Judah’s behavior tonight was quite bad. Temper-tanrums, hitting, back-talk, being too rough with his little brother, whining. Not at all the sweet boy he is usually.
I had brought home a special treat for the boys after work today - a pack of their favorite yogurt, which we haven’t had in a while. Poor Ronen had already discovered that the fridge was again stocked with his favorite snack, and had been denied from partaking in said snack, much to his great dismay. I had intended it as a bed-time snack... but after Judah’s terrible behavior, what would I be teaching him if I gave him such a treat?
I distinctly remember a lesson I learned when I was not much older than Judah is now. I’d thrown a temper-tantrum at church while in the supervision of someone other than my parents. She was responsible for taking me home that day, and after multiple attempts to calm me down, finally offered to take me to get a Happy Meal from McDonalds, to which I readily agreed. By the time I got home, my father was there, already knew about the temper-tantrum, and could see the Happy Meal I was enjoying. I’ll never forget what he said:
“You know you don’t deserve that, right?”
I know now my father was trying to teach me that bad behavior didn’t get rewarded, that I couldn’t just throw a temper-tantrum and expect to get special treats. But at that age, I heard a very different lesson...
If you didn’t earn it, you don’t deserve it.
And I carried that lesson with me for many years after. I think I still carry it with me, constantly reminding me that shouldn’t have what I don’t deserve. And since I can never really deserve the good things I have in life....
Hardest of all is accepting God’s grace. I don’t deserve it, so how can I accept it? Thing is, by definition, none of us deserve God’s grace — that’s the whole point.
I knew tonight that this was a crucial moment. How I handled Judah’s temper-tantrum could very well shape his understanding of grace for the rest of his life. So with a quick prayer that I wouldn’t screw it up:
<Judah yelling>
Me: Judah, did you know Daddy brought you and Ronen a special treat for tonight?
<Screaming stops. Judah’s face is excited.>
Judah: What treat?
Me: I bought you a special treat on my way home from work.
Judah, hopeful: Is it yogurt?
Me: Yes, it’s yogurt. Do you think you deserve to have yogurt after how you’ve behaved tonight?
<Judah’s face falls. He looks at the floor. He knows he doesn’t deserve a treat.>
Judah: No.
Me: Judah, Daddy is going to teach you an important lesson tonight.
<long silence>
Judah, crestfallen: What lesson?
Me: Judah, you have been very bad this evening, and don’t deserve to have a special treat. But Daddy loves you very much, and it makes me very happy to give you treats that I know you’ll enjoy. So I want to give you the yogurt anyway, not because you deserve it, but because I love you and want to give you something special.
I wasn’t sure how Judah would react, but I was pretty sure he’d cheer up and accept. He didn’t. His face became even more serious and his lips pursed.
Judah, without a trace of belligerence: I don’t want it.
Me: But you love yogurt, and I want you to have it!
Judah, insistent: No, I won’t eat it. See?
He gets out a cup of the yogurt, a spoon, sets them on the table, sits in his chair, and doesn’t eat them. He looks over his shoulder at me.
Judah: See? I won’t eat it.
Me: But Judah, I got this treat just for you. I want you to have it, even if you don’t deserve it. I want you to enjoy it because I know you love yogurt and it makes me happy to give you things you enjoy.
Back and forth we went for probably a good 20 minutes. He stalwartly refused to eat the yogurt, despite my repeated assurances that I wanted him to eat it and enjoy it. He put the yogurt away, but I saw that even in his refusal to accept it, he kept standing close to the fridge. It struck me that there wasn’t a trace of belligerence in his attitude. He was sad. He clearly wanted the yogurt. But he also already understood what I had learned at that age. He didn’t deserve it, so he wouldn’t accept it.
I knew how important this moment was. I wasn’t going to let my son grow up with that attitude towards grace. So I kept coaxing him, pleading with him, reassuring him. I smiled. I hugged him. I put his spoon on the counter where he could get it easily. I invited him to eat the yogurt while we read a bed-time story from his Bible. I could see his walls cracking. I said the yogurt was his if he wanted it, and it would make me happy if he enjoyed it, but even happier if he said he was sorry for his bad behavior.
Finally, after about 20 minutes, he caved. As I was about to put his brother down for bed, Judah opened the fridge and retrieved the yogurt. He started to look for a spoon and I reminded him of the one I already had ready for him. I told him I was so happy he decided to eat the yogurt, that it made me happy when he enjoyed the good things I gave him. He snuggled close as we read his bedtime story. I chose the story of the resurrection from The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name. “When God made everything sad come untrue.” When God forgave all our worst behavior, even before we were sorry for it. When he extended us a gift we could never, ever deserve, but can only humbly accept with the simple words, “I’m sorry.”
I hope I taught the lesson well. I guess time will tell.
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My youngest son and our dog just experienced an altercation. Our dog is extremely patient, but she can only tolerate a toddler biting her tail for so long before she loses her temper and snaps at him. She didn’t make contact, just yipped at him a little. Amanda and I repremanded both - our dog, because she should never snap at the boys, and our son because he shouldn’t be tormenting the dog. And then an interesting thing happened.
We told Keyla (our dog) to move from where she was to away from where the boys were playing. She didn’t listen. We commanded her to move again, in a sterner voice. She didn’t move. Instead, she huddled up closer against us, laid down, and rolled over in a submissive posture. She was, in fact, completely submissive. And yet she was also completely disobedient. We had told her what we expected of her, gave her a command that she understands and had obeyed many times. But she knew we were angry and so she “submitted”.... and disobeyed.
How human of her.
How often do we “submit” to God, showing him again and again that we are “submissive” to him by our humble posturing, but yet fail to do the simple thing he asks of us - to obey.
Numerous times in John 14-17, Jesus equates obedience and love. He says that those who love him obey him. Those who do not obey him do not love him. And all of this is in the same chapters that he is discussing who belongs to him, who is part of him, who is one with him and one with the Father. To love is to obey is to be one with him.
We should remember that next time we “submit” to God... and choose to obey.
“When 22 people died outside a concert hall in Manchester, England, the media coverage was wall to wall. The cry went up that something must be done! Journalists followed the investigation. Press briefings were scheduled regularly. With broken hearts, we pored over color photographs of the victims, many of them only children, and we listened to bystanders describe their horror. The world grieved as the story unfolded for a week.
Five days later, 29 Christians in Egypt died when terrorists attacked their bus. Forty-two others were seriously injured and the assassins got away. That story vanished in less than 48 hours. No color photos. No interviews with authorities. No tragic details.
Here’s what you probably never heard.
The Christian group of parents, grandparents, and children were traveling in two buses to pray at a monastery. Their vehicles were stopped by terrorists outside the town of Minya. After the buses were surrounded by killers, passengers on one of the buses were forced to exit the bus one by one. As each reached the door to face masked gunmen, they were asked, “Are you Muslim?” None of them were. Each was then given a chance to renounce Jesus Christ and convert to Islam.
As each passenger confessed Christ and refused to convert, he was dragged a few feet away to be killed by either a shot in the head or a slit throat. One at a time, nineteen adults, and ten children were ordered to become Muslims or die. One by one they were instantly murdered. The criminals then fired on the group in the second bus, injuring 42, before speeding away to safety.
Why are tragedies like the one in Manchester more interesting or important than massacres like the one in Minya, Egypt? I suppose it could be racism. Or maybe we only care about tragedies that involve celebrities and beautiful people. But I seriously believe two reasons are more likely.
The media run away from Christian martyrs because they are a powerful witness to the Christian faith. When random concert-goers fall prey to terror, in the wrong place at the wrong time, it makes the rest of us feel sad but lucky. But when Christians die because they refuse to renounce their faith, it speaks to the power and the freedom ordinary people discover in Christ. No sane person willingly dies for something he knows is a lie. Historically, seeing the deaths of Christian martyrs has inspired others to follow the Savior as well. The secular media wants no part of anything like that! So a vague headline about people dying in a bus attack manages to cover the bad news without accentuating the Good News.
Christians in America turn their backs as well because stories about martyrs in other lands reflect poorly on the quality our faith here in the West…”
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There are too many people talking. "The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grapsed, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words? He is the one I would like to talk to." ~Zhuang Zhou
As Christians we are called to lay our lives - our hopes, our dreams, our sins, our pride, our regrets, our rebellions - every aspect of our life at the foot of the cross. To give it up, to say “I will hold on to nothing except for Christ” and to then seek his will.
We wrestle so much with our brokenness and ask Christ to heal us. But a desire for something does not mean we have a right to it, and surrendering our brokenness to Christ does not mean he has to heal us. We are called to refrain from sinful desires whether we continue wanting them or not; we are called to live new lives in Christ whether we feel fully healed or not.
So what if Christ sifts through the brokenness of our lives, picks through the pieces, selects a few, and hands them back, saying “I want you to carry this. Do not love it. Do not hate it. Don’t try to ‘fix’ it on your own strength. Only carry it”?
I think there are times when he does this. When we pray for healing, beg for resolution or reconciliation or redemption, and yet Christ hands us back baggage we have dropped and says “carry this.”
Maybe it’s lust. Maybe a desire for sinful sexual relationships. Maybe it’s anger. Or a porn addiction. A substance addiction. Maybe it’s anxiety. Or loneliness. Maybe Christ asks me to carry my depression.
Why? Why would a loving Savior do such a thing?
For the same reason an athlete trains with weights. For strength.
Not to try to overcome by our own strength, but to acknowledge it as part of our lives, shoulder it, and move on. Not to hold tightly to our brokenness, but to simply carry it; neither loving it as a cherished flaw nor hating it as an odious burden. Our brokenness is not our identity, but it is a part of us. Our brokenness shapes us, but doesn’t define us. We carry it for exactly as long as Christ says to, then drop it without a backward glance when he says to do so. It is no more than a sack of iron weights, carried for strength training.
If that were true, then what?
Then my brokenness is not something I overcome or give in to. It is not something I take pleasure in or feel shame over. It is, now, but one day will no longer be.
I once felt loneliness so intense I felt I could not bear up under the weight of it. I filled page after page of a journal as I wrestled with loneliness. And I asked God why he didn’t heal me. Then I stopped wrestling with it and simply carried it. And God took the weight away.
I struggle now with feelings of depression. Looking back over my life, I realize that I have been struggling with depression for many years - much longer than I ever realized. But I no longer struggle and wrestle and ask God to heal me. Depression is part of me but doesn’t define me - one day it will pass away. Same for the porn addiction I’ve fought against since my early teenage years.
All of these are temporary, and I care only for the eternal.
Spiritual warfare is a real part of every Christian’s walk. It just doesn’t look the way we expect. For some, it’s as dramatic as casting out demons. But for the rest of us, it’s much subtler. Day to day, spiritual warfare almost always means this: discerning truth from lies.
I experienced this battle for truth after I lost my job a couple years ago. Though God took care of us during that season, I came away from the experience with some new beliefs about the world, about myself and even about God: The world is chaotic and hostile. I am feeble and failing. God is callous and inattentive. Though I never put these ideas into words, they made their way into my heart — and they affected how I lived. As my sleep diminished, the panic attacks increased, and I was eventually overwhelmed by anxiety.
After that, I made some positive changes and went to see a counselor. But real change didn’t happen until I recognized where my anxiety was really coming from: I was believing lies. So I made a conscious decision to reject those lies and embrace what God says about the world, myself and Himself — simply because He said it: God created this world, and it’s still His. I am protected and valued by Him. God is always good and always near me. The challenge was in how to internalize the truth, to make it reach my heart so it would affect my life.
And that’s when worship — for the first time in my life — started to make sense. I’ve never been the guy raising his hands during worship in church; I’m the guy watching the clock for the music to end so we can get to the teaching. But when I joined my church’s prison ministry, I was challenged to go all-in during worship with the inmates, and something cool happened. As I closed my eyes and raised my hands, the truth I was singing finally made its way into my heart. Worship puts the truth into words for me.
Anxiety showed me the danger of letting in the whispers of the father of lies. But worship drives away the lies and internalizes the truth of God’s Word. Worship arms me with discernment for everyday spiritual warfare — so now I raise my hands and I strive to believe the truth.
A few weeks ago, I was thinking "depression is teaching me to worship." And my journey for the past few weeks in particular have been learning what it means to worship in the midst of depression.
Jim, you should check out Pastor Matt's "Amazed 24/7" series - the first four or five sermons in particular will, I believe, strike a chord with you. (The bookstore at Woodman should have them.)
A few key points: "worship is the active, all of life, response to the worth of who God is - that's his character - and what he does - that's his conduct. And that response is threefold - with my head, I recognize his worth; with my heart, I resonate with his worth; and with my body, I react to his worth."
I have come to realize that, when I focus on who I am - my character, my face if you will - and what I can do - my conduct, my hands - then my depression deepens. But when I seek God for his face, and rely on the strength of his hand rather than my own, I find my depression fading.
And if you accept that life's ultimate purpose is to learn how to better worship God, then anxiety and depression are just tools to bring us closer to him. We don't have to ask "why do Christians suffer from [fill in the blank]" because the answer is "so that we might learn to better worship God."
I have encountered far too many people recently who never learned the basic skill of argumentation. 1) present thesis 2) provide supporting details 3) summarize and close 4) analyze rebuttals 5) adjust thesis or respond to rebuttals Most of these people have been Trump supporters or pro-aborts. I don't think there's a connection.
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I literally judge books by their title and cover, especially indie books. If the author can't come up with an interesting title or doesn't invest the time/money in a good cover design, why should the reader think the story is going to be any better? PS - I'm an indie author so yes I can judge.
well theres a lot of ways he answers and a lot of question that need to be answered and one of my close friends asks me, a good friend, he says, and I tell ya hes a good, close friend, he says are we gonna answer some questions and you see this guy and this guys got some real questions to answer *wave hand*, we’ve got a lot of real, important…. goood questions to answer
And have you seen my polls? A new poll came out and it says I'm the best at answering the questions, I have the best *waves hand* answers. People come to me for answers all the time, and they do what I tell them and they're happy, y'know? They're happy, they say to me "I am so happy that you have answered these questions" ok? Ok. So I have the best answers. So yeah, we've got some tough questions and I'm gonna answer them. Look at that guy's hat - what a great hat huh? Give that guy a hand.
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The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
