Piper on the Sluggard

This is a 1998 article from the Desiring God website.  John Piper wrote it for the Bethlehem Star, the bulletin of his (now former) church in Minneapolis. It dovetailed nicely with some of the themes I have been exploring here at Faith Today over the last several posts, and so I wanted to link.

Perhaps one of the best lines is the following: "Doing the evil we love makes us hostile to the light of truth. In this condition the mind becomes a factory of half-truths, equivocations, sophistries, evasions and lies—anything to protect the evil desires of the heart from exposure and destruction."

I pray the Lord grants all of us discernment as we seek to know and uproot the subtle, hidden desires which influence our thinking and which blind us to the liberating Truth of God.

“We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the [flesh] and the mind…you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 2:3, 4:17-24, ESV, emphasis mine).

Something More Important than Comfort

I have been involved with enough churches and Christian organizations – and known enough professing Christians – to have learned a few things.

One of the more incessantly interesting is the prevalence amongst said professing Christians to meet Divine commands with an arsenal of “buts” which are usually followed by what I call an autonomous bait and switch.

Take one of my favorites: “But I’m not comfortable with that.”

This has nearly endless applications and permutations. Often, whiny discussions of “boundaries” and whether one “feels” like doing something are not far behind.

I offer a representative, non-exhaustive list. To wit:

• Invite a new member family, otherwise unknown to you, over after the evening service for dinner, and so obey the commands to show hospitality without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9; Romans 12:13)? Or, befriend -- and remain friends with -- a fellow believer in obedience to the same, even when they rub you the wrong way, cross your will, and act like a jerk? “I’m not comfortable with that."
• Show physical affection to a fellow Christian, especially if you’re a man (Acts 20:37; 1 Corinthians 16:12)? “I’m not comfortable with that."
• Have an emotionally intimate, affectionate relationship with a fellow believer, especially if you're a man (2 Corinthians 6:11-13; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8; Philippians 1:7-9; 2 Timothy 1:4, 4:9, 21)? "I'm not comfortable with that."
• Force yourself to engage with fellow Christians and your local Body, let people into your life, be vulnerable, confess sin, accept rebuke, be humble, sacrifice, serve (Hebrews 3:13, 10:26; Romans 15:7; James 5:16; 1 Peter 5:5; John 15:13; Galatians 5:13)? “I’m not comfortable with that.”
• Rebuke a fellow professed Christian for ongoing sin, which includes theological error (Luke 17:3)? “I’m not comfortable with that.”
• Graciously and intimately welcome a fellow Christian who struggles with sins different than yours (Romans 15:7)? “I’m not comfortable with that.”
• Oppose worldliness and embrace the Lordship of Jesus in your choices of dress, personal deportment, entertainment and music, political affiliation, consumption of alcohol, allegedly unimportant “secondary” matters of doctrine like the charismatic gifts and eschatology, and basically any other area about which some permissive believer – or the world – would pitch a hissy fit (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 John 2:15-17)? “I’m not comfortable with that.”
• Love other Christians devotedly, persistently and sacrificially no matter how flawed they are nor how messy, or how costly it is (Romans 12:9-10; Philippians 2:1-3; John 13:34; 1 Peter 4:9)? “I’m not comfortable with that.

And on it goes.

The problem with each of these examples is that they all make a fundamental, presuppositional error in judgment: They all assume that what the individual feels or desires is paramount, such that it even trumps direct statements from Scripture.

I doubt that such expostulations are consciously thought of as such. There are two reasons for this. The first is that there is a legitimate usage of wisdom and discretion. We are commanded in no uncertain terms to be wise and shrewd in our dealings in this life (Matthew 10:16). Obviously, not everything that can be done should be done. I am certainly not saying that a sense of foreboding is automatically or inherently wrong. Nor am I saying it is unimportant. Given the realities of a fallen world, as well as our own awareness (incomplete and biased though it be) of our own inadequacies, such hesitancy can at the least be understandable.

However, wisdom and discernment are gifts from the Lord (Proverbs 1:2-5, 2:3, 6; 1 Corinthians 12:10). If they are from Him, then natural they cannot conflict with what He has said in His Word. Indeed, “wisdom” in Scripture is the ability to live life skillfully in the fear of God – the skill to know how to navigate life as one relates all of it to the lordship of Christ expressed in His Word. It is skill in living out the reality of God being God and me being under His sovereign authority. As such, wisdom is a key component of – if not shorthand for – obedience to the revealed will of God. “Discernment” is to basically look at a thing and have insight into its nature and purpose, insight into how things are and how God says they are to be, to look at two things and to see what God sees (if I may allude to John Kitchen’s excellent definition from his commentary on Proverbs!). And so we must not say we are simply trying to be wise when in reality we are really disobeying Him.

The second reason is a bit more sinister, but it is the more basic and foundational.

We simply think we are the final authority.

It is the nature of fallen humanity to find comfort and delight in anything and everything devoid of God’s authority and under the reign of Self. This dogged tendency is slain and loses dominion but is not eliminated in the truly converted. After decades of a model Christian life, Paul could say in his flesh dwelt no good thing (Romans 7:23), and what was true for the revered apostle until death will be true of us as well.

I apply thusly: That God said a thing, whether directly or by inference, is not what matters to us. What matters to us – what is our deciding factor of whether we will obey or not, and thus in the end what is actually our authority and our God – is what we feel, desire, and think. And since we do not feel like obeying…since that would be messy and costly and revolutionary and tiring and hard, and would require more than a few minutes – in fact, would require no less than everything we have and are – since what we really do not feel comfortable with is exchanging our will and priorities and worldview for God’s…since we apparently think that professing to be Christians (which is to say, professing to be slaves under the authority of the God-Man Christ Jesus) should only have the impact on the details of our daily lives that we want it to have, and no more…we react to Divine injunctions with a “but” and a litany of excuses.

Which is to say we expect God and His imperial authority to bow before our precious felt needs, whims, and fancies.

Had I both the patience and experience to be a fulltime Biblical counselor, I would often wish to ask such people, “Jesus commands you point-blank to crucify yourself daily and follow Him [Luke 9:23]. He clearly has no compunctions about directly asking you to do something that is about as far from ‘easy,’ and ‘comfortable’ as can be. And you ask about boundaries? Jesus is asking you to slay your will, your preferences, your worldview, your perceptions, your wishes, your hopes, your dreams, your everything and exchange it all for His. I do not think He means to leave out your ‘boundaries.’

“So, seeing as He tells you to die to self…which isn’t comfortable in the least…and since He directly tells you something the very content of which is meant to comprehensively assault your comfort and ease…do you really think the rest of His commands and their grace-empowered, real-life, moment-by-moment obedience are going to be anything less? Do you really believe your unbroken will, multitudinous lusts and panicky rationalizations trump the authoritative Word of the sovereign God?"

Given what I know of the dark and unyielding corners of my own heart, I already know the answer.

And what is true for me is true for all of us, apart from daily, humble, intelligent surrender to the merciful and mighty presence of the Messiah.

The Discipline of Waiting (or, When You Feel Stuck)

I had rather assumed, once I graduated from undergrad, that my life would follow a fairly neat and predictable pattern: I would enter a Virginia Baptist seminary to earn my Masters in Divinity; I would rent a room from a sweet widow in my local church for a dirt-cheap monthly rate; I would continue attending Colonial Baptist Church every time the doors were open; I'd begin paying back my student loans promptly every month; and I would find a staff position at my alma mater as many of my friends did.

Of course, God had decided before the foundation of the world to have other plans in mind (except, for some reason, the student loans).

The first shock was being denied admittance to seminary. I have never been told why, though I wrote the dean a very gracious email inquiring. (He replied answering only one part of my initial request, on which he spent the bulk of his terse email. Very conveniently for him, my pointed question of why I was not admitted was not addressed…other than informing me the counseling ministry at my local church would be able to help, which then led to the questions of who else knew about this, and how much, and why.)

The second was when my job at college fell through. A student who had formerly worked in that department was picked over me. Multiply this out by numerous other applications ignored and rejected over the last months.

As the summer progressed, the Lord treated me to discovering just how flawed most of my friends could be: Texts went unanswered, prayer needs were redefined or glossed over, emails and Facebook messages were ignored, and, for most of them, I was put on the back burner of priority, seeing as I was no longer physically present. I shared some very personal issues with two at the beginning of the summer; one began ignoring all of my texts and told me he would call me by phone, then never did; the other seemed initially very warm and gracious then also stopped responding (and ignored my Facebook message asking him why). I can name at least four or five others who have begun behaving similarly, all within the same time frame.

The most painful of all of this was one of my two closest friends from college abandoned me without warning or explanation. Since the spring semester of my senior year, I had noticed him pulling further and further away from me (which he denied…denied having a problem, denied changing the boundaries, and so on ad nauseum). He became irritable, uncorrectable, defensive, short. Blame-shifting and evading responsibility were his new hobbies. By the time I graduated and moved out-of-state, I was functionally dead to him. That this pushed me into a deep depression did not matter to him; what mattered to him is that I would not let him simply walk away from me without explanation. I have attempted to talk with him further and have been resisted, fought against, blamed, and most often simply, maddeningly ignored. I wrote him a nine-page letter in December explaining in detail what he had done to me, that I was confused given his profuse declarations of devotion and loyalty and desire for my friendship...that he was sinning by rejecting me and lying about it, and that he needed to repent. I even used Scripture -- a list of fifteen or sixteen verses he was violating. He finally wrote me an email last month – after a year of denying he ever had a problem – which ignored essentially my entire letter. He rattled off a list of awful character traits that he never before mentioned, explaining that since I was "not willing, not interested, and not open" to change “as the school year went on” he amended the necessary boundaries (he had never told me any of these issues until this email, or before that had not even admitted he had a problem or that he was pulling away). This is after a year of telling me he hadn't changed the boundaries, implying it was in my head - that I was crazy or foolish for thinking he had. He has refused my attempts to talk further, even though he admitted he should have been more direct.

To complicate things, my parents and I have had an extremely difficult time getting along since I have been home. They are divorced, and I live at home with my mother. Neither are believers. Certainly I have had many good experiences and many good memories with them; but the last nine months have been extremely challenging and painful. I have never had a good relationship with them, but of late it has been even worse. Of particular conflict with my mom is my faith. She professes to be a believer but is so resistant to God’s Word and so lethargic and paralyzed spiritually – always opting for unbelief, questioning, and the like – that it becomes impossible to have fellowship with her or help her understand spiritual things. I see her struggling spiritually, and mourning the remnant of a lost faith at an extremely emotionally and circumstantially challenging stage of life, but she refuses help from God’s Word and then wonders why her circumstances (or at least how she perceives and feels about them) do not change.

Church has been one of the only bright spots in the last several months, but even here there are difficulties. I have made wonderful friends but most of them have zero understanding of how brutally alone I feel, sometimes offering pat answers to my desperate pleas for help that – while well-intentioned – evidence a lack of understanding of me and where I am. Several who are aware of my long-standing issues with my mother and my best friend from college seem content to almost dismiss the very clear violations of Scripture on their ends and focus on what I am doing wrong (real or imagined), as though my mom’s and friend’s sins should not matter or negatively affect me. Some of the men in particular have been very content to attempt to “fix” everything, instead of obeying the command to weep with those who weep, and seem to think I am merely complaining or whining. One of them has begun pressuring me to find work  with 2 Thessalonians 3:10-11 – as though I have not been applying to jobs for months and coming up with rejection after rejection; as though it is my fault; as though my efforts thus far have not been good enough; as though I am sinning and lazy. As though I want to be home all day with nothing to do.

I am attempting to save money for my own car and to eventually move out, but until I find a job that will be slow going. Besides, most of that money has to go towards loans.

Needless to say, I more often than not end up feeling more than a little claustrophobic and trapped.

Stuck.

Desperately wishing for things to be different, peaceful, fruitful, flourishing. Not perfect. Not without the little annoyances and fumbles of frail people living within a fallen world. Just not with all the major, ongoing, all-at-once, big-and-small issues that have been piling on since May and especially over the last six months.

And I haven’t shared everything.

I do not expose myself in this way to pursue victimhood, or accolades for how awful my martyrdom is. I am no stranger to suffering, and to be quite honest I have been through worse. I have thrown my weight on the promises of God many times before and they have always held me up. I trust this time will be no different. I share merely to paint a picture of the very difficult circumstances the Lord has seen fit to place me.

So, what to do?

I have been meaning to update this blog for a while, and the last week I have simply been blindsided with exhaustion and hurt. That pushed thoughts of writing a blog completely to the outskirts of my thinking (considering it more of a priority and accomplishment to simply get out of bed and finish my daily chores without bursting into tears, or feeling crippling emotional pain).

Today, however, while smoothing out the template and doing some other reading online, I decided to blog about what the Lord is teaching me during this season of waiting. How I am growing, what I am seeing within me that needs to change, and the fruit of His work – small and slow though it be at times – as I yield to Him in submission to both His sovereign and moral wills.

Beloved, the Lord only puts is in the places most conducive to the work He desires to do in our lives – to prune us of sin and unbelief, to make a home for His life-giving Word in our hearts, to reveal in us what He wishes to uproot, to teach us to long for Heaven, and a thousand other things. Because the end-goal is complete likeness to Christ, we can bless the means as a sovereignly-appointed kiss from our Father…to draw out our hearts after Him in faith, abandon and surrender.

I know in my head that His way is always best.

This blog will hopefully become a testimony to that becoming a reality in my heart and, eventually, with my eyes.