Happiness

What if you could actually do whatever it was that made you happy?

I don't mean the freedom to go out to dinner whenever you wanted, purchase whatever your heart wanted to purchase, or snub a person just because you don't feel like talking. I'm talking bigger, purpose level stuff. What if you could actually enjoy life, day in and day out, doing exactly what you always wanted to do, feeling fulfilled in your work or daily life, finding that your joy was overflowing with each passing moment?

That sounds like a fairytale, and in some ways, it is. The fact is that even if you actually got what you wanted, and you could do, day in and day out, whatever it was that you most loved to do, hard moments were going to come and there would be seasons of sorrow. I was reminded this past week that Solomon himself said this in his letter of Ecclesiastes, after having lived a storied and privileged life if there ever was one, that in spite of having the ability to do and attain whatever he desired, he found that at the end of the day it was all meaningless.

There is a Christian thought that says that the chief end of man is the enjoyment of God; that is, once we have come to taste the pleasure of our salvation that is found in Jesus, we will increasingly grow in our delight of him so that, in the end, our greatest pleasure is giving honor and praise and glory to God, through whom we have received this great joy. I would never argue this theologically; in fact, quite the contrary. It is one of the principled themes that guides my life. We must find great joy in God himself, through Jesus Christ, or our faith is worthless. Why would I want to put my confidence in something that robbed me of pleasure? This is contrary to my entire being; I know, without having to learn it, without having to be taught it, without anyone having to tell me, that in my innermost being I will pursue whatever is most pleasurable to me. When I choose to pursue something otherwise, it feels profoundly off, like choosing the wrong path at a fork in the woods.

We are so guided by pleasure, in fact, that there are times when we are not even aware that we are doing it. There are times where the initial decision doesn't appear to be for our own pleasure at all, but the outcome is far more desirable. In other words, we choose the difficult path now because the long term reward is far better. There is something about us that knows the decision will end in pleasure even if, in the moment, our senses tell us otherwise.

I have sat on the exit row on an airplane on more than one occasion and every time I have listened to the flight attendant tell me that, should I choose to sit there, I would be responsible for ensuring that the other passengers made it safely out the door and down the slide, in the event that an evacuation was even possible (something I always assume will probably not be the case). I believed that the appeal the attendant was making was to my reason, and indeed, that is true to a certain degree. We human beings have the ability to choose against our natural instinct to save ourselves, and instead hang back in a dangerous position in order to let other people go on ahead to safety. That is a uniquely human characteristic, that we can choose reason over instinct. Yet, there is another factor at play as well, and this is the appeal to our pleasure.

It is our natural instinct towards pleasure that I may say unites us with the creation itself. My dog might choose the safety of my own family over his own family, much the same as I might choose the safety of the other passengers over my own, but this has nothing to do with reason. My dog puts my family first because his instinct is to serve; to say it another way, it is his pleasure to do it.

You might wonder how it is possible that there is any pleasure at all from putting ourselves in danger, or how remaining in danger is more pleasurable than running on to safety, but consider the outcome in either case. If we decided to disregard our responsibility and jump out of the exit door before anyone else had a chance, we would probably survive, along with at least a few others. Indeed, it is entirely possible that everyone would survive, and our act of cowardice would be inconsequential to the outcome. But we would have to live with it; we would have to live with the knowledge that we bailed out in what may have been the greatest moment of responsibility to others we have ever faced. It would have been a great displeasure to us to have to live under that shadow; we would be safe, but we would also be ashamed.

On the other hand, had we taken our responsibility seriously we may end up dead. Perhaps we would survive, in which case we would be lauded a hero. But if we did die, at least we would have had the pleasure of knowing that we went out helping others; we would still be lauded a hero, we would just not have the knowledge of it. Nevertheless, most would say, better to die as a noble person than to live as a coward.

The point of the story is simply that, even if we didn't immediately recognize it at the moment of decision, the end result was that our pleasure would be increased. It brought us more pleasure to set aside our inherent self-interest in order that others would be led to safety. We may not have known it when we sat in the exit row (a decision largely made for our own pleasure and increased leg room) and we may not have immediately known it when our exit services were actually required, but when it was all over and as many as could be saved were off the plane, we would have remarked that it was "our pleasure" to assist however we could.

So our pleasure is our chief motivation; God is our chief end. This truth has led many people to learn contentment and joy despite their circumstances. Many Christians, despite tremendous difficulty and suffering, can nevertheless say that they have joy because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. It was worth whatever they had lost! It was like a treasure in a field that they sold everything to get. Yet I would argue that despite the theological truth, and the experiential reality of having enjoyed Christ in spite of suffering (and having seen Him enjoyed by others), the dimension of our pleasure that we have too quickly set asunder in our modern era is the reality of our humanity.

I have come across many people, and I may include myself in this, who have found themselves in unpleasant circumstances, but rather than change the circumstances for their pleasure have instead attempted to will themselves towards joy in Christ. I wonder how often Jesus might have curiously suggested that they simply change whatever it was that they did not like.

Indeed, there are moments where we cannot change what brings us displeasure, humanly speaking. We cannot simply will away cancer or decide not to have it. In those moments, we will be glad to know that we find our great joy in Christ. But what of the person who is miserable because they do not live near their family, or the person who is miserable in their job, or the person who lives in a place where they have no friends, or attends the church that they do not enjoy? To what degree are we expected to find joy in Christ in circumstances where our joy might be renewed simply by changing something?

Perhaps we assume that making a decision based purely on whatever will make us happy is unspiritual. I would argue that this is precisely the case, and precisely the reason we should do it. In one sense, we know that all of life is spiritual; that is, there is nothing that is not in some way affected by our relational status with God the creator of the universe. But in another sense, we are flesh and blood; we are irrevocably "earthy" in our existence and unmistakably unspiritual, which is exactly how God intended it to be. If it is impossible for us to separate the spiritual from our decision making process, it is equally as impossible–and equally unwise–for us to separate our humanity from the decision making process. We may even find that it is our earthly situation that is robbing us of our spiritual joy in Christ!

I was asked the question once whether I felt like I would be disobeying Jesus if I did not plant a church. "What a spiritual question!", I thought. Of course, I had no answer to it, as I hadn't really considered whether or not Jesus' call to me was one that I could obey or disobey, or whether he would be pleased or displeased with my decision. To that point, I had simply considered that this is what I should do. I had weighed the alternatives. This seemed right. It seemed like something worth exploring. By the time this person had asked me whether or not I would be disobeying Jesus, I really didn't know. I supposed that I could be perfectly obedient to Jesus doing any number of things, but this was the one that, for now, seemed to be the right one. I don't even know what I answered when the person asked.

Standing where I am now and considering the question through the lens of hindsight I see the deep flaw in it. To me, it spiritualizes what is in many ways a very human question: what do you want to do, and why are you doing it? For as much as Jesus calls us to come and die to ourselves so that we can live for him, it is also a deep truth of the good news that Jesus meets us precisely where we are. I would suggest that the way we can know a call is from Jesus is if the outcome fills us with great pleasure.

In fact, I may go so far as to say that I am convinced that Jesus greatest call on us is to whatever it is that will bring us the most pleasure.

It is important to understand that that Jesus knows better than we do what will bring us pleasure. There are dark desires of my heart that may fool me into believing that they will bring me pleasure, and in the moment, they might, but in the long run, will lead to my destruction and actually rob me of joy. Whereas, a temporary denial of that quick pleasure will lead to lasting joy. Jesus desires my greater pleasure, the one that fills me with lasting joy, and not a temporary high.

Yet there are many things in life that bring great joy and are not sinful, or guilty pleasure, or pleasures that are fleeting, but are good, God-given pleasures that are flawed because we are flawed but are good because God in his mercy has made sure they remained good. If your family is anything like mine is is deeply flawed and yet it is good. I live in and with a community of people who are deeply flawed and yet profoundly good. I live in a town with deeply flawed leadership and yet, somehow, by God's grace, is still good. There are good things that abound around us and that bring me great happiness.

There was a moment in my life when I would have moved anywhere for God, and many times did. (I am thankful that God has not called me to international missions, and I am not sure how I would have responded if he had.) We moved to many different states and cities, and would have moved to many more, in order to pursue the calling that we felt he had placed on our lives. Why did we do that? It was our great pleasure! There was something about the continual call, the next step, the bigger ministry. We weren't bound by time, place, or relationships. We would go wherever God called!

But was that more or less spiritual than our current desire not to ever move again, desiring that we stay here for a very long time, even if it means ministering in relative obscurity for the rest of our lives? This, too, is our great pleasure. To remain in a place where our children are loved, where we are cared for, with people that we love, with people that we care for. You might ask, what if Jesus has called us to great influence? I would suggest that Jesus has not called us to influence; he has called us to joy.

And so I return to my humanity and my joy and pleasure and family and all the things that make me me and you you. What are we doing or not doing under the misguided belief that Jesus has called us to contentment despite our displeasure? Perhaps Jesus has called us away from our displeasure so that we will find our contentment. I have run into those who lived in displeasure because they felt they were called by God to do so; I can't help but wonder if they are missing his purest call. Maybe contentment means deciding to take a lower paying, less influential job simply because it is near family, and family makes us happy. Maybe it is to not take the next promotion because it would mean more time away from home, and home makes us happy. Maybe it would be to move to the shore, because the shore makes us happy. Maybe it would be to move to a small town by a lake in the woods, because nature makes us happy.

Jesus has called us to pleasure in Him. What I am suggesting here, for myself and for you, is that if we really found our deepest satisfaction in Jesus, we would find ourselves far more free to choose whatever makes us happy in this life. Do you want to find another job? Find another job. Jesus is okay with it. Do you want to move closer to family? Then move. Jesus is just as much there as he his here; you may find him to be more pleasurable when you are near those you love. Actually leaving behind all those things that Jesus calls us to leave behind so that we can pursue him means that we don't have to feel like we are bound by those things anymore; instead of feeling enslaved to a job or to a location or a place or whatever, we are actually freed from the bondage so that we can enjoy them. Jesus doesn't just bring us spiritual joy; he frees us to experience human joy as well; the type of joy that comes from sitting next to a brook or fishing on a quiet pond or hiking a mountain or turning off our cell phone and just sitting there, unreachable for the rest of the world, playing a game with our kids, reading a book, doing a puzzle.

Finding our joy in Jesus reveals a freeing truth: Jesus doesn't need us to save the world. He's already done it. Which means that you can go and enjoy Him, forever.

Speculating on Jesus: Why Should I Care?

In yesterday's post, I referenced a recent survey that indicated that while the vast majority of people in America believe that Jesus was a historical figure, we have vastly different opinions on what he was actually like. The good news is that, even in a post-Christian America, very few people are questioning the historicity of Jesus insofar as he was an actual person who walked the earth. This means that the challenge for the Christian has much more to do with who he was, than that he was, since the second piece is taken as a given for the vast majority of people we will come into contact with. This challenge, though, has at least three parts. The first one is why anyone should even care. Jesus being a historical figure is one thing; that he has any relevance to my life or that I should have any concern over who he was, taught, or did, is a different thing altogether.

I mentioned that, as simply a historical figure, most people have as much knowledge about–and interest in–Jesus as we do any other historical character we might name. Our functional knowledge of Jesus is about the same as our knowledge of Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte. We know their ethnicity, a rough sketch of what they did, and that's about it. As far as learning more about them, well, that's for the historians. Why should we feel any differently about Jesus?

The main reason I think we should care is because the chief difference between Jesus and most other historical figure is that Jesus is one of a handful of people in history who made universal claims. What Jesus claimed to be true wasn't just true for people in his day, but was presented as true for everyone, in all times, in all places. This is typical for other religious teachers, as well: Muhammad, Gautama Buddha, etc. Their claims transcend their historic footprint. Even here, though, Jesus is different.

The claims that Jesus makes are more than just universal truth statements; they are universal truth statements about himself. Jesus didn't just claim to have a message from God, he claimed to be God. Jesus didn't just claim to have the secret to transcending the natural order of life and death, he claimed to be the secret to transcending the natural order of life and death. Jesus didn't just claim that there was a message of "getting right with God", he claimed that he was the message of getting right with God. Jesus didn't just preach; he practiced what he preached by prophetically claiming that he was going to die and rise again, and then dying and rising again. This is why Jesus stands out. He didn't just claim that he had a new way of religious living figured out; he claimed that the was the new way of religious living, and called people to put their confidence in him rather than in their own efforts. In other words, Jesus stands out from all other historical figures because he was one of the small group of people making universal truth claims; he stands out even further from that group, because the claims he was making were about himself. His teaching was so radically different from even the teachers in the same historical category, that it should cause us to go deeper than his historical existence.

The second reason, however, has to do with the people around us everyday who have been impacted by this message. Even if all we think about Jesus is that he was a historical religious figure who taught people how to live "right", it would be difficult to deny the power of his teachings. Tens of billions of people in the last two thousand years have made it a point to attempt to live according to his teachings. Countries were built on these principles, or in defiance of these principles. The message–even if it is only a self help message–continues to inspire people to live selfless lives. I would argue that Jesus teaching were significantly more than just a self-help message, but even if they aren't, the very fact that so many people throughout history have said that his claims are the basis for their worldview ought to be enough to get us to inquire what it was that he actually said. That should be enough, I think, to at least take a cursory glance at his life and teachings and see if they have any relevance to our life today.

One final thing that may help with this first challenge, specifically for those who claim to already believe in Jesus. Do you have any desire to inquire further into his life and teachings? There are a lot of people who claim to believe in Jesus who have little to no idea what he actually said, taught, or did. They have accepted Jesus based on the historical claim that he existed, but have not actually considered what it is that they actually believe about him (or what he believed about himself.) If that's the climate of the church–where we, functionally, believe that Jesus existed but have little interest in finding out more about him–we should not be surprised when that is the climate of culture as well. Perhaps if you want the people around you to be interested in who Jesus is or what he said, the place to begin is taking a serious interest yourself!

Why the Resurrection Matters

Another Easter Sunday has come and gone and with it, the temptation to let the "Resurrection" fade into the background much the same as Christmas fades into the past and we are left paying off our credit cards from over-celebration. We don't celebrate in the same fashion for Easter. Despite the attempts to commercialize it with the Easter Bunny, new outfits, and candy, it still remains primarily a religious holiday that isn't recognized by people other than those who identify with Christianity. Yet the temptation to move on with our lives and compartmentalize the truths of the resurrection is just as much of a temptation as it is to throw out the wrapping paper and mentally move on to the next big event.

Easter is fundamentally different than Christmas, however. While the events of Christmas are incredibly important and contain a great deal of doctrinal truth, they don't stand on the same level as the events of Easter. In fact, the events of Christmas have no value whatsoever apart from Easter, since the death and resurrection of Jesus are the culmination of everything that he came to accomplish. If they never occurred, then his birth, life, and whatever else occurred would still have been interesting, miraculous, potentially life-altering even if we chose to use Christ's life as an example, but not near as important as they are because of the events of Easter weekend. I'm not sure if the importance of the resurrection can be overstated: if it doesn't happen, there is no hope, there is no ultimate salvation, and practically there is no foundation for the church. The first two points are theological in nature and I won't address them here. It is that last point–the practical necessity of the resurrection for the church–that I want to address.

As we examine the broader culture (at least of America) it's easy to notice that there are some very sharp disagreements regarding how we view various cultural issues. Pick any issue you'd like, and chances are you can find not just diverse views on the subject, but polarizing views. Our tendency is to believe that these disagreements are themselves the problem, but they aren't. They are a symptom of the problem. The real problem, as it turns out, is that we are standing on fundamentally different foundations.

Imagine that the two of us were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we began to describe to one another what we see. To a certain extent, our descriptions may seem similar. We might describe a deep gorge, the relative color of the dirt and clay, the vastness of what we are viewing. As we go further in our descriptions, however, they inevitably begin to diverge. One of us argues that the canyon is a thousand feet deep, the other says it is only a couple of hundred feet. Perhaps we argue about the vegetation, or what it is that makes it so beautiful, or how the sun sets–or rises–on the opposite end of the canyon. Soon we would find that our disagreement is so sharp, that it is impossible for us to figure one another out. We end up completely polarized, convinced that the other person is a lunatic.

Of course you may have already figured out the problem. We are viewing the same canyon, but from two different vantage points. Where we are standing makes all the difference in recognizing why it is that we disagree on our perspective. Once we understand that we are not even fundamentally seeing the same things, we can come to terms with the fact that we disagree.

This is why the real issues of culture have nothing to do with our perspectives on the issues, and have everything to do with the foundation on which we are standing. Christians in particular have taken for granted that for the vast majority of the history of the United States, most of the population stood on a similar foundation. Call it "Judeo-Christian values" or whatever you wish, but really it was just the foundation that there was a God and that we could find out more about him in the Bible. I don't assume that the entirety of the country was Christian, let alone religious, but at very least the foundation was roughly similar. Thus, if there were disagreements on certain subjects, they weren't extreme. We might be arguing about the color of the clay in the canyon, but at least we are looking at the same clay.

Unfortunately that foundation has shifted and the vast majority of culture is no longer standing on the same foundation. This is the effect of post-modernity that claims that there are no universal truths. One of the impacts of this was the supposed destruction of the meta-narrative, which is by it's nature a comprehensive truth claim. Of course the theory falls on it's head. Even saying that there is no universal truth is a comprehensive truth claim about how the world works, it simply shifts the responsibility for decision making to the individual, rather than the universal. Again, claiming that every decision is up to the individual is a universal claim. Thus the meta-narrative was not done away with, but simply changed, and as a result, we find that when we are describing what appear to be similar issues, they are not the same at all. Those of us who are Christians are standing on an entirely different foundation than those who are not-Christians, and vice versa.

This in itself is not a bad thing, it is just something that simply "is". If anything, it provides an opportunity for Christians to have more clarity about what it is that they actually believe. I also think that it should provide Christians more opportunity to have grace with skeptics, since we ought to understand that the issues is not a disagreement, per se, it is a foundational issue. We are not standing on the same footing. We aren't looking at the canyon from the same angle. I can't expect my skeptic friend to see the world from the same perspective that I do, unless we first understand where it is that we are standing.

All of this brings me back to the church, and my original point about the practical need to remember the resurrection. Over the past decade, at least, and perhaps longer than that, post-modernity has come into the church in a variety of ways. The easiest entry way has been to offer differing perspectives on traditional Christian perspectives. Some of those perspectives have been healthy and offered appropriate correctives in the church. Like all institutions (and individuals, I might add), when you have held onto a particular belief long enough, you typically end up abusing it in it's application. For example, the longer you believe you are a safe driver, the less likely you are to use your seat belt. The better you are at a particular activity–skiing, for example–the more likely you are to push the limits verging into the unsafe, even for an expert. The same goes for churches. What might begin as a helpful doctrine or tradition can end up being abused in the long run, in desperate need of correction and a reminder of where the application should begin and end. Other perspectives, however, have not been corrective in nature, but downright incorrect. As a seminary professor said, "the only corrective to bad theology is better theology." Unfortunately many of the critiques in the last decade have not been better theology, but just more bad theology from a different perspective. The pendulum might swing to embrace it, but it doesn't mean that we are any better off. Change for changes sake is not necessarily a good thing. So how do we combat these perspectives? The answer is the resurrection.

The resurrection provides Christians with the foundation on which unity can be built as a church, for at least two reasons. The first reason encompasses both Jesus death, and resurrection, which puts all Christians on the same plane. If Jesus death and resurrection are real, historical events that happened and on which Christianity is based, so that faith and confidence in those events is essential to being a Christian, then the very nature of them mean that all of us arrive into this new kingdom of God on the same train. No one gets in on their own power. No one is more righteous than another. In fact, we all have the same righteousness from the same savior and get in on the same ticket.

The second reason that the resurrection is necessary is that it proves that Jesus is the king of this new kingdom, and thus, he gets to set the expectations. I believe that one of the chief reasons that some of the sharp disagreements that the church has experienced with the culture have become sharp disagreements within the church itself is that many within the church have unwittingly shifted their foundation. This was more evident than ever in the week leading up to Easter when a variety of articles were published claiming to come from Christian sources, but as I examined them, I noticed that they weren't Christian at all. They claimed to have a similar value structure, but they so minimized the death and resurrection of Jesus that those two events were no longer the foundation on which they based the rest of their so-called "truth". Realizing that meant that I could accept their conclusions at face value–as the author's opinion–but also realize that they weren't Christian perspectives, even though they claimed to be. It has become increasingly easy for people in the 21st century church to disagree with Jesus, or try to change his words to fit our meaning, and the reason that we can do it is because we, essentially, deny the power of the resurrection or take it to mean something it doesn't mean. The resurrection is not hope just for hope's sake; it is hope because it revealed that Jesus really was who he said he was. Jesus really was God incarnate who had the ability to defeat death on our behalf. The power of the resurrection wasn't limited just to him; it's a power that all who put their faith in Christ have access to. Far from being just some nebulous, ill-defined hope, it is a hope that very clearly identifies Jesus as God of very God, and King of every King. In other words, if we believe the resurrection is true, we don't get to disagree with Jesus.

As believers, then, the starting point for our unity must be the resurrection of Jesus. This is what gives him His claim to authority, as well as clarifying for us why we don't get to be authoritative in our own right. The Resurrection is the foundation on which the Christian views the rest of the world. When we stand on the power of the Resurrection, then we may still discuss and dialogue about what, exactly, Christ believed, but we don't get to disagree with Jesus or the rest of the Bible, or interpret it to fit our cultural milieu or cultural understanding at the time. Rather we stand on the authority of Christ himself.

If there are sharp disagreements in the church, I am much less interested in knowing what you think about the disagreement, and much more interested in knowing what you think about Jesus. Is he the risen Lord, or not? If he is, then you and I can both submit our opinions to his. If he isn't, then we're not on the same foundation to begin with, and I don't care much that you disagree with me. We'll never agree on what the canyon looks like so long as we are standing on different lookouts.

This is why we can't put Easter in the past. Easter Sunday, and what it represents, are not just a day in the life of the church calendar, but the foundation on which every day must be built. To the extent that we remember that, we'll have a united church. To the extend that we forget it, we'll be divided. It might really be as simple as that.

Loving Others

A notification flashed across my iPhone this morning from a pastor's group I am a part of. The question that had been posed and was now sitting on my screen was how to address a "seeking" couple that was visiting the church but had questions about a particularly difficult cultural situation. In this case, the situation was "homosexuality", but it could have been anything. The pastor wanted to know what he should say and how he should address it.

A few thoughts went through my head as I considered what I would say to him if I responded. The first was, "what do you actually believe about the subject?" My guess is that my pastor friend already knew what he believed, or at least thought he knew what he believed, but when the question is actually posed by a real actual human rather than as a theoretical concept, stuff gets real.

I want to interject and interrupt myself for a moment, because I want to say that I did not read any further than the question, and I did not get an explanation or backstory or any details about what this particular pastor knew or didn't know or thought or didn't think. That said, there was something about the wording that made me think that this person perhaps hadn't through through what he actually believed when the rubber actually met the road; when his theology met his humanity. The word that struck me was the description of the inquisitors as "seekers".

I knew what he meant. "Seeker" is church lingo for someone who is seeking God in some fashion. They are typically "spiritual" but not "religious". They may have been raised in the church, see value in Christianity, but aren't entirely sure how to mesh what they think they believe with what they think the church believes. Often times a seeker has a particular question in mind; something that is their litmus test. For one man who visited our church, his question was predestination. He wanted to believe in God, but couldn't believe in a God who predestined people to Hell. He asked me what I thought on the way out of church, and I had to answer an incredibly complex question in just a couple of minutes with very little understanding of what was behind the question or where he was coming from. When you are talking to a "seeker", the tendency is to frame your response in a way that softens or mutes the difficult edges of your answer. We convince ourselves that the person isn't ready to hear the truth, or that the truth might offend them, and we wouldn't want that! We don't want to be the person who shoves them from "seeker" status back into "lost" territory. We better make sure that our answer is true, but not so true that it is offensive.

Oftentimes our responses in those scenarios end up being so ambiguous that they leave the person on the other end feeling like they got an answer, but not being totally sure what it was. I was watching an episode of Parks & Recreation the other day where the always-positive Chris played by Rob Lowe had recently broken up with Anne, one of the main characters. The problem was that the break-up was spun in such a positive way that Anne didn't realize that he had dumped her. I wonder how often my answers to these difficult questions so ambiguous or spun so positively that the person on the other end walks away thinking that I may have said something entirely different than what I intended.

What my pastor friend was really asking was, "How do I tell these people what God really believes about homosexuality without offending them and turning them away?" I think that's a legitimate question, but I don't think it matters whether or not the people are seekers, or whether they have been followers of Jesus their entire lives and are only just now having to figure out what God really thinks about this as it becomes a more common cultural question. Instead, I think that the real question that we have to ask ourselves is this: do you really love these people?

It strikes me that Jesus doesn't turn away from difficult questions, and he doesn't soften the blow of the truth that is in his response. Sometimes, people turned away because of it. Other times, they stuck with him. Here is the key: it was never their status (lost, seeker, found, whatever), and it was never their response (turning away or sticking) that guided his answer. It was always truth embedded and presented in love. When Jesus answered a question truthfully, he knew full well that he loved the person he was talking to. That's why he answered with such poignant truth. It was because he loved them.

I had to have a difficult conversation with someone once related to this topic. The first thing I did was ask the question: what does the Bible actually say? What do I actually believe? What does God actually think? This is what it means to love God, at least in part. It means that I actually care about what He thinks, and not just what I feel. But then, ultimately, the rubber meets the road and the theology of what God says meets the humanity and the emotion and the spirit of the person sitting right in front of you who has asked, "what does God think about this?" My pastor friend knew the right answer, but he wasn't sure that he knew the right response. My question would be, "do you really love them?"

When we really love the person we are responding to, to whatever degree our love can be totally genuine, that love will shine through in our response. I'm not telling you what God thinks about an issue to prove that I'm smart, or to prove that I can one-up you, or to belittle you or make you feel bad about yourself. I'm telling you what God thinks because I love you and He loves you and because He loves you and I love you I believe that there will be more joy in the truth of what God says than there will be if I just tell you what you want to hear, or if I couch my answer in such fluff that you leave without being entirely sure what God actually thinks. Love doesn't mean we always agree. Love doesn't mean that we always give the easy answer. Love means that we can give the honest answer, even when it hurts.

I said this to the Elders of our church a while back when we had one of these difficult questions come up and we had to respond, even though we knew that the reason the person was asking is because they were putting out their little litmus test to see if we believed in a God that they could believe in. I said, "if it is not difficult for us to respond, then we are not being Elders." Responses to difficult questions are not filled with pride; they are filled with love. It ought to matter to us when we give an answer to someone that we know might cause them to leave the church or leave the fold of God. Yet we know that it would hurt more, and be more harmful, to neglect what God said, or to answer ambiguously, just for the sake of harmony; just so that we don't rock the boat.

So yes, the question is, "what do you actually believe about the subject?" But then, before we respond, we need to ask ourselves, "do I really love this person like Jesus loves them?" If so, then we respond in truth, embedded and presented in love, not ambiguity.