Month: October 2011

Pressed but not crushed

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20111028-124315.jpgI was 9 years old and I had just been captivated by the miracle working prowess of Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Roger Staubach. I had witnessed him rescue a plodding football team out of a Minnesota muck, and “hail-mary” my beloved team to victory in an NFC divisional playoff game.
Now, it was a few weeks later and the Cowboys were facing the team of the 1970’s, the Pittsburgh Steelers with all of their Hall of Famers. The rebuilding Cowboys with their “dirty dozen” rookies were not even supposed to play in this game. Nevertheless, I was emotionally and, might I say, spiritually invested in their unexpected success. Of course, as NFL Films often reminds us in their documentaries, ultimate success was not obtained this day by my football team and Roger Staubach fell one miracle short of a championship.

I am sure at the time that many fans, while disappointed, were able to reflect on the 1975 football season with a sense of pride and admiration, but as a 9 year old boy, it was not so easy for me, for my captivation had birthed expectation. In short, I had been enthralled by the sports miracle, and when another Staubach miracle fell short in the Super Bowl, I couldn’t soothe the pain with the proper reflection. As it became apparent the Cowboys would lose this game, I began to cry. I was crushed in the moment. My dad, either realizing the absurdity of a 9 year old boy crying over a football game, or as a means of hiding his own tears, sent me to my room and scolded me for taking the loss so hard.
Since then, there has followed 34 years of elations and disappointments while following the journeys of our local sports teams. Everything seemed to come full circle last night in game 6 of the World Series as my beloved Texas Rangers came with one strike of winning it all. Twice, in fact, they came within one strike only to fall prey to a Staubach-esque comeback to the St.Louis Cardinals. The disappointment I felt at game’s end is nothing like I ever felt in all my years of watching sports, but unlike my childhood experience I did not cry even though I wanted to. Perhaps my heart is too hard, or maybe I’ve experienced too much disappointment to be taken by surprise. After watching my team becoming immortalized in the wrong way last night, I have to say that in that moment, I once again was crushed.
Now it’s the morning after, and God’s mercies are new even for sports fans like me. With the proper perspective, I realize I witnessed one of the greatest games in World Series.
It is a realization that sports, while they are to be enjoyed, should never be joy. It is time, I feel, to step back and reflect on what all of last evening’s tense moments, rapid heartbeat inducing, and eventual crushing of spirit have taught me.
I am thankful today because of God’s grace through the consistent Gospel-centered preaching of the Village Church I receive each week, and the community of faith I am experiencing, that I can withstand anything that would try to crush my spirit ultimately. With grace-filled perspective, I see all too clearly that if I embrace this temporal world too tightly, I will fall as flat as the house built on sand. It’s not just the entertainments like sports, art, and music that I should not build my happiness on, but it’s everything that is temporal like career, money, marriage, parenthood, philanthropy, and anything else one can conceive of as being of utmost importance in this world. Everything created is temporal, but it’s also a gift from the Creator, not as a foundation for joy, but as a pointer to the only true Joy.
In the aftermath of disappointment, I am convinced that God gave sports as a gift to us. Its value as a gift however is not derived from its joy making capacities, but rather from its utter inability to sustain joy. Sports, like all temporal creations, are meant to show us that it is itself a dead end and there is only one person where Joy thrives and derives.
Holding on too tight to the temporal will eventually crush your spirit, but holding on the One who was crushed, body, soul, and spirit will provide you with the only foundation that can stand up to an ever increasing Joy that never fades and never disappoints.

In the garden

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Over the years I have been in marriage conferences and read Christian perspectives in marriage books. I’ve been exposed to marriage principles from tv talk shows and the covers of checkout stand magazines. What I often hear from both mainstream evangelical and secular sources on marriage largely centers on how-tos and techniques for improved marital relationships. For example, if a husband is disappointed with his sex life, then the problem is that he’s not washing the dishes or helping around the house. If he will just do something to show his spouse how much he loves her, then he will be rewarded. On the other side, if the wife will stay out of the way while the football game is on and play the Edith Bunker role by getting him a beer then she will show him the respect that he desires as a man, In return, she will have the husband she desperately longs for.

Of course, this is not the biblical model for marriage, in part, because we have either forgotten or never been taught that marriage as John Piper has stated, “is about keeping a covenant, as Jesus does with his bride the church”. Contrary to the predominate philosophy found in Christian bookstores, a happy marriage should not be the end goal in of itself.  Rather, the end goal for which marriage was instituted was to model the covenant-keeping, selflessness, and sacrifice of Jesus for His bride. God did not send His Son to die so that we would have happy marriages, He instituted marriage so that the Glory of His covenant-keeping Son would be known.

In Genesis, we are told that Eve was created as a help meet for Adam, so naturally our minds race to the ways a spouse can help her husband. She can cook, clean, make babies, and stroke his fragile ego, right?  But if we focus too much on the practical implications, I believe we miss the point of what a helpmeet’s responsibility is as revealed in scripture.

I find it interesting that in Genesis 2:15-17 after God lays out Adam’s responsibilities: work and keep the garden, refrain from eating the tree of knowledge of good and evil,  in verse 18 God identifies that “it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.”  So it would appear that Eve was created, in great part, to help Adam obey the command not to eat the tree. Disobedience would interrupt the rhythm of creation, bring chaos into the garden and would defile it’s purity. In summary, Adam’s failure to heed God’s command would desecrate the holiness of it’s surroundings by fracturing the relationship between God and man.  Adam was to protect the sanctity of the garden through cultivation and obedience. Eve was created to help Adam with this calling. In the first marriage, Adam and Eve were joined together in holy matrimony by God for this purpose. In other words, marriage was not only a covenant between man and woman, it was/is a covenant between man, woman, and God.

Tragically, by one man’s sin, the landscape changed catastrophically, and death became the norm. Miraculously, God has has since redeemed the garden (His holy dwelling) by the covering of guilt and shame through the sacrifice of His Son (foreshadowed by God for the first couple with an animal sacrifice). In time, the Serpent’s head was crushed by the bruised heel, and now redeemed, man is called once again to cultivate the “garden” within the confines of marriage. The wife still maintains her calling of helpmeet and fulfills her calling to help her husband maintain and cultivate a holy dwelling place for God.  Of course, cultivating is as much about pruning and weeding as it is fertlizing and nourishing which means there are practical implications in how we love our spouses that we work out each and every day. But the problem with the age with it’s techniques and how-tos is that it often results in begrudging submission.  A healthy biblical model of marriage is one that begins with God and makes Christ the center as was designed by Him.

A Christ-centered marriage tells a story, but it’s not our story, it’s His story. For He alone loves freely and not begrudgingly.

New things

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Matt Chandler has spoken of how things that are new are often accompanied by an intoxicating high.  Whether it be a new smartphone, new car, new job, and even a new blog as I am writing today, there seems to be this “buzz” that we experience with the acquisition of new things. I felt it when I registered my new domain, “Grace Breaks”.  How elated I was that this domain was available to me and how jazzed I was when I envisioned future posts that I would write under this new moniker. New found inspiration was brimming over.  On the other side, however, how depressed I often become when new things become old things. How disenfranchised I am when my 3-0 fantasy football team drops to 3-1.  How disillusioned I am when the job I work each day no longer generates the gratitude that being newly employed once brought. Instead, the same job that I was thankful for now stimulates disappointment and distress. (especially on Monday).  Instead of overflowing with gratitude, my spirit ignites complaint-fueled blame.
Interestingly, it is God who designed our souls for the excitement of new things. Imagine the racing heart of the first Adam as he was introduced to the first Eve. Contemplate the wonder and excitement they felt as they discovered a new species of plant or bestowed a new name for a newly discovered animal. God gave them a garden that would have taken centuries to fully explore and cultivate. Then imagine the adrenaline that shot through Eve’s body as she held a forbidden fruit with its sweet aroma and ripe disposition. Then imagine the dissatisfaction a few seconds into the first bite of what must have been the best tasting food God ever created! Their creator-designed intoxication led to a hangover of guilt and shame.
When our desires lead to disappointment, it’s easy to blame the objects of desire. “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” replied Adam to God’s question of how his eyes were opened. But when we blame the object of desire, aren’t we essentially blaming the God who created the object?  Isn’t that what is most repulsive about Adam’s answer? “(the woman) whom YOU GAVE ME”? When Eve was asked why she ate the fruit, she answered “the serpent deceived me.” Eve told the truth. She was deceived. but it was Adam who actually blames God for his disobedience! Adam championed the Serpent’s lie. it’s God’s fault!
Of course, the difference is, we live in an age of enticement. Our cultural environment is sexually charged, and technology driven. Instead of a single forbidden fruit in the midst of a holy garden, we lustfully pilfer through a forest of diseased trees, and we are equally infected.
As Chandler always says, the objects of desire were never meant to “terminate upon themselves”. Rather, these objects, these desires, were created for our joy in glorifying God.  Until we begin to see new things in the light of God’s glory, we will continue to experience short-term highs, forever searching for the next new thing. One day, Christ, seated on His heavenly throne, will “make all things new”. He goes on to say that He will satisfy our thirsts (desires) with the “spring of the water of life without payment.” At that future moment, HE will be THE object of desire, and new things will be forever redeemed.