I have never been a big fan of fighting what has come to be called the “culture wars” in America. I find moral politics and legislative haggling to be tiresome and messy. But even more, these cultural conflicts can become for the church a terrible distraction and barrier to keeping Jesus Christ and His gospel our central concern. Recently, however, with the rapid rise of power politics and the overt legal threats brought against the free exercise of religion, I have been rethinking the role of political and legislative power.
The tension here is that many Christians see the use of political and legal power as a misunderstanding, misuse, and distortion of divine power and priorities. To some extent, that is certainly true. But in another very real sense, when enforced policies and political power moves become matters of causing harm, then at what point is the Christian obligated to use means of power—political power included—to protect the innocent and promote the common good?
There’s no doubt that at some important level, Christians have a responsibility to protect human life. Proverbs 24:11 says, “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” And as Genesis 1:26 makes clear, as gendered divine image bearers, we are also responsible to lovingly steward and rule over God’s creation in ways that honor Him.
In my mind, many of the recent moves to demand greater access to and funding for abortion alongside the full affirmation of the LGBT+ agenda as well as the active promotion of medical interventions to “transition” youth who are struggling with gender dysphoria are good examples of areas where real and lasting harm is being done to the people directly involved in these decisions and lifestyles.
You can call it a “culture war,” or something else, but when real and active harm is being done to people, then beyond active avenues of persuasion, all legal and political means should be used to protect those who would otherwise be harmed, even if that might mean protecting some people from themselves. This is where libertarian freedom fails to recognize that in a world suffering the consequences of the fall, unbridled liberty is an open invitation to the harm of self and others.
In short, we are all sinners, and sometimes we need to be protected not only from others, but also from ourselves. And whether or not we admit it, there is a cultural and spiritual battle being waged. This battle is not merely a set of abstract arguments for a vision of what constitutes the common good. It is a concrete battle being waged in real time and real space. Right now, specific people are being harmed and becoming casualties in the process.
Christians who claim to love God and His justice should not turn a blind, indifferent, or fearful eye away from these real-life tragedies currently unfolding before us. We must wisely and appropriately use whatever power God has graciously given us to humbly, lovingly, and courageously fight for those who need to be protected from the devilish and destructive deceptions and deeds of our time. As G. K. Chesterton reminds us, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
The term, “woke,” was originally intended to help people better understand the ways in which racism negatively contributes to social systems and human relationships. The “woke” person had awakened from their moral slumber and was willing to admit wrong-doing and identify the ways in which their “white privilege” (meaning majority-culture status in the western context) had hindered the flourishing of minorities in positions of poverty, oppression, and weakness.
More recently, the term “woke” has taken on a decisively disdainful and pejorative connotation, referring to those who have been taken in by a “progressive” view of the world that sees almost everything through the lens of critical race theory, interpreting society through postmodern Marxist and racial categories.
A lot could be said about the original meaning of this term as well as the ways it has been changed into one of ridicule and derision. But regardless of whether you want to disparage or defend the term, something I have observed with those who consider themselves to be “woke” in the positive sense is that they tend to demand a level of sensitivity in public and interpersonal communication that borders on the absurd.
In short, for many, a passionate commitment to the principles of woke culture tends to destroy open communication. Every conversation, if not perfectly crafted, becomes a minefield of potential triggers for producing pain, anger, and even outrage. The problem is, very few conversations are perfectly crafted, and spontaneous conversations in particular are virtually never carefully constructed.
In the end, what was intended to create safe communication and better human relationships has created significant barriers to them instead. Genuine intimacy requires communication, and communication often results in misunderstanding and hurt feelings. But without communication and without a willingness to take the risk of being offended or offending someone else, friendships—at least in any meaningful form—become virtually impossible. Given enough time and enough talk, someone is bound to offend and be offended. Rather than joyous and sometime spirited exchange, communication becomes an endless string of trivial politically correct statements, polite critiques, and mutual virtue signaling.
Making “non-offense” the goal of relationships is essentially pushing communication to a level of nothing more than cliché, insignificance, and banality. If you don’t want to offend or be offended in friendships in particular and conversations in general, my advice is simple: stop talking and stop listening to others. It’s your safest bet. But it’s also the surest path to isolating dehumanization and closing yourself off from the people and things you were created for and need the most. You will be unable to love or be loved by anyone, God included, who, in His infinite holiness, has the potential to be the ultimate interpersonal offender.
As C. S. Lewis so wisely reminds us in The Four Loves, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
When applied to our relationship with God, if He is genuinely righteous and loving (He is), He will frequently say offensive things to the hearts and minds of sinners. And as sinners, we need to be offended if we are to escape the ever-present and destructive dangers of our sin and pride. Avoiding offense in a sin-stained world such as ours is to invite greater, not lesser, damage along the way.
We were created to be in relationship, to communicate and to listen to others as they communicate with us. But in the midst of that need, we take the risk not only of being hurt and offended, but also of hurting and offending others. It requires the hard work of granting and receiving forgiveness, but if we are willing to risk going deeper, sometimes offending and sometimes being offended along the way, then—and only then—can we enjoy the precious privilege of loving and being loved by God and one another. And that’s always a risk worth taking.
In this context of communication, God is simultaneously the ultimate offender and the ultimate consoler, the one who comes alongside us in our shame and our pain and calls us into personally challenging but infinitely loving and healing fellowship with Him. As Hosea 6:1 reminds us: “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds.”
When the James Webb telescope started sending photos back to earth, scientists and laymen alike were astonished by some of the beauty and magnificence of what they were seeing in outer space. Things previously unobservable and unseen by human eyes were suddenly coming into focus with an unimaginable clarity and indescribable beauty.
It is just one more example of the adage, “God paints in places we’ll never see.” This cuts against the increasingly common view illustrated by the question sometimes raised in basic philosophy courses. It goes something like this: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it. Is there any sound?” This could only be asked with a straight face by a society that has become deeply enamored and captivated by subjectivism. In this view, almost all of reality is believed to be contained within (and even generated by) the conscious awareness of the individual. It is assumed that if I am not experiencing or aware of something, it does not really matter or perhaps does not even exist. Only my direct experience of something makes it real or meaningful.
Getting back to examples closer to home, there are light spectrums (like infrared and ultraviolet) that humans cannot see unaided, and yet when they are revealed with the help of modern technology, they prove to harbor incredible symmetry and beauty. There are patterns on flowers, for example, that bees are designed to see and be attracted to that are invisible to us.
There are magnificent creatures and plants and microscopic organisms and formations that until very recently were wholly unknown to us. And there are very likely many more we know nothing about. Astonishingly, we sometimes hear the claim that this proves God does not exist since they appear to have no purpose in terms of the betterment of human life.
The assumption here is that we are the absolute center of God’s purposes and plans. Biblically speaking, this is patently false. God exists for His own sake and glory. He delights in things we will (and perhaps, should) never have access to or understand in this life. If this were not the case, then I would think He was a very small God indeed, likely a god of our own creation and imaginative design.
To the utter contrary, the size and grandeur of the universe, alongside the gloriously hidden aspects of creation’s intricate beauty and design, point very obviously to the unfathomable majesty, glory, creativity, and power of the God that we know and serve. He is no provincial God. He is the Creator and Lord of all! And He makes gorgeous things for no other reason than to lovingly display and reflect the majestic magnificence of His unrivaled, inescapable, indescribable beauty.
The only logical response is to worship in utter amazement and humble thanksgiving for the glorious grace of this gratuitous demonstration of creativity, beauty, and brilliance. May we therefore stand in astonished awe and overwhelmed wonder before this incomparable Master Craftsman and unsurpassed and unsurpassable artistic Genius, our Creator, our Lord, our Savior, and our God.
I recently turned sixty. A lot of water has passed beneath the bridge of my life with what feels like dizzying speed. How could I have lived six decades already? Where in the world has all the time gone?
As I reflect, I am struck first and foremost by a deep sense of gratitude. God has blessed me with so many precious people who have deeply impacted me: parents, family, friends, wife, children, and grandchildren. I have been given so much more than I deserved through the years: food, clothing, shelter, and health. There have been incredible and undeserved opportunities to serve God and help others to come to know and grow in their walks with Him all over the world.
Of course, there are many regrets. I openly acknowledge my many shortcomings, failures, character flaws, and sins. I wish I were more patient, more humble, more kind, more emotionally engaged and mature. I wish I were a better listener, asked more and better questions, had a greater sense of teachability and curiosity.
I somehow thought I would be significantly further along in my personal and spiritual maturity by now. And while I have known many precious moments with Him, I believed that walking closely with Jesus would be easier and sweeter by now than it actually is. My Christian life is still a daily struggle of wrestling with sin, character flaws, and bad habits.
Beyond this, there have been many deep heartaches and profound disappointments. Some family and friends have disheartened me by walking away from the faith. I’ve also caught myself asking: What has my life meant and accomplished? I had big dreams in my youth. Have I really followed Jesus whole-heartedly? Has my life truly mattered and made a difference, making a lasting impact that genuinely honors God?
Nevertheless, in the face of all this, God’s goodness and faithfulness has been undeniable and unwavering. I see without question the kindness, grace, and patience of a compassionate God who continues to love, forgive, and provide for me a life I never dreamed possible and the privilege to be used by Him in ways I never deserved or could have imagined.
This life has been, is, and always will be, a gift. And now that I am fast-approaching the increasingly evident tail-end of it, Joe Rigney’s words hold a special significance: “Those at the beginning and the end tell those of us in the middle: This was you: weak, frail, dependent, and needy. This is you: weak, frail, dependent, and needy. This will be you: weak, frail, dependent, and needy. You are a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow. And your life is not your own. It is a gift.”
Thank You, Lord, for creating, loving, and saving me. Thank You for continuing to transform and conform me to the image of Your beloved Son. Thank You for graciously giving me sixty years of life. And thank You for the astonishing hope of eternal life in Christ that enables me to look to the future with unspeakable joy versus devastating dread or deluded denial. You truly are a gracious, kind, and loving God!
As part of our yearly Christmas traditions, our family erected a Nativity display, complete with a wooden stable, plastic barn animals, shepherds, an angel, three wisemen, Mary and Joseph, and baby Jesus in a manger. One year, however, baby Jesus disappeared. Although we searched high and low, He seemed to have vanished into thin air. When Christmas was over, we reluctantly packed up the stable, animals, and other important figures in the Christmas story, but baby Jesus, who was supposed to be the central figure of the scene, was still missing.
Sad to say, our family’s experience of losing Jesus has become a fitting metaphor for many of our lives at Christmas. We pull out all the seasonal décor, attend holiday parties, anticipate family gatherings, and make lists for how many gifts and cards we will be giving and sending to others. On top of all this, we are besieged with invasive displays and advertisements urging us to buy more and more things that promise to give us the joy and contentment for which we hope and long.
Of course, these promises are never fulfilled. There always seems to be a bigger and better version of what we have purchased by the time the next Christmas season rolls around. As a result, we frankly find ourselves exhausted and relieved when the whole holiday season is finally over. And when it comes to Jesus, the real reason for the season, He often gets lost and forgotten in the midst of all the clutter, commotion, and clamor.
While we are busy hanging lights, we forget that Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). Feeling the pressure to give everyone important to us a thoughtful and worthwhile gift, we forget that Jesus is the greatest gift of all (John 3:16). We struggle not to overindulge and overeat, forgetting that Jesus is the bread of life (john 6:35) and the fountain of living water (John 7:37-38). In all the hustle and bustle, we forget that Jesus promises rest (Matthew 11:28-30) and peace (John 14:27) for all who turn to and trust in Him.
Instead of finding Christ at Christmas, we find ourselves over-stimulated, overworked, overfed, and overwhelmed. As Christians, if this is how we experience Christmas, perhaps we need to ask ourselves an important question: In the midst of all that is Christmas, where is Jesus? Have I somehow missed or obscured Him in all the traditions and expectations, new and old, that now surround this increasingly hectic and frenzied season? Have I sought to keep Him at the center of it all, or have I let other things conceal, crowd Him out, and push Him away?
Fortunately, the aforementioned story has a happy ending. We never gave up hope that baby Jesus might appear someday, and several months later, He was found safely tucked away in my youngest daughter’s dresser drawer where she had laid and then forgotten about Him. We restored Him to His rightful place of centrality in our creche, and all was right with the world again.
Similarly, every Christmas, we have an important choice to make concerning Jesus. Because of all the distractions and expectations crowding Him out and drawing us away from the real reason for the season, we must decide: Will we let Him be lost in all the trappings and trimmings of this increasingly secular and market-driven holiday, or will we, like the wisemen and shepherds long ago, make Him the central focus of our interest by continuing to seek Him and joyously make Him known to all who will listen?
Recently, a Michigan student was using Google’s AI Chatbot Gemini to research challenges and solutions for aging adults when he got this response: “This is for you, human. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die.”
As shocking as this AI-generated response sounds, essentially encouraging suicide and euthanasia, it actually makes sense in the context of contemporary secularism.
The term, “euthanasia” comes from the combination of two Greek words, “good” and “death.” It is an English transliteration of the notion that you can have a good death. In the past, it was sometimes referred to as “mercy killing,” but the word “killing” had too many negative connotations, so a more recent referent is “death with dignity.” This is a clever relabeling to make the notion that you are actively killing someone (perhaps even yourself) more palatable and morally praiseworthy.
As I hinted at above, one of the reasons euthanasia has become more accepted in our time is that we live in what has been called a “secular age.” Unlike in premodern times, the basic mindset is oriented away from religion as publicly significant and toward the notion that things like political power, science and technology, secular education, and economic forces are the only publicly significant aspects of culture. And in secularism, this is true, even if religion is still considered a (necessarily private) social good.
The result is a society where spiritual and religious concerns are largely unwelcome (implicitly and sometimes explicitly) in the public square. Materialism becomes the only acceptable basis for determining societal policies. Consequently, only material concerns (economic, political, technological, and educational) should be considered when making such decisions. Public policy becomes only interested in what people can actively provide economically, politically, technically, and educationally to the common good. We must be good for something and are only good for something insofar as we are able to contribute material goods to society.
In a purely material world where death is the end of existence, if we find ourselves infirm, imbecilic, in pain, or incapacitated, then our basic reason for living—subsidizing society’s gross domestic product—has been lost or severely inhibited. If there is no reasonable prospect for regaining our usefulness and death only means eternal inexistence, then like an aging pet or a sick animal, going on living is not merely inconvenient, it’s embarrassing for yourself, cruel to others, and bad economics for society. In short, euthanasia makes good social and economic sense, even to the one being euthanized.
That we should recoil in horror at the callous and flippant way such a view treats human life (our own included), and yet don’t, is a tragic illustration of the economic and materialistic age in which we live. Rather than joyously affirming the infinite value each and every person has by virtue of being a divine image bearer, we have reduced ourselves to mere cogs in a grand but ultimately meaningless system of products and producers. When we and those around us cease to produce more than we consume and when existence isn’t much fun anymore, why go on living? The big (and presumably dreamless) sleep is clearly preferable when we reach our product expiration date. In a world like this, euthanasia becomes a matter of “dignity,” “personal autonomy,” and even a duty to oneself and society as a whole.
This stands in stark contrast to understanding suffering and physical decline as a sin-induced tragic loss of capacity that gives others in society the opportunity to show unconditional love and Christlike care to those who desperately need and deserve it, even if they do not want and cannot see it for themselves. It is a gravely sick and appallingly confused culture that only sees the strong and the productive as worthy of dignity and life and all others as essentially disposable.
Against this secular calculus, Christians ground human worth and dignity in the fact that every human being, by virtue of God’s creative action, is a divine image-bearer. This is true regardless of our age, race, gender, capacity, or giftedness. We honor God, ourselves, and others as worthy of respect because His image bestows on us infinite and eternal worth, irrespective of our social standing or societal productivity quotients.
And while Christians should be horrified and grieved at our growing cultural acceptance of assisted (and sometime even encouraged) suicide, we also have the responsibility to demonstrate concrete and sacrificial concern for the suffering, weak, and aging. Indifference is complicity in a culture of death, and we must not merely stand against the tide with our words but also with our actions and our resources.
This recently came home to me in a very profound way as my relatives and I reflected on the death of my wife’s uncle who passed after a protracted and debilitating battle with dementia that lasted several years. He was once a great and highly successful man, an air force officer and a wealthy senior commercial pilot, but the dementia stole his memory, his sensibility, and his ability to care for himself. By the end, he was a mere shadow of the man he had once been.
Nevertheless, we all agreed that despite the exhausting difficulties associated with his care (especially for my mother-in-law), and the seeming pointlessness of extending the inevitable, he was honored, dignified, and humanized. In addition, his caregivers became better persons through the process of loving and caring for one who could no longer provide proper appreciation or adequate care for himself.
It afforded a concrete illustration of the fact that love—true love—is not a storm of emotion but a daily, moment by moment sacrificial commitment to do what is kind and right for another, even when that kindness is not reciprocated or perhaps repaid with anger, aggression, and ingratitude. This kind of deeply countercultural love is most clearly embodied in the person of Jesus Christ whose love was directed toward those who were not only unlovely, but unloving and hostile toward the One who loved and gave His life for them.
He is not only our model but our life-giving Savior who forgives and empowers us to do what is foolish and vain in the eyes of the world, but precious and beautiful in the eyes of our loving, kind, and gracious God.
It’s all over the internet, a picture of baby Jesus lying amidst the rubble of a bombed-out building. The idea is that if Jesus was born in Gaza today, He would not be safely lying in a manger on silent and holy night, but in a war zone with His life in desperate danger.
Doubtless, such an image helps shake us from the contemporary temptation to forget the radical nature of Christ’s coming to earth, not as a conquering messianic King like the Jews expected, but as the vulnerable suffering servant, born a defenseless baby in a tiny backwater town to a displaced peasant couple.
And when the angels appeared to announce His coming, they did not come to the rich, powerful, and well-connected. They didn’t even come to His parents. Instead, they appeared in the middle of nowhere to the lowliest of the low, a dirty, despised, and devalued class of people—shepherds—to make their declaration. And what was the message of this terrifying event? A Savior is born “who is Christ and Lord.” In short, He was the long-awaited Messiah (Christ in Greek), and He was Lord, the King above all Kings.
We know this in part because of Isaiah’s prophetic promise in chapter seven telling us that “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” and later in chapter nine that “the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.”
In this light, we would be deceived to think that Jesus’ birth was somehow safe, sensible, and apolitical. Herod understood all too well the nature of Christ’s coming, and his paranoid political madness cost the lives of countless boys below the age of two because Jesus was a clear and present danger to his godless earthly reign.
Herod’s attempt to eliminate Jesus as a political threat, however, betrays the perennial tendency in our own time to make Jesus primarily an earthly political figure in a world of God-defying injustice, as if Jesus came to save the world by becoming another (presumably better) earthly king. To be sure, He came as King, but a King who first and foremost came to serve, suffer, and sacrifice Himself to save us from the disordered debris of a world damaged and shattered by sin.
But it takes deep humility to recognize and admit our dire and dreadful state of disorder. Instead, we desperately try to rebuild and renovate the wreckage of our lives, devising many creative and clever ways to deny or sweep it aside, reform it into more acceptable shapes and sizes, or even to somehow make peace with it.
The profound irony is that this seemingly helpless baby Jesus amidst the rubble is our only hope for restoration and peace. He lovingly dwells in the midst of our battered and broken lives, miraculously molding us into something strong, significant, and beautiful. But He only does this when we finally relinquish our futile attempts to redeem ourselves and fully trust in Him alone to forgive, restore, rebuild, and transform us from the inside out.
The idea of a “bucket list” was popularized by the 2007 film, “The Bucket List.” It’s a list of things to do and places to go before you die, i.e., “kick the bucket.” For example, I would love to visit Alaska, a state extolled for its transcendent natural beauty, but one I have only seen in pictures.
I should, however, clarify that I have very little to complain about concerning the life experiences enjoyed and amazing places seen. By God’s grace, I’ve experienced the magnificent majesty of the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park, enjoyed the beaches of Southern California, Bali, and Phuket, trod the Great Wall of China, eaten armadillo in the jungles of Bolivia, visited the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, wandered the north woods of the upper Midwest, paddled in the crystal clear fault lakes of the Canadian boundary waters, seen the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, swam in the bracing cold of the Great Lakes, seen the Holy Land, the Coliseum in Rome, the Tower of London, the ancient ruins of the Seven Churches in the book of Revelation . . . . The list could go on, and yet, I’ve still never been to many breathtakingly beautiful places in Europe, Africa, Russia, New Zealand, or even outer space. Given my age and income level, it’s likely I won’t see most (if not all) of them before I die.
Even if I had the time and money, however, the sheer size and majesty of this world (not to mention the universe), would make it extremely hard to “see and do it all” in a single lifetime. Seeing the obsessive passion with which some people create and pursue the fulfillment of their bucket lists, I can’t help but wonder if certain assumptions lie beneath the fervor to see and experience as much of the world as possible before death.
Probably the primary motivation is that since “you only live once” (which is true), you can only enjoy what this world has to offer before you die (which is false). The materialist assumption that lies behind the drive to do everything possible before death suggests that once you die, you simply no longer exist. We should therefore “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). But if we are made for eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and have trusted in Christ, we can confidently anticipate a gloriously indescribable future beyond this fleeting life that will be spent forever in a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21-22). Even the most breath-taking experiences we can muster in this passing life are mere faint and shifting shadows compared to the unimaginable magnificence of the life that is to come.
Please don’t misunderstand me. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see the many splendors of this world that God has made. He has, after all, created it to reflect His own majestic beauty and bountiful wisdom. The heavens really do declare His glory (Psalm 19:1). Creation is a dim but very real reflection of the glory of our God and Maker, making it a many-splendored thing, worthy to be explored and experienced with awe and gratitude.
The drive to both make and complete a bucket list, however, can cause us to forget that as wonderful and beautiful as the things of creation are, they ultimately pale in comparison to what we will know and experience in eternity. Even if you never fulfill your wanderlust, even if you never have all the thrills and experiences that our existential age promotes as essential for fulfillment (you assuredly will not), it is a profound and concrete comfort to know that these longings are merely meant to remind us that we are ultimately made for another (and magnificently better) world.
As C. S. Lewis so beautifully put it in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
Here is how John describes this magnificent world in Revelation 21: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
I’m putting this destination, accessible through faith in Christ alone, in the pole position of my bucket list. And thanks to Jesus, when I finally do kick the bucket, it’s a place I will never have to worry about missing out on. After all, He will be there in all His unmasked glory, and I will finally see Him face to face.
Desire has always played a central role in human existence, but when our desires become misdirected and inordinate (i.e., disordered), they can easily lead to sinful and destructive actions and attitudes.
Misdirected desires, on the one hand, are perfectly appropriate but directed at inappropriate objects and applied within wrong contexts, as when, for example, someone sexually desires children, animals, or has sexual relations with someone outside of marriage.
Inordinate desires, on the other hand, are desires that are also perfectly proper but improperly fulfilled in terms of quantity. Examples of these include gluttony and drunkenness, the proper but inordinate desire for food and drink. These desires can also manifest themselves in what would appear to be too little of something good, as when an anorexic individual fails to eat enough, or a highly driven person fails to sleep enough.
Thus, misdirected desires are disordered directionally and contextually, whereas inordinate desires are disordered in terms of quantity and extent. Very often, our desires are disordered by being simultaneously misdirected and inordinate. For example, we can desire not just too much food but also the wrong kinds—such as “junk” food which is high in fat and refined sugar while largely devoid of basic nutritional value.
Ever since sin entered human history, our desires have had the potential to be problematic and disordered. This is at least part of the reason why Buddhism tries to solve the problem of human suffering by advocating the complete elimination of all human desire. The logic works this way: If we want nothing, we will never suffer the disappointment of not getting it. Nor will the inordinate desire of greed (for example) cause others to suffer by taking for ourselves more than we should.
In contrast, Christianity does not consider desire to be inherently negative. In Galatians 5:16-17, for example, “the desires of the flesh” or sinful desires, are set over and against the good and righteous “desires of the Spirit.” In 1 Corinthians 12:31, Paul commands us to “eagerly desire the greater gifts.” Even God is depicted with appropriate desires, as in 2 Peter 3:9, which says that He does not desire “that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
We often try to be holy by denying our desires. But if we are not careful, this can devolve into becoming more of a Buddhist solution versus a biblical solution to the problem. To quote C. S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory, “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Our desires might not be wrong per se, but perhaps they are not strong enough for the right things because we are either ignorant of or (more likely) in rebellion toward the deeper and more important desires God wants for us. This obliviousness and insurgency are ubiquitously encouraged and promoted by contemporary thinking about the nature of desires, especially in the western world. They are there, it is argued, for no other reasons than to be stimulated and fulfilled. The stronger the desire, the more important it is to encourage and satisfy it. Since sexual desires are some of the strongest desires known to humankind, the narrative screams and demands that we must follow the (especially sexual) desires of our heart. Anything else, it is claimed, is psychologically oppressive and a destructive affront to human flourishing.
In contrast, Christians understand that although extremely important and powerful, sin has deeply impacted all of our desires. Thus, our strongest desires are not necessarily our deepest and most important desires. No matter how weak or how strong, they are often disordered and therefore potentially dangerous. They must continually be harnessed and (re)directed toward the right ends and kept within proper limits. In this way, we can be powerfully passionate, but passionate in the right ways, toward the right things, and to the right extent.
As Asaph so poignantly reminds us in Psalm 73:25-26, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
I grew up in what many call a “low” church tradition. Besides Christmas and Easter, we did not follow the rhythms of any traditional annual liturgical calendar. I thought that sacred seasons like Lent were only practiced by more “rigid” and “ritualistic” denominations. For my classmates attending such churches, Lent was a time to complain about all the things they wanted but couldn’t have because they had to “give it up for Lent.” Consequently, the practice held little attraction for me. I enjoyed the spiritual freedom of eating, drinking, and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.
It was only after moving to Singapore that I began to hear and think more seriously about the meaning, practices, and significance of Lent. I learned that because Easter is celebrated toward the beginning of spring, the word “Lent” comes from the old English word that means to “lengthen,” referring to the time when the days getting longer in the northern hemisphere. In addition, I realized that Lent is linked not only to the Easter event, but also to the 40 days of fasting Jesus experienced in the wilderness at the onset of His active earthly ministry.
I also began to appreciate how Lent was really a privilege and gracious invitation to grow nearer to Jesus Christ through acts of identification and participation in His sacrifice and sufferings on my behalf. Jesus willingly left His heavenly position of power and prestige to live the humiliating life of every man (Phil 2:5-8; Heb 2:14-18), endure hardship, temptation, and weakness (Luke 4:1-13), and ultimately give His life as a faultless and sufficient sacrifice for sin (2 Cor 5:21).
In giving up His life, Jesus simultaneously gave us His moral righteousness, divine position, and eternal life, by forgiving us, raising us from the dead, and seating us with Him in the heavenly places the moment we placed our faith in Him (Eph 2:4-9). As we think deeply upon this unwarranted kindness and grace of God in Christ, we should be overwhelmed by His undeserved, sacrificial, and immeasurable love. It should compel us to ask, “How can I thank you, Lord, and how can I more deeply appreciate all that Christ has done for me?”
Leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection at Easter, Lent calls us to a time of voluntary hardship, reflection, and thanksgiving to help us to enter more fully into His sacrificial life, humiliating death, and glorious resurrection. We do this in two primary ways: giving up and giving out. By giving up, we willingly sacrifice something important and pleasurable to us; a beloved food, a favorite TV show, a special drink, an entertaining activity like being on social media. This “What?” must be decided upon between you and the Lord, but the idea is to suffer the loss of something you love and enjoy as a concrete reminder of all that Christ lovingly sacrificed for you.
But Lent is not meant to be merely a call to give up. Just as Christ gave up many things, He also gave out—offering us forgiveness, holiness, honor, hope, and eternal life through His giving up. Thus, Lent also calls us to give out in our giving up. As we sacrifice something for the season of Lent, we are also encouraged to think of it as a time to give to others what we don’t typically or easily give. It might be the offer kindness and forgiveness to someone you would rather remain angry with. It might be the gift of food or drink or money or time or service. Again, the “What?” is something to discern from the Lord. But as you live in sacrifice through Lent, you are also called to live in generosity and joyful thanksgiving for all that God has given you by sharing those gracious blessings with others.
In the end, there is a certain mystery to Lent. When done for the wrong reasons, it can become prideful, misdirected, and nothing more than a dead or legalistic ritual, devoid of any real meaning or benefit. But when done with the right attitude through the power and love of His Holy Spirit, profound spiritual growth and Christian maturity results, and God is both pleased and glorified.
lewinkler 