Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 83

Two Myths about Singleness

Note from Randy: My assistant, Chelsea Dudley, has written two excellent articles on singleness. Chelsea is a true Jesus-follower, does a terrific job, and is endlessly helpful to me and EPM.

This is the first of her articles. They are both on point, solidly biblical, from her heart, and much needed. Even if you’re married, please read them! There is something here for all of us.

If you’re single right now, you have the gift of singleness.

Yes, I said a gift.

Hear me out. I’m not talking about some spiritual gifts test that says you’re doomed to be single for the rest of your life if you score high on singleness. I’m talking about a beautiful, thoughtful present from the Lord—a gift of grace from your Father.

My heart is that as you read this article, you would be refreshed and encouraged, and freed from myths about singleness. My prayer is that you would be reminded that God sees and knows you, and that He would be more glorified in your life.

If you’re married and didn’t let the title stop you from reading this article, good for you. This blog (and my next one) is just as much for you as it is for those who are single.

My hope is that my married friends will see how incredible our God is in both singleness and marriage. That you would understand you have the opportunity to rejoice with and encourage your single friends. And that ultimately, we would learn how to love and care for each other better.

A Gift of Grace

Vaughan Roberts says:

Paul speaks of it (being single) as a gift (1 Cor. 7:7), and Jesus says it is good ‘for those to whom it has been given’ (Matt. 19:11) … When Paul speaks of singleness as a gift, he isn’t speaking of a particular ability some people have to be contentedly single. Rather, he’s speaking of the state of being single. As long as you have it, it’s a gift from God, just as marriage will be God’s gift if you ever receive it. We should receive our situation in life, whether it is singleness or marriage, as a gift of God’s grace to us.

God chose to give me the gift of singleness for 34 years (I married Michael nine months ago). I was the girl in high school and college who didn’t really want a career. Being a wife and a mother was the deepest desire of my heart. Those single years were really, really hard for me. I went through relationships and break ups and times of loneliness and depression.

There were times I deeply struggled with my singleness, and because of it, I struggled with God’s sovereignty. There were other times where I learned to be content. If you’re feeling something—any emotion, really—about being single, believe me, I’ve been there.

I didn’t want the gift of singleness, and for most of my life I didn’t even view singleness as a gift.

One verse that was always hard for me to understand was “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). The deepest desire of my heart was to be married, wasn’t it?

I spent most of my single life in vocational ministry. I decided that if I wasn’t married, then I would give my life to serving Jesus. I learned so much through this season and am thankful for it, but I couldn’t get past that verse. I was delighting myself in the Lord. My whole life was devoted to Him! So why wouldn’t He give me the desires of my heart?

What I learned, and what I believe this verse means, is that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He becomes the desire of our hearts. Delighting ourselves in Him leads to getting more of Him. This is not a genie-in-a-bottle verse: “Love God and He’ll give you whatever you want.” Instead, I learned that Jesus is enough. That He is worthy of my life. That He is the One who makes me whole. My whole life, whether married or single, I want to spend delighting in Him.

Many of you have been given the gift of singleness right now and may feel very differently about your gift. Some of you relate to how I felt and don’t want to be single in any way, shape, or form. Some of you feel perfectly content with your gift and where God has you right now. Some of you may struggle with your gift daily; others may choose to be single for the rest of your lives. However you feel about your gift, we need to learn to steward our gift wisely and to love and appreciate the Giver of our gifts.

Singleness is an important subject that, unfortunately, the church rarely talks about. In many ways the American church is set up for married people, as if marriage were the closest thing to Heaven on earth.

But that’s not how the Bible talks about singleness. Let’s dispel two myths that are common in the church today.

Myth 1: Marriage Is Heaven on Earth

It should be obvious to us, but all too often we forget that human marriage was never meant to be Heaven on earth. In Gay Girl, Good God, Jackie Perry Hill gives us a beautiful picture of what marriage is and isn’t:

In all of its glory however, [marriage] is not the highest glory. Marriage, for some time, has been esteemed idealistically—as a mini-heaven perhaps, unguarded by golden gates, entered into preferably before a woman’s pretty begins to die, or by the time a man is ready to plant his seed. From the time a young girl learns of love, she’s taught it’s in its purest form when a white dress carries a woman into an “I do.” Cartoons and children’s books indoctrinate us young with this ideal, but they aren’t the only ones making a utopia out of marriage. Christians (sometimes unknowingly) continue to make it an undue part of their gospel witness… The exaggerated promise of marriage or the unbalanced emphasis on it placed in the Christian life can lead…to [men and women] being disoriented about God’s specific call for them. Which we can say with confidence God’s call is this: to love God and love people (Matthew 22:26-40).

For some, loving God will lead them down a path of God-honoring marriage. For others, a life of God-exalting singleness. …In both, God is glorified.

The book of Genesis introduced us to the mystery of marriage, and Revelation concludes with the consummation of what marriage reveals. In Revelation, we are given a glimpse of what will happen once the church, Christ’s bride, forgiven sinners, stainless saints are finally at home with their Bridegroom, who purchased their “I do” when He declared, “It is finished.” This is the highest glory of the Christian life, to be married to the King of Glory. Marriage is glorious, but it is not Him. Though many have projected onto marriage what only God can give in Himself, it is not God. It is a creation of God for the glory of God so that the world can get a picture of the gospel of God.

Marriage is a good thing. But it is a living, breathing parable, not the ultimate reality. Marriage is not the end all; it is a reflection of the end all. As glorious as it is, it’s not the most glorious; it merely points to the most glorious. Marriage is not the gospel; it’s a picture of the gospel.

Sam Allberry writes:

…singleness, like marriage, has a unique way of testifying to the gospel of grace. Jesus said there will be no marriage in the new creation. In that respect we’ll be like the angels, neither marrying nor being given in marriage (Matt. 22:30). We will have the reality; we will no longer need the signpost.

By foregoing marriage now, singleness is a way of both anticipating this reality and testifying to its goodness. It’s a way of saying this future reality is so certain that we can live according to it now. If marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency. It’s a way of declaring to a world obsessed with sexual and romantic intimacy that these things are not ultimate, and that in Christ we possess what is.

Psalm 16:11 says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” It doesn’t say in marriage there is fullness of joy. It says in God’s presence there is fullness of joy. Jesus is where joy is found.

Marriage doesn’t mean you’ve arrived. Jesus does. Marriage is hard. It reveals your sins in a way singleness never will. People are messy and when two people become one, the mess is magnified.

Don’t get me wrong: marriage can be wonderful and a gift. But singleness is a gift too. And married people can struggle just as much (or even more) as single people do.

Marriage is not Heaven on earth. Jesus is.

Myth 2: Singleness Is a Curse

False. As we’ve seen, singleness is a gift.

There’s nothing wrong with you if you’re single. You aren’t cursed, though I know it’s tempting to feel that way.

I can’t count how many times well-intentioned church ladies told me, “I just can’t believe you’re not married yet! You’re such a great catch” or “When you get married…” or “It must not be God’s timing yet. He wants to teach you something first.” (If this is you, please stop. These statements don’t help your single friends. Instead, encourage them with how you see God working in their lives.)

Statements like these made me wonder what was wrong with me or what I needed to do in order to deserve a husband. Again, though it may feel like it at times, singleness is not a curse. It’s a gift.

In her book Let Me Be a Woman, Elisabeth Elliot said,

Having now spent more than forty-one years single, I have learned that it is indeed a gift. Not one I would choose. Not one many women would choose. But we do not choose our gifts, remember? We are given them by a divine Giver who knows the end from the beginning, and wants above all else to give us the gift of Himself.

If you are a believer in Jesus, you already have the best gift that could ever be given. You have the Giver Himself. Singleness may not be the gift you wish you had right now, but the Gift Giver is good and knows exactly what you need in order to get more of Him in your life.

The Best Gift

After years of struggling with my singleness, I decided that instead of dwelling on what I didn’t have, I wanted to dwell on what I did have. And what I had was the best gift of all—Jesus. In my singleness I wanted to show that Jesus is enough. The Lover of my soul was all I needed. My Savior was the one who made me whole.

So whether married or single, let’s fight to see singleness the way God sees it: as an incredible gift that can show the watching world that Jesus is enough.

Photo by Dimitri Tyan on Unsplash

Thoughts on Choosing a College, as Seen from Our Enemy’s Perspective

In this excerpt from my book Lord Foulgrin’s Letters, a high-ranking demon instructs his subordinate how to deceive and destroy Jordan Fletcher and his family—in this case, when it comes to their choosing a college for their daughter Jillian.

With many families preparing to send their kids off to college this fall, this might be timely and thought-provoking. Keep in mind as you read that this is written from a demon’s perspective, so while Satan is our enemy, in the post below “Enemy” refers to God. As A.W. Tozer put it, “Sometimes the best way to see a thing is to look at its opposite.”

If you’re interested, I share more thoughts on choosing a college (not written from a demon’s perspective!) in this article.  I highly recommend every parent read, and then discuss with their kids, J. Budziszewski's book How to Stay Christian in College and University of Destruction: Your Game Plan For Spiritual Victory on Campus by David Wheaton.

My unimaginative Squaltaint,

You say that Fletcher and his daughter are looking into which college she should attend, and you want to know the best choice?

Really, Squaltaint, that’s the sort of question I’d expect them to ask. As always, that choice is best which draws them farthest from the Enemy.

The one thing you don’t want is for her to go to a college that will reinforce her newly forming trust in the forbidden Book. Fortunately, at the vast majority of colleges there’s no danger whatsoever of this happening.

Nearly all these colleges were originally established to train young minds in the forbidden Book and to integrate a Christian worldview into every subject area. They were once among our most formidable enemies. If you can imagine, at one time we actually fought to keep young vermin away from universities!

Tyrant, Carpenter, and Ghost have little chance against our surrogate trinity of Darwin, Freud, and Marx. We teach them they are accidents and animals (biology); good people who need only to get in touch with their inner feelings and find out who to blame for their problems (psychology); bit players in the large machinery where diversity reigns and no belief should have preference over any other (sociology).

Relativism. Pluralism. Individualism. Our sacred creed.

My favorite word on campus is whatever. Whatever they want to believe, they can, and whatever anyone else believes they have no right to challenge. Except Christian beliefs, of course, since they contradict the status quo. Remember your college ABCs: Anything But Christianity.

Send her off to most colleges and her faith will quickly unravel. She’ll no longer have her parents’ guidelines or the peer pressure toward obeying the Enemy offered by her church and youth group. Instead she’ll experience a rush of independence in an atmosphere where students routinely experiment with everything from drugs to sex to New Age and Eastern religions, where any appeal to morality is debunked as intolerance.

Jillian’s dossier shows her to be bright. (By vermin standards, I mean—of course, they’re all imbeciles.) Hence she has potential to serve us effectively, with the added bonus of breaking the hearts of her parents. According to your report, her counselor is urging her toward one of the brand name universities. Very good—those are our most secure strong­holds.

There she’ll be immersed in gender and race wars, assimilating the university’s contempt for all things Western, male, and heterosexual. While our experiments in communism with their legacy of mass destruction have disappeared nearly everywhere in the world but China, I’m proud to say communism is alive and well among many American college professors.

Naturally, you and Raketwist must not let her embrace the diversity of personality and culture the Enemy values, He who created them different; rather, our sort of diversity, cen­tered on aberrant theology and corrupt moral behavior.

Reason is rarely exercised on these campuses, where feelings and subjective opinions reign. The politicized doctrinaire atmosphere that at first seems a breath of fresh air will ultimately choke her. The intellectual climate of meaninglessness, the breakdown of moral constructs, will leave her a cynical nihilist. Or perhaps the self-glorifying celebration of humanity’s goodness will leave her an idealistic narcissist. Any of these is equally useful to us and destructive to her. Young Jillian is too weak to survive the intellectual intimidation of the classroom. Give me a philosophy, psychology, or science prof over a satanist any day.

We’ve labored to make parents—especially Christian parents—blind to reality. They cheerfully send off their children, thinking college will prepare them for life, while we conduct our invisible assault on their minds. We impart to them beliefs and values contradict­ing those of their parents. Dad and Mom would be horrified if they understood this. Your job is to make sure they don’t.

Once in college, slowly but surely your sludgebag’s daughter will not only question but abandon any Christian beliefs. As she’s exposed to a new world of diverse ideology and lifestyles, she’ll begin to see her parents’ faith and her church’s teachings as naive and narrow, lacking tolerance and sophistication.

Most students will end up viewing the Enemy’s faith as the root of all evils. Christianity becomes synonymous with crusades, holocausts, racism, and burnings at the stake. By the time they graduate, their minds will respond to the forbidden Book with something between a condescending smugness and an arrogant hostility.

She’ll come to believe not only in evolution, but in the moral relativism inseparable from it. At first she’ll be embarrassed by coed dorms and students copulating indiscreetly around the campus, but soon she’ll be desensitized and feel this sort of “freedom” is cool. Within a few years she’ll be having sexual relations with at least one boy, maybe more. By her senior year she who today is aghast at lesbianism will be accepting of that and all the other teachings of her women’s studies professors.

In a matter of months she’ll be getting drunk—a wonderful experience of sickness and nausea her parents and youth group deprived her of. Eventually she’ll try drugs (“Why not?”). Before long she’ll see herself as above her family’s beliefs, more enlightened than her church, grateful that she escaped succumbing to childish beliefs in Christian superstition.

Meanwhile, her parents will subsidize her defection from faith by paying tuition, room, and board. When people in their church ask, “How’s Jillian doing at college?” they’ll smile and say, “Great.” They won’t realize they’re losing their daughter; in fact, they’re paying lots of money to lose her. I have to laugh when I watch them underwrite our intellectual conquest of their children.

Never let Fletcher consider that if his goal was to destroy his daughter’s faith, this would be easy to do without sending her to college. Don’t ask me, Squaltaint, why they’re willing to pay so much money for their children to go off and lose their faith, when they could stay home and lose it for free! In any case, I’m delighted they do.

I relished your news that Fletcher’s new church friends recommended sending Jillian to that “Christian” college they attended thirty years ago: “It was a great school when we went there.” Yes, and the toxic waste landfill was a nice ball field when they played in it as children, but that doesn’t mean they’d send their children there now, does it?

I rub my hands with glee when I consider the amount of Christian money tied up in endowments for schools we use for anti-Christian causes. The morons don’t get the self-evident fact that money given to these schools doesn’t go to what the schools were thirty years ago. It goes to what they are today.

False advertising is critical to achieving our goals. Suppose the catalog said, “Some of our teachers still believe in the Bible’s inspiration, the creation of the world out of nothing, the physical resurrection of Christ, and that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Many of our teachers, however, do not believe these things, and in fact teach students the opposite.”

Well, that would give it away, wouldn’t it? If we’re going to continue to lure in parents and students, we must keep up the appearances.

Do you realize how many students we’ve permanently disconnected from forbidden squadrons through Christian colleges? There are notorious exceptions, of course, and at all costs you must keep Jillian from those schools.

Be on your guard against campuses with strong churches nearby and Christian ministries which dare to invade our turf, trying to steal our prey. We’ve managed to send young people off to schools full of lies and immorality, only to lose them to enemy commandos.

The Tyrant is a meddler. He has special designs on these young vermin. Despite how much college is stacked in our favor, we cannot trust Him to leave them alone.

Celebrating higher education,

Lord Foulgrin

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Listen and Read Before You Speak or Type

Today’s blog is the second in a series of five with Scripture on the impact and importance of our words (see part one). 

The following verses remind us of the importance of actually listening and reading before we respond, both in person and online. Sadly, many of us don’t know how to read, pay attention, listen, or think critically, and it shows in our conversations and online interactions. (Sometimes you’ll read comments on social media and it’s clear many commenters haven’t read or understood the entire article or blog they’re commenting on!)

It takes humility to truly listen before we respond. May God grant us that humility, and may we all be “quick to listen, slow to speak”—to the glory of God.

Listen to the Counsel of Others:

He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise (Proverbs 15:31).

He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding (Proverbs 15:32).

Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise (Proverbs 19:20).

Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge (Proverbs 19:27).

Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips (Proverbs 22:17-18).

Like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is a wise man's rebuke to a listening ear (Proverbs 25:12).

For waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers (Proverbs 24:6).

A wise son heeds his father's instruction, but a mocker does not listen to rebuke (Proverbs 13:1).

Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin (Proverbs 10:14).

Listen before You Respond:

He who answers before listening-that is his folly and his shame (Proverbs 18:13).

Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him (Proverbs 29:20).

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry (James 1:19).

Don't Talk Too Much:

When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise (Proverbs 10:19).

A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered (Proverbs 17:27).

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions (Proverbs 18:2).

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue (Proverbs 17:28).

A man of understanding holds his tongue (Proverbs 11:12).

Weigh Your Words, and Think before You Speak (or Type):

The heart of the righteous weighs its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil (Proverbs 15:28).

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18).

He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin (Proverbs 13:3).

He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity (Proverbs 21:23).

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless (James 1:26).

Make Your Words Timely and Appropriate:

A man finds joy in giving an apt reply—and how good is a timely word! (Proverbs 15:23)

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11).

It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel (Proverbs 20:3).

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1).

Here are some related thoughts from others:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together,

The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to “offer” something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening.

Writing about the importance of listening, Dane Ortlund says this:

Dozens of times today, someone will start speaking to you.

A child, wanting something to eat. A co-worker, touching base about an upcoming meeting. A boss, offering a word of correction. A friend, returning a call. A parent, battling loneliness. A pastor, opening the Scripture. A neighbor, saying hello while walking the dog. A spouse, reflecting on the day. A confidante, needing counsel. A relative, boring us with life details.

In each case we can either deflect or engage. The exhortation to be “quick to hear” and “slow to speak” (James 1:19) isn’t just a handy tip for life. It’s where the gospel takes us. Why would we not be lifelong listeners, quick to hear?

This doesn’t mean we never excuse ourselves from a conversation to attend to more important matters. Sometimes the most loving thing to do is to stop listening—to gossip, say, or to a solicitor who has knocked on your door during dinner. It means instead that increasingly the natural default of a gospel-shaped heart is to enter in to another’s words rather than hold them at arm’s length.

It means we’ll start more sentences with “I see your point” rather than “But . . .” More responses of “That must be hard” rather than “Something similar happened to me . . .” Often it will mean sitting in silence together rather than generating words just to fend off the awkwardness of quiet.

Not only in private dialogue but also in public discourse, Christians of all people should be famous for their listening. If love is the defining mark of Christians, shouldn’t listening be a fundamental mark of how we interact with others—in political dialogue, in discussing race, in sorting through economic issues, in apologetics?

We sin. But God doesn’t shout us down. He gently listens to our deepest need, and meets us there, at the cross.

The central calling of the Christian life is to love. A neglected way we love is by listening. The grace of God in Jesus Christ takes us there.

(Read his whole article Listen. It’s a Ministry.)

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

What If You Struggle to Forgive Yourself for a Past Sin?

I’ve received messages over the years from believers who say something along the lines of this: “I struggle with forgiving myself for a past sin. I’ve asked Christ’s forgiveness for it many times but can’t seem to resolve my feelings of guilt and accept God’s forgiveness.”

Talk Back to the Devil

If you can relate to the sentiment of this message, here’s what I encourage you to do: ask yourself, “Have I accepted Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf, and also confessed to God this sin?” If the answer is yes, would God on the one hand say, “I’ve fully forgiven you” (the clear teaching of Scripture) but then turn around and plague you with guilt feelings when in fact He died to remove your guilt? No, obviously not. That means the source of your despair is not God but the evil one. So talk back to the devil and say, “You’re right, I’m a sinner. But Christ has fully forgiven me and He is infinitely greater than you, as 1 John 4:4 says. So I will believe my Lord, not you!” (A. W. Tozer entitled one of his editorials “I talk back to the devil,” and it later became the title of one of his books.)

Jesus said Satan is a liar, and when he lies he speaks his native language. Lying is what he’s best at. Satan is lying to you and saying Christ’s redemptive work is not available to you in this case. Christ is the teller of truth. What does He say? “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37, NIV). “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If we believe Satan when he says Christ’s death wasn’t sufficient to cover our every sin, then we are choosing to believe the most accomplished liar of all time, the one whose native language is lies.

So, have you confessed your sins to Christ? If yes, then you are forgiven. Whether or not you have doubts, whether or not you have a subjective emotional sense of “feeling forgiven” is irrelevant—the fact is, if you have done what 1 John 1:9 says, (and unless God isn’t telling the truth!) you are forgiven.

We Dare Not Call God a Liar

All sins must be punished—if we don’t accept Christ’s punishment on our behalf, we leave ourselves to take it on. But since we have no righteousness to pay for our sins, we can never atone for them, and therefore the self-punishment can never end. Only we who are covered with the blood of Christ will escape eternal judgment for our sins, because that judgment has been laid on another whose gift of atonement we have received.

We simply aren’t good enough to ever pay off our own sins. So if we choose to believe we’re unforgiven after we’ve confessed, we say Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t good enough to save us by His grace, and in effect, we call God a liar.

Chuck Swindoll wrote, “By focusing on forgiving ourselves, we have taken the spotlight off of God and pointed it at us—making it doubly difficult to let go of our sin! He has forgiven us. We must simply receive that forgiveness and rest in it. That means releasing those sins we want to hold on to, refusing to revisit them in our minds, and allowing the truth of our forgiveness to cover us with His peace. Absolution from the Lord is far more powerful than absolution from oneself.”

If you feel you’re not worthy of God’s forgiveness, you’re right—none of us is worthy of His grace. If we were worthy of it, we wouldn’t need it! But God showed His grace to us in that while we were yet depraved and sinful, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). He has seen us at our worst and still loves us.

Trust His Word, Not Your Feelings

Don’t buy into Satan’s lie that your relationship with God depends on you always doing the right thing and feeling a certain way. The devil may even try to convince you that you’ve lost your salvation. If so, rehearse what Scripture says. We can do absolutely nothing to earn our standing with Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). Therefore, we can do nothing to lose it. No one can pluck us out of the Father’s hands (John 10:29). Our ceasing to do good works, or doing bad works, cannot move us out of His hands, simply because it is not our good works that put us there in the first place (we have no good works apart from Christ), but only the perfect work of Christ done on our behalf.

Beware of letting your feelings keep you from trusting the Lord. Otherwise you’ll fall into the devil’s trap and fall for his schemes, which we are commanded not to be ignorant of, so that he cannot outwit us (2 Corinthians 2:11). One of the things Satan would love to do is get you so focused on your guilt that you stop serving at church, stop witnessing, stop growing in your faith, and stop trusting what God’s Word says. Since he cannot keep you from going to Heaven, now he wants to derail you and distract you from serving God. He wants to create a wedge between you and God. Do not let him do this. Ask God to help you not fall into Satan’s trap.

Believe Christ and meditate on Scripture, not on how you feel, and eventually God will change how you feel. You are forgiven—eventually you’ll feel forgiven, but until you do, you still are. Don’t trust your intellect any more than your emotions if it is contradicting the Word of God. Don’t trust anything but His Word—force your intellect to submit to it, ask God for help, and eventually your emotions will likely follow, but whether they do or not, the truth is still the truth. If you have sinned and confessed, you are forgiven. No sin is bigger than our Savior.

Satan wants you to be shrouded in darkness and despair, because he knows the truth will set you free (John 8:32), and he wants you in bondage. Christ, in contrast, wants you to embrace His grace and accept His empowerment to walk in the light, as He is in the light, His blood covering us from all our sins (1 John 1:7). (One clarification: the Bible teaches not only forgiveness of our sins but also consequences of our choices. Forgiveness means that God eliminates our eternal condemnation and guilt. But it does not mean that our actions in this life have no consequences on earth. Forgiven people can still contract an STD or go to jail for drunk driving, for example.)

It’s All About Christ

Ultimately, refusing to forgive ourselves is an act of pride—it’s making ourselves and our sins bigger than God and His grace.

Tim Keller writes in Counterfeit Gods, “When people say, ‘I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,’ they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God’s.”

C. S. Lewis expressed a similar sentiment in one of his letters: “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

Like me, you’re a wretch, an unworthy sinner. Neither of us deserves God’s grace. But He gives it to us anyway—and that should make us dance for joy! So don’t be self-absorbed and self-important, as if this were all about you, and you have to figure it all out and make a way. Christ has figured it all out and made the way for you. It’s not about your righteousness—it’s about the righteousness of Christ on your behalf (2 Corinthians 5:21). He’s the One who has made us His beloved children (Romans 8:16) and called us His friends (John 15:15).

If you’re still struggling, by all means get help from your pastor or a mature Christian friend or counselor. Listen to God, who died for you on the cross, not to the Enemy of God, who is telling you Christ’s work on the cross wasn’t good enough. Read His words of grace and forgiveness out loud, write them down, and memorize them. Choose freedom, not bondage. Don’t despair, but rejoice in the grace of God. The price has been paid—it’s for you to accept Christ’s atonement, not try to repeat it.

Embrace God’s forgiveness. Relax. Rejoice.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoiced in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).

When things in life feel temporary and uncertain, there’s one thing you can know for sure: Nothing can separate you from God’s wondrous grace. In Beautiful and Scandalous: How God's Grace Changes Everything, Randy offers daily meditations, Scripture readings, and inspirational quotes that will enable you to grasp more fully the grace God lavishes on you.

Photo by Nicholas Bartos on Unsplash

Temporary Darkness, Eternal Light

God is portrayed in Scripture as full of light. He has a bright radiance, seen by Moses and Elijah and Isaiah and the apostle John and shown in Christ at the Transfiguration. The apostle John is emphatic: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Psalm 18 speaks of “the brightness of his presence” (v. 12) yet paradoxically also speaks of Him coming down from the heavens with “dark clouds” under His feet (v. 9). We’re told of God that “he made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky” (v. 11). How do dark clouds fit with the brightness of the noonday sun? Somehow it relates to the fallen human condition and the difficulty of seeing the full light of God’s presence in a world still under the Curse.

While I don’t suffer chronic depression, I’ve had a few periods of several months of depression that have awakened me to its reality and the hold it can take. A novelist friend wrote me:

I pleaded with God for healing and understanding. I thought if I could just understand it, I’d somehow solve it.

Never, in all my years of being a Christian, did I cling to God so closely. Never had I talked to Him so honestly. Those weeks, months, and even years of questioning and searching drew me nearer to Him. Walking through my discontent led me to a life so much richer than the one I’d been living. God used my depression and pain for something so much greater than I could envision. I’ve learned that there is purpose in struggle…even when we can’t see it.

When I posted a blog about a time of depression I was experiencing, a few people expressed shock that someone who had written about subjects such as grace and Heaven could ever be depressed! I had to laugh, since far better people than I have experienced far worse depression—Charles Spurgeon, Martin Luther, John Owen, and William Cowper, to name a few.

Some depression comes from simply feeling the crushing weight of pain and brokenness in one’s life and the lives of others around the globe. Of course, self-preoccupied woe-is-me depression quickly becomes deeply unhealthy. But sometimes when we feel burdened, we may simply be joining the whole of creation in groaning because of a suffering world. In that case, we’re in good company, for “the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).

It’s no sin to feel that burden, and sometimes it’s a sin not to. Some of what passes for Christian contentment is, in fact, apathy toward the plight of God’s image-bearers. Our lives should reflect a groaning that gives way to joy, celebrating what God has done for us in Christ and thanking Him that He will rescue us once and for all from evil and suffering.

Helen Keller, blind and deaf since a toddler, wrote, “Although the world is full of suffering it is also full of the overcoming of it.… Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.”

Psalm 18, after speaking of both light and darkness, ends beautifully: “You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light” (v. 28).

The darkness of the soul will not go on unbroken in this life. But even if it did, the bright light of the New Heaven and the New Earth is coming, so close that even now it is almost within reach: “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23).

Lord, rescue us from the darkness of sin, and shine upon us the light of forgiveness. But rescue us too from the dark night of the soul that sometimes falls upon even the righteous, who confess their sins and seek your face yet still walk under a gloomy cloud of depression. Reassure us that we are in good company, for many of your great saints have so suffered. Lord, help us trust you until the darkness lifts. But please break through it and be pleased to shine upon us—not just in eternity but even now—the light of joy.

Excerpted from Randy's devotional 90 Days of God's Goodness.

Photo by Arto Marttinen on Unsplash

Our Tongues Have the Power of Life and Death

Years ago I put together a number of Scriptures on the power of our words. Their cumulative weight is stunning. In today’s world of social media, which allows us to publish comments to the world with the mere push of a button, more than ever we as God’s people need to read and meditate on Scripture, and examine our heart and habits. We need to be slower to anger and slower to speak, and quicker to hear and think biblically.

Today’s post is the first of a series of five using those verses I compiled. I’ll begin with Scripture, and end with some comments and resources from others. If you don’t have time to read everything, please just focus on God’s Word!

The power of the words we speak is far greater than we realize. Look at what Scripture has to say:

The Power of Our Words for Bad:

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. But no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison (James 3:6, 8).

With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbor (Proverbs 11:9).

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels, they go down to a man's inmost parts (Proverbs 18:8).

For Good:

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11).

Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones (Proverbs 16:24).

An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up (Proverbs 12:25).

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value. The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment (Proverbs 10:20-21).

For Good or Evil:

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18).

The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit (Proverbs 15:4).

Summary:

The tongue has the power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21).

Here are some related insights from others:

Ray Ortlund writes,

Horizontally, death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). The temptation is to think, ‘But I’m not doing anything. It’s only words.’ But words alone can bring a government down or establish peace, destroy a marriage or renew hope, crush a child’s sense of worth or lift him to confidence and joy, unify a church or splinter it into angry factions, send a soul to hell or to heaven. When we observe carefully the impact of our words, we see why God cares so intensely about them. (from blog post “Words”)

Paul David Tripp says in The Power of Words and the Wonder of God,

The book of Proverbs is, in ways, a treatise on talk. I would summarize it this way: words give life; words bring death—you choose. What does this mean? It means you have never spoken a neutral word in your life. Your words have direction to them. If your words are moving in the life direction, they will be words of encouragement, hope, love, peace, unity, instruction, wisdom, and correction. But if your words are moving in a death direction, they will be words of anger, malice, slander, jealousy, gossip, division, contempt, racism, violence, judgment, and condemnation. Your words have direction to them. When you hear the word talk you ought to hear something that is high and holy and significant and important. May God help us never to look at talk as something that doesn’t matter.

Paul shares some further reflections in this video:

It’s impossible to overstate the power and eternal impact of our spoken and written words, for good or evil! That’s why we so desperately need God’s grace and transforming work in our lives so that the words we speak will be pleasing to Him.

Photo by Kate Kalvach on Unsplash

Shai Linne Shares His Experience of Being a Black Man in America to Encourage Understanding and Unity

Note from Randy: A few years ago I enjoyed meeting recording artist Shai Linne at a conference where we were speaking the same night. We had a terrific conversation in which I thanked him for his extraordinary work and artistry in conveying solid biblical doctrine. (I would challenge you to find any clearer statement of life-changing theological truth than he conveys in that rap!) He is also a pastor, and anyone should be happy to have such a biblically-grounded church leader. 

I also thanked Shai for his bold and controversial for some (not me) rap against false teachers, in which he names names. And finally, his classic rap bio of Charles Spurgeon, which I blogged about in 2010. It is simply the best and most engaging condensed biography of Spurgeon in any form I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a great deal about Spurgeon.

I considered it important to give you this background on Shai so you first see what kind of a man he is and what a biblically grounded worldview he has. That may give greater credibility to what he says in the following article, which will seem controversial to some. His words resonate, down to the specific illustrations, with what every black man, from poor guys to rich ones, told me when I interviewed many black Americans while researching my novel Dominion. My heart breaks for my black brothers and sisters in Christ, and all the more having heard these stories over and over again from trustworthy people.  

Someone made this comment on a segment we recently posted from Dominion with a dialogue between a black man and white man: “This book was written in 1996. So much has changed in the last 25 years! There might still be traces of such thinking but I think most of that has dissipated. This only tends to separate people.” Respectfully, those who think this are out of touch with the great majority of black people in America, both believers and unbelievers, who would disagree profoundly that the problem of racism has mostly dissipated.

The “it’s mostly better now” approach raises the question, “How would you know?” It’s like a man saying, “I think women and children being abused might have been a problem in the 90’s, but so much has changed in the last 25 years, it’s not much of a problem today. So please don’t talk about it, it will separate people.” (People are already separated, that’s exactly why we need to talk about it.) But talk to women and children who have endured abuse, and you will hear a very different story.

If racism hasn’t touched your family, please listen to the voices of your brothers and sisters who have seen its devastating effects. Do some people see racism where it isn’t present? Sure. But they’ve seen so much real racism that sometimes they read it in when it isn’t there, much like a woman abused by her father, uncle, cousins, boyfriend, or husband will see a man on the street and cringe in fear. The man might say, “That’s unfair, she’s misjudging me, I would never hurt a woman,” but he should ask, why is that her instinctive response? Precisely because she has been abused and knows it to be real. So if you believe someone has unfairly seen you as racist, put yourself in their position and ask how a lifetime of real experiences might have affected some of your own assumptions.

God help us to understand, empathize, repent when necessary, and both teach and live out in words and actions the Good News that our Jesus died, among other things, to unite the races and forever end the hostility: “For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles [the ultimate racial divide] into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us” (Ephesians 2:14).

Please listen to the powerful words of a biblically-grounded, Christ-centered brother, Shai Linne:

George Floyd and Me

By Shai Linne

As a Christian hip-hop artist, I’ve had the privilege of proclaiming Christ in my music for many years now. One of the encouraging and surprising aspects of that journey has been seeing how the Lord has used music to make connections across ethnic lines. Before the recent pandemic, a Christian hip-hop concert was often a beautiful picture of the diversity of the new earth, with people from many walks of life united around the message of Christ and him crucified. On many occasions, I’ve marveled at the reality of me, a black man from Philly who grew up steeped in hip-hop culture, united with brothers and sisters of different ethnicities, ages, and cultures as we fix our eyes on Jesus together.

Over the years, I’ve heard from many people that they were affected by the truth contained in my music, even though hip-hop wasn’t their natural cultural preference. Whenever I heard this, I was struck by the power and beauty of likemindedness. It was clear to me that we were likeminded concerning particular emphases in the music—the glory of God, the supremacy of Christ, the centrality of the cross, and the importance of biblical theology. By God’s grace, I will fight for all of those things until the Lord takes me home. 

But one of the painful things I’ve discovered over the last eight years or so since Trayvon Martin’s killing is that it’s possible to agree on those things and yet be in a completely different place when it comes to the issue of racial injustice. Just because I’ve made an intentional decision to focus on that which is “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3) doesn’t mean there aren’t other important things that need to be addressed in the church. It also doesn’t mean that being a Christian has exempted me from the reality of being a black man in America and all the stigma that comes with it.

Empathy, Understanding, Unity

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, my wife and I received an email from a white sister in Christ. I was hesitant to let her know how I was feeling, for fear of being misunderstood and, frankly, because of emotional exhaustion. But as I began to write, I poured out my heart in a way I’ve never really articulated all at once. I’ve been encouraged by some around me to share this publicly.

In doing so, I understand that I don’t speak for all black people on this issue, though many can resonate with my experience. I also recognize the risk that comes with putting yourself out there and being vulnerable in the age of social media, online trolls, and keyboard vigilantes. But if this can help promote any empathy, understanding, and unity in the body of Christ, it’s more than worth it. Here is what I shared with her.

Sister, I’m going to tell you how I’m doing. And as I tell you, please understand that I’m incapable of completing this message without weeping. There’s a part of me that’s saying, “Spare yourself the pain, Shai. It’s not worth it.” But I’m choosing not to listen to that part of me because I would be robbing you of an opportunity to “bear one another’s burdens” and “mourn with those who mourn”—and I’m sure, as a sister in Christ, you want to do just that.

Sister, I am heartbroken and devastated. I feel gutted. I haven’t been able to focus on much at all since I saw the horrific video of George Floyd’s murder. The image of that officer with hand in pocket as he calmly and callously squeezed the life out of that man while he begged for his life is an image that will haunt me until the day I die. But it’s not just the video of this one incident. For many black people, it’s never about just one incident. Just as it wasn’t just about the videos of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, Walter Scott, Rodney King, etc., etc., etc., etc. 

This is about how being a black man in America has shaped both the way I see myself and the way others have seen me my whole life. It’s about being told to leave the sneaker store as a 12-year-old, because I was taking too long to decide which sneakers I wanted to buy with my birthday money and the white saleswoman assumed I was in the store to steal something. 

It’s about being handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car while walking down the street during college, and then waiting for a white couple to come identify whether or not I was the one who’d committed a crime against them, knowing that if they said I was the one, I would be immediately taken to jail, no questions asked. 

It’s about walking down the street as a young man and beginning to notice that white people, women especially, would cross to the other side of the street to avoid walking past me—and me beginning to preemptively cross to the other side myself to save them the trouble of being afraid and to save me the humiliation of that silent transaction. 

It’s about taking a road trip with my sons to visit Blair’s family in Michigan—and my greatest fear being getting pulled over for no reason other than driving while black, told to get out of the car, cuffed, and sat down on the side of the road, utterly emasculated and humiliated with my young boys looking out the window, terrified, which is exactly what happened to a good friend of mine when he took his family on a road trip. 

It’s about the exhaustion of constantly feeling I have to assert my humanity in front of some white people I’m meeting for the first time, to let them know, “Hey! I’m not a threat! You don’t need to be afraid. If you got to know me, I’m sure we have things in common!” 

It’s about me sometimes asking my wife to do things in certain customer-service situations, since I know she’ll likely get treated better than I will. 

It’s about borrowing a baby swing from a white friend in our mostly white suburb of D.C. and her telling me, “Sure you can borrow it. I have to step out, but I’ll leave it on the porch for you. Just go grab it”—and then feeling heart palpitations as my car approached her home, debating whether or not to get the swing and being terrified as I walked up the steps that someone would think I was stealing it and call the cops on me. 

It’s about intentionally making sure the carseats are in the car, even if the kids aren’t, so that when (not “if”—it happens all the time) I’m stopped by the police, they will perhaps notice the carseats and also the wedding band on one of my visible hands on the wheel (which I’ve been taught to keep there and not move until he tells me to—and even then, in an exaggeratedly slow manner) and will perhaps think to himself, This man is married with a family and small kids like me. Maybe he wants to get home safely to his family just like I do.

It’s about having to explain to my 4-year-old son at his mostly white Christian school that the kids who laughed at him for having brown skin were wrong, that God made him in his image, and that his skin is beautiful—after he told me, “Daddy, I don’t want brown skin. I want white skin.”

It’s about having what feels like genuine fellowship with my white brothers and sisters who share the same Reformed theology—until I mention racism, injustice, or police brutality, at which point I’m looked at skeptically as if I embrace a “social gospel” or am some kind of “liberal” or “social justice warrior.”

And it’s about sometimes feeling like some of my white friends aren’t that particularly interested in truly knowing me—at least not in any meaningful way that might actually challenge their preconceptions. Rather, it feels like they use me to feel better about themselves because I check off the “black friend” box. Much more could be mentioned. These were the first things that came to mind. 

So when I watch a video like George Floyd’s, it represents for me the fresh reopening of a deep wound and the reliving of layers of trauma that get exponentially compounded each time a well-meaning white friend says, “All lives matter.” Of course they do, but in this country, black lives have been treated like they don’t matter for centuries and present inequities in criminal justice, income, housing, health care, education, etc. show that all lives don’t actually matter like they should.

So, whenever someone asks how I’m doing with everything going on, this is some of what I bring to the table. And it’s a big part of the picture of who Shai Linne is.

Grieving, But With Hope

But it’s not the whole picture. Though I’m deeply grieved, I am not without hope. Personally, I have little confidence in our government or policymakers to change the systemic factors that contributed to the George Floyd situation. But my hope isn’t in the government. My hope is in the Lord. In a different context, the prophet Jeremiah said some things that resonate with me as I process this: “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me” (Lam. 3:20).

I love that the prophet doesn’t minimize the pain or act like it isn’t real. There are three whole chapters of “bitterness and gall”—and no trite clichés wrapped in theological terms. Jeremiah acknowledges how much it hurts and, as a result, his soul is downcast. Too often when people are hurting, we can play the role of Job’s friends, saying things that may be theologically true while adding to our suffering friend’s pain. One of the most hurtful things we can do is to make mourners justify their pain. 

Jeremiah gives thoughtful meditation to the trauma he has experienced at the hand of the Lord. But then he does something remarkable in the next verse. He preaches to himself!

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Lam. 3:21–24)

Jeremiah makes a conscious decision to think about something that fuels his hope: God’s character. He considers God’s “great love,” God’s “compassion,” and God’s “faithfulness.” He reminds himself that the Lord is his portion. Jeremiah knows he and Israel deserve to be consumed because of their sin—but he also knows that the God who disciplines is the God who saves (v. 26).

Life as ‘Usual’

So, brothers and sisters, in a nutshell, I’m so thankful for Jesus. I deserve to be consumed, but I’m not, because of God’s compassion. That’s what the cross and resurrection are all about. My pain and trauma are real. But my salvation, in a sense, is even more real, because my pain and trauma are temporary. My salvation is eternal. This is why I choose to focus on what I do in my music. It’s the glory of God, the supremacy of Jesus Christ, the centrality of the cross, and biblical theology that put my experience as a black man in America into its proper perspective. 

I hope I’m not giving into skepticism or pessimism, but I firmly believe that unless the systemic problems with policing and the criminal justice system are addressed, we’re going to continue to see these kinds of things for years to come. My fear is that the attention garnered by the protests will eventually die down (as it always does), and then my white friends will go right back to “life as usual.”

But I don’t have that luxury.

For me, “life as usual” means recognizing some people perceive me as a threat based solely on the color of my skin. For me, “life as usual” means preparing my sons for the coming time when they’re no longer perceived as cute little boys, but teenage “thugs.” Long after George Floyd disappears from the headlines, I will still be a black man in America.

And you know what? I thank God for that! He knew exactly what he was doing when he made me the way he did. Despite the real and exhausting challenges that come with my outward packaging, I know that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. And I wouldn’t want to be anything other than what I am: a follower of Jesus Christ who has been saved by grace and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb—who also has brown skin and dreadlocks and does hip-hop. And God has chosen, in his great mercy, to leverage it all for his glory. Praise be to him.

This article originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition and is used with permission.

Photo by Rui  Silvestre on Unsplash

Discovering the Wonders of God in the Low Tides of Life

Over the years, God has been faithful in what I call “the low tides” of life. In those times, I’ve seen Him in ways not always visible during high tides—periods of relative ease and comfort. As the wonders of underwater tide pools are only seen at low tide, so the wonders of God and depths of our need for Him can become visible to us in our own low tides.

Perhaps you, like me, have also experienced the truth of what Robert Murray M’Cheyne said: “You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then He is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm.”

When the Bottom Drops Out

Years ago, my wife Nanci suffered through what she calls her “year of fear and free-floating anxiety that made me fall in love with God.” Nanci knew God from childhood and trusted Him all through my lawsuits, arrests, and job loss, then through her mother’s death and other losses (and threatened ones). But that inexplicable year of her life, unrelated to any outside traumatic event, changed her. She coped by telling God, morning and night, how much she loved Him.

She has continued her habit of praise and intimacy with God that developed when daily fear and dread fell upon her. The crushing emotions of that time have departed; the sense of intimacy with her Savior remains. To this day Nanci rejoices in God’s love for her and her love for Him in ways she never would have known without that year she otherwise could describe as hellish.

Why do God’s children undergo pressures, suffering, and deadly peril? Paul answers clearly: “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God” (2 Corinthians 1:9, NIV). There’s no nearness to God without dependence on God. And nothing makes us more dependent on Him than when the bottom drops out.

When we’re feeling good, too often we rush on with little thought of the God who is supposed to be our Rock and Sustainer and Comfort. He is our friend, and don’t we always appreciate true friends most when we need them, in times of difficulty? As Corrie ten Boom put it, “You may never know that JESUS is all you need, until JESUS is all you have.”

No Other Way

Ten months after his son was killed in a car accident, Greg Laurie told me, “What I wish is that I could have learned and grown and drawn close to the Lord just like I have, but that Christopher was still here.” Greg captured it perfectly—I too wish I could have all the good God has brought me and have learned the things He has taught me through adversity, but without all that pain and loss. But it doesn’t work that way, does it?

God knows we'll learn things in those low tides that we would never learn any other way. And He understands our greatest need is to know Him better and trust Him more deeply:

Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight," declares the LORD (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Philippians 3:8-10).

Nothing is more important or joy-giving than truly knowing God, even when that knowledge comes about because of our deepest pain.

The Depths of God’s Character

As we have dealt with her cancer over the past two and a half years, Nanci and I have spent time meditating on the attributes of God, rereading and listening to audiobooks such as The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer, Knowing God by J. I. Packer, and Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. Our hearts have been lifted in praise as we’ve contemplated His holiness, grace, justice, mercy, and every facet of His being revealed to us in Scripture. While we certainly would not have chosen this “low tide,” we’ve drawn closer to the Lord and to each other because of it. (See her Caring Bridge page for the latest update; she had a successful surgery a week ago Thursday.)

In the midst of our suffering, God makes some of His most profound and precious self-revelations. Perhaps He does so because only then are we ready to see them. I love what Calvin Miller wrote about going deep into God’s character: “…those who plumb the deep things of God discover true peace for the first time.”

So if you’re experiencing a low tide season (like many are right now), trust that God is at work in your life through these difficulties. Focus on His character, as revealed in Scripture. Look to Him and ask Him to reveal His wonders to you. Then may you say along with Scripture:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).

For more perspectives on trusting and knowing God in suffering, see Randy's devotional 90 Days of God's Goodness.

Photo: Unsplash

Empathize with Good Cops in This Time of Rightly Calling out Bad Ones

I have posted previous blogs and articles on racial justice, including my last blog post, with an excerpt from my novel Dominion. At the risk of being misunderstood or misquoted by some who will say, “This is no time to defend cops,” I want to also address the role of righteous people of all ethnicities serving in law enforcement, and say something to police officers that I feel deeply.

First, I believe 100% that what was done in Minneapolis to George Floyd was evil and unjust and dead wrong (see Racial Justice and the Image of God, with thoughts from Dan Franklin, who I agree with). At the same time, it is also sad that cops as a whole are suffering from the wrong actions of some cops. (I haven’t spoken with a single police officer who has defended anything done by the four police officers who have been charged with murder or aiding and abetting murder.)

I have the highest respect for what police officers do. I have many good friends who are cops, and I know it’s extremely difficult. They daily risk their lives to protect me, my family, my children, and my grandchildren, and yours too. (Again, don’t misread this; I am talking about cops I know, and I believe this also applies to many, even most of those I don’t know. That in NO WAY justifies the injustice committed by some!) In fact, the photos I've included in this blog remind us that police officers are human beings too, and many of them love the people they serve and protect.

Just recently I was having conversations by text and email with some police officer friends who love Jesus. They will be falsely accused of racism many times, though it is sadly true of some cops, as it is of some business owners, mechanics, and writers.  

Like everyone else, including pastors and athletes and farmers and business people and politicians, cops are human, and humans are sinners. So a minority of cops will certainly be guilty of racism. I think the majority are not, and a good number of those, including some I know, adamantly believe in racial equality and justice. But still, inevitably, those innocent of discrimination will feel the sting of the assumption. 

Think of all the black cops who are lined up to prevent violence and destruction of property and looting, and are seeing among the protestors the faces of their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and friends. They believe in the cause just as much, yet also wear the uniforms committed to protect the common welfare, and rightly are committed to doing their duty.

In fact, guilt by assumption also applies to the protestors, most of whom are peaceful, but are condemned as violent and law-breaking because some have lashed out, destroyed property and looted. I remember this well, having participated in peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience on behalf of unborn children in 1989 and 90, never touching anyone or raising my voice to someone at an abortion clinic, never resisting arrest, yet being labeled as guilty because some misbehaved.

As true racism by a cop can result in disaster, false assumptions about the majority of cops can also be devastating, giving people a warped lens through which they view the police. Sadly, the true cases of police brutality and racism feed the unfair prejudice against cops in general, as the true cases of criminals being of a particular race feed the labeling that “this guy is probably a criminal.”

I messaged five of my police officer friends recently and said, “Every time I see a cop I wave and every time I ride the Springwater trail, usually 3X per week, and see cops, I say ‘thank you.’ (Since they can actually hear me.) I love you guys, who you are and what you do/did. I wouldn’t want to wake up to this world without you guys in it. Yes, I oppose, just as you do, cops who violate the laws of justice and love. But I thoroughly support men and women of honor who protect our lives and stand between our families and injustice. I encourage you to speak up for the weak and needy and defend their rights, as Proverbs 31:8-9 says. And I pray for you, knowing how extremely difficult your jobs are, and how increasingly challenging they’ve become. Please continue to faithfully serve our communities.”

Before reacting to the above, keep in mind I didn’t send it to all cops, any more than I would send a message to all pastors and Christian leaders saying, “Thanks for being faithful to Jesus and being an example of Christlikeness.” That wouldn’t be a right message because it’s not true of some. Rather, I sent this to five cops I know it IS true of! And just as bad cops deserve to be condemned and prosecuted, good cops deserve to be praised and commended. So for any of the men and women in law enforcement, whether followers of Jesus or not, who serve their communities and people of every color with respect and justice and who speak up when necessary to their fellow cops and defend the right way to treat all people, THANK YOU! (And for those who don’t, may you repent, and may every unfaithful pastor, ministry leader, writer, teacher, tweeter, blogger, blog commenter, and people of all vocations ALSO repent.)

My heart breaks for cops who are suffering because of what a minority have done. I weep for their families too. I remember like it was yesterday what it was like for years to be labeled as a crazy prolife protestor, subject to false accusations in the media and the courtrooms, knowing my family would suffer from the stereotype some, both unbelievers and believers, placed on me. I also remember years ago feeling this about being in pastoral ministry at a time when pastors and Christian leaders were falling into immorality left and right, and were preaching the prosperity gospel and fleecing people’s money, using their power to abuse staffs and congregations, and otherwise misrepresenting Jesus. It seemed like the ministry became a profession to mock and roll your eyes at. And since those abuses sadly continue, so do the stereotypes, unfair though they be.

However, the difference is, Christian leaders don’t put our lives on the line like police officers do. If I get judged and misrepresented because of the lack of integrity of some Christian leaders, or some prolife protestors, it’s a small price to pay, even though we feel it. But for cops, it’s a huge price to pay. The stronger their conscience and moral framework, the harder it is.

One of the hardest things for all of us to do, whether in families and workplaces and churches and perhaps especially in the military and law enforcement, is to confront, correct and in some cases actually restrain our comrades from doing the wrong thing that brings harm to others. Scripture is emphatic on this: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice” (Proverbs 31:8-9 NLT). If this means having to stand up against a fellow officer or soldier or teammate or family member, so be it. We are accountable ultimately to God, no matter who else may be displeased by our words and actions. We stand before Jesus as the one righteous judge, the Audience of One.

As Paul put it, “If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). In the very next chapter, we learn that Paul practiced this principle in the hardest conceivable way. He actually spoke up to the apostle Peter in the presence of others, confronting him on an act of racism, because while ministering to Gentiles Peter treated them one way, but changed the way he treated them when Jews were present. Paul says, “The other Jews joined in [Peter’s] hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray” (Galatians 2:13). Paul calls out his dear friend Barnabas also! What else did Paul do? “When I saw that they were not walking in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas [Peter] in front of them all, ‘If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” (Galatians 2:14).

What makes this so powerful to me is that in the early church if you were to name one and only one name of a universally respected Christian leader of great prominence, that name would have been Peter! In church circles, Peter was the equivalent of the senior pastor, the head of a denomination, the university president, the chief of police, the governor, and even the president of the United States! Peter was the last guy you would oppose, privately or publicly, if you were looking out for your reputation and hoping to advance your career in church circles!

As I’ve tried to make clear, this principle of seeking God’s approval above man’s applies not only to police officers or those serving in the military, though in those cases lives can more obviously be on the line. It also applies to the rest of us, including those in homes who witness abuse, or those in workplaces who witness lying, cheating, sexual exploitation, and demeaning and berating others. We are all called to “Speak the truth in love” and “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.” We are told, “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6).

My respect and prayers are with my brothers and sisters in law enforcement, including the five I reached out to in the past week. My message to them, and to all, is this:

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

This excellent article shares eight ways all of God’s people can pray for police officers. And I encourage you to reach out to those cops you know who are seeking to do their job with integrity and wisdom and let them know you’re praying for them and their families.

Finally, the video below, from Casting Crowns, depicts powerful images of protestors and police officers showing each other respect and compassion. It’s a reminder that we are all human. And also that true genuine followers of Jesus are everywhere, among the police, the military, every part of the community, and among the peaceful protestors. This is beautiful:

I have reached out to five Christian police officers to get their perspectives on the death of George Floyd, the protests, riots, and the effects on police throughout the country. After they've all responded I will write a blog expressing what they are seeing and thinking. I would also welcome input from any other police officers. Please send your comments to me.

Top photo by Max Bender on Unsplash

How Often Do You Think about the Color of Your Skin? A Discussion Between Two Friends

In this excerpt from my novel  Dominion , the main character Clarence Abernathy, a black journalist, discusses issues related to race with his friend and coworker Jake Woods (the main character of the previous novel Deadline ). There’s a lot of action in the book, but this is a lengthy dialogue, one that may help you think a little differently about racial issues than a nonfiction treatment might (hence, this is a longer than normal blog).

It’s been twenty-five years since I researched and wrote the book. But the issues it addresses are still pertinent. As an African American friend, a professional athlete, said to me last week in the wake of the George Floyd murder, “Crazy times…but I feel like we’ve been here before. Amazing how much things don’t change.” But perhaps this time they will, certainly some are saying their own perspectives and hearts and empathy are changing. (By the way, in my next blog I’ll be addressing the terrible place that good cops, black and white and every ethnicity, find themselves in when they are condemned and judged by the actions of bad cops.)

Here’s that passage from Dominion:

On Wednesday afternoon Clarence finished his Thursday column, packed up his briefcase, and left the Trib at one. He’d been there since five-thirty, and his bones ached for fresh air and exercise. He dropped by his house in North Portland, changed to his sweats, affixed his bike rack to the car, strapped on his bike, and jumped in the driver’s seat with spring in his step. He drove out toward Gresham. When he’d lived in the suburbs, he’d ridden the Springwater Corridor Trail three or four times a week. Now because of the driving time, that was down to just once a week, Wednesday afternoons. But it was a ritual he looked forward to, rain or shine. These days, it was one of the few oases in the desert of his life…

Thursday evening the violins, trombones, trumpets, french horns, drums, and cymbals permeated the living room at high volume. Clarence and Jake sat next to each other, soaking in the music. In front of them were the rich blues, the deep reds, the black backdrop, and the white pinpoints of a distant part of the galaxy where their minds traveled, though their bodies sat in Jake’s apartment. It was the introduction to Deep Space Nine. For the next hour they bantered through commercials and watched the show attentively right to the credits.

“DS Nine’s getting better,” Clarence said. “It’s nearly as good as Voyager now, maybe Next Generation.”

“It’s not that good,” Jake said.

“Well, Sisko’s the best captain.”

“Better than Kirk, sure. Better than Janeway? I don’t know. I really like her. But nobody’s better than Picard.”

“Picard? He’s a cold fish. Sisko’s my main man.”

“He kind of reminds me of you,” Jake said.

“Because he’s black and studly?” While Jake rolled his eyes, Clarence suddenly looked serious.

“Hey, Jake, you remember when Captain Kirk kissed Lieutenant Uhura in the original Star Trek? Did you know that was the first interracial kiss ever on television?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Clarence spoke wistfully. “It was less than thirty years ago, and we were still watching it on our black-and-white TV, Harley and Ellis and I. Mama saw that white man and black woman kissing and got right up and turned off the TV. She said, ‘I don’t want you boys gettin’ no ideas.’ She said, ‘Don’t you forget Emmit Till,’ then she pulled out that old picture.”

“Who’s Emmit Till? What picture?”

Clarence looked surprised Jake didn’t know. “A fourteen-year-old boy. He was visiting family in Mississippi. They say he made a friendly comment to some white woman in a store. They found him three days later in the Tallahatchie River, wired by his neck to a big old metal fan. He had a bullet in his skull, eye gouged out, head crushed. His mother insisted on an open casket so the whole world could see. Jet magazine printed a picture of his corpse. Mama cut it out. Even though we were just babies when it happened, a couple times a year she’d pull it out of a drawer and show it to us boys—to scare us into staying away from white girls.”

“Who killed him?”

“The woman’s husband and his brother, as I recall. There was an eyewitness who identified the two of them as dragging Emmit into their truck and driving off. The all-white jury deliberated one hour and found them not guilty.”

“No kidding? I didn’t remember that.” Jake felt tentative, wondering whether to step into it or not. “Can I ask you something, Clarence? You obviously think a lot about...racial issues. That’s fine, and you’ve helped me understand a lot of things. But sometimes I sense you’re... angry. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Harley says any black man who isn’t angry is either stupid or dead,” Clarence said. “Not that I always agree with Harley. I usually don’t.” Jake noticed Clarence running his finger underneath his right ear.

“I guess I usually assume the anger is racial,” Jake said, “but I’m not sure. Sometimes you’re hard to read. I really do want to understand you better. We’re friends. We’re brothers. Talk to me. I want to know what’s going on inside you.”

Clarence sighed and sat silent for thirty seconds. “Where do I begin? Which of a thousand stories do I tell? How about this one? Once down in Mississippi I was with my cousin Rod and my aunt Charlene. A teenage white boy walks by and glares at us with these dagger eyes and growls under his breath, ‘Niggers.’ Aunt Charlene turns around and looks at him and a light goes on. She says, ‘That’s Jarod Smith. I used to take care of him. I raised him. I wiped that boy’s nose and his bottom, and I dried his tears. All so he could grow up and call me and mine nigger?’ She was mad as a wet wasp,” Clarence laughed. “Can you blame her?”

“No,” Jake said. “I can’t.”

“Or how about last night? Geneva and I watched The Color Purple. Hadn’t seen it since it was in the theaters, years ago. Everybody loved The Color Purple. The book got a Pulitzer; the movie got Oscars. Well, can you look through that book or watch that movie and show me one black man who had any redeeming qualities, unless it was the fact that he eventually died? The worse the men, the more holy the women who had to suffer them. Used to be that the worst villains in movies were aliens, but now half the aliens are good. The only bad guys left are Nazis and black men, and maybe an occasional Hispanic or Arab.”

“But wasn’t The Color Purple written by a black woman?”

“So? You think it feels better for black men to be humiliated by black women than white men?”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about the talk we had at the deli,” Jake said, “about people being conscious of their skin color. Looking back, I grew up almost never giving a thought to it.”

“We had to think about it,” Clarence said. “With segregation, busing, voting, separate drinking fountains and restrooms and schools and what have you, we didn’t have the luxury of not thinking about it. I first went to integrated school in fourth grade. When I sat down, the chairs around me emptied like I was a pipe bomb. I was the brunt of jokes, was spit on, called names. Even the kids who weren’t cruel were always whispering about me. Most of the teachers weren’t really hostile, but they tolerated the meanness and that just encouraged it. The color of our skin chased us everywhere. You could never outrun it. We had no choice but to take it personally. It shaped us. It had to. Maybe that’s what you see in my eyes.”

“Since you were a kid, how often have you really thought about the color of your skin?” Jake asked.

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t say, ‘Of course.’ White folks think they want blacks to be honest with them, but usually it turns out they don’t. How often have I thought about the color of my skin? Try every waking hour of every day of my life.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. Did you ever look through those black magazines I gave you?”

“Yeah, I did. It was really amazing. Every picture was of blacks—every subject of a feature, every writer, every advertisement had people with black skin. I don’t know if I saw a single white, except a few in Urban Family.”

“Now imagine,” Clarence said, “if when you grew up every magazine was like that, every television commercial and every billboard showed only people of another skin color, not yours. How do you think it would have made you feel?”

“Marginalized, I suppose. Out of it. Like maybe something was wrong with being white.”

“Exactly,” Clarence said. “That’s just how it was when I grew up. I’d look through all those magazines and the Sears and Wards catalogues and won­der what was wrong with being black. Now if I was white, I wouldn’t think about it either. When you’re in the driver’s seat, you don’t think about conditions in the back-seat. When you’re born into a privileged class you just take it for granted. The people who think about it are the ones who weren’t born privileged. It’s a birthright thing. Kids who have plenty of food don’t think about the fact they have food. But when you’re hungry, it’s always on your mind.”

“I guess I don’t think of myself as being privileged,” Jake said. “I mean, I’ve worked hard for what I’ve got.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t. And I’m not blaming you for anything, Jake. It could just as easily have been me born white and you born with my good looks. But that’s not how it happened. Didn’t you tell me once your grandfather ran a hotel?”

“Yeah, in Colorado. His father built it. He worked with him from the time he was a boy. They did the building and maintenance and my great-grandmother did all the cooking and cleaning, then passed that on to my grandmother. Nothing came easy for them.”

“I’m sure it didn’t. But you’re telling me your great-grandparents established their business back in the 1800s and they passed skills and resources and economic experience and training from their generation down to yours. Right?”

“Right.”

“So you’re the beneficiary of generations of hard work and education and opportunity and freedom. But see, while your great-grandparents were doing all that, my great-grandparents were forced to till the Mississippi soil and pick cotton until they couldn’t straighten their backs. They worked hard all right. But none of it benefited their children or grandchildren. It all benefited the next generation of white children.”

Jake sat there, not sure how to respond.

“So you see,” Clarence continued, “your ancestors worked to pass on advan­tages to you, and my ancestors worked to pass on advantages to you. I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you. But you have to realize that’s the way it was.”

“But my ancestors weren’t slave owners,” Jake said.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure, at least going back to my great-grandparents.”

“But it’s not that easy. See, the whole country, south and north, benefited economically from the work of the slaves and the sharecroppers. Your ancestors worked hard. Mine worked even harder, but with one big difference. Yours worked hard as free people, choosing the kind of work they’d do. They experienced the rewards of their work. That’s capitalism at its best. But mine worked hard at the bloody end of a whip, and they didn’t receive the rewards of their work. Their white masters did, the white plantation owners did, and during sharecropping the white landowners did. With the dirt pay during Jim Crow days, the whole white community benefited at the expense of black folk, who just scraped by. Didn’t you tell me your daddy went to Harvard?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“I’m sure he worked hard to get there. But my daddy dropped out of school in third grade to work fourteen-hour days on land owned by white folks, to help feed his family. Your daddy was born with an opportunity my daddy wasn’t. Your daddy’s opportunity and your ancestors’ opportunity came, at least partially, at the expense of blacks.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as privileged—certainly not at somebody else’s expense.”

“Privilege is like being born tall in a world that revolves around basketball,” Clarence said. “If you’re a seven footer, basketball’s going to come easier than if you’re five foot six. Now a seven footer can say, ‘I had to work hard to become a great basketball player.’ Yeah he’s right, but he’d be a fool not to realize he was born with advantages that helped his dream come true. There’s no substitute for hard work. But your daddy’s hard work and my daddy’s hard work didn’t bring them equal advantages, not financially or educationally. Now character, that’s something else.”

“Your father didn’t come up short on character, that’s for sure, Clarence I’m sorry to say mine did.”

“To compensate for his disadvantages, my daddy had to do extraordinary things to make it possible for Harley and me to go to college. In a lot of white families every kid has the opportunity to go to college, but in black families just one got that opportunity, if any. In my family it was two, Harley and me. There wasn’t enough money for the rest. Your father had the benefit of working in a family-owned busi­ness. Not that long ago black folk couldn’t own any property or businesses. We’re in the race now, all right, but you have a several-hundred-year head start. Black folk were helping your ancestors get that head start while white folk were keeping my ancestors out of the race.”

“Maybe I’ve gotten used to privilege and it feels like I earned it all,” Jake said.

“Well, if some white folk are too slow to see their advantages, some black folk are too quick to see their disadvantages. I’m the first one to admit that, Jake. See, my daddy never let his disadvantages rob him of hope or keep him from working hard and building the best life he could. I hear some black folk whining all the time, when the truth is they’ve got all these advantages Daddy never dreamed of. The whining makes me sick. But when I hear some white people born with the silver spoon in their mouths talk about how everybody just needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, well that makes me sick too. Truth is, black people have had freedom such a short time, we haven’t gotten real experienced at using it. Then there was the whole welfare thing and all those freethinking white university professors in the six­ties that pushed this me-first family-destroying lifestyle that cut us off at the knees. I don’t even want to talk about that, it makes me so angry. I’ve never been happy with liberals or conservatives on racial issues. Anyway, next time you think maybe I’m angry, there’s a good chance you’re right.”

Jake nodded. He seemed unsure what to ask next, but Clarence didn’t need more prompting.

“Tom Skinner used the example of a baseball game. The game starts, and one team—let’s call them the White Sox—takes the lead. Next thing you know they’re up 10-0. The other team, Black Sox, has been trying to get their attention that some­thing’s wrong. Well, come the seventh inning the White Sox finally notice the Black Sox have been playing the whole game with one hand tied behind their back. So, they say, ‘Okay, we’ll untie your hand. Batter up.’ Well, by now the score is 20-0, and we’re in the bottom of the seventh inning. The White Sox have mastered the skills necessary to play the game. The Black Sox are now able to play with both hands, true enough, but they’re used to playing with one and they don’t have the experi­ence yet and their one arm is really sore, some of their shoulders are dislocated, and they’ve still got the rope burns. Given all that, and the score being 20-0, who do you think is going to win the game?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I hear you.”

“And by this time, some of the Black Sox are going to give up trying because who can overcome that lopsided score? They’ve gotten so used to being disadvantaged that even when they’re untied they don’t think there’s any hope of catching up. Some of the black team adjust and excel, yes, but some just feel despair and anger, and some just give up and sit on the bench or throw rocks at the privileged team or fight with each other in the dugout.”

“I see what you’re saying. But am I wrong in thinking the score’s not 20-0 anymore?”

“Harley’s always telling me how things are so bad, worse than they’ve ever been. He’ll give me a statistic about many more whites per capita graduating from college than blacks. Then I’ll say, yes, but the percentage of blacks graduating from college is six times higher than it was thirty years ago. He’ll point out all the blacks living in poverty. It’s true, but the black middle class is much bigger than it’s ever been. Blacks work at blue-collar jobs for the same hours, wages, and benefits as whites. Black doctors, attorneys, professors, journalists—you name it—all at institutions that used to not allow blacks in the door. Colleges that didn’t used to per­mit black students now actively recruit them. African Americans are in thousands of local and appointed offices around the country. They’re mayors of some of the nation’s largest cities. They’re governors, senators, congressmen. They chair major congressional committees. Colin Powell was appointed head of the most powerful military machine in the history of the planet. A lot of the most popular and highest-paid television performers and athletes are black.”

“What does Harley say to all that?”

“Harley will only talk about oppression of minorities. I tell him that in every country in history where people have been oppressed, they’ve flooded the borders attempting to leave. In America, almost no minorities are trying to leave, whereas a tidal wave of minorities are desperately trying to enter. Are they coming here to get oppressed? Of course not. They know America’s the land of opportunity for minori­ties. But to Harley, and to a lot of black folk, it will always be a land of injustice. Blacks will always be helpless victims, and whites will always be malicious oppressors. But the truth is, every time racial injustice happens, and it happens a lot, all that progress disappears like smoke on a windy day.  Because wrong is still wrong, and that wrong doesn’t stand on its own, it calls up a long history that has made blacks and whites who we are.”

“So racial problems really aren’t getting better?” Jake asked, voice weighed down in defeat.

“For some people, they are,” Clarence said. “You heard what I said. For others, it’s pretty much the same as always. And for a lot of folks, it’s just getting worse.”

“I’m embarrassed to say I never used to understand all this talk about racism. But lately the lights have started to turn on. Race is a burden for you it’s never been for me.”

“Burden is a good word. More than anything else, I just get tired of it all. I’d like to put on white skin for a few weeks, not because I want to be white—I don’t—but just so I could take a break, have a vacation. Just get the hay bales off my back awhile, that’s all. So I wouldn’t have to face the issue again and again every time I walk by someone at the supermarket or see a police officer looking at me or I drive up next to someone at a stoplight on a nice day and hear their power-locks engage.. Some days I’m just so worn out by it all. I can leave my briefcase at home, but I can’t leave my skin at home. Being black is a full-time job. Every class I was ever in, every white church I ever went to, I was expected to be the black voice, as if all blacks think alike. Somebody’s doing a story and they need to talk to a black man, they call me. You know Jake, if you ever get dog-tired at the Trib, you can put your head down on your desk and snooze a few minutes. I’ve seen you do it. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because when you do it, you’re just a man taking a snooze, probably because you stayed up late working hard. If I did it, I’d be a black man—lazy, indolent, probably up late partying or taking drugs. Cheating my employer by stealing his time. Proving black men are as bad as everyone thinks.”

“Come on, Clarence, you’re overreacting. Nobody would think that.”

“Maybe not everybody. But some would. That’s just a fact, Jake, whether or not you believe it. Dr. King used to tell the story of a man walking past ten drunk men, nine of them white, the other black. The man shook his head and said, ‘Just look at that black drunk, now would you?’”

“I don’t know what to say, brother. I...really feel bad.”

“Look, Jake, I don’t want to make you feel bad, and above all I don’t want your pity. Truth is, I went through a phase in the seventies, a phase my brother Harley’s still in. I took delight in manipulating remorseful whites into flagellating themselves with guilt. I’d either make them admit their racism—in which case they were guilty—or deny their racism, in which case they were even more guilty.”

“Like it was impossible for a white to be innocent?”

“Exactly. I, on the other hand, was part of the oppressed race, and that brought an innocence with it. Racism could go only one way. Whites could never be inno­cent; blacks could never be guilty. The whole thing was just self-indulgence. I was capitalizing on my ancestors’ suffering. I came to realize they didn’t give up, they labored hard to pass the baton to my generation, and now that we finally have a level playing field, we finally have a great chance to make it, some  of us were sitting around smoking dope and whining about injustice and engaging in self-pity and excuses while we let opportunities slip away. I decided no more of this for me. I wasn’t going to play the race game anymore. For several years I wouldn’t even talk about race.”

“Why not?”

“Because discussions about race always took place either in shouts or whispers. I hated both. Especially the whispers. All the walking on eggshells. All the dishonesty where people’s main goal is to not sound racist rather than to communicate what’s really on their mind. I hated it, that’s all. And as a middle-class black professional, I hated not being accepted by whites or blacks.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s darned if you do, darned if you don’t. I hear the pleas to ‘give back’ to my community. By living in the suburbs until recently I supposedly lost touch with my people and my cultural roots. Right. Like all blacks are supposed to live in constant danger in drug-infested, crime-infested neighborhoods, and both whites and blacks resent it when they don’t. Any white person who lives in poverty and a crime area, when he earns enough money, what does he do?”

“Usually, he moves out,” Jake said.

“Obviously, and that’s perfectly fine with most people. But when I moved out, it was like a betrayal, like I wasn’t being black. Hey, I was just being human. I want my kids to grow up safe and have a good education. What’s wrong with that? Dani and I used to go around and around on this. She wanted in the world’s worst way for me to move in to her neighborhood. Ironic, isn’t it? I’m there now just because she was shot and killed. You know, I’ve never known anybody sweeter than my little sis. But it was still real hard for her to trust white people.”

“I feel like most blacks don’t trust whites. Am I right?” Jake asked.

“Well, let’s face it, the track record’s pretty bad. How would you feel about black people if you knew your great-grandmother had stood on an auction block, stripped to the waist, while white men bid for her and the highest bidder got to take her as a slave and rape her whenever he felt like it? That’s a lot to overcome, don’t you think? My grandma, my mama’s mama, she never trusted a white person. Some people thought she was bitter. But she’d seen her brother killed by the Klan. And she saw her father waste away in the cotton fields. And she saw her house taken away by the landowners when her daddy got too sick to work. Trusting white people doesn’t come easy after what she saw. And the stories get passed on. For every bad thing you ever heard about a black person, I’ve heard five more about whites. Daddy wouldn’t stand for too much of that talk, but it didn’t stop my uncles and aunts and cousins and neighbors from filling my ears.”

“I understand why they’re suspicious,” Jake said. “I guess I would be too. But if blacks gave white people a chance, I think they’d find a lot of us are different now.”

“But that difference has to be proven over the long haul before there can be trust. You remember when we were sitting together at Promise Keepers down at Civic Stadium, and the Indian guy, the Navajo, next to us joked about the irony of a group of white American men calling themselves ‘Promise Keepers’? I laughed like crazy. As I recall, you didn’t think it was that funny. But I knew exactly what he was saying. All the promises to the Indians, all the promises to the blacks, those promises were never kept. Now you know how I love Promise Keepers, glad they’ve got a racial mix in the speakers, and I know they’re serious about racial reconciliation. But still, a lot of blacks are holding back, giving it time, watching whether all the talk is for real, whether it’s going to pan out, translate into a long-term track record.”

“I can appreciate the reservations,” Jake said. “I just hope more and more of us white guys learn to stop talking and instead ask questions and listen. And I hope more black brothers keep putting their feet in the water to give it a chance.”

“So do I. But a lot are going to stand out on the riverbank until they’re sure the gators aren’t biting. See, some of us have trusted white Christians before and ended up getting burned; we’ve told ourselves we’ll never do it again.”

“For example?”

“Okay,” Clarence looked as if he were mentally sorting through dozens of domi­noes and deciding which one to draw. “When I was at OSU I got linked up with a campus Christian group, all whites but me. I had some great times with them. But then one day I was walking across campus with a group of black friends. I see these four Christian white guys coming and I know they see me and I’m going to introduce them to my friends, maybe build a bridge to invite my black friends to the group. But all of a sudden these guys are headed across the lawn so they don’t have to walk by me. I start to go after them, but then I realize what it’s all about. I can be their friend on their turf, in their white world, but they won’t cross over to my black world. I talked to them about it later. They apologized, but it was never the same after that. The friendship faded. I stopped going to the meetings. Too bad, because I needed them.”

Jake looked at Clarence like a student listening to a professor, in over his head, but struggling to understand.

“Have you ever figured out,” Clarence asked, “why I dress up on a weekend or evening when we go to Dick’s Sporting Goods?”

“Beats me. Just thought you like dressing up. It’s always struck me as weird, I admit. Who dresses up to go to a store?”

“I love to go casual. Jeans and a sweatshirt, that’s what I really like,” Clarence said. “But I also want to shop in peace. I get tired of the salesclerks saying, ‘Can I help you?’ every five minutes.”

“What?”

“I don’t like being watched.”

“Clarence, what are you saying?”

“That I’m a black man,” Clarence’s voice thundered, “and black men are expected to be shoplifters! There. Can you understand that?”

“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It wasn’t you. Sorry.” Clarence raised his hands and waited to regain his com­posure. “If you’re a white man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, you’re just another customer. If you’re a black man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, you’re just another suspect. Dressing up makes me look successful. So it helps compensate for my skin color. Sometimes it’s enough to keep store security from breathing down my neck all the time. Sometimes it’s not.”

“I had no idea,” Jake said. “Are you sure—”

“That I’m not overreacting? Hey, I’ve got friends who are doctors and attorneys, and they do the same thing. If they dress comfortable, they’re a suspect. It gets really old.”

Clarence and Jake talked for another hour.

“Got to get home, bro,” Clarence said. He hesitated, then added, “Hey, thanks for asking me about this stuff. And thanks for listening to me. I feel better talking about it.”

Jake put his arm around him. “Thanks for opening up to me, Clarence. Really. It gives me a lot to think about. I feel like the lights are starting to turn on. If it’s okay, I’d like to talk some more. And if you have some book recommendations on race, I’d like to do some reading. And maybe we could watch a few movies together.”

Clarence slapped Jake on the back and grinned. “Yeah, I got ten or twenty I could recommend.”

“How about we start with one book and one movie, then go on from there? Your pick.”

Clarence nodded and pulled Jake into a side hug. The two friends walked to the door together.

Photo by Urban Sanden on Unsplash