In My Right Mind

So, I have this theory, which is, of course, inherently flawed by its very nature. Nevertheless, I wonder that my prayers and my worries occur in the opposite parts of my brain. No, really! Often, when I find myself lying awake in bed, wondering at what I've forgotten to do, or anticipate doing, the only thing that seems to shut my brain off is to begin to pray.

Now, some of you may wonder, "Not much of a prayer life, if you're falling asleep." Perhaps, though I've heard it evidences a deep trust in Christ. Either way, it works. And, don't think me too pompous by that statement; you need only note the time of this posting. My point is this: prayer demonstrates, I think, the antidote to our worry, because, in its very act, it places faith and trust in God above that He will hear, and He will answer, and He cares. When worry crowds my mind, I need only "cast my cares upon Him," who is able to shoulder my deepest need (forgiveness) and my smallest want (sleep). Just a thought; now, excuse me, while I pray myself back to sleep.

Book Review: Do Hard Things

Alex and Brett Harris say there is nothing extraordinary about themselves. They don’t think that there exists such a thing as an “average teenager.” But, as the title of their book suggests, they want to challenge youth to Do Hard Things. “At age sixteen, we interned at the Alabama Supreme Court. At seventeen, we served as grass-roots directors for four statewide political campaigns. At eighteen we authored the most popular Christian teen blog on the web. We’ve been able to speak to thousands of teens and their parents at conferences in the United States and internationally and to reach millions online. But if our teen years have been different than most, it’s not because we’re somehow better than other teens, but because we’ve been motivated by a simple but very big idea.” (pg. 4,5)

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations is written by teenagers primarily for teenagers, but everything said in it is applicable to adults as well. In a time and culture where youth are expected to ignore responsibility and simply have fun, this book is a challenge to use the teenage years to prepare for adulthood. “The teen years are not a vacation from responsibility,…they are the training ground of future leaders who dare to be responsible now.” (pg. 13)

The book is separated into three sections with the first considering the modern expectations of young people and what the Scriptures expect of young people. “People today view the teen years through the modern lens of adolescence – a social category of age and behavior that would have been completely foreign to men and women not too long ago…The term adolescence literally means ‘to grow up.’…The problem we have is with the modern understanding of adolescence that allows, encourages, and even trains young people to remain childish for much longer than necessary.” (pg. 33) “You won’t find the words teenager or adolescence anywhere in Scripture. And you won’t find any reference to a period of time between childhood and adulthood either. Instead you’ll find the apostle Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 13:11, ‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.’” (pg. 42) The Harris’ describe the “Myth of Adolescence” as being influenced by evolutionary thought and changing our mindset of youth being important producers in society to being largely only consumers who are expected to only have fun.

Transitioning from this challenge to the current thought of adolescence is the dare for Christian youth to be different from the world. Do Hard Things presents five challenges to youth to take on tasks that God is calling them to do and that nobody expects them to do. The “Five Kinds of Hard” that are explained in the second section of the book are:
1. Things that are outside your comfort zone.
2. Things that go beyond what is expected or required.
3. Things that are too big to accomplish alone.
4. Things that don’t earn an immediate payoff.
5. Things that challenge the cultural norm.
This is the meat of this book and a great message that not only should teens take to heart, but many Christian adults too.

The final section of Do Hard Things is basically a collection of inspiring stories of “ordinary teens” doing extraordinary things. It is hard not to be motivated by the stories of faithfulness of kids who desire to be obedient to Christ and not fall back on excuses that are supported by their humanistic culture. From kids who have raised thousands of dollars to feed starving children across the globe to other youth who decided to give up video games to be more committed to learning Scripture, these stories represent a future of Christianity that is ready to outshine the current generation of leaders in the church.

Do Hard Things contains a message that all teenagers and their parents need to understand. God gifted young people with much more ability to serve Him than we expect from them. Too often we don’t expect our children to be able to handle our adult ministry challenges, so we create separate youth ministries for them that are simpler. Instead of taking them along side us in big tasks, we send the youth to the mall or put a video game in front of them to keep them busy until they are old enough to step into adult ministries. This book dares youth to prove that God gave them potential to Do Hard Things and challenges adults not to expect anything less.

Book Review: The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Start a conversation today with a non-Christian and you may notice quite a bit of difficulty in maintaining a rational discussion. Today’s American culture is becoming much less familiar with the Christian story. Our country is becoming more biblically illiterate making evangelism a much longer more difficult endeavor. Many in our society don’t know who Jesus Christ is or what the cross represents. The number of people claiming to not believe in a God at all is on the rise. And increasingly, several dialogues may leave your head spinning or pounding as you try to understand the postmodern mindset that says you can’t know what is true or that all beliefs are true.

In The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, seven essays are compiled by John Piper and Justin Taylor explaining how we must engage this postmodernism with the truth of Christ. The authors who contributed to the book include: David Wells, Voddie Baucham Jr., D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, Justin Taylor, and John Piper. Each author biblically expounds on the importance of truth, joy, love, the gospel, and the church in relation to this increasingly postmodern world. Justin Taylor summarizes them all in the introduction; “The church should become that for which it was created, namely, the pillar and buttress of truth, joy, and love in order to display the glory of God and the supremacy of Christ in all things.” (pg. 14)

David Wells begins the book with a chapter calling for defending the truth of the Christian faith. Our culture is increasingly becoming pluralistic, seeing little difference in religions. The church has been unable to offer anything of deep meaning to the culture. It has tried to accommodate other religions to the point of offering simple life enhancement and appearing to be no different from the rest. We must strive to hold to truth, declaring the counter message that Christ is the only way. Instead of pandering to the culture’s ideas, we are to offer a message that contradicts the world’s ideas. “Is the evangelical church faithful enough to explode the worldview of this new spiritual search? Is it brave enough to contradict what has wide cultural approval? The final verdict may not be in, but it seems quite apparent that while the culture is burning, the evangelical church is fiddling precisely because it has decided it must be so like the culture to be successful.” (pg. 38)

In the chapter on Truth and The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, Voddie Baucham Jr. dissects the truth of the Bible in answering four basic questions of life: who am I, why am I here, what is wrong with the world and how can what is wrong be made right? He answers these in full detail by explaining that we are the beautiful creation of God; that we were made to give glory to Him; the thing that is wrong with the world is you and me through sin; nothing we can do can make it right, but Christ made it right by taking the punishment on the cross for us. “[According to postmodern secular humanism] the solution to our woes is more education and more government. That’s the only answer our culture can propose: teach people more stuff and give them more information…If you take a sinful, murderous human being and educate that individual, here merely becomes more sophisticated in his ability to destroy.” (pg. 57) Our only hope in the world is to throw ourselves at the mercy of God and trust in Christ for righteousness.

John Piper continues the theme of his entire ministry writing about joy in The Supremacy of Christ. He gives the condensed version of the chapter by saying, “(1) Jesus’ greatest joy is in the glory of his Father, and (2) he shares this joy with us by means of understandable propositions (or Bible doctrine) about himself and his Father and his work, which the Holy Spirit illumines and ignites as the kindling of our passion for Christ.” (pg. 72) Piper explains it as we are being made to be more like Christ, our greatest joy also becomes that of Him; giving glory to the Father. By revealing Himself through the Bible, he gives us an opportunity to know Him more and through that knowledge we find more joy in His infinite glory. “If you say, ‘My joy is in the journey toward knowing, not the arrival,’ you make an idol out of the journey and you turn heaven into a disappointment…If you get most of your joy from what you don’t know about God, God is not glorified in your joy. His Son and his Book and his world are the revelation of his glory. He has made the knowledge of himself possible…Therefore, the joy you have in what you know of God is intensified by the expectation that there is so much more to see. The mystery of what you don’t know gets its God-glorifying power from what you do know. God is not glorified by strong feelings of wonder that flow from ignorance of what he is like.” (pgs. 80-81)

Especially in our culture the word “love” is very misunderstood. We say so often the promise of John 3:16 and because of the misuse of the word we often miss the depth of God’s love. D.A. Carson discusses God’s love for us (and how we are to relate it to the lost world) by first meditating on the love within the Trinity. “All of this manifestation of glory, of the goodness of God, is displayed because the Father loved Jesus before the creation of the world. The thought is stunning. All this display of the glory of God focuses finally on the goodness of God in the cross and vindication of the Son for the sake of poor sinners – and al of it is grounded in the sheer love of the Father for the Son – the same love, Jesus insists, that the Father has for us.” (pg. 94) What an amazing thought that the all-sufficient Creator of the universe who was supremely satisfied with the love He shared within the Trinity, decided to create us humans to pour out even more of His love!

Tim Keller, in the chapter focusing on the gospel itself and how we must share it with the world, stressed the importance of being very clear in our presentations. The old ways of programmed, scripted evangelism don’t work anymore because of the biblical illiteracy of our country. We were a country founded on Christian principles and shaped by biblical themes. However, many people today on the street have never heard the Christian story or are completely ignorant of any biblical references. Keller explains that we must start our evangelism farther back at the existence of God and the creation of the universe far before we can walk someone through the Romans Road. “The problem with virtually all modern evangelism programs is that they assume listeners come from a Christianized background, and so they very lightly summarize the gospel and go right to [personal commitment]. But this is no longer sufficient.” (pg. 115) We must be complete in our gospel proclamations; not just declaring salvation from sins, but also giving hope of the restoration of all things. People recognize that something is wrong with the world, and we can give them hope of a new creation.

The final chapter is written by Mark Driscoll who challenges the church to stand for truth and be an example of Christ in the world. “Jesus is as popular, controversial, and misunderstood as ever. Therefore, it is imperative that Christians contend for a faithful and biblical Christology and contextualize that Christology for a fruitful and cultural missiology.” (pg. 127) There are a lot of popular “Christs” in the world today, but it is important for us to be clear which is the true Jesus revealed to us in the Bible. Many today focus on the humble incarnation of Christ and forget that He is the reigning King of kings who will return in flaming glory to pour out His wrath on sinners. We are commissioned to tell the world of His patience and loving-kindness that is displayed until the time He returns. Driscoll, however, reminds us that while we have been given this authority to proclaim the gospel message to the world, it is Christ who is in charge and we are simply to be an example of the humble Jesus who proclaimed the good news and sacrificed his life for those He loved. Similar to Keller’s essay, Driscoll says, “Sadly, too often the church is filled with language, customs, and styles that are so altogether foreign to the average lost person that unless contextualization occurs and explanation is given, lost people will remain, in Paul’s words, ‘foreigners’ and not friends.” (pg. 144)

The entire book presents concepts that are important for every faithful Christian to understand. As missionaries in our own sub-cultures we cannot assume a changing culture will understand and embrace our unchanging message. But, we must stand for truth while we live humble lives expressing joy in God and love for others that gives us an opportunity to explain the complete gospel to a world that misunderstands the message of Christ.

Those Sanctifying 'Lil Whipper-Snappers

We are, by nature, very selfish creatures. Think about it. We cry for milk from day one, we argue for our toys not long after that, and on and on it goes. As teenagers (and adults), we guard our reputation very closely. Call it what you want--self-preservation, the Freudian "id," your sin nature--but know that, at its core, it is nothing but unabashed selfishness.

That is why, I believe, God has especially ordained the institution of the family as a sanctifying means of grace. Our instinctual need for camaraderie, fellowship, love, and companionship requires, when rightly done, a level of self-sacrifice. Consider, gentlemen, when you began dating; if you cared at all about your date, you would go see that movie, even if it was a "chick flick," or you would try that new restaurant, ladies, even if it wasn't quite your taste. I even remember at my wedding ceremony being reminded that my wife and I were now one, and I must consider her needs as highly as my own.

And, now...well, the Lord has gifted us with a precious (albeit, very selfish) little girl. Now, more than ever, I understand the implications of love, and family, as it requires of me a level of selflessness I have never yet experienced. I surely never would have, either, by my own devices. I'm far too selfish to go looking for self-abasement.

And, so, God, in His sovereign grace and wisdom, has crafted our love relationships in such a way as to engender selflessness. I remember the day I came to terms with the fact that my aversion to having a child was not rational and fiscally prudent, as I would have liked to have believed. Rather, it was from selfish motives that I came to this conclusion, because I realized that, if I were to wait until I had enough money, or enough time, or even enough desire, that time may never come, when God has given me all the resources, here and now, to have said baby (Kristine's her name).

I simply can't get past the fact that God has, by sheer biology, created husband and wife with the ability to procreate, and I see now, from this side of parenthood, that it was to refine me that he graced our home with a screaming, fussy, poopy (sorry), tireless little helpless creature that insists I (and her mother, of course, and, all the more so) see to her every need. And, in the transaction, I further see that my perceived needs I had prior seem largely inconsequential.

Now, I don't want to rub insensitive to those who find themselves single, or unable to have children. By and large, however, it is God's design that we marry, and we have children. I fear our world's mentality has creeped into our church far too well, to allow us to think that it's mydecision, my body, my timetable. As children are a natural consequence of a God-honoring marriage, it seems it is His intention that we have them, as it is our express purpose on this earth to grow in grace, and experience deep, and satisfying, sanctification. But, that's just my opinion.