Look Up

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, He did not say, “Love God and love the people who live in your house.” Nor did He say, “Love God, complete this to-do list, and then if there’s time left over love the people around you.” Instead, He said:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40).

Most of us in the church understand that we’re supposed to love God first and foremost (though we may not know how to do that very well). But I think many get their priorities confused when it comes to the second commandment of loving others. In our modern American culture, we place a lot of value on the individual and then on the nuclear family. Other cultures and eras would find this totally bizarre, because they focus on the needs of the community first. We also tend to prioritize productivity over people. I’ve seen this happen even in churches and ministries, where accomplishing a task or mission consumes everyone’s attention while people are left to struggle and suffer alone.

In Romans 1 the Apostle Paul wrote, “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (11-12). He wrote to the Thessalonians, “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us... For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:8, 11-12). Paul exemplified loving God and loving others wholeheartedly.

There seems to be a mindset that says church is what we do on Sunday mornings and maybe Wednesday nights, and the rest of the time you’re on your own. But I don’t see that reflected in Scripture, where the Church is described as the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27) and brothers and sisters in Christ (Mark 3:33-35), nor is that individualism illustrated in the description of the early fellowship in Acts 2:42-47.

We don’t have to live in a commune to invest in the lives of those around us, but we do need to look up from our phones and laptops and to-do lists, and actually (and frequently) interact with one another in person. Screens are not sufficient for the purpose. Mark Mayfield commented in the introduction to his book The Path Out of Loneliness:

“We are relational beings who need eye-to-eye, face-to-face contact and proximity on a regular basis. As a society, we are operating out of significant deficits... [Many have] questioned when [was] the last time you were truly seen as a person, loved for who you are, and valued as a unique human soul.”

The more our technology draws us in, the more often we need to be reminded to look up and see one another for who God has made us to be and how He has created us to be interdependent.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

O Captain, My Captain

We live in a culture that has tried to flip reality on its head. We are told that we discover or create our own truth, that there is no objective truth or source outside our own perceptions. And then we’re told that we have to accept, and even honor, everyone else’s perception of truth. If there is no God, no Creator, then whatever evolutionary processes formed my brain and cause my neurons fire to guide my thought processes is just as valid as anyone else’s. And, we might argue, my thoughts are best because I know how I arrived at my conclusions, but I don’t know how you arrived at yours.

Ah, but if there is a God (as I’m convinced there is), the whole story is reversed. From the biblical narrative, God created the world on purpose and for a purpose—so that His creation might come to know and glorify Him (Rev. 15:4). Our bodies were created to reflect His image to the world (Gen. 1:27). Our minds were made to learn about Him and to communicate what we know to others (Acts 1:8). Our moral standards are to be defined by God, not by our own lesser thought processes (Is. 55:8). In fact, we often can’t trust our own thoughts and desires because they are corrupted by sin (Jer. 17:9).

The very first question, leading to the first sin, was “Did God actually say...?” (Gen. 3:1-4). From that moment, the guiding drive of mankind has been to become our own gods, determining our own version of good and evil, right and wrong. But we are deceived to think that we can truly say, “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul” (W.E. Henley). Just because we choose our course does not mean we are headed to the right destination or even a viable destination.

Many in our world today, including some professing Christians, are ignoring the reality that truth comes from God, and that He alone has the right to define morality and to tell us how we are meant to live. He has done that through the written Scriptures and through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who stated, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). If we choose to turn away from that Truth, or try to redefine it to mean something new, we place ourselves on the path that leads to eternal destruction. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5a). The consequences are eternally significant.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13-14).

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PS: Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived in Nazi Germany, where it was the leadership of the government that was trying to redefine truth, reality, humanity, right and wrong. We’ve democratized the process to make everyone an autonomous god. His Ethics book has some helpful observations, if you can wade through it. Here are a couple pertinent quotes I discovered:

“God is love (1 John 4:16). For the sake of clarity, this sentence must first be read with the emphasis on the word God, even though we have become accustomed to emphasize the word ‘love.’ God is love: that is, love is not a human behavior, sentiment, or deed, but it is God who is love. What love is can be known only by one who knows God; the reverse is not true... Thus nobody knows what love is except through God’s self-revelation” (248, Reader’s Edition).

“It is not Christ who has to justify himself before the world by acknowledging the values of justice, truth, and freedom. Instead, it is these values that find themselves in need of justification, and their justification is Jesus Christ alone. It is not a ‘Christian culture’ that still has to make the name of Jesus Christ acceptable to the world; instead, the crucified Christ has become the refuge, justification, protection, and claim for these higher values and their defenders who have been made to suffer” (257).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Imposters

I wrote the following for our Eastern Regional Association’s June newsletter:

“Imposter Syndrome” is the feeling that if people really know you they’d realize you are a fraud, not really qualified, and it often leads to anxiety and striving to keep the mask in place. It’s a fairly common experience, and one that I’ve dealt with at times because of my unusual path into an accounting career. I have to remind myself, as the saying goes, that “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” We may tend to think that if we just take a spiritual gift test we’ll know exactly what God wants us to do for the rest of our lives. But oftentimes our confidence in our own abilities makes us prideful and robs God of the glory He should be receiving. He delights in using those who know they are unqualified. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27-28). It strikes me that God chose Saul of Tarsus, the man educated under Gamaliel and a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” to send him not to his fellow Jews, but as an apostle to the Gentiles. And God sent Peter, the uneducated fisherman, as an apostle to the Jews. God likes to take people out of their comfort zones so that they will rely on Him. As Paul wrote, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9b).

Another manifestation of Imposter Syndrome is the feeling that you don’t quite fit in and would be rejected if people knew you. As I wrote this, Rev. Glennon Balser was nearing the end of his days. If you knew Glennon, you know that he was a great hugger. That made me start thinking about all the hugs that will be shared when we all meet again in the Resurrection. But then it hit me that it’s far easier for me to imagine that than to imagine the embrace of my Savior when He comes. I’ve tended to picture the Judgment Day as an impersonal sorting— “Sheep… sheep… goat… All the sheep to My right, all the goats to My left…” Yet if you look at the life of Jesus, you get a different picture. He was known as a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:19). He reached out to touch and heal the unclean (Matt. 8:3). He stopped to talk to a woman in the middle of a crowd and called her “daughter” (Matt. 9:22). And He told a parable of the prodigal son and said “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). We too can expect to be embraced when we come to our eternal home as children of God.

The fact is, we’re all imposters. None of us deserves the blessings of this life or the privilege of serving God, and none of us deserve eternal life in His kingdom. But that doesn’t matter because our Creator is the One who chose us, redeemed us, and adopted us into His family—not for anything that we have done but simply because He delights to show us His love. What a day that will be when we can run into the arms of our Father!

 

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

A Little Faith

In Mark 9, immediately following the account of the Transfiguration, Jesus interacts with a man whose son is suffering seizures because of a demon. The man implores, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus sounds a wee bit miffed when He responds, “‘If you can!’ All things are possible for the one who believes.” The man’s response is one I have often prayed, “I believe; help my unbelief!” In Matthew’s account of the incident, when the disciples ask Jesus why they couldn’t cast out the demon, His response is “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt. 17:20 see also 21:21).

This wasn’t the first time the disciples had their lack of faith pointed out by Jesus. There are four prior times mentioned in Scripture:

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 6:30).

In the storm on the sea, “He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’ Then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm” (Matt. 8:26).

Peter tried walking on water, “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matt. 14:30-31).

After Jesus fed the multitude, and the disciples wondered why Jesus was talking about leaven, Jesus said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember…?” (Matt. 16:8-9).

Here were twelve men who walked with Jesus and listened to His teaching every day for three years straight, and yet He kept mentioning their “little” faith. That encourages me because we’re in good company! We probably all fit in that category most of the time. (I have yet to hear of someone moving a mountain with their mustard seed-sized faith.) Even though we know God is fully capable of doing anything He wants, we don’t always believe that He will, and we often don’t even bother to ask Him to do so.

There have been many times I’ve wished and prayed for stronger faith, but even that is a little scary because, as James wrote, “For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (1:3). I’d rather have the faith without any testing if possible, but that isn’t God’s normal method of working. Who needs faith when things are going smoothly? It’s in the midst of the storms and questions that we have to decide if we trust that God is good, in control, and fully aware of our circumstances.

It’s not so much the size of our faith that matters, but the One in whom it is placed. God is perfectly willing to work with people who have faith the size of a grain of sand, so long as we keep turning to Him as often as we need to.

“Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

All Together Now

Brant Hansen wrote in Blessed Are the Misfits:

Growing up in church, I’d heard it said hundreds of times that evangelism was everybody’s primary job in life. But when it came to other gifts on that same list— like, say, doing apostolic work— I didn’t hear this. So if I wasn’t personally bringing people to Christ, or at least bringing new people to church, I was failing. I simply needed to be enthusiastically talking to people about Jesus in all sorts of settings, or at least have the decency to feel perpetually guilty for not doing it. Imagine my shock, then, when I couldn’t find this as a fundamental emphasis in the New Testament description of the church... Yes, Jesus tells His disciples to “Go into all the world...” to make disciples (Mark 16:15), and the Twelve did exactly that. But Paul doesn’t seem to think this was a message intended in the same way for everyone (ch. 7).

My experience of church has often been very similar—a frequent feeling that I’m not doing all that I’m supposed to be doing as a “good Christian” because I’m not purposefully seeking to evangelize or make disciples. I think most pastors and teachers have good intentions behind their efforts to spur people to get up and go, but I also think that many are operating from and communicating faulty assumptions.

Jesus told His disciples just prior to His ascension, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). This command was given to the group of them, and by extension, to the Church as a whole. It has been said that a better translation might be “As you are going, make disciples…” In any case, the verbs in the Greek are plural, not singular.

That’s not to say that individuals don’t have any responsibility—we do because the Church is made up of individuals. As Paul reiterated in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the Body is made up of many members with different and complementary functions. We can’t all be the tongue or the feet. Some of us need to be hands or ears. Our responsibility is to serve with the gifts, talents, and personalities He has given each one of us, working alongside and supporting the others in our local gathering.

Years ago, when I joined a taekwondo school, someone commented about how I’d intentionally placed myself in a mission field there. Well, no, I didn’t. I was there for the exercise and self-defense. I did (eventually) build some relationships with folks that led to discussions about matters of faith, though I don’t know what lasting fruit came from most of those conversations.

In his book, Hansen humorously comments,

While [Francis] Chan said church people get “awkward” when it comes to talking about Jesus, I can assure him that for many of us [introverts], the “awkward” part starts with just talking… In fact, the awkward precedes the talking. Awkward is a given. Awkward is a way of life.

I’ve periodically been pressed to share a devotional verbally in some setting. I think I’ve only consented maybe twice in two decades. My stock response is, “I write so that I don’t have to talk.” If someone told me that to be a member of their church I would have to go share the Four Spiritual Laws with some stranger, I would promptly find a new church. In grad school I signed up for a class on discipleship, but dropped it after the first session when we were told we had to go find someone to disciple that whole semester. As much as I know those things are important, I don’t think God intends for us to give ourselves ulcers because of the massive anxiety some of us face in doing it by one prescribed method.

There are people who love to talk to strangers, but I’m not one of them. But I do enjoy writing and finding ways to apply Scripture so that others can be encouraged and edified in their faith. God made each of us unique because He has unique ways for us to glorify Him and to build up His Church. You do your part, and I’ll do mine, and we’ll enjoy the fruits of all our labor together.

“God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body” (1 Cor. 12:18-20).

 

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Be Aware, Take Care

We’re nearing the end of Mental Health Awareness Month. One of the things I’ve read and heard from multiple sources is the idea that our culture has pathologized normal human experiences in many ways, and the church is not immune from such perceptions. We know we live in a fallen world with broken bodies. Yet instead of accepting that fact and finding ways to cope with our own brokenness and support others in their brokenness, we look for diagnoses and treatments that will take away anything that we think is less than ideal. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has grown from 130 pages in its first edition to almost 1000 pages in the fifth edition. Normal experiences of grief, anxiety, or just being a little different from your peers are now seen as something that needs to be fixed.

I’m not saying that mental illness doesn’t exist. I know it does because I take medication for it every day. (I will say that the medication doesn’t remove the problem, it just makes it more bearable.) I also know that God uses all kinds of difficult experiences to draw people closer to Him. I’m regularly reminded that my weakness is meant to make me rely on His strength; my sorrow presses me to go to Him for comfort; my anxieties cause me to pray for His guidance and provision; and my quirky way of seeing things allows me to serve God in ways that others can’t.

A couple podcasts I’ve listened to recently have brought out good points. One said that the rise of “helicopter parents,” who try to protect their kids from any kind of adversity, has produced a generation of young people who don’t know how to cope with normal life. Another pointed out how Christians take verses like Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything,” out of context and beat people over the head with it for their “sinful” lack of faith. Many Christians have adopted a type of health and wealth gospel that says if you just have enough faith you’ll never have any anxiety or sorrow, and you can go through life with a smile on your face at all times. That simply isn’t true, because that is not the world we live in.

Jesus Himself was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3), and He sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane as He knew what was ahead for Him (Luke 22:44). I heard someone say that if we could have seen Jesus’ face as He told His disciples “Do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34), we would know that this was not a harsh command to be obeyed, but a gentle, loving reminder that God is in control. I was reading one resource that was trying to make the point that depression is not always a result of sin, but they went on to heap guilt on those who “refuse to take the necessary steps to find healing in your life” (supposedly based on James 4:17). Such a statement is not in line with the gentle correction that comes from those who love God and love one another.

One podcast from Russell Moore and Curtis Chang urges us to use our feelings of anxiety as a pointer to what things we fear losing in the future, so we can learn to give those to God. Sometimes we allow anxiety about the future or regret and sorrow about the past to keep us from living well in the present. Sometimes we need help through medication and counseling to be able to better handle the things God allows to come into our lives. Those can be part of God’s common means of grace in this broken world.

If those in the church were more willing to talk about their struggles with anxiety, depression, feeling out of place, and yes, even sin, perhaps we’d all become better at encouraging and supporting those who need a listening ear or a hug. We were never meant to go through this life alone, nor to stoically pretend that everything is sunshine and flowers all the time. (There’s also poison ivy, which I’m also taking medication for!)

May we be the hands and arms and eyes and ears of Christ for those in need.

“For everything there is a season... a time to weep, and a time to laugh, and time to mourn, and a time to dance... a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose... a time to keep silence, and a time to speak...” (Eccl. 3:1-8).

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© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Perhaps the best book I’ve read so far this year is Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, by Tim Keller. He starts with a few chapters on the “problem of evil” and how that shapes or is shaped by our understanding of God (theodicy). But then he moves into more practical application for those who are suffering. Following are a few quotes that stood out to me:

80- [One] of the main teachings of the Bible is that almost no one grows into greatness or finds God without suffering, without pain coming into our lives like smelling salts to wake us up to all sorts of facts about life and our own hearts to which we were blind. For reasons past our finding out, even Christ did not bring salvation and grace to us apart from infinite suffering on the cross. As he loved us enough to face the suffering with patience and courage, so we must learn to trust in him enough to do the same. And as his weakness and suffering, thus faced, led to resurrection power, so can ours.

121-122- If God actually provided an explanation of all the reasons why he allows things to happen as they do, it would be too much for our finite brains. Think of little children and their relationship to their parents... though they aren’t capable of knowing their parents’ reasons, they are capable of knowing their parents’ love and therefore are capable of trusting them and living securely. That is what they really need. Now, the difference between God and human beings is infinitely greater than the difference between a thirty-year-old parent and a three-year-old child. So we should not expect to be able to grasp all God’s purposes, but through the cross and gospel of Jesus Christ, we can know his love. And that is what we need most.

262- It is perhaps most striking of all to realize that if God had given Joseph the things he was likely asking for in prayer, it would have been terrible for him. And we must realize that it was likely God essentially said no relentlessly, over and over, to nearly all Joseph’s specific requests for a period of about twenty years... In the dungeon, Joseph turns to God for help in interpreting the dream. Despite all the years of unanswered prayer, Joseph was still trusting God. The point is this—God was hearing and responding to Joseph’s prayers for deliverance, rescue, and salvation, but not in the ways or forms or times Joseph asked for it.

264- We must never assume that we know enough to mistrust God’s ways or be bitter against what he has allowed. We must also never think we have really ruined our lives, or have ruined God’s good purposes for us... The pain and misery that resulted in their lives from his action were very great. Yet God used it redemptively. You cannot destroy his good purposes for us. He is too great, and will weave even great sins into a fabric that makes us into something useful and valuable. Ultimately, we must trust God’s love.

287-288- And in the end, God said Job triumphed. How wonderful that our God sees the grief and anger and questioning, and is still willing to say “you triumphed” —not because it was all fine, not because Job’s heart and motives were always right, but because Job’s doggedness in seeking the face and presence of God meant that the suffering did not drive him away from God but toward him. And that made all the difference.

312- When things go wrong, one of the ways you lose your peace is that you think maybe you are being punished. But look at the cross! All the punishment fell on Jesus. Another thing you may think is that maybe God doesn’t care. But look at the cross! The Bible gives you a God that says, “I have lost a child too; not involuntarily— voluntarily, on the cross, for your sake. So that I could bring you into my family.”

In short, I found the book to be an encouraging reminder to trust God more fully (I’m still a work in progress), because He is the only One who can work all things together for our ultimate good and His glory.

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Image courtesy of Amazon.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.