Comfortable Lies -- Uneasy Truths

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for 9.22.12

Which would you rather hear? Be honest now. Wouldn’t you rather hear that your new haircut makes you look 10 years younger rather than that it makes your ears look really, really huge? Think back to when you were dating – when you first introduced someone you’d met to your friends, you wanted to hear how perfect you were for each other. The friend who told you honestly that they could see that your date was not your type usually earned your wrath instead of your gratitude.

Imagine this scenario: You pick “your car up from the shop after a routine tune-up, and the technician says, ‘This car is in great shape. Clearly you have an automotive genius to take great care of your car.’ Later that day, your brakes don't work. You find out you were out of brake fluid. You could have died.

“You go back to the shop, and you say, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’ The technician replies, ‘Well, I didn't want you to feel bad. Plus, to be honest, I was afraid you might get upset with me. I want this to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted.’ You'd be furious! You'd say, ‘I didn't come here for a little fantasy-based ego boost! When it comes to my car, I want the truth.’

“Or imagine going to the doctor's office for a check-up. The doctor says to you, ‘You are a magnificent physical specimen. You have the body of an Olympian. You are to be congratulated.’ Later that day while climbing the stairs, your heart gives out. You find out later your arteries were so clogged that you were, like, one jelly doughnut away from the grim reaper.

“You go back to the doctor and say, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’ The doctor says, ‘Well, I knew your body is in worse shape than the Pillsbury doughboy, but if I tell people stuff like that, they get offended. It's bad for business. They don't come back. I want this to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted.’ You'd be furious! You'd say to the doctor, ‘When it comes to my body, I want the truth!’”[1]

What about when it comes to your salvation? Do you want the truth then? Some of us would rather live with a comfortable lie.

Paul tells us that we need to love the truth to survive the end time events: 

“and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10)

“The love of the truth” – Paul says they couldn’t be saved without it. What do you think that means? Could it mean that we want to know the truth even if it means that our lives are more complicated because of it? Even if it means we have to change jobs because of what we believe? Even if knowing the truth means our families won’t have anything to do with us and some friends turn away? It may mean all of those things, but for sure it means that we love to read and study the source of all truth, the Bible.

Paul describes the opposite of having the love of the truth as having “itching ears.” 

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4

As time moves toward Jesus’ Second Coming, loving the truth is going to become so important. We will all be faced with deceptions and lies that are so convincing that we won’t have a chance of seeing through them unless God stands with us. Even right now, people believe so many different things about how Jesus’ coming will play out that if we are looking for the comfortable lie, we will have no trouble at all finding it. The question is, do we have the courage to look past what is comfortable and reach for the truth beyond?

God promises that if we will stand for His truth that He will take special care of us. 

“Holy, ministering agencies of heaven are cooperating with human agencies to lead into safe paths all who love truth and righteousness. It is the greatest joy of the angels of heaven to spread the shield of their tender love over souls who turn to God; and Satan fights determinedly to retain every soul that has had light and evidence. His fierce, unabated desire is to destroy every soul possible. Will you choose to stand under his banner?” (E.G. White, SDA Bible Commentary, Volume 7, p.922)

You know that the enemy wants to keep as many as he can out of Heaven, and he will do whatever he can to confuse and deceive us.

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. ‘Then if anyone says to you, “Look, here is the Christ!” or “There!” do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.’” Matthew 24:21-25

Life would be so much easier if we could wrap ourselves in those comfortable lies – that these jeans don’t make me look fat, that being a follower of Jesus will be easy, that we can achieve world peace, and that computers will give us a paperless society.

Do we really want to live in the lie? Or would we rather embrace the uneasy truths that will ensure our salvation? We can’t depend on our mother/father/spouse for our salvation; we have to find Jesus for ourselves. We have to study our own Bibles and have our own relationship with Jesus. Sometimes, following Jesus will be uncomfortable, unpopular, and maybe even unhealthy (check out the stories of the early Christians…it didn’t end well for them – on earth, anyway).

What will happen to those who haven’t received the love of the truth – who have itching ears – who want salvation to be easy? Paul says, 

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12

Think about it…comfort or salvation…which will you choose?

Dear Jesus, I want to receive the love of truth so that I won’t be deceived. Amen.

---

[1] John Ortberg, "Loving Enough to Speak the Truth," PreachingToday.com

The World's Hardest Job

OK, so, which do you think would be harder, being the guy how led several million Israelites out of Egypt or the wife of the guy who led several million Israelites out of Egypt?  Yep, that’s what I thought too.

Have you ever had to stand back and watch while someone you loved and cared about had to take a risk?  Maybe it’s being in a play, playing basketball, preaching his (or her) first sermon, being elected president of the United States, or being chosen by God to go back to Egypt and chat with Pharaoh.  That’s one of the hardest things in the world, isn’t it?  You’re more nervous than he is, aren’t you?  Butterflies in your stomach, weak knees, profuse sweating, heart palpitations…you’re a nervous wreck.  He, however, looks calm, cool, and collected.  That’s so not fair.

Now, when things go well, the pressure of watching your loved one doing his thing is bearable.  But then things start going badly:  he forgets his lines, misses what would have been the winning basket, gets stuck during his sermon, his approval rating tanks or the Israelites start whining.  That’s when things begin to get uncomfortable; certainly for the person in the thick of the difficulties, but also for the person who has to stand by and take it.  Excruciating, in fact.

Think of Moses and Zipporah.  They had forty pretty easy years together-just the sheep, Zipporah’s sisters and at least one brother, Jethro, and the two boys.  They all seemed to get along pretty well.  When you think about, Moses probably had spent more of his life with these people than he had with his own family (birth or adopted).  He had worked beside these people, eaten with them, laughed and cried with them; Moses knew Zipporah’s family on a really personal basis.  They probably had inside jokes and funny old memories that his own family back in Egypt would not understand.  In many ways, I believe Moses felt more closeness with this family than with his own…to begin with anyway.

But then, God gives Moses a mission and things begin to happen pretty quickly; Moses and his wife and kids head off for Egypt.

Now to be really honest, I don’t get this whole circumcision, husband of blood thing AT ALL!  I do take comfort in finding out that almost nobody else gets it either.  Some people say that the angel was trying to kill Moses’ son, Gershom, that it was Moses who was circumcised, that Zipporah was honoring Moses by putting the blood on his feet, or that she was angry at him for making her do what he should have done.  There’s another whole theory that God was trying to kill Moses because Moses had been reluctant to take on this mission.  I think those are all things we’ll have to ask Moses and Zipporah about when we chat with them in Heaven.  All I think I understand about this episode, is that Zipporah did what she had to do to save her husband’s life, even though she probably wasn’t thrilled about doing it or understand all the why’s and wherefores of it.  She saw what had to be done and she did it.  Wow.

Zipporah doesn’t come into the story again for quite a while.  Again, there are lots of theories.  Some say that Moses divorced her at that point…but then why did she come see him again later?  Mrs. White says that Moses realized that the things he was going to have to do to get through to Pharaoh were going to be too hard on her.  He probably also knew that he couldn’t be distracted from his mission, even by his own family.  Another thing, and this is just me, Moses might have been a little reluctant for his birth family to meet Zipporah, and with good reason, as it turned out.  Whatever the logic was, Zipporah goes back to Midian and Moses heads on to Egypt.  That must have been tough.

When Zipporah and Moses meet up again, Zipporah has to realize pretty quickly that her quiet shepherdess life is completely over.  Now she is traveling the desert with the leader of several million whiney people who wanted Moses’ attention all the time.  They wanted more food, different food, water; they wanted Moses to settle their petty little arguments – all day long, everyday!  Oh for a couple hundred nice quiet sheep!!!

Do you remember how angry you were the first time one of you kids told you that somebody at school didn’t like him (or her)?  Or later, when somebody he was dating broke his heart?  He probably got over it before you did, because he’s interacting, crying, healing, meeting new people, and hopefully studying; while all you have to go on is that one bit of information, that one interaction when he was the most vulnerable.  He can move on much more easily than you can.  Imagine Moses and Zipporah in their tent ready to go to sleep and Moses is decompressing from his day.  Zipporah listens and gets pretty angry and frustrated with these people who are eating up all of her husband’s time.  Moses can get a good night’s sleep and go out and do it all again tomorrow, but Zipporah has time to stew about each slight and complaint.  Thankfully she went and vented to her dad who had some pretty great advice about how to delegate authority so Moses could stick to the important business of getting all these folks to the Promised Land.

You know what’s really great though, is that Moses took the advice.  How many of us would have just brushed Jethro’s advice off?  I mean what did he know?  He’d never led millions of people through the desert.  God hadn’t called him to free the Israelites from slavery.  He was just some small town priest from some backwoods town. Moses knew two things, though.  First, he knew his father-in-law well enough to know he was a smart guy; he’d already learned a lot from him.  And, second, he knew that God was the One who was really in charge; and if He chose to give Moses advice through his father-in-law, he’d be glad to take it.

Moses shows the advantages of having a great support system for somebody who is in a position of authority.  He didn’t ever just set out to do this on his own.  He worked with his own family – Miriam and Aaron.  He worked with his in-laws – Jethro and Hobab (Zipporah’s brother).  He worked with the Israelites by delegating authority over the people.  And probably most importantly, Moses wasn’t a control freak, an easy trap to fall into when a person holds that much authority. 

Another great thing is that Zipporah worked hard to make Moses' life easier not harder.  And isn’t that the best way we can serve each other, by making each other’s lives easier?  “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”  Galations 6:2 

Zipporah could have whined to Moses that he never paid any attention to her and the boys; that he’d dragged them out into the wilderness without discussing things first; that he cared more about these strangers than he did about her.  When Moses’ brother and sister got ugly about her, she could have jumped into the fight and told them what she thought about them…but as far as we know, she didn’t give into that mentality.  She supported her husband in the mission he had accepted. 

I’d be willing to bet that she didn’t always like the way her life was going, but that didn’t change her mind about her mission—to be a blessing to her family. 

“The wife can be a comfort, a blessing, standing by the side of her husband as his safe counselor, her influence keeping him to the right, to honesty and purity and godliness.”--Letter 41a, 1888, p. 5. (Written at Burrough Valley, Calif., July 7, 1888, to Brothers and Sisters at Fresno.)

“Here is the wife, the queen of the home--the blessing of God can rest upon her that she may be a sunshine, a sunbeam, in the house. Never, never, in any way, speak in a manner that would irritate. The voice is a talent; it is a talent of God. It is to be so cultivated that it will bring peace and harmony and light and love.” {2SAT 271.3}

Drippingly Insincere

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for 8.27.11

I remember when my boys were little, they’d come show me something they’d drawn or written and without really looking at it or them, I’d mumble, “Great job, sweetie!”  Well, that only worked for a little while.  They got old enough to realize that I was not being sincere in my appreciation of their accomplishment.  In fact, one of the boys was only in about 3^rd grade when he figured out that most of his teachers’ “Awesome!” and “Great job!” didn’t carry much weight either.  He wanted to know why teachers always said stuff like that when everybody knew they didn’t mean it.  Ouch!  He got me on both counts.  But I did try to be more careful – both at school and at home.

The problem is, it really seems so harmless, doesn’t it, to tell a child that his (or her) scribbles are beautiful or that his “story” is great, right?  Is a compliment really a compliment if you don’t mean it, and/or if the compliment-ee didn’t really earn it?

David Brooks of The New York Times seems to believe that unearned compliments might be causing some misconceptions.

“‘We're an overconfident species,’ … Brooks calls it a ‘magnification of the self,’ and he believes this glut of self-esteem is especially rampant in the United States. To back up these claims, Brooks cites an array of statistics, studies, and observations:
“When pollsters ask people from around the world to rate themselves on different traits, Americans usually supply the most positive self-ratings.
“Although American students do not perform well on global math tests, they are among the world leaders in having self-confidence about their math abilities.
“Compared to college students from 30 years ago, today's college students are much more likely to agree with statements such as ‘I am easy to like.’
“94 percent of college professors believe they have above-average teaching skills.
“70 percent of high school students surveyed claim they have above-average leadership skills, and only 2 percent are below average.
“Brooks observes that a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable for a baseball player to celebrate himself in the batter's box after hitting a home run. Today it is routine.
“Similarly, pop singers wouldn't have composed songs about their own greatness; now those songs dominate the charts.
“The number of high school seniors who believed that they were ‘a very important person’: in the 1950s—12 percent; in the 1990s—80 percent.
“According to Brooks, American men are especially susceptible to the perils of overconfidence. Men unintentionally drown twice as often as women (because men have great faith in their swimming ability, especially after drinking).
“‘In short,’ Brooks concludes, ‘there's abundant evidence to suggest that we have shifted a bit from a culture that emphasized self-effacement—I'm not better than anybody else, but nobody is better than me—to a culture that emphasizes self-expansion.’”[1]

Honestly though, would you rather know the truth even if it wasn’t pretty?  Or would you prefer to hear a lie that made you feel better?

“Imagine picking your car up from the shop after a routine tune-up, and the technician says, ‘This car is in great shape. Clearly you have an automotive genius to take great care of your car.’ Later that day, your brakes don't work. You find out you were out of brake fluid. You could have died.
“You go back to the shop, and you say, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’ The technician replies, ‘Well, I didn't want you to feel bad. Plus, to be honest, I was afraid you might get upset with me. I want this to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted,’ You'd be furious! You'd say, ‘I didn't come here for a little fantasy-based ego boost! When it comes to my car, I want the truth.’
“Or imagine going to the doctor's office for a check-up. The doctor says to you, ‘You are a magnificent physical specimen. You have the body of an Olympian. You are to be congratulated.’ Later that day while climbing the stairs, your heart gives out. You find out later your arteries were so clogged that you were, like, one jelly doughnut away from the grim reaper.
“You go back to the doctor and say, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’ The doctor says, ‘Well, I knew your body is in worse shape than the Pillsbury doughboy, but if I tell people stuff like that, they get offended. It's bad for business. They don't come back. I want this to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted.’ You'd be furious! You'd say to the doctor, ‘When it comes to my body, I want the truth!’
“Obviously, when something matters to us, we do not want illusory comfort based on pain avoidance. We want truth.”[2]

And that’s all God wants too.  He wants our love and obedience, but only if we want to give it.  He doesn’t ask anybody to pretend.  In fact, He gets pretty angry with people who say one thing and do another.

“The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the Lord. I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.  When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you,    this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings!  Your incense is detestable to me.  New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.  When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening.     Your hands are full of blood!”  Isaiah 1:11-15

Wow!  Those are some really strong words!  And the meaning is clear: “Don’t even bother to put on a show for Me.  If you don’t mean it, I don’t want it.” 

Going through the motions is just not good enough!  Matthew West’s song says it perfectly:  

“'Cause I don't wanna go through the motions / I don't wanna go one more day / without Your all consuming passion inside of me / I don't wanna spend my whole life asking, / ‘What if I had given everything, / instead of going through the motions?’”[3]

I want my worship, my whole relationship with God to be sincere; no more going through the motions.  What about you?

[1] David Brooks, "The Modesty Manifesto," The New York Times (3-21-11)

[2] John Ortberg, "Loving Enough to Speak the Truth," PreachingToday.com

[3] Jason Houser, Sam Mizell, Matthew West, “The Motions,” Something to Say, Cedar Sides; Songs for Lulu, Llc Word Music