Jon Bloom's Blog, page 46
August 18, 2014
Make Your Mouth a Fountain of Life
The Bible tells us “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). That means a lot is at stake in what we say today. And in literate societies like ours, tongues include hands that write, type, paint, or sign.
Tongues of Death
People die because of things that are said. Tongues can be weapons of mass destruction, launching holocausts and wars. Tongues can also be the death of marriages, families, friendships, churches, careers, hopes, understanding, reputations, missionary efforts, and governments.
Tongues of Life
But people also live because of things that are said. The tongue can be “a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4). Tongues can reconcile peoples and make peace (“blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9)). Tongues can make marriages sweet, families strong, and churches healthy. Tongues can give hope to the despairing, advance understanding, and spread the gospel.
So what will come out of your mouth today, death or life? “Sword thrusts” or “healing” (Proverbs 12:18)?
The Heart Moves the Tongue
It will all depend on what’s filling your heart. Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). A critical heart produces a critical tongue. A self-righteous heart produces a judgmental tongue. A bitter heart produces an acerbic tongue. An ungrateful heart produces a grumbling tongue.
But a loving heart produces a gracious tongue. A faithful heart produces a truthful tongue. A peaceful heart produces a reconciling tongue. A trusting heart produces an encouraging tongue.
So fill your heart with grace by soaking in your Bible. Soak in Matthew 5, or Romans 12, or 1 Corinthians 13, or Philippians 2. And be very careful taking in the words of death in the newspaper, on the radio, the TV, or social media.
And pray this: “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!” (Psalm 141:3)
The world is full of words of death. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19) who “was a murderer from the beginning. . . and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Let us not join him in his “restless evil” (James 3:8).
For “we are from God” (1 John 15:19), and we believe in his Son, Jesus, “the Word” (John 1:1), “the truth and the life” (John 14:6), and who alone has “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Let us join him in speaking these.
Tongues for Today
Today, make your mouth “a fountain of life” (Proverbs 10:11). Be “slow to speak” in general (James 1:19). Encourage more than you critique. Seek opportunities to speak kind, tenderhearted words (Ephesians 4:32). Say something affectionate to a loved one at an unexpected time. Seek to only speak words that are “good for building up,” that “give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).
Be a person whose mouth is full of life.
“And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up” (Acts 20:32).
More on our words:
The Tongue, the Bridle, and the Blessing: An Exposition of James 3:1-12
The Power of Words and the Wonder of God
August 14, 2014
True Grit
“The way is hard that leads to life.” (Matthew 7:14)
“By your endurance you will gain your lives.” (Luke 21:19)
We humans are always seeking to discover new keys to success. But nowadays we’re hearing more and more about something of a rediscovery. After much research, it turns out that across all ethnic, socio-economic, educational, and psychological demographics “one characteristic emerge[s] as a significant predictor of success… grit” (Duckworth).
Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth has made grit the focus of years of study. She defines grit as “the ability to persevere in pursuing a future goal over a long period of time and not giving up… It is having stamina. It’s sticking with your future, day-in, day-out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Grit. The relentless resolve to keep pursuing a desired goal and not giving up. Wouldn’t you know? Your grandfather was right after all: Success does look a lot like hard work.
Grit in the Bible
You won’t find the word grit in a credible English translation of the Bible. But it’s there nonetheless. The Bible’s terms for grit are steadfastness (1 Corinthians 15:58) and endurance (Luke 21:19). Steadfastness is the determination to remain at your post come what may. Endurance is the determination to keep moving toward your desired goal despite external challenges and internal weariness.
The Bible is replete with gritty examples:
Noah building a huge ship over decades as he waited for the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Abraham and Sarah living like strangers in the land of promise and waiting a quarter century into old age as they waited for the fulfillment of God’s promised child.
Jacob serving his devious uncle, Laban, for many years as he waited for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
Joseph languishing in an Egyptian prison as he waited for the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Moses leading the recalcitrant Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years as he waited for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
And “time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David, Samuel, and the prophets” (Hebrews 11:32), and of Mary, the disciples, and Paul.
And Jesus. Jesus, the man of such sorrows as we’ll never know, who in the garden, facing a horror that only God could experience, said to his Father, “not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36) and moved with relentless determination to the cross. Never has more grit for the sake of love ever been seen.
But this biblical grit differs from worldly, bootstrap-variety grit in a crucial way. Biblical steadfastness and endurance has, at its core, a faith that rests on the promises of God and therefore is full of hope (Romans 15:13). True godly grit is able to strive hard and stand fast because it is empowered by God’s grace. That’s why Paul could say things like, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
What Produces Grit?
Biblical grit is not a genetic trait. It is an acquired character trait. True grit is forged in the fires of adversity.
Pressure, which I wrote about last week, is a force that pushes us forward. But adversity is a force that opposes or pushes against us. And like pressure, we often resent adversity. But, like pressure, adversity in the hand of God becomes a grace to us (Romans 8:28), even though it may be the result of evil futility (Romans 8:20) or active demonic evil (2 Corinthians 12:7). That’s why the Bible teaches us not to resent adversity, but to be grateful for it:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4)
All kinds of adversity, because of God’s grace, strengthens the Christian’s faith. Just like our brains and our bodies, faith is only strengthened by vigorous exercise. Adversity produces strong, gritty faith.
We Have Need of Grit
So life is hard — harder than we ever expected. Well, Jesus told us it would be hard (Matthew 7:14; John 16:33), and our gritty forebears all found it harder than they expected too, so we are in good company. Like the Bible says, we have need of grit:
“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36).
The reason we have need of grit is that there is a promise to receive! Jesus has made us a promise: eternal life (John 10:28). And that life will no longer be subject to futility (Romans 8:20), no longer be lived in a world ruled by the evil one (1 John 5:19), no longer be characterized by adversity for “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things [will] have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). And we will see our Savior face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12) and we shall be like him (1 John 3:2) and we “will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
This is why Paul said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). And it’s why James told us to count all our trials as joy. We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), and the gift of faith becomes gritty faith through struggling against adversity. Therefore adversity produces endurance and “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
So as you weather the adversity God is ordaining for you today, know that ultimately you are receiving from him the gritty gift of endurance. And “by your endurance you will gain your [eternal] lives” (Luke 21:19).
More on spiritual endurance:
Six Important Links to the Meaning of Hope
August 12, 2014
Help for Those Fighting or Grieving a Suicide
Robin Williams’s alleged suicide has sent shock waves through the world.
Williams was a man bursting with manic energy, an out-sized personality, prodigious dramatic talent, and a completely unique comic genius. He could make us roll on the floor in laughter and he could move us deeply to tears. Many of us have memories of his performances that stretch back into our childhood.
Now, suddenly, at age 63, it appears that he has taken his own life. For this tragedy it is too early for any more words. Let us cover our mouths, weep, and pray for his family.
But for some of us in the household of Jesus, Williams’s death hits hard for very personal reasons. For some, a profound, oppressive darkness is threatening to douse the little light and hope they see. They are fighting for dear life to remember and believe that life is worth living. And Robin Williams’s surrender is sucking the hope that they will be able to keep fighting.
If that’s you, I simply want to point you to hope by recommending a few things:
Read the book of Ecclesiastes. That may sound strange because some find that book depressing. But I have appreciated this book most in my darkest times. Reading it will remind you that the Bible deals straight up with the bleakness of futility — finding hope in the world apart from God in this age. And it has clear pointers to hope.
Then read the book of John. Here is the Hope. The Light of the world shines with unique brightness in this book and in his light we see light (Psalm 36:9). When despairing of life, we need to spend concentrated time listening to the Life (John 14:6).
Look through our list of free resources for help dealing with depression and despair.
A while back I wrote about what I learned in one of my dark spiritual storms. It might be helpful to you.
You Are Not Alone
And one thing you need to remember is that the oppressive darkness and the temptation to despair is common to man. You are not alone. About ¼ of the Psalms are written to help you. And one man’s surrender to the darkness does not at all mean that’s where you’ll end up. This precious promise is for you:
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
The Fight for Hope
For others in the household of Jesus, Robin Williams’s death is a reminder of another precious, precious loved life that ended in a similar incomprehensible surrender, and has reopened the wound that will never fully heal in this age. Ineffable love and sorrow and confusion and maybe anger has been stirred up again and they are fighting for hope that suicide may not be the final word on that life and that the God who did not intervene to prevent it is good — or is there at all.
If that’s you, I’d like to point you also to a few helpful resources:
Suicide is not the unforgivable sin. John Piper shared some very helpful thoughts on an episode of “Ask Pastor John” last May titled, “Suicide and Salvation.”
John also has preached a number of funerals for believers who committed suicide. This one from 1988 and this one from 2007 are particularly hopeful and helpful.
Our National Conference from 2005 focused entirely on suffering. I recommend every session. But a particularly poignant one might be Mark Talbot’s message, “Seeing God’s Gracious Hand in the Hurts Others Do to Us.”
Listen to the Light
One thing for you to remember is what C. S. Lewis’s Aslan once said, “I tell no one any story but his own.” Essentially that was what Jesus replied to Peter who wanted to know Jesus’s plans for the Apostle John: “What is that to you? You follow me” (John 21:22). We dare not speculate too much about what we cannot see and cannot know about another’s story. We must rest in the trust that the Judge of all the earth will do what is just (Genesis 18:25). And remember that someday:
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
For most of us, depression is an indication of what we are believing. Let us not listen to the darkness and it’s seductive, hope-depleting half-truthed lies. It leads to a black hole. Listen to and move toward the Light. Light will dawn for those who trust him (Psalm 112:4). It’s a promise.
Related resources:
August 7, 2014
The Priceless Grace of Pressure
Pressure is one of the more resented of God’s graces.
I’m not wired to appreciate pressure. But I am wired to need it. I find that when the pressure is on, I often wish it were off. But I also find that when the pressure is off, I tend to waste more time. I have a persistent misconception that I am more creative when the pressure is off. But, while that may be true for a few things, as a general rule it has not been my actual experience. Necessity tends to produce resourcefulness. Deadlines tend to induce creativity. Leisure tends to induce indulgence and procrastination.
Not everyone is wired the same way. There are more driven temperaments that have an inner compulsion to get lots of things done no matter if there are deadlines or not. Bless them. But in my observation, those temperaments are rare. Most of us will tend to do less if less is required.
It is, no doubt, an effect of the curse, a manifestation of the pathological selfishness that is part of our fallen natures. But that being the case, the discomfort of pressure to prod us forward is a gift to be desired, not an annoyance to be avoided.
Biblical Pressure
Read the Bible and you’ll find that, post-fall, it is one story after another of pressurized saints. Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Naomi, David, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jesus’s disciples, the apostles, all dealt with significant pressure. Paul felt a daily pressure of concern for all the churches and that kept him praying without ceasing (2 Corinthians 11:28; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). The press of adversity and affliction called for the exercising of faith, the one thing without which we will never please God (Hebrews 11:6).
When God chooses his servants, he tends to give them an oversized workload. Yes, God works for those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4), but you’ll note that waiting on God is rarely experienced as a leisure activity. It typically involves being placed in an overwhelming situation that requires a steeling of the nerves of faith to wait. Yes, we are to serve in the strength that God supplies (1 Peter 4:11), but that serving can still push us beyond what we think we can handle to show that it’s God’s gracious supply, not our own strength, that is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) and to show that we hope in the God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:8–9).
He “knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). And so he gives us some seasons of green pastures and still waters (Psalm 23:2). But rarely as many as we would wish. And often not when we think we need it. God knows far better than we do when we really need refreshment when we need to be pushed. It is precisely because God knows our frame, and what kind of dust we really are, that he mercifully doesn’t relent the pressure — because when the pressure is off, we have a tendency to forget our need for God (1 Samuel 12:9; Revelation 3:17). Our proneness to wander is curbed by the priceless grace of pressure.
An Answer to Our Prayer for “More”
I have noticed a pattern that when I ask God for more — to know more of his grace, to trust his promises more than my perceptions (faith), for a deeper understanding of his word, for greater discernment and wisdom, for more love for others, for more self-control, for more of his Holy Spirit’s empowerment — what I receive is more pressure. And frequently the kind of pressure I receive is often not what I thought I was asking for, so I am at first confused and sometimes sinfully frustrated. Because my conception (my imagination) of what “more” I needed was different than God’s.
For example, I’m distractible. I probably fall somewhere on the spectrum of ADHD. Therefore, I can intuitively assume that life would be better if I had less demands. But that’s not the Lord’s assessment. Instead, he has assigned me to lead a family of seven, help lead an internet ministry, help pastor (bi-vocationally) my local church, be a legal guardian for my disabled sister, and try to manage all the things that come with just normal life and my own spiritual struggles. My labors are not heroic. Others I know certainly do more. But I have prayed often about whether God wants me to do less, and he keeps directing me to the same answer Paul received about his thorn (though I blush at even alluding to such a comparison): “my grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Over the years, I have found this to be true. I often feel pressed, and at times anxious. And yet there has always been enough grace. In fact, the grace is often the very pressure I am tempted to resent. Distractibility doesn’t improve with less pressure, it just runs freer. Pressure forces focus and helps me to make the most of my time (Ephesians 5:16).
Pray for More!
If knowing that praying for more grace may result in more pressure, we may be tempted not to ask for more. When we feel this way, we must repent. Because we do not know as we ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:2). No good thing will God withhold from those who walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11). Only a fool prefers evil over good, or even less good over more good. We don’t want to be fools.
Jesus promises that if we ask in faith and in his name, the Father will grant what we ask for our joy (John 16:24). Yes, our joy! God only gives us the priceless grace of pressure so that we will share his holiness, bear the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:10–11), exercise love for others (1 John 4:7), put their needs before ours (Philippians 2:3), and to push us toward himself — our exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4).
So let’s pray earnestly for more of whatever God wishes to give us. Let us boldly pray “whatever-it-takes prayers” and take whatever he gives us. And if he graciously answers us with more pressure than we expected, let us not resent it, but recognize it as a gift to help us strive to enter the rest that is coming (Hebrews 4:11).
More from Desiring God on laboring under pressure:
Is There Good Anxiety? (sermon)
How Should I Spend My Time? (interview)
Manage Your Time for the Mission of Love (article)
August 6, 2014
You Don’t Have to Know a Lot of Things
Polymaths are people who know a lot about a lot of things (think Leonardo Di Vinci, the quintessential “Renaissance man”). They are the Enlightenment demigods. They are the Ben Franklins and the Marilyn vos Savants, and we find them very impressive. Many of us wish we could be one — a futile and vain (in the prideful sense) wish.
But this quote by John Piper can free us from our polymathic fantasy.
You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them.
The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count . . . you don’t need to have a high IQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things — or one great all-embracing thing — and be set on fire by them. (Don’t Waste Your Life, 44–45)
And I find John to be a great model of this truth. His book Doctrine Matters (available free of charge in three electronic formats) is the distillation of the “few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things” — all aspects of the one great all-embracing Thing — that set John on fire for 33 years in the pulpit of Bethlehem and are still making him burn.
We share this book with you because we want you to be set on fire too. It’s fire fuel. These ten truths are some of the most important you can ever know. And if ignited, they will make your joy burn hot.
Being a polymath is not the ultimate path to joy. You don’t need to know a lot of things to make a lasting, massive difference. You just need to be set on fire by a few glorious, eternal things. Here are some. May they fuel your fire.
Doctrine Matters is now available in a paperback, as well as free of charge in three electronic formats (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI).
July 17, 2014
When God Seems Silent
God can be maddeningly hard to get. When God says that his ways are not our ways, he really means it (Isaiah 55:8).
We have these encounters with him where he breaks into our lives with power and answers our prayers and wins our trust and he waters the garden of our faith, making it lush and green.
And then there are these seasons when chaos careens with apparent carelessness through our lives and the world, leaving us shattered. Or an unrelenting darkness descends. Or an arid wind we don’t even understand blows across our spiritual landscape, leaving the crust of our soul cracked and parched. And we cry to God in our confused anguish and he just seems silent. He seems absent.
Singing to the Silence
That’s why tears tend to flow when I listen to Andrew Peterson’s song, “The Silence of God.” I know what Andrew means:
It’s enough to drive a man crazy, it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder, if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the Heaven’s only answer is the silence of God
The same thing happens when I listen to Rich Mullins’s song, “Hard to Get”:
Do you remember when you lived down here where we all scrape
To find the faith to ask for daily bread?
Did you forget about us after you had flown away?
Well I memorized ev’ry word you said.
Still I’m so scared I’m holding my breath,
While you’re up there just playing hard to get
All of God’s saints, if allowed to live long enough, are led into the lonely, disorienting, weary wilderness. And while there, we lament. And since laments are often better sung than said, it’s always been the poets and songwriters who help us most.
Job: “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20)
King David: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” (Psalm 22:1–2)
The Flat Earth and the Absent God
Atheists will tell us that the reason God seems silent is because he’s absent. “No one’s home at that address. Duh.”
In the silent suffering seasons we can be tempted to believe it. Until we step back and take a look and see that existence itself is not silent. It screams God (Romans 1:20). As Parmenides said, and Maria (“Sound of Music”) sang, “Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could.”
Believing atheism is like moderns believing in a flat earth. “From where I stand, it doesn’t look like God is there.” Right. And if you only trust your perceptions, the world looks flat. The only reason you know the world is round is because of authoritative scientific revelation and many corroborating testimonies.
What we experience as God’s absence or distance or silence is phenomenological. It’s how we perceive it. It’s how at some point it looks and feels but it isn’t how it is. Just like we can experience the world as flat when we’re walking on a huge spinning ball, we can experience God as absent or distant when “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
In reality, God wasn’t absent or silent or indifferent at all toward Job or King David. It’s just how it felt to them at the time. Nor, in reality, was God silent toward Andrew Peterson or playing hard to get with Rich Mullins. And when we feel forsaken by God we are not forsaken (Hebrews 13:5). We are simply called to trust the promise more than the perception.
Why the Silence?
But why does it need to feel that way? Why the perceived silence? Why can it seem like God is playing hard to get or like he’s just standing there looking at us when we cry to him for help?
I don’t claim to understand all the mysteries of this experience. No doubt we underestimate the effects of remaining sin on us and our need for this discipline in order to share God’s holiness (Hebrews 12:10). But I believe there are clues for another purpose as well. I’ll phrase them as questions.
Why is it that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” but “familiarity breeds contempt”?
Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty?
Why am I almost never satisfied with what I have, but always longing for more?
Why can the thought of being denied a desire for marriage or children or freedom or some other dream create in us a desperation we previously didn’t have?
Why is the pursuit of earthly achievement often more enjoyable than the achievement itself?
Why do deprivation, adversity, scarcity, and suffering often produce the best character qualities in us while prosperity, ease, and abundance often produce the worst?
Do you see it? There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: Deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning that will know the joy of comfort (Matthew 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty that will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).
Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Corinthians 13:12). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the Catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come.
And so Fredrick William Faber wrote in his poem, “The Desire of God”:
Yes, pine for thy God, fainting soul! ever pine;
Oh languish mid all that life brings thee of mirth;
Famished, thirsty, and restless — let such life be thine —
For what sight is to heaven, desire is to earth.
(Thank God for poets and songwriters!)
So you desire God and ask for more of him and what do you get? Stuck in a desert feeling deserted. You feel disoriented and desperate. Don’t despair. The silence, the absence is phenomenological. It’s how it feels, it’s not how it is. You are not alone. God is with you (Psalm 23:4). And he is speaking all the time in the priceless gift of the objective Word so you don’t need to rely on the subjective impressions of your fluctuating emotions.
If desire is to earth what sight is to heaven, then God answers our prayer with more desire. It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the desert that draws us to the Well of the world to come.
Related resources:
When the Darkness Will Not Lift
When God Does the Miracle We Didn’t Ask For
July 14, 2014
The Cool God Is a Puny God
Americans, and most Westerners, live in cultures governed by the god called “Cool.”
Cool doesn’t have a temple we can see or visit, but his images and shrines are everywhere. Cool is a god that we actually invite to take up residence in the unholy of unholies of our fallen nature’s heart-temple. Once there, it entwines itself with our narcissistic selves, becoming part of our desired identity, the self-image we worship.
The Contradictory Cult of Cool
Cool is an illusive god. It doesn’t have its own shape. It takes the form of someone else’s approval — someone whose approval we desire. This makes Cool a tyrannical god, because it demands that we craft and venerate an image (we are duped into thinking it’s a self-image) that is made up mainly of other people’s preferences. And in doing so we ignore and despise the real imago Dei we bear.
Cool poses as self-assured and independent, but in reality is a needy god, requiring the frequent affirmation and admiration of others. And Cool is a manipulative, deceptive god, because trying to be cool isn’t cool. No, we have to try to be cool to impress others while appearing to not try to be cool to impress others.
The ironic thing about serving the god of Cool is that the more we serve it, the less of our true selves is preserved in the image we fashion. Our self-image essentially becomes little more than a collage of other people’s opinions. In fact, the circular irony of the whole Cool cult is that the other people whose approval shapes our cool self-image, frankly, care little for our cool self-image at all because they are consumed largely with their own cool self-image, which is shaped by other people’s approval.
In other words, trying to be cool is striving after the wind (Ecclesiastes 4:4).
Joy Is Found Outward, Not Inward
If we really want to be happy, we need to renounce the god of Cool.
Pursuing a cool image — to look cool, sound cool, have cool preferences, own cool possessions, do cool things — requires a tremendous amount of self-consciousness, self-evaluation and introspection. Those things, needed in small amounts for the sake of holiness and love, are destructive to joy in the excessive amounts. The more self aware we are, the more miserable we are. The only joy the god of Cool has to offer us for all the effort and expense of our worship is the brief buzz of someone’s momentary approval. Cool joy is puny and short.
That’s because, in the apt words of the Incredible Hulk in The Avengers, Cool is a “puny god.” Just because Cool is culturally pervasive doesn’t mean it’s big. It just has good marketing.
The true, big God is after our biggest, deepest, widest, longest-lasting joy. That’s why he commands us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… [and] love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39). He designed us not to find happiness in how others think of us, but in our loving others; not pursuing others’ admiration but in pursuing others’ good. That’s the joy that God has for us in commands like this:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3–4)
These commands are not calls to altruism, but to hedonism. Misery is in selfish ambition and conceit — the necessary components of coolness. Joy is found looking outward, not inward. The glory that satisfies us is outside of ourselves, not inside of us. As John Piper says, the Grand Canyon isn’t there to build our self-esteem, but to remind us how small we are and where real awe is found. And the people around us are not barometers of our coolness, but bearers of imago Dei to be in awe of and love and serve.
So today, like the Hulk, smash the puny god of Cool and pursue the true joy and health of humbly forgetting yourself and looking outward to the God who made you, to those God has given you to count more significant than yourself, and to the world God has given you to live in and enjoy.
Related resources:
Moving Evangelicals Beyond Idolatry
The Cool god Is a Puny god
Americans, and most westerners, live in cultures governed by the god called “Cool.”
Cool doesn’t have a temple we can see or visit, but his images and shrines are everywhere. Cool is a god that we actually invite to take up residence in the unholy of unholies of our fallen nature’s heart-temple. Once there, it entwines itself with our narcissistic selves, becoming part of our desired identity, the self-image we worship.
The Contradictory Cult of Cool
Cool is an illusive god. It doesn’t have its own shape. It takes the form of someone else’s approval — someone whose approval we desire. This makes Cool a tyrannical god, because it demands that we craft and venerate an image (we are duped into thinking it’s a self-image) that is made up mainly of other people’s preferences. And in doing so we ignore and despise the real imago Dei we bear.
Cool poses as self-assured and independent, but in reality is a needy god, requiring the frequent affirmation and admiration of others. And Cool is a manipulative, deceptive god, because trying to be cool isn’t cool. No, we have to try to be cool to impress others while appearing to not try to be cool to impress others.
The ironic thing about serving the god of Cool is that the more we serve it, the less of our true selves is preserved in the image we fashion. Our self-image essentially becomes little more than a collage of other people’s opinions. In fact, the circular irony of the whole Cool cult is that the other people whose approval shapes our cool self-image, frankly, care little for our cool self-image at all because they are consumed largely with their own cool self-image, which is shaped by other people’s approval.
In other words, trying to be cool is striving after the wind (Ecclesiastes 4:4).
Joy Is Found Outward, Not Inward
If we really want to be happy, we need to renounce the god of Cool.
Pursuing a cool image — to look cool, sound cool, have cool preferences, own cool possessions, do cool things — requires a tremendous amount of self-consciousness, self-evaluation and introspection. Those things, needed in small amounts for the sake of holiness and love, are destructive to joy in the excessive amounts. The more self aware we are, the more miserable we are. The only joy the god of Cool has to offer us for all the effort and expense of our worship is the brief buzz of someone’s momentary approval. Cool joy is puny and short.
That’s because, in the apt words of the Incredible Hulk in The Avengers, Cool is a “puny god.” Just because Cool is culturally pervasive doesn’t mean it’s big. It just has good marketing.
The true, big God is after our biggest, deepest, widest, longest-lasting joy. That’s why he commands us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… [and] love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39). He designed us not to find happiness in how others think of us, but in our loving others; not pursuing others’ admiration but in pursuing others’ good. That’s the joy that God has for us in commands like this:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3–4)
These commands are not calls to altruism, but to hedonism. Misery is in selfish ambition and conceit — the necessary components of coolness. Joy is found looking outward, not inward. The glory that satisfies us is outside of ourselves, not inside of us. As John Piper says, the Grand Canyon isn’t there to build our self-esteem, but to remind us how small we are and where real awe is found. And the people around us are not barometers of our coolness, but bearers of imago Dei to be in awe of and love and serve.
So today, like the Hulk, smash the puny god of Cool and pursue the true joy and health of humbly forgetting yourself and looking outward to the God who made you, to those God has given you to count more significant than yourself, and to the world God has given you to live in and enjoy.
Related resources:
Moving Evangelicals Beyond Idolatry
July 10, 2014
The Unexpected Answers of God
In John 16:23–24, Jesus makes a stunning, sweeping, glorious promise to us:
In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
So we ask the Father for things we long for because we want the full joy he offers us. And we don’t ask for trivial or fleshly things, because we know what the Apostle James says: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). No, we pray for greater faith, love, holiness, wisdom, discernment, experience of God’s grace, boldness, joy in God, and less satisfaction with worldly things.
Unexpected Answers
Such longings and prayers are sincere and God loves them and loves to answer them. But we do not know ourselves very well, nor the depth or pervasiveness of our sin, nor what it really requires of us in order to receive what we ask for. We can’t help but have unreal, romantic imaginations and expectations about what God’s answers to our prayers will be.
Therefore, we are often unprepared for the answers we receive from God. His answers frequently do not look at first like answers. They look like problems. They look like trouble. They look like loss, disappointment, affliction, conflict, sorrow, and increased selfishness. They cause deep soul-wrestling and expose sins and doubts and fears. They are not what we expect and we often do not see how they correspond to our prayers.
What Should We Expect?
If we ask God for greater, deeper love for him, what should we expect to receive? Answers that give us a greater awareness of our deep and pervasive sinful depravity, because those who are forgiven much, love much, but those who are forgiven little, love little (Luke 7:47).
If we ask God to help us love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:31), what should we expect to receive? Answers that force us to give unexpected attention to a neighbor (who we might not put in that category (Luke 10:29)), which are inconvenient and irritating.
If we ask for God’s nearness because we believe that it is good for us to be near God (Psalm 73:28), what should we expect to receive? Answers that break our hearts, for God is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18).
If we ask God to make us living sacrifices (Romans 12:2), what should we expect to receive? Answers that break and humble our hearts because the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit (Psalm 51:17).
If we ask God for a deeper experience of his grace, what should we expect to receive? Answers that oppose our pride and humble our hearts (James 4:6).
If we ask God for his kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10) in our own lives and in the world around us, what should we expect to receive? Answers that reveal our deep spiritual poverty, because the kingdom is given to the poor in spirit (Matthew 6:3).
If we ask God to satisfy us with himself so that we aren’t so easily satisfied by the world’s mud puddles, what should we expect to receive? Answers that cause us to be increasingly aware of the evil and suffering and injustices of the world because those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6).
If we ask God for greater wisdom and discernment, what should we expect to receive? A steady stream of mind-bending, confusing answers that are difficult to understand and work through because our powers of discernment are trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).
If we ask God to “increase our faith” (Luke 17:5), what should we expect to receive? To repeatedly be put into situations where we discover that our perceptions are not trustworthy so that we are forced to trust Christ’s promises, “for we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).
If we ask God to help us “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Colossians 1:10), what should we expect to receive? Answers that require more humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2) than we thought possible and might result in destitution, affliction, and mistreatment, like many saints throughout history, “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38).
If we ask God to help us stop serving money so that we can serve him more wholeheartedly, what should we expect to receive? An uncomfortable amount of opportunities to give money away, expenses that deplete reserves we’ve been stashing away, maybe even a job loss — answers that push us to us despise (ignore, turn away from, release) money and cling to God (Luke 16:13).
If we ask for our joy to be made more full (John 16:24), to experience more happiness in God, what should we expect to receive? Answers that cause us to find earthly joys we once thought gain to become empty, hollow, and loss and push us to search for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus and find him gain above all else (Philippians 3:8).
Expect the Unexpected
When God begins to answer our prayers, we often find his answers disorienting. Circumstances might take unexpected courses, health might deteriorate, painful relational dynamics might develop, financial difficulties might occur, and spiritual and emotional struggles might emerge that seem unconnected and we can feel like we’re digressing from not progressing toward the sanctification we desire. We cry out in painful confusion and exasperation (Psalm 13:1; Job 30:20), when what’s really happening is that God is answering our prayers. We just expected the answer to look and feel different.
This being true, we might be tempted to not even ask God for such things. I mean, who wants unpleasant answers to prayers for joy?
Don’t be deceived into this short-sighted thinking. Remember Jesus’s promise: “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). If the path to full joy is sometimes hard, and Jesus tells us it is (John 16:33; Matthew 7:14), that is no reason not to take it! What do you want? Low, shallow, thin joys? No! Go for full joy! And remember what the writer of Hebrews tells us:
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)
With regard to God’s answers to prayer, expect the unexpected. Most of the greatest gifts and deepest joys that God gives us come wrapped in painful packages.
More on prayer:
The Main Ingredient in Effective Prayer
July 7, 2014
Before the Children Are Gone
Time is our most precious earthly asset because all other earthly assets are governed by it. We can’t really save time. We can only spend it. So we try to manage it.
But that’s very hard. Never in history have human beings had so many options for spending time. And there’s no way to manage time well enough to spend it on all the things we want to do, nor all the things we think we should do.
So we find time a quandary. It’s a quandary that my wife and I wrestle with every day. So I recently wrote her a poetical prose note to help us see God’s design in our quandary of time.
Where do they go,
All those hours, all those days?
Each comes with ceaseless demands
To finish some task, prepare for some future.
We look at the clock and find we’re behind.
Need to get moving, we have to get things done.
“Kids, we need to get moving!
What are you doing?
Did you get caught in the moment again?
Can’t you hear tomorrow calling?”
Yet when tomorrow comes,
We hear another tomorrow calling.
We hardly enjoy the today for the tomorrows.
“Consider the ravens,” Jesus said.
Yes, the ravens.
We envy them sometimes.
“They neither sow nor reap,
They have neither storehouse nor barn,”
They have neither clock nor calendar,
They have neither education nor retirement to prepare for,
They have neither carpets nor lawns to replace.
Yet their Heavenly Father provides for them.
Do they ever wonder if they’re doing the right thing?
Spending their time on what matters most?
What does matter most?
Jesus says only one thing (Luke 10:42).
Yes, Jesus. How did he live?
He neither sowed nor reaped,
He had neither storehouse nor barn,
He had neither clock nor calendar,
He had neither education nor retirement to prepare for,
He had neither carpets nor lawns,
For he had nowhere to lay his head.
And yet his Heavenly Father provided for him.
There’s something there for us,
Who have somewhere to lay our heads,
And spend so much time caring for it.
Lord, help us understand what it is!
I wonder.
Is time something we over-manage and under-spend?
Are we anxious and troubled about too many things
When time is to be spent on love and on little else?
I wonder.
Are we given so much to do
To see how we’ll spend time?
To see what we really love?
I wonder.
Ravens keep their focus simple to do what is necessary: live.
Jesus kept his focus simple to do what was necessary: love.
Can we keep our focus simple
So we spend more of our fleeting time on love?
And can we figure out how before the children are gone?
I want to spend time more wisely before it’s too late. Don’t you?
Managing time is hard, and there are no easy answers. We should read Kevin DeYoung, Matt Perman, and David Allen. We all need help and they are helpful.
But it’s also helpful to remember that managing time is meant to be hard. God designed time as a test of our treasure. In the crunch and crush of demands, how we spend it reveals what we love and trust. And to love and trust what matters most, we must neglect (die to) many of the things we want to do, and many of the things we think we should do.
What will you neglect today for the sake of loving what matters most?
More on the use of time:
How Should I Spend My Time? (Ask Pastor John)
There Never Seems to Be Enough Time (article by Jon Bloom)
The Question (article by Jonathan Parnell)
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