Daniel Darling's Blog, page 70

How to Think On These Things

I just got back from spending a few days away with my beautiful wife of ten years. Our agenda for the four days was simple: do nothing. We slept in, went out for dinner, read, watched movies, and sat by the pool. In a very busy season of life, this was a welcome respite. For me, it was nice not have to be somewhere or do something, though it was hard to discipline myself away from email. I mostly did okay, but at times Angela had to tell me to put the blasted phone away. For Angela it was nice for her to simply relax, not having to cook, clean, do laundry, counsel women, separate kids from fighting, make sure the house is in order, shuttle little people to birthday parties, and/or do some kind of children’s ministry at church. She could simply rest. And rest we both did.

One of the things that struck me, while I was away, was just how hard it is for Christians to enjoy the good things in life. Perhaps its an overactive conscience or the lies of the enemy. I’m not sure. But every time we do something we enjoy, like eating a great meal or enjoying a movie, we have that little twinge of guilt that says, “We shouldn’t be having so much fun.” Or we have to come up with a thousands justifications.

But if we believe Paul’s words to Timothy: “God has given us all things freely for us to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17), then we should live like it. Sometimes God chooses to bless us with things we enjoy. Not because we are special or faithful or worthy, but because we are His children and He likes to give us good gifts. Prosperity theology is wrong, but so is a theology of poverty.

Perhaps some of our inability to enjoy the good things of life stems from guilt. We see with our eyes the human suffering in the world. It rightly disturbs us and we want to be part of God’s plan to bring restoration and healing. This is good. We should be generous, live below our means, and give our lives away for the gospel. And yet, in doing this we don’t have to be insufferable. We don’t have to apologize when the Father rains down blessings. We can be both radical and appreciative. We can be pricked to action by human suffering AND enjoy the good things God allows us to have.

This was brought into stark relief one night on our vacation. Angela and I were looking for a good seafood place in Orlando. One of the staff at our hotel overheard our conversation and then offered to help us. He happened to be restaurant critic for Yelp and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the restaurants near us. He not only recommended a restaurant, he arranged for free transportation to the restaurant, courtesy of the hotel. We rode in a brand-new Cadillac Escalade like VIP’s. For the rest of the night I kept asking Angela, “Why did this gentleman do this?” We didn’t give anything in return. In this I was reminded that sometimes God simply allows or arranges things for us, not because we deserve them, but because He loves us. And our asking ourselves why and feeling badly about is almost an insult to God. We should just respond with simple gratitude and worship.

I think of Paul’s words written to the church at Philippi. Paul was writing from house arrest, his freedom taken by the Roman government. Life in this season was not altogether very good. And yet he says, in parting, to “think on what is good and beautiful and orderly and of good report” (my paraphrase). We do well at finding and hilighting the bad things in our world, the corruption in high places, the evil around us, the problems in the Church, the suffering we can’t escape.

And yet Paul says we must discipline ourselves to find the good amidst the bad. The glimpses of heaven on earth. This, it seems to me, is a discipline. We must fight for joy. Sometimes that means smiling when you are in prison.

Sometimes it simply means taking time to enjoy the pleasures of life as they come. This, too, is an act of worship.

Play to Your Strengths

Today for Leadership Journal I interview the wildly popular author, speaker, and blogger, Jon Acuff. Besides being the proprietor of the very funny Stuff Christians Like blog, Jon is the author of several bestselling books, including his latest, Start. It was a wide-ranging interview in which Jon gave me some great thoughts. The first question I asked him was this:

You’re known for writing humor that pokes fun at the evangelical culture. How important is humor for church leaders in their speaking ministry?



I think it’s important. I would caution people this way: if you’re not funny or if it is not a gift, don’t feel you have to do it. If you’re not comfortable talking with a white board when you are speaking, don’t feel like you have to use one, even if it becomes popular. Play to your strengths.

You should always use humor to some degree. But I would never tell somebody, “If you are not as funny as Matt Chandler, you are not doing it right.” He has a natural gift of humor and he uses it.

It’s similar to what comedian Chris Rock says, “There are some topics people will not listen to unless they are laughing at the same time.” I use humor as a release valve, a permission builder. There are times as a leader that you don’t have the equity in the relationships to share something hard. For me, when I give a speech or preach, I use humor to build that relationship. People can relate to humor. It’s part of what makes us uniquely human, something God wired us for.

Satire, to me, is just a vehicle for truth. Look at shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Younger generations are going to those shows not just for humor, but also for news.

You can read the rest of the interview here:

Don’t Judge Me By My Worst Day

I was driving home the other day and flipped on the local sports radio station here in Chicago. I enjoy listening to sports talk–particularly ESPN 1000, WMVP. For the most part the talk is lively, there are good interviews, and the discussion is about something that takes my mind off of the other pressing and important things of the day.

On this particular afternoon, the hosts were interviewing the Chicago Cubs’ President of Baseball Operations, Theo Epstein. Now if you’re a sports fan (and if you are not, I’ll allow you time to repent right here), you’ll know that Theo is the Great Hope of Cubs nation right now. We haven’t won a title in over 100 years. We’ve had our hearts ripped asunder by near misses in the playoffs, particularly the unforgettable, trama-inducing 6-outs-away-from-the-World-Series game that featured Steve Bartman and the ball interference in 2003 against the Florida Marlins. We’re a resilient, rugged bunch of longsuffering fans, we are.

Theo was brought in by the new owners who bought the Cubs a few years ago, the Rickets family. He came from Boston for a high price. He is a renowned baseball guru with a top-flight staff. Our hope is that he’ll do for us what he did in Boston–give a longsuffering fan base a championship. We’ll see. Right now we’re in the midst the long slog of rebuilding.

If you’re not a sports fan and you waded through those three paragraphs, don’t worry. There is something good here for you. Theo Epstein said something in his interview that made me think about the way we Christians love each other. He was asked about his evaluation of a potential draft pick, particularly about a poor choice this kid made right before the draft. Did this factor into their decision whether or not to pick this player? Theo said something like this, “Not at all. We look at the entire composite of a player’s life and factor in good and bad choices. We never evaluate a player based on his worst day.”

We never evaluate a player based on their worst day. What if we did this with our fellow believers? What if we said, “I’m not going to judge that person based on the worst thing I’ve seen them do or say or tweet or write.”?

It seems Jesus does this. I think of his words to Peter, when predicting Peter’s future failure in Luke 22:31-32. Jesus told Peter that he would let Him down in a big way. But it’s the words that come after that are stunning, “But when you return, encourage the brothers” (my paraphrase). Not if you return, when you return. When you comeback after your big fall, encourage others.

Jesus didn’t evaluate Peter by his worse day. And Scripture seems to have this theme of grace. I see this in Hebrews 11, the passage we often call the “Christian Hall of Faith.” Did you notice that of all of the men and women mentioned, nothing is given about their many flaws? Flaws we know about well from other parts of Scripture. You don’t hear about Abraham’s ill-fated journey to Egypt. You don’t hear about Moses’ striking the rock instead of speaking to it. You don’t hear about Gideon’s moral failures. Seems God is saying about these men, “I don’t judge them by their worst day.”

In fact, we know and we revel in the fact that because of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, we are not judged by our best day or our worst day. We’re judged by Jesus’ worst day–the day the Father look away from him, when Jesus bore the full punishment for our sin.

God doesn’t see our worst days. He sees Jesus. Perfect. Sinless. Victorious over sin and death. So my question to myself and to you is this: why can’t we see others like this? Why do we tend to think of our spouses by their faults instead of their strengths? Why do we keep an unlimited reservoir of the sins of those we love?

Imagine how our relationships would change if we followed this simple maxim: Don’t judge someone by their worst day? Imagine what would happen if we saw others in the light of God’s redemptive love for them. And we evaluated their lives by the good and not the short clips of bad.

Maybe we’d stop fishing for embarrassing Youtube clips of preachers we don’t like so we can drive traffic to our blogs.

Maybe we’d stop supporting a brand of politics that finds the faults and magnifies them before the world.

Maybe we’d stop saying to our friends and loved ones, “You always do this.”

Maybe we’d stop trying to score rhetorical points and start engaging people in meaningful conversations.

Maybe we’d look at the entirety of people’s lives and respect them for the good they do.

Because, if the president of a baseball team can do this when it comes to his players, can’t we Christians do this when it comes to those we are called to love?

 

The Invisible Line

This post was inspired, in part, by an ironic blog post I recently written by a progressive evangelical on a controversial subject. You can guess which subject it is and when you guess, you will be right. But what was funny, ironic, and sad at the same time was this idea: The Church is too quick to declare certain behaviors right and wrong. That’s judgmental and just plain . . . wrong.

So let me get this straight: You are absolutely sure that its wrong, sinful, terrible to tell someone that their behavior is wrong. This, my friends, is the new tolerance. I’ve seen this repeated over and over again in the last few weeks/months/years by people who want to help the Church shed it’s stuffy reputation. And I get it, in some ways. I think there are areas where the Church needs to repent, times when the Church has been hurtful, wrong, and on the other side of important issues. Made up of humans, sinners, we’ve often, in our checkered 2,000 plus years of history, strayed from our gospel moorings.

However, it’s interesting, this discussion we are having in our culture. If you bend your ear to hear what many people, most people are saying: you shouldn’t judge someone’s personal behavior (usually sexual preferences). You should respect their choices and give them the widest possible berth. They should be afforded all rights and privileges to practice the behavior they choose. That’s what we are saying.For you to draw the line where you draw it, based on your belief system, is just plain wrong. This is what we are told.

The only problem is that we don’t actually believe this, do we? For instance, it’s considered wrong now to tell someone that they are engaging in wrong behavior. If you follow an orthodox, biblical position on sexuality, for instance, you are usually labeled a bigot, insensitive, and well, ironically, wrong. If you stay that your basis for conduct is the infallible, inherent Word of God, well then you are considered narrow, not really open-minded, and well, ironically, wrong. If you declare that God is love, a love that expresses itself in right justice against sin and if you declare that everyone is a sinner, you are considered judgmental and, ironically, wrong. If you declare that God passionately pursued sinners by sending Jesus Christ, the only God-man and that his death, burial, and resurrection are the only way back to God, to eternal life, and to spiritual wholeness, you are considered intolerant and well, wrong.

But here’s the problem underlying all of this tolerance: it doesn’t work out. In order to definitively declare something wrong, you are acknowledging that there is a basis, somewhere, for actually deciding right and wrong. It tells me that while you don’t like where I put my line, you clearly have a line. You’re not as tolerant as you might think. You have a value system that determines what is right and what is wrong. Because you have just told me that I’m wrong for thinking the way I do. Nobody actually believes the idea that truth is relative, that my body of truth that works for me is okay and your body of truth that works for you is okay. Because what happens when they conflict? What happens if my body of truth says that its okay to steal your iPad? How does that test your tolerance? All of a sudden we’re pretty big on “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” We’re not advocating “conversations” and talking of a God who is “less black and white and more shades of gray”, at least when it comes to my truth that says it’s okay to steal your iPad.

Do you see where I’m going?

You may think you are the most progressive, nonjudgmental, hip, non-legalistic cool Christian out there, but you have a line somewhere. The question is, where do you draw it and on what basis? If I say that I take my code of right and wrong from the Bible, that may sound a bit archaic or old-fashioned. Fine. So where do you get yours? Is it the consensus of the prevailing culture? That’s fine, but here is the problem with a majority-opinion type of value system. It depends on the goodness, the virtue, the character of the culture. And you don’t have to look far into history to see cultures, many, whose values systems would make us recoil in horror. For most of American history, the majority considered black people to be less than human. It considered them, at times, 3/5ths human, worthy of buying and selling like property, and for a long time, not worthy of voting, holding office, or even sitting at the same lunch counter as whites. If, during that time, you allowed culture to determine your value system (as many Christians, sadly did), you’d think it was okay to treat your fellow man in this subhuman way. So you see the futility of drawing the line where culture determines the lines should be drawn?

Perhaps culture is not your measuring stick. Maybe it’s tradition. Maybe it’s your own upbringing or experiences that shape your belief system. My point is not so much that you should accept the God of the Bible as the best arbiter of right and wrong as I do. My point is to help you see that, like me, you too have a system of right and wrong. You draw the line somewhere. And you base it on something, a set of core beliefs. You may not like me saying you have a set of core beliefs, but you have a set of core beliefs. I know at least one of those core beliefs: thou shall not steal my iPad. Am I right?

The question is to ask yourself and for me to ask myself: who determines who makes the rules? Who determines where the line should be drawn? What constitutes good and evil, sin and charity? What shapes our definitions of these things and how justice is served?

All of us are making judgements, whether we realize it or not. To declare someone intolerant is, in it’s own way, a judgement about someone’s values. It’s a statement, based on some kind of belief system.

As a sinful, fallen, gospel-loving Christian saved by God’s grace, I choose to anchor my value system to something timeless: God’s unchanging revelation of Himself in His Word. I may not always interpret the Bible clearly because I “see through a glass darkly”, but I’ve found that it’s a more reliable standard than the changing whims of human emotion, popular culture, and social science.

All of us are planting our flags somewhere, whether we admit it or not. I’m planting mine here.

Laboring in the Word of God

Today, for my Leadership Journal interview, I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Philip Ryken, President of Wheaton College. Prior to coming to Wheaton, Dr. Ryken was pastor at the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. I’ve enjoyed Dr. Ryken’s preaching and his books. They seem to combine excellent scholarship with an easy-to-read pastoral tone. Among my favorites are Solomon and Loving the Way Jesus Loves. I also enjoy his commentaries in the Preaching the Word commentary series coauthored with Dr. R. Kent Hughes.

The interview was wide-ranging on a few topics. One of the questions I asked him was about the intersection between scholars and pastors:

What are some ways you would counsel pastors to be more scholarly and scholars to be more pastoral?

Like a lot of Presbyterians, I have always admired the ideal of the scholar-pastor. When I was a student at Wheaton in the 1980s, John Piper gave an outstanding chapel message on the ministry of Jonathan Edwards. I still have the notes from that talk, which strengthened my desire to be a pastor. Later, my doctoral work on the Scottish minister and theologian Thomas Boston enabled me to get an inside look at the life and ministry of a scholar-pastor. And I have tried to live out this ideal in my own life, getting the best education I could get and staying somewhat involved in the scholarly world while spending most of my time in pastoral ministry and writing mainly for ordinary people in the church.

As far as encouraging pastors to become scholars, the main thing I would recommend is being absolutely committed to doing the incredibly hard work that preaching the gospel requires—really laboring in the Word of God. It is difficult to preach well. Biblical exposition is a strenuous, life-long calling that demands a commitment to serious study of the Bible. It is good for pastors to read widely, including in theology, and some pastors have the gifts and calling to pursue other forms of scholarship. But the most important thing is to be a student of the Word.

When I think of scholars becoming more pastoral, I think first of my colleagues who teach Bible and Theology at Wheaton College. All of them use their gifts actively in the life of the church. They preach, teach Sunday school, and serve in other ways. Nearly all of them do some of their writing at the popular level. They understand that biblical and theological scholarship is not an end in itself, but is intended to serve the spiritual life of Christian laypeople. This is one of the core values of our department.

Not every scholar has the gifts to be a pastor, but every scholar can make a commitment to live in community with the people of God, to build relationships with neighbors who are outside the church, and to keep the spiritual needs of their friends in mind when they read, write, and lecture

Read more of the interview here: 

It’s a Big Boy Game

On Sunday I enjoyed a rare privilege: since it was Father’s Day, Angela and the kids allowed me to kick back and watch the NBA finals with the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat. We don’t have cable, so I was able to watch the game on broadcast–ABC 7 being one of the few channels that comes over on my flimsy HD antennae.

Since my team, the Chicago Bulls are out of the playoffs (next year, though . . .), I have no dog in this fight. For about two years after Lebron “took his talents to South Beach” I nurtured a healthy “sports hate” for the Miami Heat. (Sports hate is different than actual hate. It’s actually okay as a Christian to do this. I can’t quote you Scripture and verse on this or a wise church father, but trust me, it’s okay.) After Lebron and Miami won the title last year I sort of got over my dislike and actually enjoyed watching them play. But in the Finals I have to root for San Antonio, only to root for the way they play, the continuity, the discipline, the unselfishness.

So I’m watching the game. During a particularly intense time at the end of the first half, the broadcast featured a “live mic” of Spurs Coach Greg Popovich talking to his players in a timeout. He said something that I’ve been mulling over ever since, a great word that I think can be applied, without too much stretching, to the game of life. Leaning in and looking his guys in the eye, Pop said, “Men, this is a big-boy game.”

This is a big boy game. In other words, this is the NBA Finals. It’s not the All-Star Game. It’s not a pick-up game at the Y. This is for all the marbles. The game is gonna be physical. It’s gonna be hard. The other team wants to win as much as you do. Time to put on your big boy pants and play like a man.

I loved that bit of wisdom from Coach Pop. I think it applies to real life, whether or not you’re a man or a woman, a jock or a non-jock. Living the way of Jesus is a big boy game. Paul seems to say this many times in his letters. To the Corinthians, he speaks of his choice to “put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 11:13). He also told them to “act like men” (1 Corinthians 16:13) , stop acting like children (1 Corinthians 14:20) and admonished them for still drinking the milk for spiritual food instead of meat (1 Corinthians 3:2). As Christians we know that we will never be perfect in this life, but we should have a goal of growing up into maturity (Ephesians 4:15). Over and over again, “being sober-minded” is given as a trait of Christian growth. It’s hard to escape this in the New Testament, not to mention Old Testament language like David’s deathbed wisdom to Solomon to “play the man” (I Kings 2:2).

The point here is that while Christians will always be broken and in need of grace, we also are being renewed by the Spirit of God. There is a sanctification process, a “getting better” process that God is doing in us, to rid us of the old, childish sinful ways and habits and making us more like Jesus. This is a process we can resist by clinging to our old patterns (James 1:4). We can quench (1 Thessalonians 5:19 and grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) in His work.

When I think of life as a “big boy game” it makes me think of all the times I complain about it being hard. When I come home tired and complain about having to give our children baths or engage them in discipline for what they’ve done wrong. When I want to lay around the house instead of helping my wife. When I wish I had more time to do the things I want to do. When leadership at church gets difficult. When there are conflicts and mundane tasks and hard conversations. When I have to stay up late to finish a project instead of watching a favorite TV show.

These are big boy tasks. These are for adults.

The point is not to discourage, but to reshape our thinking. Life is not supposed to be “flowery beds of ease.” We live in a fallen world, ruined by the curse. We’ll experience things unfair and cruel. We are at war with an enemy who wants to take us down (1 Peter 5:8), temptation by temptation. It’s time to “gird up the loins” of our minds (1 Peter 1:13) and obey the Spirit of God as He leads us to do God’s will.

Yes, this is not beanbag or preschool. It’s a big boy game.

The Story Overtook Me

Today for my Leadership Journal interview, I spoke with Rebekah Lyons, cofounder of Q Ideas and the author of a new book, Freefall to Fly. In this book she shares her personal struggles with anxiety, depression, and tensions between motherhood and ministry. I asked her about the writing process and she told me this:

This story overtook me. I never intended to write a book, but it was an earnest effort to get it down, for my own healing and processing. The week I began writing, I realized this wasn’t a story of my anxiety or spiral, but God’s story of redemption and rescue. The best advice I received early on was, “Don’t hold back.”I didn’t unearth how much my story would resonate with others until I started hearing feedback in the early stages. It seemed everyone shared angst over someone they loved struggling with the same thing—especially within the church.

You can read the entire interview here:

Celebrating Father’s Day

As we celebrate Father’s Day, I thought I’d link to some of my posts on fatherhood:

10 Things Nobody Tells You About Being a Dad

This is, by far, my most popular post. In this I share some serious and some not-so-serious reflections on the surprises of fatherhood.

5 Things Every Daughter Needs to Hear From Her Dad

There is something about having a daughter that softens a man, adds a certain tenderness to his soul. In that spirit, I share five things every daughter needs to hear from her father.

5 Things Every Son Needs to Hear From His Dad

Fathering your sons is a serious job, men. And so in that spirit, I offer five things every son needs to hear from his father:

 Dads Should Lead on Thanksgiving

I wrote this a few years ago, thinking about a Father’s role in establishing good holiday traditions.

Do This For Dad on Father’s Day

A short post on how wives and moms can help their men be all they should be.

Just Call Me “Dad”

I wrote this in 2010, back when I only had three children (we now have four). “something happened on December 31st, 2004. For the first time, I was no longer a kid, a guy, a newly-wed, a husband. I was . . . a Dad.”

“No, You’re Daddy”

I wrote this when my son was only three and couldn’t understand how I could have the same name as he. His response, “No You are Daddy” made me think that, of all my roles in life, to my children I’m simply their dad.

5 People We Should Pray For Even Though We Don’t Want To

Let’s be honest. There are certain types of people we are conditioned, by our culture, to not like. These are the people that nobody is going to give us credit for liking, the people we tend to distance ourselves from. For good reason. And yet, these are the sinners Christ most likely would have sought out to save, the people we should, at the very least, pray for. So here is a list of 5 People We Should Pray For Even Though We Don’t Want To:

1) Politicians (and really anyone in a position of power). Have politicians ever held a lower standing the eyes of the American public than they do now? There are whole cottage industries (talk show hosts, pundits, some columnists) who generate millions of dollars essentially mocking and criticizing politicians. Nobody will think you are cool for praying for a politician. Everybody will laugh if you criticize one and/or post some hilarious meme about one on Facebook. And yet there is this sneaky little prayer in the Bible that says this:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Timothy 2:1-2, ESV)

Yeah, that’s a tough verse. Praying for politicians (and not just in the snarky Psalm 19:8 way) is counter-cultural. But here’s a reason we can and should pray for our government leaders, local and national: we believe that authority is granted by God. Psalm 75:6 says that power doesn’t come from east or west, but from God. Romans 13 reminds us that the “powers that be” are ordained of God. So we can pray for our leaders, not only out of obedience to the Scripture, but out of a deep and abiding trust in Christ as the ultimate sovereign authority. And here’s a tip. Let’s pray for these politicians, not always for the policies we’d like to see implemented, but in a personal way. Let’s pray for their families. Let’s pray for their spiritual lives. Let’s pray for their blessing (yes, you heard me right).

2) People who we think poorly represent the Christian faith. There is a tendency among evangelicals to distance ourselves from Christians we think poorly represent the Christian faith. I do this. I could give you a list of people whose public displays of Christianity make me want to stand and shout, “But most Christians aren’t like that. We’re different. Don’t look at them.” You have a list like this, don’t you? Isn’t this pride? Do we ever consider that perhaps its me–yes me–who might be the poor display of Christian witness?

I’m humbled by Jesus’ words to Peter in Luke 22:32, where he essentially said, “I’m praying for you, that your faith doesn’t fail. Satan wants to sift you as wheat” (my paraphrase). Peter was the Christ-follower who embarrassed everyone by his public displays. He’s the guy who panicked and fell beneath the waves on the Sea of Galilee He’s the guy who blurted out about the tabernacles during the miracle of transfiguration. He’s the guy who cut off the soldier’s ear in the garden. He’s the guy who denied Jesus three times. Yeah, I’m guessing pre-Pentecost Peter is probably the guy who exemplifies, “Christian I don’t want to be like.”

And yet Jesus said to Peter, patiently, “I’m praying for you.” I’m deeply convicted by this. Rather than mocking those Christians who I don’t think “do it right” so I can make myself look better, I ought to . . . pray for them. Here’s what happens when we do this: suddenly we see the humanity in people we’re ashamed of. Suddenly we see our own clumsy attempts to represent Christ. Suddenly we accept them as brothers and sisters rather than enemies. This is a hard discipline, but like Jesus, we should pray for the Peters in our life.

3) People who openly mock the Christian faith. When I think of people who openly mock the faith, I think of the secularists, I think the late-night comedians who make sport of the gospel. I think of the pop culture icons who detest Jesus. Bill Mahr, Jon Stewart, Richard Dawkins. The knee-jerk reaction to mockers is to mock back. To come up with an equally witty response. To create a Facebook page with a bold Christian statement and have 10,000 people like it to make us feel better. But maybe, maybe, we should simply pray for them. I think of Jesus’ attitude on the cross toward the mockers. He said “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). What should we pray for them? For the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts to find salvation in Christ. Think of Saul of Tarsus. He had heard the sermons and mocked them. He held the coats of those stoning Stephen, the first martyr. He actively pursued Christians to put them in jail and even to their deaths. And yet God radically pursued Paul on the road to Damascus and he became the Apostle Paul. Maybe today’s mocker is tomorrow’s evangelist. Have we considered that? So let’s pray for those who mock the Christian faith. By doing so, we not only avoid the sin of bitterness in our own hearts, but we demonstrate that God’s sovereignty and power is not weakened by the open hostility of those who oppose Him.

4) Highly critical bloggers and commentors. If you want to get a glimpse of the depravity of our fallen world, scroll down on a news article and read through the comments. Even many Christian blogs and news sites attract vile responses, some even by professing followers of Jesus. The Internet has opened the floodgates for trolls and for angry, self-justified people. But have you considered that perhaps those who communicate ungracefully may be doing it from a place of insecurity, of brokeness, of a deep hunger for what only God can provide? I don’t know what motivates the hostility all the time, but I do know that these are people God wants to rescue from themselves. If God could cause revival among the ruthless Ninevites, God could do a work among those who use the Internet for vile purposes. We should pray that God enraptures their soul with the good news of the gospel. We should pray that we don’t fall into their trap of bitterness and vulgarity.

5) That person who has deeply wounded you. Jesus said to pray for those who “mistreat you.” I don’t think forgiveness means you have to endure injustice or abuse. I don’t think being a Christian means being a doormat over which evil people can walk all over you. But I do believe that, at the most basic level, we should pray for those who deeply wound us. Reconciliation is not always possible, but forgiveness–the letting go of the bitterness from our hearts–is possible as we immerse ourselves in the forgiveness Christ offers to us in his atoning death and resurrection. We can find peace and joy, we don’t have to nurse our deep grudges. I think we begin this process in prayer, on our knees, in honesty before God. We pour out the hurts and wounds we’ve endured and ask the Lord to help us forgive and to work in the hearts of those who did the wounding. The person who committed the injustice against you was created by God in His image. His soul matters to God as much as your soul. And so we pray for those who hurt us.

 

What Is the Lord Asking of Me In This Moment?

I’m currently reading through Marilynne Robinsons’ beautifully written, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead. Here’s a quote from the main character, Congregationalist pastor, John Ames:

This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it.

Gilead, pp 124