This morning’s Sunday school was pretty awesome on a lot of different levels. The lesson was titled “Try to Fit Everyone in a Hoop” and it kicked off with Matthew. Matthew was clearly disliked because Matthew was a tax collector. But despite this, Jesus was a good friend to Matthew. Jesus welcomed and included people who were unwelcome with others.
If you haven’t picked up on this yet, this lesson is about inclusion. Which is quite interesting, because my wife would categorize me as an exclusionist Christian. I once had a performance review where my boss said I excluded low performers. And I affirmed that observation. As a professional, I exclude low performers. And I invest in high performers. Is that wrong? Secondly, was Jesus any different? Although you may feel like the Sunday school lesson is going to be another Human Resource presentation on diversity, I woke up to something really important. Let’s play a game.
In today’s lesson, we had about 20 children. About 5 were girls, and 15 were boys. I had a single hula hoop, and I announced to the class that anyone who was inside the hula hoop was going to heaven. Everyone else was left behind. It was up to the class to figure out how to make this work.
As soon as I announced this, the class feverish rushed to the hula hoop. There was pushing and shoving. People were falling over themselves to get inside the hula hoop, which couldn’t correspond any more strongly to the lifeboat scenario I wrote about last week. People got angry, and then there was a realization that the entire class was not able to fit inside the hula hoop. After this realization, I asked the class, “Maybe just the boys should be in the hula loop, and the girls can do something else.” The boys loved this, and about 5 girls rolled their eyes at me (including my wife). And the irony is that the girls allowed themselves to be removed to the hula hoop. The boys pushed themselves into the hula hoop circle, and asserted themselves as heaven bound.
Which is the first realization. Throughout life, we walk through circles upon circles of friends. And you’ll find circles of Christian friends who think they are heaven bound. This doesn’t mean they actually are heaven bound, or that you’re not. But I found it ironic that a group of boys stood triumphantly comfortable that they were heaven bound. And the girls left the confrontation. Which makes me wonder how many of us are heaven bound but we’ve walked away from the Christian dialog because it’s so heavily dominated by the self-righteous.
At this point, my wife interceded and said we couldn’t segregate based upon sex. Fine. So the class rushes back into the hula hoop. The children form some kind of jelly-fish looking ring where they interlock arms in an outward leaning circle, but it doesn’t hold. They have about 1 or 2 people too many. If this isn’t a more wonderful version of the lifeboat, I don’t know what is. I was going to assign them jobs and let them decide who was the least worthy. And right at that moment, a girl Madison lays down with her feet in the hula hoop. She’s tired of this stupid game. And some of the other students yell, “You can’t do that. It doesn’t count.” Which brings me to my second realization.
Throughout life, for some reason or another, people start telling you what you can and can’t do to inherit the kingdom of God. And the weird thing is that I never gave them any directions. Someone decided that “feet only” doesn’t count. And then the class started attacking Madison for laying down. When I announced that Madison’s feet only approach is perfectly fine, a peace settled over the class. They began laying down 1 by 1 with their feet inside the hula hoop. There was no more pushing, shoving, yelling, or harassing. There was a single recognition that this is all we needed to do.
In life, we operate with the lifeboat mentality. Heaven is thought of as a scarce resource, which makes no sense when you consider that God created existence as we know it. And in that mindset, we form circles of friends. And in our circles, we exclude others. And sometimes we become too comfortable thinking we are heaven bound – I’m far too guilty of this having circles upon circles of Christian friends. We make up rules. We ignore other rules. We tell others that they aren’t worthy due to odd things such as sexual orientation, past sins, or political perspectives. And lastly, there is a sense of surrender. Madison laid down because God is bigger than a bunch of children fighting to be inside a hula hoop.
My Dad has a wonderful sermon that touches upon Mark 2:17.
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:17 (NIV)
For some reason, that verse makes me emotional. Because I don’t identify as righteous. I identify as a sinner. And throughout my entire life, I’ve struggled with sin.
Jesus, the son of God, spent his time with the sick. He did not spend time with the religiously righteous, the powerful politicians, or people of great wealth. He spent time with the sick, who needed him.
Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller is not a book I would normally read. But for some reason or another, my parents gave me a copy and asked me to read it. And after reading it, I am puzzled why my parents would think of me in the context of this book.
Donald Miller creates the all too common stage of someone who loves Jesus who acts like they don’t. I know this sounds strange, but I hear a lot of Christian authors and speakers who “pretend” to consider Jesus for the first time. And while I certainly believe bringing others to Christ is noble and honorable, it just all seems too fake.
Donald Miller’s writing style is frank and easy to read. He’s honest and explores concepts and theories with scripture and sound theology. One of the central themes of his book is that we’ve bastardized the Bible, by deducing the relational teachings of Jesus to a formulaic approach of salvation. Similarly, my local pastor has said the problem with the church is that we’ve dissected the Bible and put each little lesson into it’s own “jar”. When someone asks about salvation, we direct them to the shelf containing all our jars.
As a Christian, I’ve always wondered why Jesus never gave a “black and white” criteria for salvation. Similarly, I’ve often complained to my wife that the Bible seems to be filled with shades of grey. For example, in Luke 18:18, a ruler asks Jesus what he must do to inherit the kingdom of God. Jesus gives this semi ambiguous response and tells him to keep the commandments. Then Jesus tells him to go and sell all his possessions. The ruler is sad, and then Jesus says that through God all things are possible. What does that mean? Does that mean God takes care of it? Or does that mean to sell all of your possessions?
In Matthew 22, someone asks Jesus what is the greatest commandment. And Jesus replies, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” And to be honest, this is kind of frustrating. Because I was really hoping for a formulaic response in bulleted form. In fact, something along the lines of going to church, tithing, and being an overall, “nice” guy. In fact, here you go. Bulleted form:
Go to church.
Tithe 10%.
Be nice.
Except that the Bible is full of relativistic examples for “goodness”. For example, Nicodemus, who was widely recognized as wealthy, was attributed to extraordinary amount of spices for for Jesus’ burial. The amount akin to a royal burial. Conversely, Mark 12 speaks to a widow’s offering, in which Jesus claims that she gave more than everyone else. In that chapter, Jesus says, “They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
Which brings me to the problem. Inheriting the kingdom of God isn’t a checklist. And we, as humans, like checklists. Instead, it’s an invitation. An invitation into a relationship with God. And as Donald Miller explains, reading the Bible as a checklist and not as relational doctrine is a grave mistake.
The Lifeboat
To explain his point, Donald Miller illustrates the Garden of Eden as an expansive paradise abundant with life. He describes what it would be like living in the presence of God without any insecurities. His descriptions remind me of C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy, where the main character discovers a planet overflowing with the presence of God. A planet entirely different than earth – the silent planet.
In Searching for God Knows What, I found myself mentally lost in a Garden of Eden for days as if God wanted to tell me, “It was very good.” – with a sense of sorrow and nostalgia. I began to imagine what it would feel like to live in the presence of God. To not have insecurities, and all the issues that manifest from insecurity such as jealousy, lust, and greed. In this sense, if you think about it, our broken world can be traced back to an insecurity we all bear from the Garden of Eden.
We, as humans, are really good at ostracizing our neighbors. Donald Miller pretends what it would be like to visit Adam and Eve today (in Adam, Eve, and the Alien):
Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste.
…
The greater tragedy is that very few people understand they have the disease. This seems strange as well because it is obvious. To be sure, it is killing them, and yet, sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem.
Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What
This is true. Donald Miller details childhood stories containing his classroom social structure. And as a father of young children, I was left wondering how we, as adults, do a wonderful job teaching our children our social structures. I write this just as one of my daughters attended a Beyond the Stars dance competition. In that competition, girls were awarded medals and places. Some participants received nothing. And yet, all dancers were dancing in front of a panel of judges. Donald explains that how we, as humans, often seek approval from other humans. And that in a more perfect world, the only judge would be Jesus.
As a parent, I’ve realized that my children are different than me when it comes to the homeless. They ask why the person is begging. How they can help (and why I don’t help). I see a flurry issues that prevent me from helping. For better or worse, I simply don’t know. Somehow, I’ve become so comfortable in my Christian bubble. Which brings me to the lifeboat question.
If there were a lifeboat adrift at sea, and in the lifeboat were a male lawyer, a female doctor, a crippled child, a stay-at-home mom, and a garbageman, and one person had to be thrown overboard to save the others, which person would we choose?
I vividly remember this thought exercise in grade school, and I still remember who we chose. As a child, I remember obsessing over this question for days if not weeks. It seemed so unfair, so cruel, but at the same time, so practical. And why is that? The oddity is that as an adult, I could answer that question in about 2 seconds. Who? Obviously the garbageman. Why? Based upon a value for society, and the fact that you can’t throw away a crippled child. Which brings in the issue of choice. The child didn’t choose their life of disability. But the professions of each person strangely fits into my mental model of social “worth”. And the garbageman is the least skilled profession. Meaning, that anyone else could do that job most easily. In that sense, throwing him overboard would represent the least amount of loss.
The oddity is that as an adult, I’d be terrified of myself for making that decision. Because I truly don’t believe our value as humans as based upon our professions. Or our wealth. Yet this is the world we live in. We alienate our neighbors in the pursuit of human affections in order to fill a void in our hearts left by a God who once lived with us. That’s kind of terrible when you think about it.
Alien God, Alien Faith
The lifeboat exercise exposes a problem in humanity. That problem is that we operate with a lifeboat mentality. And Jesus doesn’t. And in that manner, Searching for God Knows What is terrifying because it exposes a flurry of beliefs that aren’t actually based upon Jesus. I have a fear of getting to heaven and then realizing that the faith I held was not of God. Just like I hear a lot of people remind me that Jesus wasn’t Christian. Okay, I guess. These beliefs include socioeconomic (giving to poor versus paying employees), political (conservative versus progressives), and even touchy topics such as abortion and homosexuality. In some sense, I began to question whether I was following Jesus or modern, American Christianity. And honestly, that’s a terrifying feeling.
Liberal Christianity and the Lion
Donald Miller does a fantastic job at detailing how Christians are waging war against Christians, and how humans are waging war against one another since the fall from the Garden of Eden. And while this is pretty much what Satan would want us to do, there is a portion of the book where he explains how our struggles in life are not against our brothers and sisters, but of principles and powers of darkness (as Paul states in Ephesians 6:12). This part of the book is sobering because while I believe in the existence and influence of angels and demons, for some reason I don’t act like it. It is almost as if one part of my brain is telling me that’s a fairy tale. And the other part of my brain is begging me to wake up. In that sense, Donald explores the “love the sinner, hate the sin” concept in all it’s fullness that I would think Jesus would expect of his disciples. Yet Donald makes a point that I found myself returning to, which is that if I truly believe in Jesus. And I believe some of this to be true. Why would I not believe the verses that compare Satan to a roaming lion (1 Peter 5:8-9). And if that’s true, then a twisted faith is a problem that bears real consequences.
The Relationship
Several days ago I read a post online from a Christian who swore that Jesus spoke to him through a text message from a friend. This particular Christian was praying that God would use him as an instrument of his peace, and he went to go play a video game. At that moment, someone texted him Proverbs 26:11 – “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” He felt like God was telling him to be serious with him.
The online post was filled with Christians who were agreeing with him, as well as those who were telling him to not read too much into a random text message. But here is the point, God may have wanted him to hear that message at that time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that message was meant for anyone else but him. In other words, following Jesus is hard because it’s subjective. We are all different people with different hearts. And God guides each of us in our own way. By trying to deduce the Bible to a checklist, you’re stepping away from that relationship and trying to treat God as a checkbox. This is not how it works. You’re either a follower of Jesus or not. And be weary of “Checkbox Christianity”. You might find yourself following the wrong God.
I’m going to be honest, I’ve probably heard a thousand sermons on the story of David and Goliath. You probably know the story. David is a young, unassuming boy. Goliath is the giant of the Philistines. There is a fight. And David, who everyone recognizes as someone who is about to get his face pounded in, finds 5 infinity stones in a nearby stream and somehow wrecks havoc on Goliath and his people (1 Samuel 17 if you’re interested). And while I will attest that I have heard some incredible sermons on 1 Samuel, I haphazardly listened fully expecting to learn nothing.
But in this sermon, our pastor referenced Louie Giglio, who said that most series on David and Goliath naturally (selfishly), include a “man-centered” interpretation of the story. And that comment caught my attention. Because every time I’ve heard the story, I’m playing David. I’m fighting the lions. I’m fighting bears. I get no approval from my family. And I’m faced against a taunting enemy. In that respect, David is the ultimate character to the story of our lives. But Louie Giglio’s comment continues, who is David?
And for the first time in my life, I heard a sermon on David and Goliath where David is representative of Jesus.
Jesus is the giant killer. Does that fact not wake us all up? Hello? We are not David. You are not David. I am not David. Jesus is David! Jesus fights the battles for us. Jesus stares down the face of impossible odds. Jesus takes up his sling. Jesus selects five smooth stones. Jesus takes aim at the giant. The giant falls because of the work of Jesus.
Louie Giglio. Goliath Must Fall. Thomas Nelson.
That being said, I want to take a moment to clarify that I am not saying that David was actually Jesus in another bodily form. I’m saying that the story of David and Goliath is about Jesus, and the battles he has won in your life. I’m not going to shy away the fact that life can be stressful. And sometimes that stress makes you feel like you’re up against the world. Living with Jesus makes everything a little bit lighter, if that makes any sense.
That being said, there are 3 points here:
We are taught to take courage from the shepherd boy.
We are called to participate with Jesus in the battle.
He is the one who comes into our Valley of Elah (I don’t remember what this is about but the pastor said it and it sounds fancy).
As I began writing this article, one of my friends twettered (lol, sounds better that tweeted):
The Lord will fight for you, you only need to be still.
Exodus 14:14
Which I was surprised is actually in the Bible. Because the more common verse that comes to mind is:
Be still, and know that I am God;
Psalm 46:10
Both verses are well served in this case. While we may feel like sometimes we are up against the Goliaths in our lives, Jesus is in control. And sometimes, part of being a Christian is to slow down and be still. Because we serve a master who has already won the battle. Who is already in control. And we, as his followers, can take great joy in serving such a wonderful God.
In November of 2018, TIME published an article reporting that life expectancy dropped for the third year in a row, partly due an increase in the number deaths by suicide and drug overdoses (labeled as accidental injuries). The interesting fact is that these types of deaths have risen more than heart disease and cancer, which remain the 2 leading causes of death in the United States.
While the TIME article reiterated data that was available as early as February of 2018, the article went viral because it describes an emerging narrative that contrasts sharply from the typical crisis of cancer and heart disease. In the narrative of American health and longevity, of all things, death by suicide continued to grow for the third strait year. In some respect, I think this touches on an emerging narrative of mental health. But before you panic and can your therapist, take a look at the data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The data brief concerning 2017 mortality illustrates the following:
In that sense, heart disease and cancer continue to be the proverbial elephant in the room. Meaning that if you’re concerned about your life expectancy (or quality of life), you are well served to eat right, exercise, and take care of your body. But in that graph, if you’re looking for increasing causes of deaths, unintentional injuries and suicide are pretty well defined. And since unintentional injuries includes drug overdoses, you have a story that more Americans are dying from depression, suicide, and drug overdoses. This is the picture, and it’s not pretty.
My Theory
As a non-scientist who has done absolutely no research to backup my opinion, I think that suicide and “unintentional injuries” speaks to a greater problem of clinical depression permeating through the United States. I base my observations upon the millions of hours I have spent surfing Reddit, Imgur, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms in which individuals frequently post satirical comments concerning death and depression. Oftentimes, these posts will speak about crushing debt, lack of career prospects, or serious issues with anxiety and overall health. That type of humor is something I just don’t understand. I certainly don’t think it’s funny to joke about suicide (and I struggle to relate to people who think it is). Perhaps I feel this way because life can be difficult. And sometimes I have moments where I think I really underestimated the strength of my parents, grandparents, and so forth. In many respects, their lives were much more difficult than mine.
From Imgur this very night writing this article!
That being said, there is one phenomenon that children incur today that is unique to our time. And that is the diffusion of electronic devices throughout lives. As a parent, I find it incredibly tempting to pull out my phone and read the news when I should be interacting with my family. And I really think my phone creates an environment where I’m okay with passive parenting. Or more specifically, passive attention. Now that my children are older, they are constantly deciding between going outside or watching endless videos of Minecraft. It creates a odd environment, and I think that environment is a little less wholesome.
Have you ever been on a date when someone pulls out their phone? Before you know it, both people are on their phones. And while I don’t want to be a crotchety, old grump attesting to “the good old days”. There is an implicit message that the phone is more interesting. And perhaps it is. But the problem is that the age-old human connection suffers, which has shown to be a strong influencer of good health and longevity. In the last iPhone release, Apple released a System app called “Screen Time” which reports the user screen time. Cell phones have become enough of an issue in my family that we’ve considered “electronic free Sundays”. We play board games and talk. Which leads me to my next point.
I have a bad habit of surfing the news for hours when I lie in bed before I go to sleep. If I let myself, I honestly could surf into the early morning, as all my news feeds are presented to me in an endless stream of data. I’ve often wondered how different our interaction would be if our data “streams” were concise reports that had clear beginnings and endings. Instead of a stream of Facebook friends who have more successful families than my own, I could review of report of my 5-10 friends and their weekend activities. Report completed? Time to go to bed. But I’ve noticed (with screen time) that my cell phone use has become an issue enough to influence my sleep patterns. Which influence my attitude, which influence my job performance, which influence my family. In some weird sense, my screen time is a subtle issue that colors my life. But Facebook in particular brings me to my next point.
Social media is overflowing with stories of the rich and famous, and their successful lives. LinkedIn (my personal favorite) contains more than 100,000 “life coaches” who will tell you that the secret to happiness, money, wealth, and fame is to wake up at 4:30 AM, run 5 miles, drink turbo coffee, work 18 hours, kiss your kids goodnight, and repeat. While I’m being somewhat facetious, Facebook is more seriously showing families that make me wish I was orphaned kid browsing through a catalog of wannabe parents. And part of it makes me feel depressed, because (like any beauty magazine), it leaves me wondering why my daughter was cut from the dance team, and why my other daughter didn’t make the A/B honor roll. In that sense, some of my favorite LinkedIn posts are people who are honest that sometimes life is hard. My mother used to tell me that every person puts their pants on 1 leg at a time. I’ll say it again. Every person puts their pants on 1 leg at a time.
Several days ago I saw a picture of Bill Gates waiting in a fast food line. The caption read “When you’re worth about $100,000,000,000, run the largest charity in the history of the world and stand in line for a burger, fries and Coke at Dick’s like the rest of us,” And this image couldn’t contrast more sharply than the life coaches on LinkedIn telling me to do more.
Posted by Mike Galos via Facebook, a Former Program Manager at Microsoft.
Which leads me to my last point. Social media is like a platform where nothing is real life. From instagram filters to touched up, carefully edited media, it creates an illusion of a good life that isn’t yours. And the more screen time I invest, the less happy I become.
If I were to prospect why there is an increase in drug use and suicides, I would imagine they are related to clinical depression. And I respectfully suggest that clinical depression is partly influenced by screen time. In that respect, I think Apple’s “screen time” is long overdue but tragically needed as our society becomes increasingly integrated with a perception of life that more closely resembles a beauty magazine.
So before I leave you with my theory that screen time is influencing American mortality rates (not to mention driving while texting), I want to leave you with a solution. Several years ago, I began a simple practice of writing down the best part of my day, on a daily basis. I got this idea from a TED talk by Shawn Achor titled “The happy secret to better work.”. In this talk, Shawn covers the obvious observation that happy workers are productive workers. And in this talk, he discusses a practice of changing yourself to be more positive. As someone who practices this daily, I can say it works. The oddity is that this practice has taught me to search for the best part of my day, if that makes any sense. For example, the other day I was biking home from work and I passed by a brand new wooden fence. The fence smelled wonderful. And at that moment, I didn’t say to myself, “Biking home sucks, it’s really cold.” I said to myself, “This fence smells absolutely wonderful. What a moment, biking home with the sun shining on my face.” At that moment, I knew this was the best moment of my day. This very morning, I spilled coffee in my car as I was driving to work. Thankfully, the coffee spilled in a plastic section of my car and was well contained. You know what? I was thankful that it was contained. Forcing me to recognize the positive has “rewired” my brain to search for the best moment. And oftentimes, that best moment is found in my interaction with another person.
If you are suffering from depression or anxiety, I strongly recommend that you seek out counsel from a medical professional. If you have thoughts of suicide, I strongly suggest you call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (or a medical professional). I once heard someone say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Don’t make permanent choices to temporary problems.
And lastly, put down your phone. It’s like reading a beauty magazine, it will make you feel ugly. And if someone didn’t tell you today, despite that the internet wants you to think – you are beautiful.
