- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
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- 113
Good thoughts from the interwebs:
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'“I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them…” - Donald Trump at Charlie Kirk’s memorial.
So many of us are appalled at this statement made in jest by our president at Charlie Kirk’s memorial. It was meant to elevate Kirk’s good character but became something more revealing of Trump’s own, and to many of those who profess Christ as our Lord and Savior, our mouths dropped and eyes widened with utter shock that someone could ever say such a thing.
Inappropriate and unfitting, this joke did not sit well with many who listened that day for many reasons.
The rhetoric behind much of what has already been written about Trump, Kirk, and the memorial service itself is nothing unexpected. “Kirk the martyr”, “Kirk the bigot”, “Trump the egotist and narcissist”, “Trump the ugly truth teller”. All things meant to persuade us to believe something about someone else. Our attention focused on the outward - someone else’s deeds, someone else’s thoughts, someone else’s intentions and legacy and impact on the world.
But for me, these past few days have stirred up something else. Much less finger pointing, much more sobering.
…
I am the one who hates.
I am the one who does not want the best for my “opponent”.
Even worse, I am the one who hates even the ones I am charged to love.
…
Recently my 4-year-old has been waking up with nightmares and nose bleeds and my littlest one is always hungry in the middle of the night, every single night.
How often I wake up those nights, lose my 20 minutes of sleep and out spew angry words in an angry tone.
How much I grumble under my breath and imagine scenarios where I could chuck my own loved ones out the window not because of some heinous crime they have committed toward me but simply because they asked for something with a whinier and louder expression of need.
How quickly I turn a random stranger into an enemy when I hesitate to move at the turning of the signal light and the person behind me beeps to let me know it’s time to go, so I thank them with one special finger held up in all its glory as if to tell them, “How dare you tell me when it’s time to go, I say when it's time to go!”
If St. Augustine defines love as “willing the good for another.” Then the counter could be said that hate is defined as “willing the bad for another”.
How often I have caught myself thinking and saying and doing such a thing. In its more mild form, it comes out as something like, “I hope that person doesn’t get the job.” - wishing someone else would fail at their interview or audition so that I might be elevated. At its worst it’s thinking life would be better if that person never existed… like Adam and Eve in the beginning, I would make myself God. I would decide what is good and what is evil, I would decide who gets to live and who gets to die by the merit of how they have treated me on any given day.
It is me. I am the one who hates.
Why are we so appalled by other’s confession of hate and not by our own? Why am I so quick to reduce my own anger and hatred toward others with “I just didn’t sleep well”, “I’m just hungry,” “Well, if they didn’t poke the bear…if they just listened to me…”; all poor justifications for the ugliness in my own soul.
What Trump said was revealing and ugly in nature… but it is exactly what I do. This is not to justify his actions or words, as people who “seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God” - we must indeed call out what is unjust, hard-hearted, and prideful - but today, may I begin with a personal confession that as an old pastor of mine once put it for himself, “I am the biggest sinner in the room.”
Should I have had a different life circumstance, different mentors, different friendships… my inward hate would manifest itself in much different ways. Yet here I am. A full blown “Christian”, who professes loving the Lord. Bible college graduate with a Bible minor, seminary student with education in spiritual formation, not to mention 2 hours of daily meditative prayer, Sunday praise and worship singer, children’s ministry helper, participator of multiple Bible study groups a week, married to a truly good and loving man who works in a mission’s organization dedicated to the betterment of others in our nation and around the world,… steeped in the word and love of Christ, actively and eagerly seeking God’s face, yet I can hate this much. And I can hate those I love most. Truly, I am the biggest sinner in the room. Let me boast in that and you can be sure I will win that fight each and every time.
To loving friends who might say otherwise, giving excuses for my thoughts, words, and deeds, acquitting my sins to a past life, thank you for being my advocate and trying to see the best in me, yet let us live in truth and ruthlessly seek after it. For in the truth, we will find Christ - His mercy, salvation, and sanctification by the Spirit. This failure of mine is not in the past, it is me today, daily. Daily I still struggle with hating others and myself, with lovely and loveable beings and with inanimate objects (stupid legos that ambush me in the corners of couches). However “small” in form, it is nonetheless still present and active in me.
And so I am the one who needs to repent daily. I am in need of the forgiveness and transformative power that cannot come from comparison or positive thinking or merely willing myself into new habits. There must be something more.
So this is the gospel: “That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Before knowing there was another way. Before ever desiring another way, there was a God in His thoughts, words, and deeds, seeing exactly who we are, decided we were so precious to Him, that death and suffering was worth the cost, however unworthy we were, to make us worthy. For “Very rarely will someone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners…”
It is not because I have accumulated such goodness in me that I have earned this great mercy. No, my bad immeasurably exceeds my good. Even my “good” is often tainted with hints of pride or self-righteous motivation. I can easily give you a list of hundreds of times I have failed at being a human (there is far more, but my current inventory list is at 394; this is not a joke, I really do have a list for the sake of repentance and humility; list provided upon written request).
It is not because I have atoned and repented of all my sins, moral failures and accidental unsavory remarks. No, for every wrong thing I have thought, said, or did, there are many more that have gone totally wrongfully justified or completely unremembered or blissfully unaware.
It is not because of my uncanny righteous beliefs.
No, James 2:19 says, “Even the demons believe!” And surely their knowledge of God far exceeds my own. I am also sure I hold some wrong beliefs that I do not know of.
No… before I ever believed, before I ever received, there was a personal God who pursued me and thought it a good idea to create me that I might go through this journey of redemption.
My sanctification process is slow because I am slow. But anything worth doing is worth taking that time. And what a good and gracious, generous and gentle, patient God we have, that although I need to come back daily repenting of the sins I remember, He is wholly present to forgive and shepherd me back unto the path - “Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me…”
“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
May our prayers look more like that of the tax collector then. Lord, I AM like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I could fast twice a week, even if I should give tithes of all that I get, I too am but a sinner, and only by Your mercy can I be set free. Thank you God, that You are the God that seeks to and delights in setting us free. Help us to accept these things and live in the great and wonderful reality that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. Help me God. Be merciful to me, a sinner. Let justice, mercy, and humility begin here. Amen."
***************
So much happening recently I have a lot of things to consider so I'm going to take a break for a while. No doubt y'all could use a break from me.
Blessings to you all.
Bill
*****************
'“I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them…” - Donald Trump at Charlie Kirk’s memorial.
So many of us are appalled at this statement made in jest by our president at Charlie Kirk’s memorial. It was meant to elevate Kirk’s good character but became something more revealing of Trump’s own, and to many of those who profess Christ as our Lord and Savior, our mouths dropped and eyes widened with utter shock that someone could ever say such a thing.
Inappropriate and unfitting, this joke did not sit well with many who listened that day for many reasons.
The rhetoric behind much of what has already been written about Trump, Kirk, and the memorial service itself is nothing unexpected. “Kirk the martyr”, “Kirk the bigot”, “Trump the egotist and narcissist”, “Trump the ugly truth teller”. All things meant to persuade us to believe something about someone else. Our attention focused on the outward - someone else’s deeds, someone else’s thoughts, someone else’s intentions and legacy and impact on the world.
But for me, these past few days have stirred up something else. Much less finger pointing, much more sobering.
…
I am the one who hates.
I am the one who does not want the best for my “opponent”.
Even worse, I am the one who hates even the ones I am charged to love.
…
Recently my 4-year-old has been waking up with nightmares and nose bleeds and my littlest one is always hungry in the middle of the night, every single night.
How often I wake up those nights, lose my 20 minutes of sleep and out spew angry words in an angry tone.
How much I grumble under my breath and imagine scenarios where I could chuck my own loved ones out the window not because of some heinous crime they have committed toward me but simply because they asked for something with a whinier and louder expression of need.
How quickly I turn a random stranger into an enemy when I hesitate to move at the turning of the signal light and the person behind me beeps to let me know it’s time to go, so I thank them with one special finger held up in all its glory as if to tell them, “How dare you tell me when it’s time to go, I say when it's time to go!”
If St. Augustine defines love as “willing the good for another.” Then the counter could be said that hate is defined as “willing the bad for another”.
How often I have caught myself thinking and saying and doing such a thing. In its more mild form, it comes out as something like, “I hope that person doesn’t get the job.” - wishing someone else would fail at their interview or audition so that I might be elevated. At its worst it’s thinking life would be better if that person never existed… like Adam and Eve in the beginning, I would make myself God. I would decide what is good and what is evil, I would decide who gets to live and who gets to die by the merit of how they have treated me on any given day.
It is me. I am the one who hates.
Why are we so appalled by other’s confession of hate and not by our own? Why am I so quick to reduce my own anger and hatred toward others with “I just didn’t sleep well”, “I’m just hungry,” “Well, if they didn’t poke the bear…if they just listened to me…”; all poor justifications for the ugliness in my own soul.
What Trump said was revealing and ugly in nature… but it is exactly what I do. This is not to justify his actions or words, as people who “seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God” - we must indeed call out what is unjust, hard-hearted, and prideful - but today, may I begin with a personal confession that as an old pastor of mine once put it for himself, “I am the biggest sinner in the room.”
Should I have had a different life circumstance, different mentors, different friendships… my inward hate would manifest itself in much different ways. Yet here I am. A full blown “Christian”, who professes loving the Lord. Bible college graduate with a Bible minor, seminary student with education in spiritual formation, not to mention 2 hours of daily meditative prayer, Sunday praise and worship singer, children’s ministry helper, participator of multiple Bible study groups a week, married to a truly good and loving man who works in a mission’s organization dedicated to the betterment of others in our nation and around the world,… steeped in the word and love of Christ, actively and eagerly seeking God’s face, yet I can hate this much. And I can hate those I love most. Truly, I am the biggest sinner in the room. Let me boast in that and you can be sure I will win that fight each and every time.
To loving friends who might say otherwise, giving excuses for my thoughts, words, and deeds, acquitting my sins to a past life, thank you for being my advocate and trying to see the best in me, yet let us live in truth and ruthlessly seek after it. For in the truth, we will find Christ - His mercy, salvation, and sanctification by the Spirit. This failure of mine is not in the past, it is me today, daily. Daily I still struggle with hating others and myself, with lovely and loveable beings and with inanimate objects (stupid legos that ambush me in the corners of couches). However “small” in form, it is nonetheless still present and active in me.
And so I am the one who needs to repent daily. I am in need of the forgiveness and transformative power that cannot come from comparison or positive thinking or merely willing myself into new habits. There must be something more.
So this is the gospel: “That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Before knowing there was another way. Before ever desiring another way, there was a God in His thoughts, words, and deeds, seeing exactly who we are, decided we were so precious to Him, that death and suffering was worth the cost, however unworthy we were, to make us worthy. For “Very rarely will someone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners…”
It is not because I have accumulated such goodness in me that I have earned this great mercy. No, my bad immeasurably exceeds my good. Even my “good” is often tainted with hints of pride or self-righteous motivation. I can easily give you a list of hundreds of times I have failed at being a human (there is far more, but my current inventory list is at 394; this is not a joke, I really do have a list for the sake of repentance and humility; list provided upon written request).
It is not because I have atoned and repented of all my sins, moral failures and accidental unsavory remarks. No, for every wrong thing I have thought, said, or did, there are many more that have gone totally wrongfully justified or completely unremembered or blissfully unaware.
It is not because of my uncanny righteous beliefs.
No, James 2:19 says, “Even the demons believe!” And surely their knowledge of God far exceeds my own. I am also sure I hold some wrong beliefs that I do not know of.
No… before I ever believed, before I ever received, there was a personal God who pursued me and thought it a good idea to create me that I might go through this journey of redemption.
My sanctification process is slow because I am slow. But anything worth doing is worth taking that time. And what a good and gracious, generous and gentle, patient God we have, that although I need to come back daily repenting of the sins I remember, He is wholly present to forgive and shepherd me back unto the path - “Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me…”
“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
May our prayers look more like that of the tax collector then. Lord, I AM like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I could fast twice a week, even if I should give tithes of all that I get, I too am but a sinner, and only by Your mercy can I be set free. Thank you God, that You are the God that seeks to and delights in setting us free. Help us to accept these things and live in the great and wonderful reality that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. Help me God. Be merciful to me, a sinner. Let justice, mercy, and humility begin here. Amen."
***************
So much happening recently I have a lot of things to consider so I'm going to take a break for a while. No doubt y'all could use a break from me.
Blessings to you all.
Bill
