The insight of skinned knees

At the time I started writing this post, my seven-month-old son was crying on the floor.  He is so very, very close to being able to roll over by himself.  If he's on his back, he can -- with some coaxing -- successfully get to his belly.  Going the other way is another matter.  He just can't yet manage that final push.  To be fair, we live in an old house with lots of uneven flooring, so some of his attempts at rolling over are literally uphill.  Which is completely unfair.  As is, I suppose, using your son's disadvantages as the impetus for a blog post.  But he's the son of a pastor/writer, so that's just part of the contract.

Through this new lens of fatherhood, I am gaining unique insights into God's love for me that I naively thought I understood all along.  For instance, in the midst of my undergrad, I wrote the following lyric for one of my band's songs:

Failures are the lasting lessons
I’ve got so much left to learn
I’ll crawl so I can walk, skin my knees and my pride
But never forget to smile
Chewing on the trials

The imagery I was after (nearly 10 years ago now) was exactly the phase of life my son is currently entering: the emerging independence of a human personality that is at once so confident and so determined, and yet so very incapable.  Zeke, like all human beings, must learn by bumping his head, by taking those intrepid first steps and falling down.  We learn by struggling.  The progression from a diet of milk to one of solid food is necessarily gradual.

Watching it literally happen in front of me, I now have a much better context for understanding the care and perseverance of our Heavenly Father.  God labors to teach us the way I labor to teach my son: He could very well step in and fix everything for us, yet He lovingly allows us the opportunity to struggle, to learn, and to worship Him all the more for it.  Sometimes, Zeke needs me to step in and give him a push.  Other times, it's better for me to wait, so he can push himself just a little harder.  He doesn't always appreciate it when I opt for the latter.

But then again, neither do I when God does the same thing to me.

In the midst of each spiritual battle and God-ordained challenge, Christians face a choice: either embrace the opportunity the adversity represents in order to trust God more and grow in our faith, or instead adopt a shortsighted, embittered preoccupation with trying to eliminate as much difficulty in our lives as possible, complaining all the while.  The sad thing is that, when we take the latter course of action, we miss the opportunity for true joy.

In our Wikipedia/YouTube culture -- where answers and solutions should never be more than one click away -- endurance is a concept that needs revisiting.  Even for Christians, it's easy to become discouraged when facing the same sin struggle day after day, or having to forgive someone for the 489th time.  We might be tempted to want the same type of immediate gratification our world craves.  It is an immaturity -- not unlike my son whining with one arm tucked helplessly under his side -- that demands immediate solutions.  On the other hand, it is absolutely NOT immaturity for us to cry out to the Father for help, provided we begin learning to ask the right things from the right heart attitude.

The Apostle Paul penned some pretty famous words in his epistle to the Philippians, words that are often stripped of their rich meaning.  Speaking of his own challenges with regard to sharing the gospel, he wrote, "I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Phil 4.12-13)  And that, Paul says, is connected to the ability to know true joy -- to endure hardship and be closer to God for the struggle.  The ability to "do all things" is not some promise of superpowers.  The power that Paul speaks of is the power that God abundantly supplies in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  It is a power that, ironically, requires us to be dependent upon God.  It is a power that is only accessible via weakness.

The "secret" of facing plenty, hunger, abundance, and need is through HIM.

That's why our skinned knees are so valuable.  They shouldn't just teach us practical lessons about how to do it better next time.  They should teach us to lean into a source of power that is beyond our limited abilities -- one that is best expressed in our weakness.  If we are willing to focus on the One who never fails, who never changes, and who never requires us to do anything He won't lead us through, suddenly our spiritual growth is not an insurmountable mountain or a life of isolation and drudgery.  It is a walk with God.

I love to walk with Zeke -- for the time being, with him in my arms, or in the stroller, or strapped to my chest.  Sometimes with him upside-down over my shoulder.  The type of delight I feel when he smiles or learns something new is a taste of the type of delight our Heavenly Father takes in my daily dependence on Him.  And the reality is that, once Zeke masters this whole rolling over thing, there will be another challenge for him to face.  And another one.  Likewise, our spiritual growth isn't about one day or even one year.  It is a lifelong process.  My hope for Zeke is that, as he matures, he learns not to whine or complain, but to ask for help, and to trust in the wisdom and care his Mama and I can provide.  An even greater thing is true of each Christian's walk with God, because God is not only worthy of our trust, He is worthy of our worship.  The adoration we must give Him is not because He craves it or is incomplete without us: we give it because no other is worthy of receiving it.

We would therefore do well to stop relying on ourselves, cease our complaining spirits, and instead cry out to God daily for help with every challenge we face.   Spiritual maturity is not (contrary to popular opinion) independence and theological intellect, but rather learning to more fully depend on the transforming grace that God abundantly supplies.

The Ministry of Parenthood

Ever since Tara and I started down the journey of parenthood, I've been especially moved by passages such as Psalm 78 that emphasize externalizing our faith by passing it on to the next generation.  As I study the Scriptures, I am convinced that a faith that is real is a self-replicating faith.  As a youth pastor, seeking to instill faith in others is something I've been seeking to do for a number of years with teenage students who aren't really my children.  However, with the advent of parenthood and the arrival of my son, Zeke, this purpose has gained an entirely new dimension.

Asaph writes the following purpose statement into his epic history of the Israelite nation in the wilderness in Psalm 78.5-8:

[Yawhweh] established a testimony in Jacob
    and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
    to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them,
    the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
    so that they should set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God,
    but keep his commandments;
and that they should not be like their fathers,
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
    whose spirit was not faithful to God.

There are three goals here for the next generation -- that they should "set their hope in God," that they would "keep his commandments," and, by contrast to their forefathers, that they would have a "steadfast heart" with spirits "faithful to God."

It's not exactly formulaic to teach someone to "set their hope in God."  No simple three-step solution.  Each of us can probably think of individuals for whom we've been praying for years to receive the gospel, but no matter how often or how patiently we labor to make Jesus' love known to them, the adage about leading horses to water remains true.  The best way to inspire hope, therefore, is to be hopeful yourself.  Ultimately, change of heart is the work of the Holy Spirit, and so my goal as a parent can't be to change my children, but to lead my children by setting the example of clinging to Jesus with all my might.  Paul repeatedly said to the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me, as I imitate Christ" (1 Cor 4.16; 11.1).  That's how we inspire our children to "set their hope in God."

While parenting is so much more than just teaching your kids to keep rules, it certainly is not less than that.  Asaph's second purpose in Psalm 78 is that the upcoming generation might "not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments."  Even if we fancy ourselves progressive parents who lead more by positive than negative reinforcement, at some point we need to emphasize and enforce the importance of obeying God's Word.  I'd argue that requires a strongly corrective element, because the Bible repeatedly states that the use of physical discipline in a young man's life brings correction and life, and is intrinsically connected to spiritual upbringing (Prov 13.24; 19.18; 22.15; 23.13-14; 29.15; Eph 6.4).  I notice also that the "rod and staff" of the Lord -- the painful instruments of shepherd's instruments of herding, correcting, and steering away from death -- should be regarded as a comfort to the Christian's soul (Psa 23.4).  While it is certainly the prerogative of parents to make their own rules, the rules we primarily seek to enforce should be biblically based -- God's rules, not just ours.  I always tell my teens that the arbitrary rules parents set may often seem unfair, but are not always unreasonable, and must still be honored.  More important, however, are the truly biblical rules that Scripture commands, such as loving one another well, speaking kindly, practicing forgiveness, and being obedient from the heart to parents and authorities.  Those are biblical "rules," and parents do well to enforce those kinds of standards in their children's lives.  We are after training our kids to learn to "keep his commandments" from the heart, not just because we say so.

Lastly, there is a great call for parents to raise children who possess steadfast and faithful hearts.  The contrast for Asaph in Psalm 78 is the first generation of Israelites coming out of Egypt, who moaned and complained in the desert, despite God's incredible faithfulness and generous provision.  Kids are expert complainers, but they often learn from the best: mom and dad, who have expectations of one another, of the neighbors, of the government, of the township, etc that are not always met.  Our goal as parents must be to inspire in our children gratitude and reliance upon God, the type of dependant faithfulness that always regards God as our gracious provider, despite what we might see in our present circumstances.

If you like me are still keeping track of your child's age in months rather than years, you know that you aren't really at the point yet that you can begin to have these types of conversations with your child.  It's such a beautiful time for parents to simply show unconditional love to a young life, where the only thing he or she can express is dependence.  But just because we're not necessarily able to teach verbally, we do have the ability to begin creating an atmosphere in our home that will facilitate later on the things that we intend to teach our children.  Often, parents struggle to instill biblical values in their children because those kids grew up in an environment where the message didn't match the atmosphere.  Even infants can sense tone, emotion, safety, and discomfort.

Imagine you have the good goal of teaching your kid these three purposes from Psalm 78, but he or she grows up in a house where the most common sounds are the TV and the nitpicking, the sometimes harsh tones of parents directed at one another (or at the dog).  The atmosphere the child begins to grow up in is one of disconnectedness, frustration, and obligatory caregiving.  What kinds of examples are being laid?  Mom and Dad communicate by trying to one-up the other in how difficult their day was?  Mom is the anxious type who worries about everything and irritates Dad, who is far too laid-back to be concerned about anything?  

Maybe I didn't cover your area of weakness in those hypotheticals, but the point is this: in order for us to be good parents and achieve the objectives of Psalm 78, then we must be disciples of Jesus ourselves.  Each of us must love, serve, and respect his or her spouse, be stewards of what God has given, demonstrate grace and compassion in the way we speak to and of others inside our home, and be personally disciplined in the ways we pray, study the Word, and put Scripture into practice in our everyday lives.

It's a tall order.  But it's what is implied in Psalm 78 and Moses' plea in Deuteronomy to the new generation of Israelites on the plains of Moab.  Instructing the next generation in the ways of the Lord cannot be done without firsthand belief and experience.  We must be willing to do the hard work ourselves if we have any realistic expectations of our children doing the same.

Get Rid Of Slimy guidelineS: Faulty justification and sexual ethics

I grew up doing lots of reading.  One particular thing I read over and over was Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes, which I still consider to be one of the most masterful uses of the comic art form (right up there with Larson's The Far Side and Opus by Berkeley Breathed).  Spaceman Spiff, deranged mutant killer snowmen, and Calvinball were just a few of my favorite elements of the strip, but one recurring gag that also stands out to me is Calvin's ill-fated G.R.O.S.S. club -- that, of course, is an acronym for "Get Rid Of Slimy girlS."  The club's singular mission: to irritate Susie Derkins, Calvin's neighbor and sometimes playmate.  More often than not, however, Calvin's planned methods of pranking or harassing woefully backfire, largely due to Hobbes' partiality to Susie and his reluctance to be an accomplice to the dubious schemes.

We'll return to that idea.

On Monday, I was reading an online scientific journal (not something I make a practice of doing), but the striking excerpt grabbed my attention:

"Approximately 40 percent of men have experienced inexplicable feelings of tearfulness, sadness, or irritability after mutually consensual sex and 3-4 percent experience it regularly, according to a survey published in peer-reviewed journal."

When I saw the post, I turned to my wife, read it aloud to her, and said, "Hmm, maybe all those Judeo-Christian ethics were on to something after all."

The paper, in its entirety, can be accessed here, and is pretty technical.  In short, the study utilized social media and online polling to research a psychological phenomenon called Postcoital Dysphoria (PCD), which psychologists attribute to any inexplicable, overwhelmingly negative emotional responses after sexual activity that, by all normal considerations, was consensual and fulfilling.  Previously documented in women, PCD is being newly observed in men, and is suspected to perhaps be even more prevalent among members of that gender.  The reason for this is not uniform, but the journal suggests strong connections between the dysphoria and a). childhood abuse, and b). cultural expectations surrounding the sexual activity of Western males -- that is, inflated and often self-imposed pressures to desire, be desired, and perform.  If the latter component is true, then the "condition" is at least partly connected to simple disappointment.

However, the real cause seems to be much deeper than that.  In their own words, men involved in the study described their experience of PCD as "a strong sense of self-loathing about myself," "a lot of shame," "negative feelings which are difficult to describe," and "hold[ing] in the sadness for hours until she leaves as we do not live together."  "Weird," says culture.  Because, under normal circumstances, 2 + 2 should -- from a logical perspective -- always = 4.  Therefore, we must decipher why consensual sexual activity between healthy adults would ever result in anything other than euphoria.  The unspoken presupposition is that dysphoria should only be connected with sexual coercion, abuse, trauma, or any variety of other factors, and is out of place anywhere else.

Calvin repeatedly enlisted Hobbes in an ill-fated and juvenile attempt to rid his immediate context of undesirables -- girls in general, but namely Susie Derkins.  He created a structure for his unwavering presupposition (that girls are gross and intolerable), situated the base of operations in the tree fort (to represent its lofty, enlightened ideals), and operated with overtly aggressive parameters (e.g. water balloons, stuffed animal kidnapping, mud slinging, etc).  Our culture has its own G.R.O.S.S. club in regard to this issue, one not targeting "slimy girls," but rather any form of morals, values, norms, or reasonings that embrace a worldview of personal accountability.  In a society where pedophilia is gaining traction as a sexual preference (as opposed to a criminally punishable psychological disorder), is it really any surprise that we would eventually resort to a DSM classification of "Postcoital Dysphoria" to rename guilt and shame associated with sexuality?  In an evolutionary cosmology, experiences of guilt and shame connected to coitus can only be artifacts of repressive religion or an unfortunate psychological dysfunction -- certainly not the result of "sin."

The point of this post is not to question the legitimacy of this study or the diagnosis, or even to accuse our society of being overly diagnosis-happy (which we are), but rather to point out the subtle/not-so-subtle ways our modern, "enlightened," pseudo-scientific minds are so ingrained with presuppositions that we will blindly create justifications for every type of sinful behavior under the sun.  In other words, because we assume sexuality is natural, animalistic, instinctive, preferential, and any number of other dismissive modifiers, then obviously any negative side-effects experienced must be the result of psychological conditions, or the vestigial artifacts of archaic religious worldviews, or some other inexplicable phenomena -- because obviously God is not real and there are no ethical implications for sex, other than what we ourselves legally ascribe to the acknowledged (but modifiable) list of deviant behaviors.

To be fair, Postcoital Dysphoria is something that even married individuals reported experiencing.  By God's Biblical standards, the legitimacy of their relationship is not in question, so marriage itself is not the only issue -- some other psychosomatic or biological factor can cause PCD.  And the reality is that sin truly does affect the psyche (Jer 17.9; Mark 7.20; Eph 4.17; Rom 12.2).  For that reason, I'm sure there are absolutely legitimate cases of Postcoital Dysphoria where committed, sacrificial, otherwise happily married couples still experience some form it -- because sin has damaged everything.  In fact, even if sexual activity in a marriage is not coerced, degrading, or harmful, other crucial elements of the marital relationship could be crying out against false normalcy: unconfessed sinfulness in other areas, unresolved conflict, distrust or disunity, and any number of other contributing factors could result in every symptom listed that characterize PCD in the study.

For that matter, PCD in cases where adults were abused as children seems to be a completely legitimate psychological challenge.  However, when it comes to unmarried couples -- even the happiest, most committed partnerships -- the legitimacy of PCD as a psychological condition becomes obscured by the fact that sin is at the root of those feelings of guilt and shame.  Why?  Because their lifestyle flies in the face of God's intended design for the most intimate human relationship.  Even the most exciting and mutually gratifying consensual sex is STILL SIN if it is done outside the confines of God's designated parameters.  For that reason, a PCD diagnosis rapidly becomes a quagmire of faulty justification for a culture that wants sex with no strings attached.  "Why do I feel bad after sex?  Well, it's just my condition -- certainly not because I'm doing something wrong.  That possibility doesn't fit my worldview."

While Calvin's plots were usually predictable -- and Susie proved again and again that girls are much smarter than boys -- the major downfall of the G.R.O.S.S. campaigns was Hobbes' non-commitment to the cause.  Unfortunately, the cult of post-truth thinking in our society is comprised of many more dedicated members than simply one hyperactive boy and one stuffed tiger.  Dismantling popular thinking is therefore a daunting task, but it is the mandate for Christians, given them by Jesus Himself:

[Jesus] said to them, “...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1.7-8)

Being Christ's witnesses requires a unified identity that sets us apart from the world -- not only bearing a different message of hope, but also living differently.  In other words, if we as Christians aren't practicing holiness in our relationships, how are we possibly being Christ's witnesses?  It's not very effective to proclaim hope, peace, and holiness if we ourselves are harboring guilt and shame from sexual sin ourselves.  

Christian, have you engaged in sinful sexual activity and found some way to justify it?  Have you made sinful relationship choices, realized they were wrong, but gone on without any repentance or change?  We can't expect gospel truth to really make a difference in people's lives if we ourselves have not been completely, radically changed by it.  So let us carefully evaluate our own hearts in these matters so that we may more effectively step out in faith to accomplish God's gospel incentives.