Tag: Faith

A Psalm of… Descent

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Psalm 91 is all marked up in my Bible. It is a prayer song about God’s protection, and it was a particularly sweet reminder of God’s character in a season when I needed to remember God’s ‘feminine’ side—that God gathers us under wings to protect and shield us like a mother bird. 

But I never really thought Ps 91 was a promise for me. After all, it was probably written by David, and we all know David was a man after God’s own heart. He sinned and made mistakes, sure, but I still don’t presume to walk as closely with God or have as much faith as David did. And for crying out loud, Satan quotes this psalm to JESUS when he’s being tempted in the wilderness. In Caroline paraphrase, he says “Jump off this roof and God will catch you, because the Psalm says God will command his angels to catch you and hold you up so you won’t even brush your foot on those rocks below.”

Read Psalm 91 for yourself. It makes these beautiful promises about God’s protection, about how he is our refuge from disease and terrors and violence and other dangers. But the promises are always for whoever lives in God’s shelter or whoever professes God to be their refuge: “Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him…” That’s all well and good, and of course I would say that God is the one who protects me, but do I really believe and live that with 100% of me? I don’t think I can claim to—I have doubts, and I trust in insurance or people or other things for protection more than I’d like to admit. So I didn’t think these promises would literally apply to my life. 

Without putting it into these words, I believed, “If I trust and love God enough, then I earn the kind of loving loyalty he promises in that psalm. And there’s no way I love and trust God enough. So those promises can’t be for me.” 

I didn’t think Psalm 91 was useless, I just thought it showed God’s character and the kind of love he shows to people who fully depend on him. I didn’t think I belonged in that category. I belong in the category with the disciples, “You of little faith,” or even, a little more kindly, with the man who comes asking Jesus for a miracle and says, “I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!” 

But that’s just what I learned recently. Nowhere does Psalm 91 say we earn God’s kindness with our faith. In fact, that’s contrary to everything the New Testament teaches about how God saves us. I believe that God saved me out of his grace and kindness, but somehow along the line I lost the thread and believed that certain other blessings or kindnesses from the Lord had to be earned by my faith and obedience. And that’s simply not the equation the Bible uses. God is the Father of all good gifts, not all good merited-awards. And when Jesus teaches about prayer, to illustrate the point he asks, ‘if you earthly fathers know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your heavenly father?”

God’s protection from the dangers of this world is a gift we do not earn. Like Job says, we know that that sometimes he gives and sometimes he takes away (that protection), but it is not on the basis of how strong our faith in him is. In fact, God’s unearned protection in the midst of those dangers is the very thing that often grows our faith. And God chose to teach me that by way of a very memorable object lesson recently. 

On the first Friday of September I was taking a recovery day at home after a week of all-day teaching. I was bouncing back and forth between work on the computer and work around the house and checking in on the repairmen who could finally come by now that I was home for the day. A little after 3:20 I decided to pop my head through the attic access to see if I could find any evidence of termites or some other pests causing the problems with my electrical wiring. I tugged on the ladder the electrician had been using to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere, and then started up. Just after I poked my head through the ceiling 11’ up, I felt the ladder twitch underneath me. I bent my head back down below the level of the ceiling and saw the ladder start slowly making skid marks down the wall, and that’s the last thing I remember. 

The ladder fell all the way to the floor, taking me with it, and I must’ve lost consciousness on impact. I bruised several bones and sprained an ankle, and smashed my face diagonally on the ladder rail. I fractured my lower jaw and three teeth, and shattered my upper jaw and chipped, shattered, or dislodged 5 teeth on the top. I sustained a concussion, and may also have caused hairline fractures in my foot and below my left eye. 

About 30 or 40 minutes after I climbed the ladder, my memory clicked back on, and I was sitting on my couch next to a friend, with a hand full of blood and some teeth or bone chips. Somehow in my daze after consciousness returned, I called a nurse friend to come and help me. I still have no memory of that call, or her arriving as quickly as she could. She got me to the hospital nearby, and scans confirmed no brain bleeds or skull or spinal fractures. I was transferred to a different hospital for more thorough scans where everything was confirmed a second time, and I had surgery to remove three teeth that were lost causes and stitch up my gums. I was hospitalized just shy of a week, and then came home to recover from a concussion that’s lingered for more than a month and the ongoing dental work that’ll take several months to complete, including time for my broken jaws to heal. 

Sometime in Admitting at the hospital, while I was still spitting blood into a cup and we hadn’t done any imaging of my head or moved me to a room yet, it started to dawn on me how much worse the fall could’ve been. Yes, I had several goose-eggs and an impressive set of Gollum teeth, but I hadn’t directly hit my forehead or gashed open any part of my face. My alertness had quickly returned, and my relatively low pain level we knew even then meant it unlikely I had fractured my spine or skull or caused any brain bleeds, which could lead to more permanent neurological damage. And the next day after I transferred hospitals the doctor’s mouth literally dropped open after I was able to explain the fall and injuries in detail, and get up and walk around: “You shouldn’t be able to walk after a fall like that.”

It was then that God reminded me of Psalm 911, and I began to process God’s incredible protection. I remember silently weeping once in the hospital after the lights turned out and I knew I could rest peacefully for the night. “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Surgery on my mouth took a few days longer to schedule than I had hoped, but my fear of infection or worse proved groundless. “Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness…” And repeat scans of my brain showed nothing worse than a concussion, even though I had been at home alone with no one to anticipate or help immediately after the accident. “Nor the disaster that strikes at midday.” Eventually I connected the dots and realized that a fall like that could have killed me under different circumstances. “Though a thousand fall at your side, thought ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you.” And on the third day after the fall, with many of you praying for me, my sprained ankle that should have taken enough force to shatter it could suddenly and miraculously bear weight and I could walk without support. “If you make the LORD your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home. For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.” 

Even now as I write I still tear up, overwhelmed by the Lord’s gracious protection that I did not deserve. God took care of me in the initial accident, with the healthcare I could access afterward, and through so many of you far and near. I have been surrounded by love and people checking in. I still smile with gratitude for all of you when I use the body soap someone brought me in the hospital. And I have been dependent on the kindness of strangers and friends who have given me medical care, visited me at home or in the hospital, helped me with errands, and borne with me as I dealt with the ongoing effects of the concussion.

Humor and humility have been the most gracious and necessary ways to accept my limitations as I’ve healed. I’ve joked many times about how I only damaged the breakaway portion of my face, or the dentures and cane I earned myself. I’ve matched my bruises to purple clothes and joked about being Gollum from Lord of the Rings or Toothless from How to Train your Dragon. I had to have patience with a brain that processed emotions like a toddler and couldn’t remember how to handle social interactions. I had to let being a single independent woman go more times than I wanted and ask for help with simple tasks like cleaning my house or preparing food or picking up groceries. I had to humbly accept the massive privilege I have to complain about oatmeal and soup when many of my friends would go hungry if they had to have a special diet, or the privilege I have to immediately access health care many of my friends cannot even consider, without worrying about the price tag. Many times the jokes come easily and the humility has taken more work. 

But there again God has shown kindness I did not deserve, and answered my prayers with the humility and strength and endurance I needed. Not long after I returned home from the hospital, I found myself crying again over a minor inconvenience because my concussion hampered me from letting it roll off like I normally would. I sat down at the piano to see if music would come back easier than other things. Soon I found myself playing and singing, lisping praise through broken teeth, and weeping from blackened eyes. Moments like that have only grown my faith—moments when God met me in my brokenness and was sufficient to calm my mind or quiet my heart. God deserves praise in our brokenness because of his unsurpassed kindness, and that same posture of praise can grow our hearts along a trellis of gratitude instead of bitterness. 

Say what you want about coincidence or spiritual forces we cannot see, but the teaching I finished just before I fell with the ladder was a Bible-story based mental trauma healing program with Sudanese church leaders here. They were reminded in fresh ways that God cares about their immense suffering and is with them in it. They learned how to support the many freshly traumatized refugees in their communities and their churches who have recently arrived fleeing the war in Sudan. And many of them tearfully praised God for the encouragement and healing they found in his Word. Our first story began with God’s perfect unspoiled creation in the Garden, and our last story finished with the hope that all will be perfected and healed once again in the heavenly garden after Jesus returns. I had been meditating on a beautiful lament song, Garden Hope,2 that reminds us of God’s good plan while we wait here in-between the gardens. 

My fall reminded me afresh of those realities. And as long as my body and mind are still bruised, I carry with me physical reminders that though we suffer now, one day we will be healed. I was also reminded afresh to practice what I teach when my injuries forced me into a vulnerability that tied me closer to my community here. When my tribe of Sudanese sisters here finally worked out of me how badly I had been injured, they insisted on visiting me like a shut-in. I cried again because I couldn’t remember much Arabic and didn’t know how mentally stable I would be. But those women, who have been through persecution and famine and war and worse aren’t fazed by much, and they wept over me. They prayed and encouraged and looked me in the eyes to tell me they knew exactly why I fell—because our Enemy was not happy with the life-changing hope they had been reminded of and equipped to share that week. They reminded me that as refugees they know what it feels like to be far from family when you need or miss them most, and repeatedly told me that I am their sister and they are ready to help at a moment’s notice when I need anything. When I mentioned Psalm 91, they smiled and said, “That’s our psalm,” and quoted their favorite parts of it from memory. It sounded even sweeter in Sudanese Arabic from the mouths of friends who have personally known God as their refuge and protection in many hardships through the years. 

I’ll be recovering from that kind of love for quite a while too. In the meantime, my concussion seems to be mostly cleared except for the lingering slowness with decisions, communication, and emotional processing. I still have a minor limp that will heal with time, along with the other broken bones in my face. I got some temporary teeth to last me until I can get permanent implants around the end of the year. And I’m still managing some minor pain and fatigue while God continues to heal my body. But God has tattooed Psalm 91 on my heart and I can’t help but praise him for his rescue and protection. 

The LORD says, “I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.
I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”

Ps 91:14-16

  1. All Psalm 91 quotations here are taken from the NLT. ↩︎
  2. Click below to listen to the song. ↩︎

War Stories part 2

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Stories have always helped to give me a picture of something I can’t otherwise understand. A story takes something abstract like a war, and gives it faces, places, names, and feelings. When the people in the stories feel real to you, you can’t help but feel what they feel as your mind’s eye sees what they see. Stories teach our hearts empathy and can shape our emotions into actions—whether they be prayer, lament, protest, or giving. 

I’ll continue sharing Sudanese stories with you in this post to let you meet them in their experiences so you can better understand the war they’re living through. The following stories are difficult. They deal with genocide, rape, war violence, and other traumas. Each section has a heading so you can avoid topics that might be too difficult for you, but know that I never give graphic details. My goal is to walk with you as a guide, not to leave you feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. So, like in the last post I’ll share scripture and prayer points that have helped me respond to each story. 

My hope is that these stories will help you to remember the Sudanese—with prayer, with visits, with kindness, in whatever ways the Lord prompts. One of the most common fears I’ve encountered with any refugee friends is the fear of being forgotten and left alone. Too often in their times of deepest need they have been met with indifference and neglect, if not cruelty. By the very nature of their situations, they have lost so many relationships through war or displacement that the thought of being ignored or left alone deeply grieves them. They can carry a deep sorrow that people may shrink away from them in their need, or forget them because it’s uncomfortable to face their situations. Of course they need material help, but the emotional gift of sharing in their grief or offering a prayer is also important, and it often lasts longer. So for this reason I share their stories with you, so they will not be forgotten. 

Trauma: The Reporters

 I met both women over a year apart, but they were alike in many ways. Both were capable women who seemed to be the keystone of their families. And both had to flee Sudan for their lives and to protect their families from further threat. One woman was a highly educated reporter, and her commitment to exposing injustices in a country destabilized by the brewing war landed her in the crosshairs of powerful people. She showed me pictures of her acid burns the first time we met, almost proudly. Her reporting was helping to spread her people’s stories so the world could see and respond with help. 

She was now in her second country since she fled, and she left family members behind she hoped no one would targeted now that she was out of the way. She and one of her daughters with her still lived like they were hunted, careful of how loudly they spoke certain things, and fleeing people who still threatened them for what they believed and shared even two countries away. 

The other woman had lived in an internally displaced people’s camp within Sudan before she fled years ago. She reported serial rape in the camps to authorities, hoping someone with the power to stop it would intervene. But through corruption, her reports were leaked, and the very people raping to control women and frighten them into silence targeted her and her family. Her story of a chance warning and her harrowing escape even while she could hear her children crying and her husband being beaten was horrific. But she knew that leaving would spare them further abuse. So now she had lived for years separated from her children, the youngest of whom was an infant when she had to flee alone. 

Both of these women have been blacklisted, and cannot return to their homes for the foreseeable future for the safety of their families. Both are among the strongest and most resilient women I know, but the human mind and body have their limits. Mental trauma of this magnitude is debilitating, especially if you experience it in a foreign country without a support system or access to counseling. The second woman was finally reunited with her children who fled the most recent wave of violence. But she suffered from memory loss, crippling anxiety, and debilitating chronic physical issues that were the product of years of extreme cumulative stress from the mental trauma she had endured. 

I recently spoke with a South African eye surgeon after she served for two weeks giving vision-restoring cataract surgery to Sudanese. She was confused at how little response they gave when suddenly they could see again, especially compared to some of her regular patients who would dance or sing. We discussed their mental trauma, and the self-preservation of low expectations and not daring to believe change for good can really last. But many Sudanese I know also carry with them a “sideways hope.” Outwardly they expect the worst case scenarios, but inwardly they bravely keep hope kindled in their heart. As a favorite writer of mine so well described it, “For people habitually up against it… hope is something too sacred to be spoken. It belongs in the heart, not in the mouth.”[1] The mental trauma Sudanese carry may be disabling, but many still cherish hope when they have every reason not to. They may try to hide the effects of their trauma because they have a distorted sense of what every person should be able to carry without complaining, but hidden or not, their resilience is radiant. 

Genesis 16; 21:1-21

 Hagar’s story of trauma, abuse, and shame can feel too heavy for the cursory treatment the Bible seems to give it. But what Scripture doesn’t do is hide the shameful treatment she received at the hands of Abraham and Sarah. The account of her story does not excuse those parents of our faith of their behavior or explain it away. As Muslims, many of the Sudanese are Hagar’s spiritual descendants. Like her, their very presence is too often considered a shameful testament to someone else’s sin we would rather forget. They are often expected to cover or hide themselves to protect their communities from the shame of exposure—of domestic abuse their bodies would show, of the brutal control their female genital cutting testifies to, of the rape cowardly men forced on them and shameful men ignored. But the Bible does not ignore Hagar’s story. In fact, it takes care not to hide the sin of powerful men like Bathsheba’s king, and the dynasty-founding families of Dinah and both Tamars. Genesis takes care to call Hagar Abraham’s wife, to show in even more disgraceful detail the treatment she deserved but was denied. And at the climax of Hagar’s reprehensibly traumatic story, when Abraham and Sarah send her away rather than face their sin and its consequences, God SEES her. And HEARS her child’s suffering. God drew near to the broken-hearted Hagar just like he does to traumatized Sudanese women whose depth of pain no one else truly sees or hears.  

Pray for Sudanese dealing with mental trauma. 

  • Pray for God to provide families and communities they can safely share their experiences with so they can be comforted.
  • Pray for mental health professionals and therapy options to help Sudanese process their traumatic experiences.
  • Ask God to comfort them with his love and be near them with his Spirit so they do not feel alone or abandoned in their suffering and its aftermath.
  • Pray that Sudanese men and women would not carry the shame of what has been done to them and would be able to clearly see that their value is not diminished by the cruelty they have been shown.
  • Pray that like the Biblical authors, we who are not Sudanese would not cover or ignore their suffering, but instead would respond with respect and compassion. 

War: The Village School

We drove three hours from the nearest hub town across sometimes indiscernible roads to reach their village. “Out in the middle of nowhere” was an understatement. We traveled with friends of ours as they were returning home. Their grins in the back of the car were the biggest I’ve ever seen them, as they chatted with excitement for us to meet their people and see their home. 

 We shared their excitement to get to see their homeplace, but that wasn’t the only reason we were going. This village, out in the middle of nowhere, with no military base anywhere nearby, had recently been bombed from the air. One bomb fell harmlessly up in the mountains where no one lived. Another fell down a well and only property was damaged. But the third was dropped on a school while it was in session. Around fifteen children and teachers died on site, and dozens more were injured. We were traveling out with our friends to offer our condolences and sit with the village in its grief. 

I experienced a disorienting emotional whiplash as we finally rounded the last bend and caught our first glimpse of the village through the scraggly bushland surrounding it. The lively chatter in the car fell deadly silent as we caught sight of the school partially in rubble. A subdued voice asked if we wanted to stop there first and see it, but someone told the driver to go ahead and take us to the gathering point where we planned to meet everyone. I tried not to think of the sound of the plane overhead, or the chaos that would have ensued as this peaceful village frantically rushed to dig children out of the rubble. 

We sat with the village leaders and some of the fathers who had lost family members. They showed us kind hospitality and eagerly welcomed us. We offered prayers and some encouragement from God’s Word. But our words and presence with their grief felt so small in the shadow of that school, under the gaze of those fathers’ hollow eyes. There were not strategic resources the military could have gained here. This village and its people weren’t even active in the war that was taking place farther north. The bombing was completely senseless, and could have no other purpose than fear and destruction. But in every story I’ve heard, that’s how this war is. It’s senseless violence that will consume you if you try to understand the why behind it. 

As we left I experienced that emotional whiplash again. I was still mulling over the experience when my friend stood on tiptoe to poke his grizzled head through the car window and talk to me as I was climbing in. “You didn’t have time to come to my house this time!” he said. The engine was turning over and we were seconds from pulling out. “Next time you come you are welcome! You’ll have to meet my son! He’s the one your age, and he could use another wife!” he joked, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. As we pulled out past the school that I barely even noticed after that proposal, I realized that was how they did it. This village lived under the looming war balancing sorrow when it struck with laughter and kindness when they could find it. 

Job

The book of Job isn’t a comfortable one. The conversations between Job and his ‘friends’ seems like a maze of the accepted wisdom of his age and ours, which God discounts by the end anyway. We can be tempted to see the final point of Job as, “Suffering doesn’t make sense. Period.” But in the end of the book, what Job learns when God speaks is that we may not understand God’s long-term plans or the big picture or how he enacts justice. But suffering isn’t senseless. Even if we don’t understand, God sees and plans so much more than we can. And not only that, God heard Job every step of the way. God knew Job’s suffering and grief, his faithfulness and his despair. God knew Job and honored him—both when he proudly pointed Job’s faithfulness out to Satan and when he blessed Job after the suffering passed. 

We cannot understand the senseless suffering in Sudan, but by wisdom so much higher than ours, God does. He knows and feels each broken heart and cherishes each soul that faithfully clings to him in the suffering as Job did. But Job saw God’s plan only imperfectly. When he begged for a helper, someone to take the suffering in his place and advocate for him to God, it was the wish of a broken man who thought it impossible. But after Jesus, we and the Sudanese who suffer can see that wish realized. The Holy Spirit is our advocate to God and can bring us near to him. And Jesus not only took God’s punishment in our place, but physically shared in the same kinds of suffering we may face and empathizes with us as we endure. 

Pray for Sudanese impacted by the war and its violence. 

  • Pray for those who have lost loved ones, that God would be near to them in their grief.
  • Pray for Sudanese who believe God only expects them to endure suffering. Ask that they would understand our God is a suffering servant who can join them in their pain and sorrow.
  • Pray that through this war, God would draw many Sudanese to himself as they search for someone to save and protect them.
  • And pray for Sudanese to come to know Jesus personally as the same redeemer and helper Job hoped for. 
Image generated by Gencraft LLC. Text from the NLT.

Genocide: The College Student

I sat across the supper table from him after a discussion about his potential. He had just finished high school—late because of the years of interruption from the war—and he was considering where he might be able to get an IT degree. He was by most measures a fairly normal college-aged guy. He held his smartphone and his attention drifted to it during lulls in the conversation. He had just teased me like my own brother his age about how much shorter I was than him. But in a few important ways, he wasn’t any normal college guy. He is part of the Masalit tribe, a target of the quickly spreading genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region and of what was widely known as “the first genocide of the 21st century.” That first genocide began in 2003, just in time for the circumstances of his birth to be wrapped up in its horror. He had been displaced from his home for years and I’d never heard him talk about his family before, if they were even still living. 

After a break in conversation I broached the subject of the current genocide happening under the cover of the war, and asked him if other Darfurian tribes besides his were targeted as well. Contrary to the hesitance I expected, his eyes lit up. “That’s actually a very good question,” he said, eager to explain to someone who cared to know. He launched into a welcome history lesson, quick to share about his people’s dignity and strength and their difficult past. “My country,” he would say, as he proudly showed pictures of the flag, or political borders, or the beautiful landscape. He radiated a fierce sense of national identity and autonomy as he shared about the many and complicated reasons others are willing to commit genocide and martial rape. Many want control of his people’s land and its bountiful resources, and there are generations of tensions between Arabized tribes who consider the Masalit and other Darfurians inferior and want to rid the world of them. Some in Darfur want to split from Sudan entirely to be their own nation. But as things are now, many Masalit like my friend are displaced in many different countries, and some even as far as Europe. 

I mentioned the international news coverage, and how more people around the world are starting to hear about his people and what they’re suffering. He said, “What you see in the news is not real. What I have seen with my own eyes, the killing and the raping, you cannot understand that from the news.” He sat quietly for a while, leaving unsaid many more atrocities than any 23-year-old should have to experience. 

And then just like that, he flipped his phone around again to show me a picture of two hyena cubs he had caught and raised. He explained how abundant they were in Masalit land and how people caught or raised them for meat. But with a crooked grin he told me how he’d managed far from his homeland to catch and raise these two—Biter and Scratcher in his language—like security dogs, and later sold them to help support his schooling. He was carrying on as normal a life as any 23-year-old could despite the genocide: trying to make ends meet, enjoying a thrill of danger and the shock value of his adventures, wanting to travel the world and get an IT degree to get a stable job and have a future. 

Habakkuk

On the year anniversary of the coup, I sat with three Sudanese pastors around a table and they shared what they thought about the war and the future of Sudan. They lamented how many were suffering without cause. Some said they thought God was using the war to root out wicked men in power. They discussed how the instability exposed false gods or faith in the wrong deity and gave people maybe their first real prospect of turning to God. They agreed that only God could deliver the people of Sudan from this war and save them. One said, “God is still doing his work in the middle of this war.” 

These observations are exactly the same as Habakkuk’s in his small book. He considers the wickedness of his own people, and then regards God’s plan first with horror when he hears that a nation will bring war to them. Like Habakkuk’s people in his time, the Sudanese face unimaginable cruelty and violence. But also like Habakkuk’s people, they are having a chance to see God’s work that is hard to believe without seeing it for yourself. Muslims from tribes that cannot remember a time before Islam are uprooted and questioning for the first time if their faith is true, and if it can sustain them. At the end of his book, Habakkuk comes to an acceptance born only of his faith in a powerful but loving and merciful God. Though devastation surrounds him, Habakkuk chooses to depend on the Lord to be his strength. Even in famine, violence, and disaster, the God who saves him inspires joy in Habakkuk’s spirit. This same God calls to the Sudanese and offers them the same hope. 

Pray for the Sudanese facing genocide. 

  • Pray that God would provide a way for them to get to safety.
  • Pray that their homes and cultures and livelihoods would be preserved through the upheaval as they flee.
  • Pray for God to protect especially the defenseless among the targeted Darfurian tribes.
  • Pray for those committing the genocide—that God would help them to see clearly through their generations of hatred and the battle fever so that they cannot murder another man, woman, or child without feeling the eternal weight of their actions.
  • Ask God for the justice only he can give, and for ultimate reconciliation and peace. 
  1. Go read Benjamin Myers’ post, “Advent in Oklahoma,” on the Front Porch Republic site. He wrote a beautifully expressive reflection of a waiting hope particular to Oklahoma Plains people. As an Oklahoman myself working with Sudanese, I found a sort of kinship in the way we both persistently, stubbornly wait and silently hope. https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/12/advent-in-oklahoma/ ↩︎

War Stories part 1

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The War

Sudan has been at war for over a year. Many still have not recovered and returned ‘home’ from the last waves of violence, and the country was just finally beginning to let out its breath and hope for a time of peace. But instead, the peaceful civilian government they hoped for a year ago is only a broken dream now. The capital city of Khartoum is a smoking, shattered ruin. Much of the country has been ravaged by war as two military factions fight for control over the hollow husk of a country they have left in their wake. 

Millions of people have been displaced from their homes and fled to different parts of the country or to other countries entirely. Again and again the mass casualties from these clashes are civilians caught in crossfire. People can’t access necessities like medicine, food, basic health care, or clean water because soldiers raid or destroy what little is available. Roads aren’t safe and gas and transportation prices are unthinkable because the military routinely seizes goods and demands bribes for passage along the normal supply routes. 

Schools and orphanages have been bombed. City blocks and villages alike have been burned to the ground in places. People flee their homes when they are so desperate escaping on foot is their best option, only to lose family members along the way to military factions that bomb and burn civilian targets for no other reason than to spread fear and destroy resources. 

Systematic rape is an expected weapon of war to control and terrorize both the men who can’t protect their families and the women who lose their social standing and the last scraps of morale they had to hold their broken families together. Sieges and road blocks create artificial famine to demoralize and destabilize any who would resist military forces. And under the cover of this horrific war, the sparks of genocide have already started to rage into wildfire. Whole swathes of the country are now depopulated of certain Darfurian tribes; they have fled because they’re convinced that life in a refugee camp is better than continuing to watch the military target and murder their people by the hundreds. 

The Stories

These horrors—genocide, famine, inescapable trauma, displacement, and war—are so far outside our experience they’re hard to understand. Something that evil, that abominable, is hard enough to wrap our minds around, especially when we can’t put a face to it. So I want to give you stories. I want to give you some ‘faces’ to this war so that you can understand a small part of it. 

I’m no reporter. I’m not writing to propose a solution or help you choose a side. I can’t give you the facts and figures of the war in Sudan. But I can share stories. Sudanese who have survived these atrocities are my friends. Their stories weigh heavy in my heart, because through their experiences I have begun to understand the war. I hope that by sharing some of their stories, you can begin to understand too. 

May we together be driven to our knees in prayer. 

I won’t share these friends’ names, but perhaps that’s just as well. Their stories mirror so many others I have heard that, without names, at least one of these stories could apply to almost any given person who has been uprooted in Sudan. Be warned, these stories are difficult. But they’re worth knowing. These people are worth knowing and caring about. 

I’ll share one story in this post, and three others in the following one. Each story will illustrate some aspect of what Sudanese face: displacement, genocide, war, and trauma. To help as you hear these heavy stories, I’ll share some of the scripture and prayer points that have helped me process them with lament, hope, or truth that does not waver in the face of the suffering of this world. 

Displacement: The Sisters

These two women had been like sisters since childhood. They called each other by childhood nicknames, teasing back and forth good-naturedly about being old or crying like a baby while cutting onions. They had fled from the war back to the small village where they had grown up. Their jobs in the city were gone, so they took whatever work they could to make ends meet and support their families. They rarely spoke of their husbands, who were dead or no longer took part in the family. The women worked long hours and never complained. 

When I first met them they often talked about returning ‘home’ when the war settled down. They held out hope, and their contented joy came only from a deep faith that sustained them through their unimaginable losses of family members, future, and livelihood. They talked easily about crossing desert mountain ranges on foot as they fled. They shared grim jokes about the deadly scorpions and snakes they faced along the way. Their stories about bombed out buildings they took shelter in left a more haunted look behind their eyes. One of the few signs of trauma they couldn’t hold back betrayed the difficulties they had lived through: when you meet one of the women after a long time away, she breaks down into shaking sobs. For so many friends and family members, she never knew which goodbye would be the last one, and who wouldn’t survive until she could see them again. 

These ‘sisters’ are in a multi-stage displacement. First fleeing their city home with their children, they came back to the place of their birth, or their tribal homeland. Here, they could find work, speak the language, and rely on a network of relatives to help cushion their displacement when they arrived with little more than the clothes on their back. 

As the war dragged on though, they began to see that going back wouldn’t be an option anytime soon. In at least one of their cases, there was no ‘home’ to go back to. Their village home they were in now was never meant to be more than a stopover, and they were beginning to see they needed a better long-term option. 

After the war passed the one-year mark, the women started to talk of traveling elsewhere. One’s daughter needed somewhere with a university so she could study and hope for a job to make her future. The whole family would have to move with her, so they could work better jobs to afford to put her through school. As the war further dried up resources in their village home, the other woman needed more stable work just to support her family, and she hoped for a more consistent school for her younger children. Both women are contemplating a move to different countries now—with unfamiliar languages and cultures—for a better life for their children. They live in the uncertainty of not knowing when or if things will change back ‘home.’ They have decided it’s less risky for their family to move somewhere completely foreign than to wait with hope for an increasingly hopeless war to resolve. So they wait and hope for money to travel. And I like many of their other friends don’t know when or if I’ll see them again after they move. 

Jeremiah 29:1-14; Hebrews 11:13-16

We often forget the context of the famous verse, “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah wrote it in a prophetic letter to Israelites who were displaced from their homeland and had no idea when they’d return home or what to do in the meantime. God told the people to settle where they landed, to build and grow and marry and have families. If they worked to help the city flourish, they would flourish too—even as a displaced people inside the city. God promised the Israelites that one day he would bring them back home to their land. That same promise may not apply in the same way to displaced Sudanese, but we can hold to the promise that God plans to give them hope and a future. If Sudanese seek God like this passage promises, they will find him. And he may not bring them home in this lifetime, but they have a promise of a heavenly city that will be more a home to them than any place on earth could ever be. 

Pray for those displaced within Sudan.

  • Pray for God to provide for their daily needs like food and medical attention.
  • Pray also for their temporary new homes to provide some respite from the terror of war.
  • Ask God to give them family or friends to support them and help them to adjust after all they have experienced.
  • Ask God to give them wisdom to decide how long and where they should stay. 

Pray for those displaced outside of Sudan.

  • As they live among foreign cultures and different languages they can feel very isolated and alone. Pray for God to give them friends and neighbors who love them well and help them settle in their new homes.
  • Ask God to give them work that can support their families and build up their communities.
  • Pray for all of these displaced to know God’s peace, and to feel that he has been with them and guided their journeys to places of safety. 

Habakkuk Storied

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Sometimes the words in our Bibles become stale. I don’t mean that the words lose any power; I mean that we become so familiar with the cadences and phrases they lose some of their freshness for us.

Recently as I was studying justice, lament, faith, and abiding in the presence of God through difficult circumstances, I landed in Habakkuk. This short Old Testament book deals deeply with each of those topics. To ‘freshen up’ the words for myself, I went through the book phrase by phrase to soak in the meaning and re-word the Scripture as if I were preparing to learn it well enough to share Habakkuk’s call and response with the Lord as it was meant to be heard and shared originally. Below you’ll find my manuscript for a ‘storied’ version of Habakkuk, with no content changed from the Biblical narrative and only small phrasal changes. I hope you enjoy a fresh look at this incredibly timely book of the Bible. Try reading it aloud to yourself to give the text some extra life.

The prophet Habakkuk received this burden:

Habakkuk: God, how long do I have to call for help and you refuse to listen?

I yell for help: “Violence!” but you don’t save?

Why do you turn my head and force me to watch injustice?

Why do you let sin pass?

Ruin and hurt are in my face: there is too much fighting and division.

Because of it, the law is impotent and frozen, and right never wins.

The evil rope up and surround the good so that right and fair become crooked.

God: Watch the world and be completely shocked.

I’ll do something in your time you wouldn’t believe if I told you.

I’m grooming the Babylonians — merciless, rude, and unpredictable —

to burn through the earth and make foreign homes their own.

They fill people with terror, make their own rules, and make a name for themselves.

Their horses are faster than cheetahs and more fearless than wolves at nightfall.

They come at top speeds from farther than the eye can see.

They swoop down like a hawk to the kill, focused only on death.

Their armies oppress like a desert wind, catching hostages like dust.

They lecture kings and humiliate leaders.

They laugh tat fortresses and move the earth itself to conquer them.

They barrel through like wind with no obstacles, convicted men who deify their own power.

Habakkuk: Lord, haven’t you been around forever?

My God, my perfect God, we can’t die.

You elected them to carry out retribution.

Steady and Unchanging One, you picked them to punish.

Your gaze is too pure to look on evil.

Why do you let them betray?

Why do you sit quietly by while evil people eat up others better than themselves?

You make people like fish in a barrel, like fish with no leader, no one in charge.

The evil enemy catches all of them in traps,

lures all of them in, nets them with ease. 

So he is giddy with delight, and he worships his net.

He offers it food and rituals because his net lets him live like a king and feast like one too.

You’re going to let him keep pillaging the sea — wiping out empires ruthlessly?

I will be at my station on the watchtower of the defensive wall.

I’ll look for his answer, and for how I should reply to these concerns.

Then the Lord replied:

God: You’re going to want to write this down, plain for all to see and hear.

This message is ready for the right time — it’s about the End, and this one will prove true.

Even if it’s a long time coming, wait for it.

It is certain to be on time.

Look at him, all big-headed—he wants crooked things,

But a good man will live by faith—

Alcohol is a traitor to him. He is proud and never sits still.

He’s as hungry as the grave and like death, he’s a bottomless pit.

He gathers all the nations and steals from all the people to make prisoners of them.

Won’t all these people want retribution, and mock him with humiliating sarcasm:

“Look out, if you hoard loot and get rich manipulating people!

How long will you keep this up? Won’t the people—who you owe—rise up?

Won’t you shiver when they wake up?

Then it’ll be your turn to be the victim, 

because you have looted many countries.

And the people you overlooked will loot you.

The blood you spilled was from people.

You have flattened fields and cities, along with their people.”

“Look out, if you build your kingdom on foundations of slavery and injustice,

To try and build it high out of reach,

so you can dodge the claws of destruction!

You planned to destroy many people,

so you shamed your home and gave up your right to life.

The stones in these walls will testify against you,

 and the wooden beams will affirm them.”

“Look out, if spilled blood has built your city, and crime founds your town.

Hasn’t the Lord said peoples’ work just feeds the fire,

and the countries wear themselves out for nothing?

Regardless, the full earth will know the glory of the Lord,

like the oceans know water.”

“Look out, if you push drinks on your friends,

refilling till they’re drunk so you can feed your hungry eyes with their naked bodies.

You will be full of shame instead of triumph.

Take your turn! Drink and be naked!

The Lord’s strong hand brings the cup to you, and disgrace will cover up your power.

Your violence to Lebanon will sweep you away,

and your slaughter of animals will haunt you.

Because you have drained human blood—

you destroyed fields and cities still full of people.”

“What is an idol worth, since it is only carved by man?

What about a figurine that only reinforces lies?

Whoever makes them trusts the work of her own hands.

She makes mute godlets. 

Look out, if you try to make wood come to life

Or to make stone wake up.

Can it lead you?

It’s covered in gold and silver—it doesn’t breathe!

But the Lord is alive and well in his holy temple.

Let the whole earth fall silent for him!”

The prophet Habakkuk’s prayer:

Habakkuk: Lord, I have heard the stories they tell about you.

Your work has me stock still with amazement.

Do these things again in our time!

Let people these days know your works!

Remember to show mercy in your retribution.

God comes in holiness from the south as of old.

His throne-glory spreads over the skies

and his court-fanfare sounds from all the earth.

His radiance like sunrise gleams from his hand where he hides his power.

Plague makes a way for him, and disease carries his train.

When he stands, he shakes the earth.

Under his gaze the nations tremble.

The time-strong mountains crumble,

and the time-worn hills fall in on themselves.

He has eternal work.

Ethiopia’s tents are disarrayed, and Midian’s homes are distressed.

Lord, were you angry at the rivers?

Did the streams provoke your rage?

Was your wrath toward the sea when you rode with triumphal horses and chariots?

You unwrap your bow and call for endless arrows.

You carve the earth with rivers and mountains writhe under your glance.

Rushing water roars by and raises waves high.

The sun and moon in the sky are paralyzed

as your arrows glint and fly, and as your spear flashes lightning.

You march through the earth with rage and your wrath culls the nations.

But you sought out your people to deliver them.

You rescued your chosen one.

You trampled the leader of the wicked land and stripped him of everything—head to toe.

You crushed his head with his spear when his warriors made their move to scatter us.

They gloated as they prepared to prey on the weak in hiding.

Your horses disturbed the sea and frothed the wide waters.

I heard the stories and my heart pounded.

The words made my lips tremble.

My bones rotted hollow and my legs quivered.

But I will patiently wait for the day of disaster to crash over our invaders.

If the fig tree doesn’t even bud, and the grape vines hang empty,

If the olive harvest fails and the farms lie bare,

If the barns shelter no sheep and the cow stalls are vacant,

STILL the Lord is my joy:

I rejoice in my Savior.

My strength comes from the powerfully ruling Lord.

He gives me stable footing like the deer

And prepares me to climb the summit.

Root of Bitterness

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baobab.jpg
One day I want to experience a baobab tree. It’s on my bucket list. I want to stare at it in wonder, touch it, and probably hug it. I’ll get lost imagining what ages of the earth it’s lived through, and what movements of mankind it has seen. Yep. Call me a tree-hugger.

The book, “The Little Prince” nurtured my fascination with baobab trees. This short, remarkably deep children’s book is about a boy who lives on his own, tiny planet. Every morning the boy washes and dresses, then tends to his planet. He determines the sprouting roses from the baobab shoots and uproots the dangerous trees. The little prince explains:

A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces.

That same image of crushing, constricting roots comes to mind when I read in Hebrews 12 about a bitter root that can grow up among the people of God to bring trouble and defilement.

Hebrews 10 gears up with a discussion on perseverance in the face of suffering. It outlines how, because of Christ’s sacrifice and redeeming work on our behalf, we can endure suffering with the body of believers at our side. Together we can stand our ground because we share a faith in the unshakeable Faithful One.

Chapter 11 follows with an incredible tapestry of stories to demonstrate this kind of faith. Believer after believer was considered faithful because they were sure of what they hoped for and certain of things not yet seen. The author says that this kind of faith is necessary to please God. Faith is what draws us to him because it means we believe two things: “that [God] exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” In shorter words, faith is the belief that God exists and that he is good.

These stories demonstrate that faith is strongest when it endures uncertainty and lack of evidence that God does exist or that he is working good when we can’t see it. According to this chapter, faith is being certain of what we do not see (that God exists), and sure of what we hope for (that God is good). The Bible characters in this chapter show with their lives that faith means knowing God’s good plan is often bigger than you can see or understand, but believing it anyway. 

Chapter 12 shifts from describing the faith of believers who went through suffering to a discussion on how the Lord disciplines us through that suffering. “Endure hardship as discipline,” the author says, because “God is treating you as sons.” We are told this discipline will be painful, but that it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

The discipline of a loving parent takes a moment of disobedience, hardship, or suffering, and turns it for their child’s good. True discipline is the gift of a teaching moment, used to build good character out of bad circumstances. God does the same for us because he delights to call us his sons and daughters. Because of this, we can understand any suffering that we endure in faith as discipline for our good.

If we keep in mind the truths that God exists and he is good, that his plan is perfect but bigger than our ability to understand, we weather suffering well. This is what the author means when he or she writes, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” If we miss God’s grace—if faith does not guide us to see our suffering as loving discipline—we grow a root of bitterness instead of the harvest of righteousness the chapter promises.

This shortsightedness springs from a lack of faith in God’s good plans, and it grows in us a crushing root of bitterness that slowly tears us and our fellow believers apart. But as the author has already explained, faith is the perfect antidote for this poisonous root of bitterness. The chapter goes on to hold up Esau as an example of bitterness, because he gave into his appetites and gave away his inheritance for a single bowl of food.

When we focus on our appetites and desires, instant gratification becomes our goal. Like Esau, we want to alleviate temporary suffering with something the world has to offer. If we focus on the heaviness of our suffering instead of the grace God gives to discipline us through it to a better end, we give up our inheritance like Esau. We no longer receive discipline as a son because we have cast aside faith in God’s far-sighted plan in favor of short-lived satisfaction. This vain effort to avoid the suffering God has given us will always leave us unsatisfied. And so grows the root of bitterness in place of what could have been a harvest of righteousness and peace.

In the story of Ruth, we meet a woman who defines herself by her bitterness. After fleeing her country because of a famine, Naomi lives as a refugee in Moab. While there, her sons marry local women, but Naomi can’t catch a break. Before long she has watched not just her husband, but both of her sons die.

Her life is emptiness. She left her homeland when it was empty of food. She was soon emptied of her family members one by one. She decides to try her luck by returning home and tells her daughters-in-law to remain in their land and let her go on alone. When they protest, she tells them her womb is empty because her bed is empty and she could never give them another husband. One daughter-in-law, Ruth, stubbornly remains with Naomi. But when the two reach Naomi’s home, she tells the eager neighbors not to call her by her old name.

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them, “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

Naomi sees the brokenness and emptiness in her life and blames it on the Lord. She chooses a new name that means ‘bitter’ and gives witness to the whole town that she blames the Lord for her suffering.

But now listen to the story told another way.

The Lord had a sovereign plan for Naomi and her family line. Instead of letting them starve and die in a season of scarcity, the Lord prompts them to leave for greener pastures. While in this foreign land, the Lord grows Naomi’s family with two daughters-in-law, one of whom is very devoted and compassionate. Through continued adversity, Naomi and Ruth’s bond grows so much that when given the opportunity, Ruth decides to leave the only land, people, language, and religion she has ever known to throw in her lot with Naomi.

God prepared a relative to marry Ruth, continue the family line, and care for Naomi as she ages. Even as Naomi proclaims her bitterness at the Lord’s treatment of her, the land around her was ripening for harvest: “So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.”

God showed grace and filled Naomi’s life even as she chose to focus on the emptiness. He filled her home with food and her heart with hope, even as greater fulfillment awaited her. By the end of the story, the Lord has filled Ruth and Naomi’s home with a man, Ruth’s womb with a son, and then Naomi’s lap with a grandchild.

The same bitter root Hebrews mentions grew in Naomi’s heart. Her name means ‘pleasant,’ but she was anything besides pleasant to be around as bitterness took root in her heart. By the end of the story, she has learned faith. She learned to trust the Lord’s goodness in her life so she can set aside her bitterness and have faith in a greater plan she cannot see. Uprooting her bitterness was less about a change in situation (her husband and sons were still dead, and no happy ending for Ruth could change that), and more about a change in perspective. By the end of the story she chose to focus on the Lord’s goodness rather than her misfortune, and it relieved her of her bitterness. She did not miss God’s grace in her suffering.

Yet another Old Testament story illustrates this point. In a stark contrast to his brother Esau—the example of the bitterness Hebrews warns against—Jacob dealt with adverse situations quite differently. In Genesis 32 he found himself preparing for a confrontation with a vengeful brother, and afraid for his life. He sent a caravan of all his worldly possessions and family members on ahead and decided to spend the night alone. But the Lord came to him and they wrestled all night. On top of his emotional anguish, he was in physical pain from a dislocated hip, and exhausted from grappling with an opponent too powerful for him.

Jacob doesn’t give up or complain. He doesn’t focus on his own appetites or desires like hungry Esau did when face with lentil stew. If Jacob had chosen to focus on his own suffering, he would have just given up, especially when the man asked for an end to the tussle at daybreak. Instead, Jacob refuses to let go until the Lord blesses him.

Jacob knew so little about God at this point in his life, but he learned experientially about the Lord’s power, goodness, and grace from this encounter. He refused to give up the conflict until he had been blessed, and so instead of choosing to respond to suffering with bitterness, he responds with endurance until he achieves the goal. The Lord blesses him and gives him a new name, “Israel,” which means ‘struggles with God,’

Like Jacob, like Naomi, like Esau, our lives are all kinds of messy right now. We struggle with depression, with lockdown, with fears or anxieties about Covid-19. Our lives have been disrupted. We’ve been locked inside. We’ve faced separation from friends and family and our church body. Maybe we’ve lost jobs or just moved or our lives have changed so much because of the pandemic we don’t know which way is up or even what ‘normal’ we could return to anymore.

On top of that, we grieve and protest injustice in the States. We face disillusionment and feelings of defeat as we fight an uphill battle against broken systems. We’re heartbroken to face the realities that these broken systems created by sinful humans exist not just in our government but in our communities and churches and workplaces, no matter where we live in the world. We are exhausted. Our bodies feel the physical toll of stress. We struggle to find hope, and maybe faith in the unseen is that much more difficult as we feel surrounded and soaked in suffering.

In the face of these afflictions we have two options.

Like Esau, we can choose to live by our appetites, miss the grace of God, and try to satiate our hunger or pain with a quick fix without thought to the future. But if we seek to satisfy our needs with anything less than eternal, we will always hunger and thirst again. If we choose like Esau to focus exclusively on our immediate suffering, we can only increase our frustration as temporal solutions fail again and again and again. As we watch the world and its offerings fail to satisfy us, we can only become bitter. The root grows in us and constricts our soul, crushes our spirit, and breaks our heart.

Or, like Jacob, we can persevere. The struggle and suffering we experience now has the reward of blessing on the other end, if we persevere. The blessing is becoming the new man Paul talks about in Colossians, with a new name John promises in Revelation. If we choose endurance and faith over bitterness, like Jacob, we can know the face of God more clearly for having grappled in his presence, and we are changed. The difficulties we’ve experienced and will continue to experience are not only uncomfortable and painful. There are very real rewards on the other side of the suffering. Like Jacob, we can ask the Lord for blessing to come out of our struggle, and He has already demonstrated that he can and will honor such requests. God gives the blessing freely, but the price we must pay is endurance. We must endure even with all the fear, pain, suffering, exhaustion, and ignorance of God the struggle reveals in us.

Naomi’s story shows us there is still hope if we have already given in to bitterness. If we realign our perspective and choose to focus on the Lord’s goodness instead of our emptiness, he will fill us with his presence, the greatest gift of all.

Let us with the saints choose faith in the Lord’s goodness over short-sighted bitterness. Our confidence will be rewarded and when we have persevered, we will receive the promise. By God’s grace and our certainty in his faithfulness, we will not be those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who believe and are saved.

Faith Without Works is Like a Song You Can’t Sing

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screen-door-on-a-submarine

James was written in the Hebrew tradition of mashal, or wisdom literature. Mashal is a word for a parable, but it can mean much more than that: a proverb, ethical wisdom, a story that teaches wisdom, or poetry that works as a memory aid for bits of wisdom. You can read a mashal anywhere in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, or in lots of Jesus’ preaching and teaching.

Because Jesus taught with these ‘wisdom stories,’ they would have been a familiar teaching technique to his brother, James. James uses this teaching style in his short letter so well that many people who read it are reminded of one of Jesus’ most famous teachings—the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7.

The wisdom that James taught with the mashal in his letter was the practical and applied nature of our faith. I’ve been taught in the past that the letter deals with faith and works, answering questions about how true faith correlates to obedience in our daily lives. These works don’t save us, I’ve been taught, but they’re more of an ‘indicator light’ like you’d find on your car dashboard; if you have a good, solid faith, your works light up alongside it to mark it. Whatever the ‘works’ were was left as some fuzzy category of vague obedience, in my mind.

But James is anything but fuzzy. He tells us we can’t just listen to the Word, or Scripture, but that we have to obey it too, and that if we don’t we’re unwise and foolish. He caps off chapter 1 by saying that real faith produces works. The two don’t just accompany other, but grow from each other. His final words on that topic are familiar: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Real faith, or religion, IS works, and most specifically it’s the work of caring for people who need it most. James tells us our faith is caring for the marginalized, the oppressed, the poor, and the lonely, and doing so with a holy heart not swayed by the things of this world that would distract us.

What are those things that distract us from the poor and distressed? What keeps us from them? In my personal experience, it is pride, power, position, wealth, and privilege. When I love these things too much to look a beggar in the eyes or offer him some food, James says my religion is worthless. When I listen politely and nod along as someone grieves and laments, my religion is worthless. When I have the opportunity to listen to the voice of someone different than me, someone often neglected and unheard just like James’ widows and orphans, and I dismiss that opportunity, my religion is useless. It is dead, and deceptive.

That may seem harsh to us, or maybe overstated, but you don’t have to take my word for it.

James goes on in chapter 2 to say the very same thing. He tells the story of a rich man who comes to a gathering of believers and is treated with honor, while the poor man is welcomed to sit on the floor, or not even offered a seat. James warns us against favoritism towards those with privilege, power, or wealth. Partiality is a sin. It’s a work that shows our faith is not mature. It’s easy to hear Jesus’ words echoed here, from the end of Matthew 5, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

James goes on to remind us that God has chosen the poor to inherit the kingdom (which should remind us again of Jesus’ “blessed are the poor in spirit…” beatitudes), and he tells us that breaking the law about loving your neighbor as yourself is a sin just the same as adultery or murder.

Soak that in for a second. James compares favoritism with adultery and murder. This is serious.

What good is our faith if it has not action to go with it, James asks us in 2:14? Is it even real faith? Can it save? If one of our brothers and sisters has no clothes or food and we tell them, “I hope things get better,” or “my thoughts and prayers are with you,” or “Go in peace, I hope you’re warm and full,” our faith is dead. James points out here what is called a sin of omission. It’s a sin that you commit by not doing something you’re supposed to do. For example, Moses taught us to honor our mother and father. When we don’t do that, we sin. It’s the same here. When we don’t value our brothers and sisters equally in Christ, we sin. We sin just as deeply as if we’d murdered.

That is massive. If our churches don’t listen to the voice of the poor man, the one with shabby clothes, the one we tell to stand in the corner, the old, the young, the foreign, the minority, the women, the ethnically different, James says we sin and our faith is dead without these deeds. When I don’t actively show my brother or sister with a different skin tone or eye shape that I value them, maybe I have functionally murdered them by taking away their voice and their seat in the room with me. In James 2:17-19 he compares such inaction to the ‘faith’ of the demons, who also believe in God but refuse to follow him in obedience.

James rounds off chapter 2 by explaining that true faith isn’t just correlated with works, but that it compels us irresistibly toward works. Our faith should lead to radical sacrifice of what is dear to us, like Abraham giving up his only son Isaac. Is our comfort zone so dear to us that we can’t give it up to have awkward conversations with people who feel excluded or voiceless in our churches? James also says that that kind of Abrahamic faith-to-works should cut across stereotypes like the faith the prostitute Rahab showed through caring for people who had no claim on her. If you read James and don’t want to be like Rahab, you’re doing it wrong.

James preaches what many today would call a social gospel. And many who would call it that shudder and squirm. Faith is about saving our souls, they say. Faith is about redeeming our minds and our wills. Faith is about heaven and eternal salvation.

But James won’t accept that answer, at least not as a whole answer. Faith is about action, in our real world, to care for real people, who may not deserve our attention, but whom God declared deserve grace under the new covenant just as much as we do. Perhaps they deserve it even more, given God’s repeated emphasis on the poor in spirit and broken-hearted. James closes chapter 2 by saying our faith must be accompanied by social action or we aren’t really talking about real faith or the whole gospel. “As the body without the spirit is dead,” he says, “so faith without deeds is dead.” Just like you can’t have a body or soul without the other, our faith is dead if it’s just about our soul. It must care for the body too.

One of my favorite childhood songs was by Rich Mullins. It has the line, “faith without works is like a song you can’t sing—it’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.” This message from James is rough. It’s convicting. And it makes me consider many different aspects of my interactions and care for people. But it has beauty too. A song you can’t sing is depressing, a hollow promise. But when we get this right and evaluate and make changes to listen and include better, our faith can sing. It can be welcoming and warm, truly showing love to everyone. Is your faith the kind that falls silent in the throat, or is it the kind that sings?

Mind the Gap

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How long ago was it that you last read a book written by a woman? How about one written by someone with a different skin tone than you? What about one written by someone whose native language is different from yours?

As widely-read as you may be, natural biases and supply and demand often combine to make your reading list an echo chamber—you only hear variations on your own voice. My seminary booklist for the semester of my writing is quite extensive, but every one of my books is written by a white man. I found two authors whose native languages differ from my own, but they were still educated under the same systems in the States.

Do we not miss a richness when we choose to learn only from those within our own culture, who already share our ideas?

I sometimes feel starved for the perspective of a female professor, or the lively teaching style of an African American brother. I can’t help but wonder if I would understand a Bible story better if it were taught by a Middle-Easterner, or if my concept of Christian suffering would have more staying power if it were informed by refugee.

Theology in particular is one discipline which suffers much at the hands of this diversity drought. Seven or eight years ago I sat in a college classroom learning about theology from a professor I still respect very much. He taught us about systematic theology—the study of all Christian doctrines and beliefs and how they harmonize into one unified, biblical system. For all his strengths, my professor did not teach me that culture and society radically shape each individual’s theology. He taught me that the theology I was learning was all there was—the creeds, the councils, the theologians like Augustine and Aquinas, all of them fed into one stream I shared, sitting in that college classroom with squeaky desks. And I did share in that stream, that culture of resources and thinking, but little did I know the other streams I could access.

My understanding of the uniformity of theology began to crack a little when I lived in Bulgaria and worked with the Roma people. All of the sudden, the Five Points of Calvinism were far less important than what the ‘baptism of the Spirit’ meant, and whether or not it was biblical. My friends were outside of the traditions of Western Christianity, and their spiritual landscape was vastly different than my own and the teaching I had encountered. They had questions I couldn’t even begin to answer. My white theology wasn’t good enough. And I slowly began to realize that what I had been taught was systematic theology was really just my white Christian heritage. There was nothing wrong with it as an individual perspective, but it certainly wasn’t the only perspective to be had.

Since that time, I have sought out teaching on cultural theology. All of us Christians come to the Word of God from a starting point. Whether we come as women or men, poor or rich, single or married, or whatever our color, we bring ourselves to the table just as we are. We can’t help but see the world of the Bible through our own eyes, because what other eyes do we have? If we’re wealthy and well-situated we identify with Abraham, Nicodemus, or Paul. Women are drawn to the stories of the Woman at the Well, Esther, and Ruth. Minorities see how God cares for the oppressed and demands social justice. And slowly but surely, the stories we are drawn to shape our understanding of who God is and how he interacts with us. Little nuances in culture, character, and past shape how we understand God.

Now, notice that I didn’t say my culture shapes who God is. Our differences do not give us license to fashion a God suitable for us, because God is exactly who the Bible says he is. Period. But our differences do explain how a black brother or sister might understand God’s zeal for freedom better, how a woman could understand God’s care for the voiceless better, or how a persecuted brother or sister may better understand what Jesus meant when said to count the cost. Our experiences mean that certain stories are more precious to us as individuals or because of our cultural identities. Certain Scriptures resonate with our emotions because our experiences help us see ourselves in stories someone else might struggle to identify with.

These cultural differences lead to differences in belief and practice that emphasize certain traits of God over others. These theologies even have labels, but they’re whispered in the corners or condemned from behind a lectern as ‘different’ or ‘distortions.’ Liberation theology. Black theology. And the F-word of good, Southern Baptists: feminist theology. All of these variations and more have some redeeming and praiseworthy qualities. They have valid perspectives on real biblical content. But any of these theologies alone, even white orthodox theology, can spin into disproportion when taken without balance from other cultural views. We need our brothers and sisters who are different than us to help us balance what we understand about God from the Scritpures.

We must dialogue between our theological perspectives. When we pad our rooms and our discussions with people like us, we miss the gift of diverse cultural perspectives God gives us. If our divisions of culture and sex are reflections the image of God, we each form an integral part of His Body here in the Church.

I asked before if we missed richness by cloistering together in like groups. I believe it’s more than that. We miss wholeness. When God created male and female, he created them both in his image, both as a unique representation of his qualities and character. When redeemed, our cultural differences are like that too. Our cultures and their resulting theologies uniquely reflect aspects of God’s character, and when we cut ourselves off from ideas outside the ‘mainstream’ we consign ourselves to a small corner of a masterpiece, never to see the whole painting by the Master.

So what do we do, brothers and sisters?

We have to mind the gap. Intentionally seek what you’re missing out on. Read a book by someone whose name you can’t pronounce. Listen to sermons, podcasts, or blogs from someone with a different skin tone or eye shape than yours. Learn from voices with richer and more colorful tones than your own. Make the most of opportunities to widen perspectives and voice the unsaid.

Try this sermon for starters, dear brothers and sisters. Don’t be defensive, but listen. Really listen. And try to put yourselves in the shoes of someone who has had to walk twice as far as you to be heard.

Charlie Dates: Overcoming Divisions

Mind the gap.

Ezekiel: Scandalous Shame or Answering Hope?

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Ezekiel is no joke. It can be a difficult book to read and certainly is difficult to understand. It often gets skipped over in Bible studies and sermons, and there are quite a few reasons for that. The book is arguably the most graphic in the Bible in terms of sexual and violent content. As literature in the apocalyptic genre, it measures high on the bizarre-o-meter with symbols, prophecy, and motifs that have no tether in our modern experience.

I always forget how graphic the book is. I don’t know Hebrew, but I get the feeling our translations of “member” for penis and “issue” for semen and “bosom” for nipples and “whoring” for sex are sanitized—words the prophet meant to be raw and irritating to us we gloss over with a euphemism. So why did he use them? What was the point? Certainly sexuality has a good and holy place in the lives of believers, but if that was Ezekiel’s point we’d have another Song of Songs instead of the graphic descriptions of lust, an affair, and acts of prostitution that Ezekiel writes.

To say nothing of the graphic depictions of violence including evisceration, rape, and rivers of blood, the sexuality in Ezekiel chapters 16 and 23 goes far beyond acceptable dinner conversation. But the prophet might not have known much about table manners. He was the one, after all, who ate food cooked over a poop fire for more than a year. I find it most likely Ezekiel is avoided in polite church conversation for this reason—he spoke about and did shameful things that make our skin crawl, make us want to take a bath. The shock of his writings often provokes physical responses like sweating, blushing, racing heart, tears, or shaking. We avoid the book because it’s uncomfortable. It makes us cringe.

But that’s the point of the book. One of its themes is shame, and not just any shame, the particular shame we feel when exposed at our dirtiest, most disgusting moments of sin. It’s the quality of shame we would feel if our deepest and darkest sins were found out. Ezekiel wrote and acted with shock to wake God’s people up to their sin, to convict them, and to call them out of it.

Have you ever asked yourself why the Old Testament so often uses sex and adultery as a picture for sin and falling away from God? Why that metaphor, and why so often? What does it have to teach us? Maybe we should ask why we don’t describe our sin that way today. Why is it more common to hear “food, work, busyness, etc. is becoming an idol in my life” than “I’m cheating on God with my binge eating” or ‘I’m having an affair with my schedule”? Granted, those don’t roll off the tongue as well, but why do we describe our sin differently than God does?

We often describe things as idols in our lives without any real reference to what idolatry meant to the Israelite people, or to real idol worship today. We misinterpret and overuse the idea of idolatry, which was exchanging God for another and totally betraying him. To the Israelites, idolatry was leaving one covenant and seeking another, totally depending on another god to provide for needs God had already promised to provide. We sanitize that word, idolatry, make it metaphorical, and use it to refer to the way we let the score of the sports game control our emotions, or our overeating, or the fact that we find too much security in our bank account. We call it idolatry because we don’t have firsthand experience with idols. We don’t connect our cutesy, pre-packaged words for sin with slaughtering our children in total devotion to idols like Ezekiel talks about.

Through the Lord’s inspiration, Ezekiel knew that perverted sexual appetite was a much better analogy for our sin habits we won’t kick. I believe we leave out the topic of sex from or conversations far too much anyway, but I also think Ezekiel’s graphic depiction of nymphomania and lust-crazed infidelity is actually a better picture of what we so quaintly call idolatry. Do you worship that football game you watch on Sundays? Or would it be more accurate to say you lust over it, fantasize about it, spend all your spare moments imagining how it might play out? Do you sacrifice your children for your gluttony, or do you fantasize about that meal or dessert you want to eat, count the time until you can consume it, imagine what it will taste like, dwell on it? Is your bank account an idol, or is it the secretive little thought that comes to you in spare moments to soothe you or make you discontented? Is idol worship more your pace of sin habits, or is it lust—wild-eyed, insatiable, ever-present sinfulness, an appetite that consumes and controls you at the expense of whatever else deserves your attention more?

We all know what lust feels like, a burning thought or desire you can’t quite put away, that leaves you feeling dirty but aroused, alive. With lust, we mentally throw caution to the wind because it’s hidden, and no amount of conversation or probing lets it out unless we allow it. Are your sin habits more like that? I know mine are. So pick your poison. Idolatry, or lust? Idolatry replaces God in an act of finality and betrayal. An idolater has at least made up his mind. Someone consumed by lust though, thinks she can have the goodness she desires as well as the goodness she already has. If your sin is better described by lust, you want to fill your appetite with other things the world has to offer in secret, but still enjoy your ‘righteous fidelity’ to God. Sounds like a pretty good description of me.

But Ezekiel doesn’t stop there, at calling out our sin and shaming us for it. He wrote to Israelites who were already in exile, already experiencing the punishment for their sin and slowly learning to reform their ways. Ezekiel gives hope and promise to answer the shame. The gospel is so beautifully present in Ezekiel, and we can see through the bars in the narrative to God’s enormous care for the lost nations of the world. God didn’t just care about Ezekiel and the Israelites. He led the prophet to call out the sin of the surrounding nations, but also to weep and lament for them. He called them to repent, just like he has called us as believers to himself. There are whole chapters in the middle of Ezekiel remembering the good qualities of the nations, and praising the unique gifts and abilities the Lord gave them in his mercy. The laments are heartbreaking because they describe the self-destructive sin of these nations and the inevitable consequences of their unrighteousness that they now must face.

After fully expounding on the shame of a lustful people who turn away from God and fill their appetites elsewhere, Ezekiel mentions the idea one more time: “describe to the house of Israel the temple, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities… and if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the designs of the temple…” What follows is a blueprint for the temple in Jerusalem in surprising detail. What is even more surprising is that this temple didn’t exist. Never has been built and most likely never will be. Ezekiel closes his book with chapters about a non-existent temple—what might have seemed a hollow promise to the exiled people, away from their homeland with no place to properly worship God.

Why would God shame his people with descriptions of a perfect temple they would never see, even after they returned from exile? This temple description would have been the reason people wept at the end of Ezra 3 when the new temple was finished. It was nothing like Ezekiel’s description. God meant for the people to be ashamed of their sin. He meant them to know fully and finally that they could never be perfect, never build a temple and carry out its practices as a perfect, pure, holy people whose hearts were fully devoted to God.

Hearing Ezekiel’s words in exile they must have experienced the sobering proof daily that they could not escape their own sin. As a consequence to their sin they were scattered among the nations. Their language, culture, faith, and even national and genetic identity as Israelites were precariously close to annihilation. As a people, they could be lost forever, blended in among other exiles in a foreign kingdom. They had fallen far short of the perfection of Ezekiel’s temple. It would have seemed unobtainable. And it would have brought them great shame.

But the theme Ezekiel had introduced in snapshots earlier in the book—the theme of a new covenant of God’s mercy and full and final restoration as a people—is an answering hope here fully developed in the context of the temple description. Apocalyptic literature like Ezekiel is meant to alert people to the cosmic realities of sin and its consequences, but also to bring hope to a people devoted to God. The temple he describes isn’t just an object of shame, it is also a symbol of hope. Ezekiel describes a prince who rules justly and leads his people in honoring God. He describes a nation at home in their land, righteous in their ways and prospering in their obedience. Ezekiel describes a new and restored Israel that gathers in its reborn capital city to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Perhaps the woman at the well asked Jesus about this very passage.

What Ezekiel describes as a sustaining hope to those repentant of their lustful sin is a restored nation: a pure and rescued people whose language, celebrations, and culture flourish. After fully recognizing the extent of their sin and wickedness, God tells them that one day his presence would be among them again and a perfect reality beyond their wildest imaginings would come true.

Jesus heralded this coming kingdom reality, but it is John’s description of the heavenly temple in Revelation that matches up precisely with Ezekiel’s vision. Ezekiel describes twelve gates for the twelve tribes, and John describes the same twelve also representing the twelve apostles. Both describe a river flowing from the temple, healing the land. Ezekiel promises a day when the Israelites who truly follow the Lord will be with him in his perfect city, and he winks at a coming reality the rest of the world couldn’t even begin to imagine at the time of his writing. He mentions a place for sojourners among the people of Israel, foreigners who are to be treated as natural-born citizens and given a share in the inheritance of the land and the perfect city and temple. He mentions us. We, too, are God-followers invited into the kingdom through God’s gracious mercy exhibited in Jesus. Just as Ezekiel described God’s presence coming down to earth once more and filing the temple, Jesus came down to earth and lived and walked with us in our imperfection, inviting us to share in the hope of a world restored from the ravages of sin.

This harsh prophetic book to exiled people opens with terrifying images of God roaming the earth in giant wheels. This same God spoke through a prophet to convict his present and future people of their shameful, disgusting sins, but he ends his message to the prophet and his audience with a perfect picture of a city and a temple where his presence dwells. The Lord who roamed the earth could be found even by a broken people far away from his temple, but he also showed them that he would soon choose to heal and perfect them, and live among them. The book closes not with God roaming above a broken earth, but with the new name of his perfect city to come, “The Lord is There.”

Why I’m a Christian

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What Christianity Means to Me

I was raised by parents who taught me the Bible and took me to church. I could see the difference their faith made in their lives. When they were kind, it was because of their faith. When they cared for and helped other people, it was because of their faith. When they struggled in life or made hard decisions, their faith helped guide them.

Of course I wanted to be like them and have faith like them. But Christianity’s biggest draw for me was the stories I heard from the Bible. They felt real and alive and applicable to me. So one day I prayed to God and asked him to forgive me for my sins—the wrong things I did all them time when I was selfish or lied or disobeyed—and to live in me and help me to be a better person. I felt changed after that; not perfect, but changed for the better. Of course I learned more about what I believed as I grew older, but from that point on, faith wasn’t just ‘faith’ to me. It was trust in a living God I could interact with through prayer and his words in the Bible. My reliance on that God made me a kinder, better person because I had a model to pattern my life after. I became a Jesus-follower.

My faith became more my own as I grew. I read the Bible for myself. I prayed more myself. I learned lessons about my Christianity from books, sermons, teachers, and my parents. But the lessons that stuck with me most were the ones I gleaned myself from reading the Bible on my own time. I learned what real love is from the stories of Jesus’ life. I learned about kindness, justice, mercy, and forgiveness from colorful stories in the Old Testament part of the Bible. The stories of faith came alive to me as I learned about its great history and my forefathers and mothers who participated in its founding epic.

Those stories wouldn’t let me sit still in a church pew. They moved me. They moved me out into the world where people were hurting and living and laughing. They moved me to learn what I could about and from the people of the world; and just like any other favorite book or cause or passion, they set a fire in me. Those stories enriched my life and helped me to live well. I couldn’t keep them to myself.

I learned that I love hearing and telling stories. The stories people tell explain their lives, their passions, and their spirituality. I live my life gleaning as many stories as I can. You tell me your favorite stories, and I’ll tell you mine. Our stories shape us and connect us—and whether they’re about Jedi, WWII soldiers, Middle Earth, or superheroes, the narratives we tell spin the threads of our belief. I learned that I am a keeper and teller of stories. I listen. I observe. And I tell the stories I hear. As a Christian, I see that our stories fit into a vast narrative that gives them meaning and purpose.

I could write books about why I’m a Christian, if anyone would read them. But there’s a better book I’d prefer you to read. It’s the book Christ-followers have been reading for centuries. It connects me to poor paupers, social activists, benevolent kings, historical figures, and great movers and shakers of the world who have all read the same book. Intelligent and powerful men and women for 2000 years have been reading this book, and it has shaped their lives. If they’ve read it carefully, it’s shaped their lives for the better.

The Bible 

The Bible has its rough edges. It can be hard to understand sometimes, just like any old literature. But it’s at once both gritty and real and soaringly beautiful and poetic. It tells about the building blocks of every day life, like families, governments, poverty, and celebration. It has elements of the fantastic, the mundane, the extraordinary, and eternal truth. It holds stories about rape, incest, coups, insanity, bravery, bribery, prostitutes, child kings, the rise and fall of nations, the cuss words, the graphic scenes, the victory songs, the nighttime weeping, crazy parties, and the simple contentment of dawn. In short, this ancient book relates to every aspect of life, both modern and ancient. It’s an anthology of music and poetry, philosophy, ethics, and epics and short stories. But it also traces the meta-narrative of history that gives our lives meaning beyond their narrow scope. Have you personally ever read the Bible’s engaging books? John, Genesis, or Acts? The Bible’s stories have real answers for real questions that have changed my life.

Lots of people today think the Bible is old or outdated. And in some sense, I suppose it is. We don’t ride around in chariots today, and our neighboring nations don’t sacrifice their children to statues of gods. The Roman Empire is long gone, as are the days when we raised our own livestock and grew our own produce. But family relationships aren’t all that different nowadays. People are oppressed today just like they were when it was written. And humans still ask themselves the same questions: why am I here; does this life matter; why would a good God let bad things happen; is it worth it to try to be a good person? In its own words, the Bible says, “What has been will be again, / What has been done will be done again; / There is nothing new under the sun.” In many ways, history repeats itself, so we have a lot to learn from the past. And if Shakespeare managed to tell stories that still move us 400 years later, perhaps a book that’s stood the test of time for 2000 years might be more relatable than we think.

Quite a few people think the Bible isn’t reliable, and that it has changed a lot since it was first put to paper. And those people have a valid point; can I base my entire belief system on some collection of stories that’s been warped from its original in the intervening years? First I’ll tell you that we never think about the reliability of our copies of Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. We don’t care much how accurate our Aeneid is to Virgil’s first manuscript. Those books read as if they were whole stories. They move us, teach us, and intrigue us, so we give them credit for their worth. But the Bible is the most historically unchanged ancient book around. It has more fragments through history than any other book to attest to its integrity. Our copies today, in their various translations, are more accurate to the originals than our copies of the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Maybe we tend to judge the book by its cover. And maybe the cracked leather and fading gilt letters Holy Bible seem a little powerless or stuffy in an age of brightly colored news feeds, pixels, and immediate digital updates. But the Bible’s words pack just as much punch today as they did thousands of years ago when they were first spoken or written. Its harshest words are toward the prideful, the arrogant, and the self-righteous oppressors. Its kindest and most soothing words are to the poor, forgotten, repentant, and voiceless. It seems to me our world could use more of those words today. Just this morning I read in it that Jesus came to unite people near and far, to be our peace, and to destroy the barriers of hostility that divide us (that’s in the book of Ephesians, if you want to read more of it). As a citizen of a country ripped and bleeding by the divisions between race and gender and economics, those words are powerful to me. And when you come down to it, either they deliver on their promise or they don’t. That question lies with the most disputed, most intriguing figure of the entire Bible.

Jesus

Jesus is a character you can’t make up. He yelled and whipped people who charged others to come to the temple to worship. He stopped his busy schedule for children to listen to his stories. He wasn’t pompous or arrogant. He was kind and peaceful. He shared what he had and gave his time to everyone. He was a man who wept freely, but refused to speak a word in his defense when false accused of a crime. His love for his band of friends was self-sacrificial. He washed their dirty desert feet like a servant, spent every waking hour with them, and didn’t betray them when he was on trial. If anyone could unite people across nation, race, gender, and wage, it would be him.

He knew that the only way for generations to be able to personally know a God who hates sin but loves the people he created was to pay for their sin personally—to take our just punishment of death himself. Do you know anyone else who literally died for you? God came to earth himself as Jesus to deal with all the ugliness and limitations of our human existence so we could know him. And how could you not want to know him? He is so intriguing. He cared personally for women, children, sick, outcasts, thieves, educated, simple, shunned, oppressed, and foreigners no one liked. He himself was a refugee, most people assumed he was a bastard child, and he performed miracles you’d have to be crazy to believe.

I admire quite a few historical figures, but if you ask me which one I’d want to be like, hands down it’s Jesus. Many people admire Jesus as a historical figure, but they don’t believe everything he said. You may not have to believe everything a person says to admire them—I adore Tolkien, but I don’t agree with him on any and every topic—but if somebody claims to be God, and to be God’s savior for mankind, that colors everything else he says. You either believe him, you don’t, or you think he’s crazy. You can’t ride the fence with Jesus. You can’t say he was a good man and dismiss his claim of divinity as a little white lie or a moment of insanity. You have to take the whole package or leave it.

Jesus is the founder of my faith, and the founder of Christianity. He claimed to be the Christ, which means ‘the messiah,’ or God’s chosen deliverance for his people. Jesus came to deliver people from their bondage to sin. And if we think we can free ourselves from our own human nature, which prompts us to lie, to cheat, to be unfaithful, or to lack character, we’re wrong. It’s impossible to always do the right thing. Sin is a monumental slavery to break, and it requires a supernatural power who is unfailingly good. It required Jesus. That’s why Christians name themselves after him.

How Can Christians Bear the Name Today

So, to answer the questions I started with, how can I be a Christian when there’s so much hate today and in history connected to that name? When Trump, a man who spews hate the likes of which I’ve never seen in my life, calls himself the same name? When people who claim to be Christians value themselves and their fears too much to want refugees to find a safe haven in their county? When people claim the title who ignore the cries of the poor or oppressed?

Simple.

It’s a matter of definition. Being a Christian means you should look and act like Christ. I want to be like Jesus—to love like him, to speak truth like him, to tell life-giving stories like him. But if I never act like him, I’m not a Christian. If I tell you I’m an astronaut, or an oak tree, or a purple baboon that lives in a zoo, I’m lying. I don’t look or act like those things I claim to be, so I’m not. Anyone who doesn’t act like Christ, but claims to be a Christian, they’re pulling your leg. We all make mistakes and we aren’t perfect on our own. But real Christians will tell you that God’s Spirit lives in them. And if he does, they’ll act with that same inexplicable love and compassion Jesus showed, that same fury at the self-righteous and self-assured. I’m a Christian because I want to act like Christ. Not I, nor anyone else, have a right to bear that name we don’t live by it.

I hope that you all have the chance to read about Jesus in the Bible. And I hope he rocks the world you’re standing on like he did mine. I hope that, as a Jesus-follower, I look recognizably like him to you. And if I don’t, you have every right as my friends to say something to me. If I do look like him, and that intrigues you, let’s sit down and talk.