Singing to Momma about Satan

"I need another story
Something to get off my chest
My life gets kinda boring
Need something that I can confess

Till all my sleeves are stained red
From all the truth that I've said

. . .

So I'm gonna give all my secrets away"

- "Awake" by One Republic

I'm not much of a poet. Or at least I don't know how poetry works. Who knows? I could be an amazing poet! I might be like Michelangelo if he was never introduced to paints. (Of course I wouldn't paint naked people).

But that's not what I want to write about. I want to focus on the interesting power this songs have over me. Whether it's the type of music I'm listening or the lyrics that strike a chord (blah-ha) in me, music tells a lot about a person and what's going on inside.

For example, I've been on a classic rock kick. I caught "Give me some that old time rock and roll" last night on the radio, and it got me thinking the nostalgia for "old time rock and roll" seems to be just that pure nostalgia. Maybe it's because for me classic rock consists of a lot of 80's music. The 80's were not the epitome of "deep".

In fact my classic rock kick went so far this morning (heading to work/Starbucks) as to have me grooving out to ACDC's "Highway to Hell". I listened as long as I could handle the guilt (when my ears began to tingle) and then switched to the song above. [On ACDC: Why do so many fun songs have to have lyrics like (really screechy voice) "Hey Satan, payed my dues/ Playing in a rocking band/ Hey momma, look at me/ I'm on my way to the promised land/ OWWW/ I'm on the highway to hell/ Highway to hell..." Try singing that at the top of your voice and not feeling a little guilty as a Christian! You're singing to your Momma about Satan for crying out loud! Now that's bad.]

But then I heard these lyrics: "I need another story/ Something I can get off my chest ... Till all my sleeves are stained red/ From all the truth that I've said." First off I want to give One Republic a real hand for its play on "shed" and "said". Good stuff.

But there's something in these lines that spoke into a deeper part of me than I often recognize. Writing can be lying, or at least stretching the truth. Trying to confess something profound, or finding that life is sort of boring so sort of making stuff up. I try not to do this, but I imagine my writings have been tainted with it. I'd be shocked if this wasn't the case.

Then there's also how these lyrics speak about a weight that many of us feel. A weight on our chest begging that if we'd just be honest, really dig into truth "Till all my sleeves are stained red" we'd be relieved.

Here's the problem. It's hard to be honest. I suspect my life is so wrapped up in lies, save from Christ's work in me, that I wouldn't recognize honesty or authenticity if it smacked me ("gently please, David") in the face.

It's not that I think I'm always lying or intentionally dishonest about my life. It's just that I've worked with my fellow humans long enough to hear a lot of my own lies bounce back at me in their talk. I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful that God is ever so gradually waking me up. But it's painful to realize that this whole transformation thing is not a tweak here and a tweak there, but TRANSFORMATION!

But if it wasn't painful we couldn't make really cool word plays like truth being "shed/said." You've got to love it, and there is a whole blog of implications on truth as something that's both shed and said. Gospel undertones...

Striking Words

"Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face." - Job

In my circles, if anyone uttered something like this, they'd be driven out on a stake. Or perhaps they'd be tied to a stake, while Christians carefully arranged the annual Reformation Day Bonfire around said individual. I know something would happen with a stake. I don't think "stake" is a word you ever want to hear after you've carelessly said anything around even remotely religious people.

The audacity of what Job said really hit me today. He begins with a totally suicidal hope in God and ends with a declaration that would have most of us looking up at the sky in a crouched position. They say chances of getting hit by lightning are slim, but if you're Job, or if you say things similar to Job, you may be warranted a realistic fear. "Those are striking words," someone who is guilty of really, really lame puns may say.

Are we honest with God? Job is. What sets Job apart from his friends and most of us is that he believed in a real God. Not a God that can be systematized, broken down into principles, or reduced to the straight-forward methods of cause and effect. And I don't want to undervalue Job's friends here. Their arguments were pretty sophisticated and on a surface level reading I believe that they would have had me convinced. But Job has a bold conviction that pushes past all their theorizing in a desire to be in and deal with the real God.

Job's argument would be just as missinterpreted today. Our own understanding, especially in the west, is that "righteousness" is our own individual goodness. Biblical characters would take issue with this definition. Righteousness implies right standing before God - a right relationship, not a personally willed goodness. OT righteousness was dependant on a God's faithfulness to His Covenant in which he provisioned a sacrificial substitute for his people. The NT is no different.

That's precisely why Job can argue his righteousness. He knows he's not a good person. But he believes that a real God has provided a substitute for him in the sacrificial system and that his case as a righteous person would stand before God. And sure enough it does.

Now don't missunderstand me, I'm not a biblical scholar and there may be a few holes in my thinking. But I believe and have asked around enough to feel that I'm going in the right direction in this interpretation.

Where am I going with all this? I'm wondering if we can have the same confidence and boldness before God that Job has in this striking verse. I believe we can. In fact, God's boundless provision for us in his very own son, his only son, encourages us to be bold. Bold in our individual righteousness? Absolutely not. Bold in our personal standing before God? Absolutely!

I believe that this can bring us into whole new realms of honesty and peace before our God. Rather than distancing ourselves before a God of cause and effect, a God of systems, theories and deadly threats, we can embrace the truths that we have a God of real justice and mercy to go to. The justice poured out on his son and the mercy given to us. We see the culmination of God's story at the Cross, but we also see it all through the OT and in Job.

While I'm a miserable wretch of a sinner (and I don't know the half of it), when I'm in trouble, suffering or simply broken by the fall I can call out to a God who pleads my case. Unlike Job's friends who "Speak falsely for God" and are "worthless physicians," we as new creations in Christ can bring our real suffering and crap to God.

With God, the real God, there's no need to hide. What began in the Garden's first game of hide-and-seek has been going on ever since. It's hard to be deprogrammed from our instinctual fear of God's exposure. And fearful we would be, if not for his provision. I find myself often running and ducking behind bushes, rather than leaning hard on my provision and allowing God to remake me and show me Life.

I believe the lies that say "If you do this, God does this." That's simply how the world works the lies say. But the truth is that we serve a God to which "we can argue our ways to his face." All because our ways are literally the perfect ways of Christ. Here I know I'm in a little over my head. But unless we get in a little over our heads in this ocean of God's truth, our lives will remain small, and it's quite likely we'll be satisfied with a God that's a figment of our own imaginings and not the real thing.

Plus unless we wade out into the truths of God's Good News to the Nations, it's likely we'll never find the joy of swimming in Him or share that joy with others.

Deadly Silence

So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. - Ezekial 33:7-9

It sounds a bit archaic doesn't it. "Wicked this" and "wicked that," and "they shall surely die in their iniquity." But I made a connection today (albeit a loose one) to one of the biggest dangers that is ravishing the church today. Here it is:"__________(crickets)________(bullfrogs)_____________(annoying mosquito)________(platypus splashing through creek)." Silence, yes silence, its killing me, and its killing the church.

I was talking with a friend last week who was stepping into unknown territory as he discussed his depression, fears, anxiety and sin. Unknown, because even though he's in full-time ministry, he had never discussed his depression and anxiety with anyone!

"What is wrong with us?" I was thinking. "How can we get so far down the road in our struggles before we begin to share them with others?" That same day I found out about another friend, who also works with us in ministry, who is now withdrawing from the ministry because of anxiety brought on by a bad case of poison ivy! No one to talk to, it can kill you.

I don't get this. I mean I do and I don't. I know that when I'm depressed I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to hide and hole up until I get better or die. Shame and raw hurt scare me away from others. But I also know that if I don't say something or show some sign of my pain that sin in the form of self-destruction, comparison, resentment, hate, lust, withdrawal and even suicidal thoughts will beckon. That's my emotional train-wreck pile-up.

I can't imagine not sharing my pain with someone. If I have to force myself to start fake crying like a little kid, I'll do it. Depression hurts too much. If I have to fall down on the floor and kick my legs around and break furniture, I'll do it. Thankfully I haven't had to go that far. Plus my wife Melissa would put me on the naughty mat way before I was allowed to throw that sort of fit.
But I don't think it's just depression and anxiety that people are silent about. It's all kinds of things. Could it be that we have this whole Christ-following thing backwards? Is it true that to show a broken life is to show spiritual immaturity.

NO! NO! NO!!! What a bill of goods we've been sold! What a whopper of a lie! And the sad thing is that most of us have bought it. Of course we'd never admit it. But how many times do we sit down at church and really "confess our sins one to another" (It says this somewhere in the bible right! I'm too lazy to look it up however).

If I simply shared with people what goes through my mind while I'm in church, people would probably gather around me and lay hands on me (if they dared) to free me of my obvious case of demon possession. I can see it now. They'd be so stunned! "Wow, if this is what he thinks in church, imagine the other crap he's not sharing. Yikes! He's definitely possessed by the devil. He is the devil! Let's just all run away and pray while we run!"

Obviously there's a time and place to be open and a time and a place to set boundaries. But we need to find friends and people to confess with. It's not enough just to talk to God in our heads. For if we're to take Paul seriously, our brothers and sisters are the hands, feet and everything else of Christ. Can you imagine a physical body where no messages got from the brain to the appendages. Just picture Jim Carrey on speed.

How can we hide stuff and survive as a church? Imagine if we really began to become "fierce repenters," as a friend of mine termed. Imagine the pain we'd share, the forgiveness we'd find and imagine the cross getting bigger and bigger and bigger, until all we could do is stare slackjawed at the great cost of our forgiveness.

I'm not saying we could or should be totally open with any and everyone. That could produce a false sense of authenticity in which we wallow around in our sin. But let's just say that if we were "watchmen" for eachother (like the passage I quoted above encourages) can you imagine the reality and repentance that would sweep the dead religion right out of church?

My friend shared that I was the first or second person he'd talked to about his depression and lust. He said that he was so frustrated, because he was trying to be a person of character. Come on! Why do we think that stuffing all this crap deep down into the recesses of our souls will enable us to be more like Christ?

I guess a lot of us have given up on being like Christ and would rather just look like him. Of course if we did that with any authenticity, we'd have really dark skin, would probably smell really bad and would walk around in dirty table-cloths.

The passage above talks about delivering souls by sharing with them that their sin will kill them. Our silence may indeed be killing souls, but, hear this, our silence may mean that their blood God "will require at your hand." We've got to break the killer silence. Maybe then Christ will work in us together. Together, not alone. Sounds good doesn't it?