dance of anger?

In a recent essay, the older teen wrote about some different ways families express negative emotions. And express them we must; as one of my friends told me a few years ago, "anger won't be denied" -- it's like trying to hold several fully-inflated beach balls underwater. Today's reading from the Proverbs includes this remark:

A fool gives full vent to his anger,
but a wise man keeps himself under control.

Proverbs 29.11

So what does that mean, to keep under control? I'm sure I don't have this all figured out, and I tend to err in the direction of suppressing emotions. But I do express them - in prayer, in my journals, in (never-sent) emails.

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to vent a little more. But then I remember the exhortation not to take our own revenge but to "leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Romans 12.19)

A good thing for me to remember.

And the witness is this...

One of the first passages of Scripture I memorized as a young Christian comes from today's New Testament reading:

And the witness is this: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the son has the life; he who does not have the son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5.11-13

That passage was, and is, a great comfort to me, especially that last part about being able to know that you have eternal life.

John is very keen on connecting these three together:

• believing Jesus is the son of God
  If you don't believe Jesus is the son of God, he says, you make God out to be a liar. Ouch!
• overcoming the world
  Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. - 1 John 5.5

  Now that's good news. Overcoming the world - with its temptations and distractions - that sounds really good to me. Because most of the time I don't feel like I've overcome the world; I feel like I'm just staying afloat. Maybe the thing is to recognize that, as he says, we have indeed overcome the world, and not feel and act defeated?

• eternal life.
  And as an old friend (who'd object to being characterized that way) said, "Eternal life begins now." The other thing is that eternal life is secure. If you had it only for a couple of years, it wasn't eternal at all, was it?

This is a great chapter in a great book. The next verses talk about how he hears us when we pray according to his will. That is a great thing, too. Imagine if the President (or the Queen, or the Prime Minister) heard you when you asked for something - how cool would that be? Then consider what it means that the Master of the Universe hears us when we pray to him - and how much cooler that is, especially since it's reality, not just a "what if".

And that's some good news.

Have I overcome? Or am I overcome?

Do you sometimes feel beaten down, tossed around, pushed (or blown) back and forth? I know I do, and so this verse is a comfort and encouragement to me:

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

1 John 4.4

As I said, I don't always feel like I've overcome anything, but reading this verse (actually this whole letter of John's) makes me think about what didn't happen.

I haven't gone off the rails. I still know that true life comes from a relationship with Jesus rather than from having the latest techno-toy, though I sometimes get distracted.

The other thing is this: having overcome, we need not fear. We needn't fear, for example, irrevocably losing our way. We needn't fear that our lives will go to waste (unless we want them to, and even then I'm not so sure). We needn't fear that we'll be rejected at the end.

And just to be clear... could we be financially ruined? Sure we could. Might we starve? That's possible. How about getting killed? A moment of inattention at the wrong time is all it takes. Cancer, cardiac arrest, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease - nobody said we'd be immune to any of those. Jesus himself said, "In this world you will have tribulation" (John 16.33). But tribulation need not defeat us.

Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Thank God for that!

posted 05-Dec-2006

Which John 3.16 is that?

I don't remember exactly where I read this, but whereas John 3.16 is really famous (I won't reproduce it here - OK, I will: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life), most people don't know 1 John 3.16 or the verses that immediately follow it:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

1 John 3.16-18

Now how's that for a challenging paragraph?

I met someone at church a few months ago. He talked about getting evicted, being out of a job, not getting any help from anyone at church, etc. I asked him if he knew about the church's "benevolence fund", which is used to help people who have hit a rough patch - but isn't intended for chronic or long-term support. He didn't, and I looked into how we figure out who qualifies and so on.

I found out that "Quentin" (not his real name) was already in touch with the folks who could assess his situation and decide whether it matched the purpose of the benevolence fund. I suppose they told Quentin about some possibilities that he didn't want to pursue - perhaps they referred him to "Hotel de Zink," a program for homeless people. But I don't know because I didn't follow up with him.

Which I probably should have. But we were busy with church activities, kids' activities, bills, and so on, and I supposed (as I still do) that Quentin may have brought these problems on himself - which would certainly make me feel uncomfortable. I should have stayed in touch with him, though. Then, rather than supposing, I would know what was up with him. And I would also know that I did what compassion requires, rather than knowing, as I do now, that I didn't do enough.

posted 05-Dec-2006

Marriage is one of them things that don't come natural

Today we went to a wedding ceremony. Carol had asked me yesterday if I really wanted to go, because it was a ways away. "I think it's important to go," I told her.

"Can you tell me why you think it's important that we go?" she asked. No, I couldn't. We know the bride's parents, and we were shocked a few years ago when they got a divorce. Which is a story in itself -- a story for another day.

This morning we got in the car at 8:20, and we got to the church two hours later. The parking lot was full, but we got a (probably legal) spot just outside. I noticed that just about all the women wore black, ah, bandanas? over their hair. The congregation seemed somehow from early in the last century.

Inside, we saw a woman that was a dead ringer for the bride's mother - about 20 years ago. Which is who we mistook her for. She was, of course, one of the bride's sisters. Another sister gave us a big smile and said, "you are very welcome here." I surely felt her sincerity.

After a brief pause inside, an usher asked our names. They were checked against a list, and another usher led us to some "generic" seats. We noticed that the left side was mostly women and the right was mostly men. The building was new. There were no musical instruments, but I did see a wall-clock. Precisely at 10:30, a single note sounded softly from a pitch-pipe, and about two dozen male voices started the first of four old-time hymns, each one full of important truths about God.

Carol said afterwards that some of the men looked happy and some just looked repressed. Maybe they don't know or can't express their feelings, but for some of these guys, those old songs are probably a significant part of what keeps them in the faith.

She also noticed that there was no choir director. No robes. No neckties that I could see, though most of the men had suit jackets on.

The sermon was in some ways nothing to write home about. It wasn't given in what any of your English teachers would have called Standard American English (today's title is a verbatim quote). There wasn't much structure to it. Delivery was a little choppy.

But! It was genuine, and it came from the preacher's heart. The Scriptures were read. And in the remarks both before and afterward, our attention was directed to what the Lord might be saying to us.

The wedding ceremony was part of the worship service, and the wedding vows were very short, very traditional.

It was about two hours for the whole service, in other words about twice as long as the typical weekend service at our home church. They fed us afterwards - sliced tri-tip and pickles and rolls and potatoes and a Jell-O fruit salad and pie and ice cream. Water and iced tea and hot coffee to drink.

We talked to both the bride's parents after the whole thing. Her mother has apparently moved a lot closer to God in the past few years. Her dad seems to have done the reverse.

We got back home a little under eight hours after we left this morning.

Under-confident?

Somewhere I heard that lions hunt in teams. One lion roars on the side of the path. The prey flees the roaring sound, heading to the other side... right into the teeth and claws of the other lion. In a similar way, overconfidence is dangerous, but it would be a mistake to go too far in the other direction. Paul mentioned this in Ephesians, where he talked about being tossed to and fro by every passing wind. Here in 1 John 2, John assures his readers that they already know enough to think for themselves.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.

1 John 2.20-21

Besides assuring them that they know the truth, he tells them how to tell a false teacher from a true one:

Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist - he denies the Father and the Son.

1 John 2.22

What does it mean to deny that Jesus is the Christ? One obvious way is if someone says, "Jesus is not the Christ," or "Christ has not come yet."

Are there less obvious ways? Do I live my life as though Jesus were irrelevant to me? I hope not, but I'm not 100% sure that 100% of the time I'm as aware of him as I should be.

Fortunately, our relationship with God doesn't depend on performance! John is more concerned that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. (verse 24). And that we don't follow somebody who wants to convince us otherwise.

posted 05-Dec-2006

Self-confidence considered harmful

In the latter half of the last century, in the 1960s or maybe the early 70s, one of the pioneers of computer science wrote an essay about the "go to" statement. Because of publication scheduling, the essay was printed, in the Communications of the ACM I believe, in the form of a Letter to the Editor. The title was: "Goto statement considered harmful."

Programmers of the day were apparently addicted to that programming construct, which, according to the essay, was actually a symptom and a result of bad programming practice.

So with apologies to Professor Dijkstra, I take today's reading from the proverbs and make a vaguely analogous claim.

He who trusts in himself is a fool
but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe.

Proverbs 28.26

Self-esteem and self-confidence are the "goto statements" of pop psychology. Our schools try to build kids' self-esteem, sometimes ridiculously. A recent survey comparing both the self-confidence and performance on scientific tasks showed that American kids were at once the most confident and least proficient!

To call self-confidence harmful is an overstatement, but it's surely self-evident that over-confidence brings trouble.

Trusting in myself - to the extent that I forget that I need God - that's where I get into trouble.

Having no confidence whatsoever is a trap, too, and John talks about who we can trust, as I think we'll see in the next few days.

Meanwhile, I want to remember to be humble, to seek wisdom from others, to remember that I don't already have all the answers.