do not mean God is slow or dim-witted. Nor do we mean that God is easy to understand. Simple, as a divine attribute, is the opposite of compound. The simplicity of God means God is not made up of his attributes. He does not consist of goodness, mercy, justice, and power. He is goodness, mercy, justice, and power. Every attribute of God is identical with his essence.

Consequently, we ought not suggest, for example, that the love of God is the true nature of God while omnipotence (or holiness of sovereignty or whatever) is only an attribute of God. This is a common error, and one which the doctrine of simplicity would have us avoid. We often hear people say, “God may have justice or wrath, but he is love.” The implication is that love is more central to the nature of God, more true to his real identity than other less essential attributes. But this is to imagine God as a composite being instead of a simple.

It is perfectly appropriate to highlight the love of God when Scripture makes it such a central theme. But the declaration “God is love” (1 John 4:8) does not carry more metaphysical weight than “God is light” (1 John 1:5 ), “God is spirit” (John 4:24 ), “God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29 ), or, for that matter, Scriptural statements about God’s goodness, kindness, or omniscience. “If God is composed of parts,” Bavinck explains, “like a body, or composed of genus (class) and differentiae (attributes of different species belonging to the same genus), substance and accidents, matter and form, potentiality and actuality, essence and existence, then his perfection, oneness, independence, and immutability cannot be maintained (Reformed Dogmatics 2:176).

In other words, the simplicity of God not only prevents us from ranking certain attributes higher than others, it allows God to have “a distinct and infinite life of his own within himself” (177). He is not an abstract Absolute Idea who happens to have love, wisdom, and holiness, as if we first conceive of a being called God and then relate qualities to him. Rather, God in his very essence—within himself and by himself—is love, wisdom, and holiness. God is whatever he has. He is not the composite of his attributes, some in greater and some in lesser amounts. God is a simple being without parts or pieces. His attributes do not stick to him; he is what they are.

Temptation Is Not the Same as Sin

It’s one of those things we know to be true on an intellectual level, but we forget it easily in personal experience.

Temptation is not the same as sin.

This truth is obvious from the Scriptures. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are taught to pray “forgive us our debts” and “lead us not into temptation” (Matt. 6:12-13). Debts and trespasses require forgiveness; temptation needs deliverance. They are not the same. Just because you are struggling with temptation does not mean you are mired in sin. The spiritual progression in the human heart goes from desire to temptation to sin to death (James 1:14-15). We are told to flee temptation, not because we’ve already sinned, but because in the midst of temptation we desperately feel like we want to. If being tempted was in itself a mark of wickedness, we could not confess that Jesus Christ “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). It is possible to experience profound temptations to sin while still being blameless from that sin.

Why does this distinction matter? For at least two reasons.

First, many Christians go through life with a weight of guilt and shame for temptations that feel like sins, but aren’t themselves sinful. Take lust for example. A man addicted to pornography is sinning. A man fantasizing about a woman’s appearance is committing lust in his heart. But what a man who notices a woman is attractive and then hesitates whether to look longer and think deeper about what he just saw? That’s likely a temptation and not a sin. Think about David and Bathsheba. Assuming he was on the roof minding his own business, it wasn’t wrong for something to register in David’s brain that the woman his eyes happened upon–again, assuming he just happened on the sight–was attractive. The problem was that he then sent and inquired about the woman. This is desire giving way to temptation, on the way to sin and death.

For any number of reasons owing to the world, the flesh, and the devil, we are, as human beings, sorely tempted. We are tempted to get revenge when someone hurts us. We are tempted hold a grudge when someone disappoints us. We are tempted to anger and impatience when our kids can’t sit straight. We are tempted to censoriousness when people rub us the wrong way. We are tempted many times a day every day. If we confuse the contemplation of sin and the attractiveness of sin with sin itself, we will feel guilt we aren’t meant to feel and miss out on the sympathy of Jesus we should experience (Heb. 2:18).

Second, it’s important to maintain the distinction between temptation and sin, lest we give up the fight of faith too quickly. Why go to battle against the allure of pride or the inclination to self-pity if the allure and the inclination are themselves already evil deeds? Sure, we may still hate those things as sins, but we will be less likely to fight with a sense of urgency if we presume we’ve already crossed the line into sin. What if David spotted Bathsheba out of the corner of his eye, noticed she was beautiful, had a quick thought that she could be gotten for himself, but then asked God to deliver him from the temptation? What he needed at the moment of recognition was not a wallowing in the depths of despair over his lustful heart, but a strong stance against the very human temptation that was rising to assail him.

By all means, let us be quick to repent when we sin in thought, word, or deed. Let us beseech God to forgive us our real debts. Let us also pray with frequency and fervency “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from the Evil One.” Sin and temptation are not identical, but they are both threats to the Christian.

Books I Wish I Had Time to Read

Now that I am an official student again I have to be more disciplined about what I read. That means I see lots of intriguing and excellent books being published that I won’t likely find time to read all the way through (at least not in the immediate future). I have a stack of nine new books on my floor that I’ve been wanting to read, but, alas, have to put on the shelf for the time being. I’ve thumbed through all of them and have heard good reports that they are books worth your time consideration.

Gary Millar and Phil Campbell, Saving Eutychus: How to Preach God’s Word and Keep People Awake (Mattias Media). This looks like a very practical book for preachers. It came highly recommended to me by Alistair Begg. I looked at the chapter on illustrations and found it very helpful.

 

 

John D. Currid, Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Crossway). I will definitely read this before I return to the Pentateuch in my preaching schedule.

 

 

[image error]Brett McCracken, Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty (Baker). From what I read I’m pretty sure I would draw the line differently on some matters (especially when it comes to sex in movies), but on the whole it seemed a very thoughtful and balanced discussion.

 

[image error]David Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament (Thomas Nelson). I’m excited about this book because preachers need to find Christ in the Old Testament, but they need to do it responsibly.

 

 

Heath Lambert, Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace (Zondervan). We need more good resources about pornography. I’ve heard this is going to be one of the must-haves.

 

 

 

Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus, The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution (Crossway). A defense of the free market as an economic and spiritual good–students, pastors, and regular parishoners should read this before trying to speak above our pay grade about wealth and poverty in the world.

 

 

Matthew Barrett, Salvation by Grace: The Case for Effectual Calling and Regeneration (P&R). I’ve been excited about the books I see Barrett pumping. This one is supposed to be excellent.

 

 

Thomas R. Schreiner, The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Baker Academic). There have been a number of remarkable biblical theologies published in the last few years. Unfortunately, this is another one that I don’t have time at present to really digest.

 

Matt Chandler, To Live Is Christ, to Die Is Gain (David Cook). It’s harder than you might think to find solid, engaging, accessible books that take you through Scripture. I’d be surprised if this journey through Philippians is not a good example of one of those books.

 

Crazy Busy Deals, Outtakes, and Free Stuff

Over at Justin Taylor’s blog, he has information on the best deals for Crazy Busy, free resources Crossway is giving away, and one final video. If you wondered how Justin and I kept a straight face during our “awkward interview,” the answer is: we didn’t.

Check out Between Two Worlds for the details.

Transformationalism, Diaconal Ministry, and a Response to Bill Evans

Last week I wrote a piece on transformationalism, drawing from the Scottish theologian James Bannerman (1807 -1868). The basic gist was that the mission of the church is one of gospel proclamation.

The church is no substitute for Christ, or the Spirit, or for immediate union with Christ. Rather, our role as the church-in relation to the world-is to bear witness to the saving power of Christ, to exercise the appointed means whereby the Spirit redeems and sanctifies, and to join in one body for mutual fellowship and support those who have been joined to Christ.

The blog post generated a fair amount of conversation, including a rejoinder from Bill Evans (an ARP minister and professor at Erskine College). I’m grateful for the irenic nature and thoughtfulness of Evans’ post. His concern is that Bannerman’s ecclesiology leaves no room for a wholistic ministry like we see in the gospels where Christ gives us a model and a mandate for caring for the poor. To that end, Evans ends his piece with a direct question for me: “How do you reconcile this particular understanding of the ‘spirituality of the church’ with the Church’s historic and proper commitment to diaconal ministry?”

Good question. I’m not usually able to participate in internet volleys (and may not be able to do much more with this exchange in the days ahead), but since I have benefited from Evans’ writings in the past and since he has offered a fair-minded critique, I thought it worthwhile to venture a response. Let me attempt an answer by making three observations.

1. It’s worth noting that I never used the phrase “spirituality of the church,” nor did I quote Bannerman as using it. This may sound like a pedantic point, but it’s not insignificant. I don’t object to the phrase, if used judiciously, but for some people “spirituality of the church” entails a certain view of slavery and the Old South or complete unwillingness to ever address current events. In my understanding, the spirituality of the church is meant to safeguard the sufficiency of Scripture. We the church, we do not know everything about everything. On a number of issues, the church should be silent, not because individual Christians may not have important convictions or something to add to the discussion, but because we have no right to speak authoritatively where the Scripture has not spoken. In recent years, we’ve had debates at our General Synod (RCA) on the Dream Act, the farm bill, an embargo to Cuba, minimum wage legislation, and what the proper magazine capacity is for firearms in the United States. The church is neither equipped to weigh in on such specific political matters, nor does it have the authority to do so. I didn’t think I was talking about any of this in my previous post, but if this what one means by the spirituality of the church, I’m happy to affirm it.

2. I am wholeheartedly in favor of a strong diaconal ministry. We have an excellent diaconate at University Reformed Church. They work hard behind the scenes to care for the hurting and walk with church members through financial difficulties and a variety of other concerns. It is very much spiritual work. The New Testament is absolutely clear about the necessity of the church to care for the poor.

The question, however, is whether the church has an obligation to care for the poor outside of the church. Evans cites John Calvin as a positive example of one who did not relegate social welfare to the state but embraced it as the responsibility of the church. The implication is that a Reformed understanding of a very broad diaconal ministry cannot be squared with the doctrine of the spirituality of the church. But this fails to consider the differences between Calvin’s Geneva and ministry in our cities. The entire city of Geneva was Calvin’s parish (or more precisely, that of the Company of Pastors). The citizens of Geneva were de facto citizens of the church, which is why they could be disciplined for failing to attend services, or for Catholic behavior, or for a variety of immoralities. The diaconal ministry in Geneva did not extend physical relief to any who were not also under the spiritual authority of the church. When Evans quotes from Calvin’s sermon on Acts 6:1-3 to the effect that “it was given to the deacons to offer the cup when the people came to the Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ” he makes the very point I’m trying to make. Yes, the deacons’ care for the poor was deeply spiritual work, but it was directed toward members of the church (i.e., those who partake of the Supper).

Of course, none of this means there is some prohibition against caring for the unbelieving poor (see Gal. 6:10). What it does suggest is that the church’s obligation is not to feed the entire world or be the social welfare agency for the city but to care for the poor in her own body.

3. Although Bannerman insists that the state and the church are distinct institutions designed for different purposes, he still allows that at times they will overlap in their responsibilities. The church may be “limited, in its primary object, to promoting the spiritual interests of the Christian community,” but that doesn’t mean there are not “secondary objects” related to the “temporal and social wellbeing of society” (The Church of Christ, 98-99). Our church, for example, supports the city rescue mission, a crisis pregnancy center, and a local arts ministry. We run a large ESL program, and we’ve worked in the past to tutor in the public school and help single moms get on their feet. In all these ministries, we hope to make gospel proclamation a priority–either by praying for open doors to talk about Jesus or to adorn the gospel with good works. Being involved in the community and engaged with non-Christians is not the special province of transformationalists. I don’t believe that our diaconate has the responsibility to provide for the needs of the poor in East Lansing, but as we have opportunity we will do good, especially as it enables us to fulfill our primary purpose of gathering and perfecting Christ’s sheep.

Crazy Busy Kids

Pretty cute kids, if I do say so myself. They are not funny in the same way that Justin Taylor is funny, but not awkward in the same way either.

After a lot of hard work, Crazy Busy releases today. Many thanks to the whole team at Crossway for being such terrific partners in this project. The book should now be available in brick and mortar stores, as well as online (WTS, Barnes and Noble, Amazon).

Crazy Busy – Kids’ Edition from Crossway on Vimeo.

The Wrath of the Lamb

John Witherspoon commenting on Revelation 6:14-17 and the terror that will come upon sinners when they stand before the wrath of the Lamb:

Mark this extraordinary expression, the wrath of the Lamb, that meekest and gentlest of all creatures; teaching us, that his former meekness and patience and suffering shall inflame and exasperate his future vengeance.

Could I conduct you to the gates of the infernal prison, I am persuaded you will hear Judas Iscariot, and all the other treacherous disciples, crying out, “O that Christ had never come in the flesh! The thunders of Sinai would have been less terrible. The frowns of Jesus of Nazareth are insupportable. O the dreadful, painful, and uncommon wrath of a Saviour on the judgment seat!”

The Lord speaks consolation to his own people, and pierce the hearts of his enemies, that they may be brought to repentance. (Sermon 6, The Love of Christ in Redemption)

Parenting Does Not Create the Child

[image error]Parenting has become more complicated than it needs to be. It used to be, as far as I can tell, that Christian parents basically tried to feed their kids, clothe them, teach them about Jesus, and keep them away from explosives. Now our kids have to sleep on their backs (no, wait, their tummies; no, never mind, their backs), while listening to Baby Mozart and surrounded by scenes of Starry, Starry Night. They have to be in piano lessons before they are five and can’t leave the car seat until they’re about five foot six.

It’s all so involved. There are so many rules and expectations. Parenting may be the last bastion of legalism. Not just in the church, but in our culture. We live in a permissive society that won’t count any sin against you as an adult, but will count the calories in your kids’ hot lunch. I keep hearing that kids aren’t supposed to eat sugar anymore. What a world! What a world! My parents were solid as a rock, but we still had a cupboard populated with cereal royalty like Captain Crunch and Count Chocula. In our house the pebbles were fruity and the charms were lucky. The breakfast bowl was a place for marshmallows, not dried camping fruit. Our milk was 2%. And sometimes, if we needed to take the edge off a rough morning, we’d tempt fate and chug a little Vitamin D.

As nanny parents living in a nanny state, we think of our children as amazingly fragile and entirely moldable. Both assumptions are mistaken. It’s harder to ruin our kids than we think and harder to stamp them for success than we’d like. Christian parents in particular often operate with an implicit determinism. We fear that a few wrong moves will ruin our children forever, and at the same time assume that the right combination of protection and instruction will invariably produce godly children. Leslie Leyland Fields is right: “One of the most resilient and cherished myths of parenting is that parenting creates the child.”

Excerpt from Crazy Busy, A (Mercifully) Short Book About a (Really) Big Problem