New Life, Old Promises

It's been a long while since I've given an update on our new lives and what we've been doing. I'll be writing at least semi-regularly on exactly what it is that we're doing here, but an update (and a quick lesson learned) will have to suffice for today.

Since my last post, we have done what we set out to do: we left our beautiful house in Vernon and moved to Lognes, a town about a half hour east of Paris, to intern with Acts 29 Europe under pastor Philip Moore. This of course was a feat in itself, since it happened very quickly, and we needed to find jobs and a place to live before our move. 

For employment, God came through. We were able to keep our jobs and work from home, by telephone. It's been a surprising joy for both of us—how many couples get to eat every meal together?

A family from the church we're interning with graciously agreed to let us rent the  apartment located on the second floor of their house (they occupy the ground floor) and at a very low cost. On top of the practical relief, it has allowed us to get to know these downstairs neighbors, the Finleys, in a much closer way than we normally would have (the door off our staircase opens next to their kitchen). Again, God came through.

We have also been worried about our finances, as our salaries have taken a substantial hit: I (Jason) am now working only part-time, in order to follow the internship, and Loanne works part-time as well in order to be with Jack as much as possible; all told, our salaries were cut by about 40%. Then this week, God sent us an unexpected gift that will allow us to begin the search for funding from partners willing to support us, and begin searching without worry. God came through, in spite of difficulty, in spite of pain. Again.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I am one of those morose sorts who keenly sees his weaknesses and has a hard time seeing his strengths (I so identify with David Brainerd that I find it difficult to read his autobiography: it hits a little too close to home). But over the last few months I have learned that this may be a blessing in disguise, for it allows me to see the hand of God at work, perhaps more keenly than I would if I felt I could do it on my own.

In Isaiah 41, God gives a promise to his people, a promise that, if taken to heart, will not only hold us firm and steady, but also make us entirely dependent on him. In verse 14, he says, "Fear not, you worm Jacob". You worm Jacob!  Now here's a nickname I can identify with! God doesn't tell me I'm awesome; he doesn't tell me, "You can do it!" He is not a cheerleader. He tells the truth: I am a worm. I am small. I am unable to do the work before me.

But fear not! The resounding cry of this passage has been a great relief to my heart at countless moments in the past, and will be, I'm sure, for countless more. "Fear not, for I AM WITH YOU; be not dismayed, for I AM YOUR GOD. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand" (v. 10).

Fear not—not because you can do it, but because I CAN. Fear not—not because you have all the resources you need, but because I DO. And I am your God.

My prayer for my life, my family, my ministry, is that it may be evident that God was the one behind it. I want to see things happen that only God can take credit for. Like the jobs, like the apartment, like all the rest. We did nothing for these things; they fell into our laps.

So did grace. So did Christ. So did election and forgiveness and mercy. God dropped them into our laps, for his good pleasure.

My prayer is this: whatever we do, may it not be attributed to us. May it be crystal clear that in all our work, it was God working in us all along, to will and to work for his good pleasure.

My hope is built on nothing less 

Than Jesus' blood and righteousness

I dare not trust the sweetest frame

But wholly lean on Jesus' name

On Christ the solid rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

All other ground is sinking sand

We're Moving!

Well, we hadn't planned on this. Two years after moving into and entirely renovating a beautiful, 150-year-old fixer-upper, we're moving out.

In July I got a call from Philip Moore, a pastor with Acts 29, a church planting network that has recently put down roots in Western Europe. He invited me to come do a 2-year church planting internship with him and his church in a little city called Lagny-sur-Marne, about twenty-five minutes east of Paris. The call was completely unexpected. Of course, given the difficult circumstances we've been through this year, I appreciated the call but never thought we'd say yes.

Then, over the summer, as Loanne and I both thought and prayed about it and went over as much material as we could find concerning exactly what we would be doing, we were surprised to see doors opening in Lagny and doors closing in Vernon, where we are currently living. God never gave us an overwhelming sign from heaven, but He definitely seemed to be orchestrating events in our lives to push us in that direction.

After a lot of prayer, visiting the church in Lagny mid-August and spending the day with some of its members (with whom we felt instantly at home), and enjoying a visit in Vernon from Philip and his family, during which we talked about some of the issues we were struggling with, we decided last week to go for it.

So we're doing it. It's scary, it's completely unknown, but God is good (Jeremiah 29.11). We hope, Lord willing, to be moved in and settled before we come to Florida for Thanksgiving.

Side-note: I said that God didn't give us a sign that this was what we should do; that wasn't precisely true.

We're not big on "laying out fleeces", as David Wilkerson famously said; we prayed for wisdom (James 1.5), asked God to direct our steps (Proverbs 3.5-6), and trusted Him to do it. But when I first got the call from Philip in July, Loanne jokingly said that she'd pray for God to give her a sign: that Jack would sleep through the night.

Two weeks ago, Jack started sleeping through the night.

That was, of course, not the decisive factor in our moving, but it was weird.

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Why We Love Superhero Movies

I know a guy who loves superhero movies. LOVES them. With the release of The Avengers he regularly posted articles with spoilers and behind-the-scenes info. When the Man of Steel trailer came out, he actually changed his Facebook profile picture to show Superman's insignia, and he saw The Dark Knight Rises three times in a 24-hour span. He spent more than a third of his day with Batman.

I'm not that kind of superhero movie fan, but I like them. I can spend an enjoyable Saturday morning watching Iron Man and not think anything of it. My wife doesn't feel the same way. Every time she sees a poster for The Avengers (or any of the five million such movies Hollywood produces every year) she rolls her eyes and bemoans the immaturity of the world's men, who waste their time watching such frivolous nonsense. (I did score a minor victory in getting her to see—and like—Nolan's Dark Knight films.) This has been an amusing disagreement between us that always goes something like this:

"Wanna watch Thor?"

"I'd rather have the baby gum me to death."

"Come on, it's fun."

"Mopping would be a better use of your time."

She has a point. But I'm still not ready to concede, not totally. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the constant watchers, the man-boys who spend several hours a day playing video games or watching action flicks. But I know very mature, very responsible men who still enjoy the thrills of the occasional superhero movie, without that damaging their maturity or responsibility. 

Guys, why do we like this? Why are we drawn to superheroes?

1) Because we're waiting to become more than we are.

I think Paul gives us a clue in Romans 8.22-23: "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

The Bible tells us that God has worked into the very DNA of all creation the idea that this is not the end. That things aren't as they should be. That things will one day get better. That one day everything will change. And while we wait for it, creation groans, impatient to see it happen.

And we groan too. We humans know inherently that we should be more and better than this. That's why some people build rockets to the moon, while others attempt extraordinary feats in weightlifting and base jumping and extreme sports. And that's why the rest of us watch superhero movies. They give us the chance to see a normal human being becoming something more. 

1 John 3.2 says, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." Our souls long to be made into what we were made for. We were created to be like him, to see our bodies renewed and restored and glorified.

2) Because Christ is our superhero, His story resonates with us.

This is an oversimplified sentiment, perhaps, but I believe it's true. Superheroes have something normal people don't. They have resources we don't have. They are able to save us from things we can't save ourselves from. 

We needed to be perfect. Jesus was perfect for us. We were unable to atone for our sin. Jesus atoned for our sin, in our place. We needed to be righteous to appear before God. Jesus gave us His perfect righteousness so that, when we appear before the Father, the Father will see not our sin, but His son's righteousness covering us (2 Corinthians 5.21).

A superhero's story resonates with us because we were made to behold the ultimate hero—the glorious God-man who was the only one able to let God punish sin without punishing the sinner. We were created for the bigger story, which is why the little stories call out to us, pointing us up: This is a shadow, a foretaste, like the smell of a wonderful meal when you stand just outside the kitchen door. Look higher; look to the REAL object of awe and excitement, of wonder and delight. Enjoy it, but not too much—save your real enjoyment for what is really enjoyable. Save yourself for ME. 

Watching Batman save Gotham City is good. Watching Jesus save the world is far better.

The Joy of Forgiveness

I recently received an email from a friend in which he verbally (or I suppose orthographically) wronged me. My first reaction was anger; I got mad. Then I got furious. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. 

I wrote an email to respond to him. My response was a delicate blend of inoffensive and biting at the same time—oh, it felt good to passive-aggressively put him in his place (what's more passive-aggressive than Internet retaliation?). Then as I was contemplating hitting the send button, a wave of Scriptures came to my mind.

…If you don't forgive your brother, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you…

…How many times should I forgive my brother? … Not seven, but seventy times seven…

…Like a lamb being led to the slaughter, he didn't say a word...

I remembered one of the natural by-products God's grace is meant to produce in me: that I might show grace to others. So I reluctantly prayed through gritted teeth, "Okay, fine. Lord, help me forgive him" and deleted the email; we worked it out peacefully once I was calm.

It was so difficult to pray that prayer that a question came to my mind: Why did God forgive me? What prompted God to do such a painfully unnatural thing?

The first answer that came to mind is because Jesus died to allow it; God shows me grace because when He looks at me, He sees the blood of Christ that covers me (2 Cor. 5.21)

Okay, fair enough. But then why did Christ decide to give me grace and die for me? The answer: To obey His Father, who willed that He do so (Is. 53.10, John 10.18).

Okay, fair enough. But why did the Father will that? The answer: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3.16).

Okay, fair enough. But there's a deeper question, the question behind all my other questions: WHY DID GOD LOVE THE WORLD?

Clearly we are taught in the Bible that there is nothing naturally lovable in us; we are totally depraved (Jer. 17.9, Rom. 3.10-18). It also says that God didn't need us in order to be happy; He is and always has been completely self-sufficient (Acts 17.25).

So why would a just God choose to love and redeem disgusting, wrath-worthy sinners? It kills me to show mercy to someone who doesn't deserve it; what motivated God to do the same for me?

It's important to note that God delights in both justice and mercy (Jer. 9.24). This is why Paul said in Romans 9.19-23 that God predestined some to mercy and some to wrath—He is glorified by both. God is glorified by showing His mercy to sinners; He is also glorified by showing His power to judge. So both are—and should be—present.

But over and over, the Bible describes God in the following way: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Ex. 34.6, see also Num. 14.18, Neh. 9.17, Ps. 86.15, Ps. 103.8, Ps. 145.8, Joel 2.13, Jonah 4.2, Nah. 1.3—nearly every passage contains an identical description).

So yes, there is wrath. Yes, there is anger. But that anger is restrained. It is slow, while His love is abounding, and His mercy and grace are woven into the very fabric of His character. That is, there is something inherently delightful to God in love, mercy and forgiveness. While it pleases God to show His power by pouring out just wrath on sinners, it pleases Him abundantly to show sinners sovereign love.

My initial reaction to my friend was not a result of my depraved heart—it was a just reaction that came out in me because I was made in the image of God. God feels indignation and anger over unjust acts, so it is right for me to feel the same way. As Paul said, "Be angry and do not sin" (Eph. 4.26); it is possible.

But my depravity came out in my reaction to Jesus's insistence that I forgive my friend. It showed that my twisted heart doesn't understand what is truly joy-producing. It showed that while God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, I am rather quick to anger and lacking in love. That is, my anger wasn't wrong at first, but it quickly became disproportionate; it crossed the line into sin when it didn't give way to love.

The call of the church, the call of all Christians, is to "make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28.19-20). What did Jesus teach? What was his message? That wrath is coming, but that grace is offered. That God is just, but that He desires to save. If my life only proclaims the former and not the latter, I am disobedient to my call and quenching the Spirit in me.

Christ As Husband, Husbands Like Christ

My wife and I have had a recurring argument all throughout our marriage, in which she (as I saw it) tells me what I'm doing wrong and asks me to change. Against which my individualistic self-esteem bucks like a bronco. You mean you don't love me unconditionally? You don't love me for who I am? Who are you to ask me to change? Somehow I doubt I'm the first husband to think this kind of thing.

The Bible tells husbands how to be husbands. They are to provide, protect, and care for their wives. How exactly that fleshes itself out may change from family to family—because not every woman is the same, not every wife will have the same needs. No matter the needs, the husband's job is to see that they are met in a biblical and loving way, "as Christ loved the church" (Ephesians 5.25). 

I made it my goal to work very hard to be for her the husband God was calling me to be, and I sincerely tried. And yet these arguments still kept happening—as I saw it, she still had the nerve, after all my work, to tell me I wasn't doing enough.

Working hard, in all the wrong places
I'll tell you what was happening. Imagine we're living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and I get it it my mind to build Loanne the most beautiful farmhouse on the planet. I buy the most expensive building material, work like a dog for weeks, then go to her and, making a great spectacle of it all, I present the house to her. And find her dead. The beautiful house was all well and good, but what she really needed was for me to dig a well so she could have water.

Now of course that's an exaggeration, both of her dependence on me and of her lack of digging skills. But I often had an image in my mind of what it meant to provide, protect and care for Loanne, and I discovered that image was different from hers. I've realized that she wasn't being controlling or bossy or finicky—she was simply telling me what she needed and asking me to provide it, as a husband should. In fact, I had worked very hard and admirably...in all the wrong places. I had worked to provide nurturing and gentleness (because that's what I imagined a good husband should do) when she actually needed protection and reassurance in the form of more visible, sturdy responsibility. She needed a rock, and I was providing a pillow.

Christ as husband, husbands like Christ

What's the point of all this?  "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her"  (Ephesians 5.25). How did Christ love us? By sacrificially becoming for us what we needed. We needed a Savior; we needed an expiatory sacrifice. So Christ became sin for us (which was certainly unnatural for Him) and allowed God's wrath to be poured out on Him instead of us. He made no claim on His individuality; although God, He didn't seek to assert His position as God, but "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians 2.7).

Husbands, don't ever ask your wives to love you for who you are. Don't assume that your ideas of what you should be are right. Don't make claims on your individuality; don't assert your right to "be your own person". Be like Christ: find out what she needs and become that for her—and in so doing, give yourself up for her.

The battle cry of individuality is, "Be yourself." As godly husbands, we are not called to be ourselves. We are called to be like Christ. And so doing, love our wives.

Put Down Your Bible

I recently realized I have been living a purely imaginary life.

I have always been a huge proponent of the power of reading, imagery, fiction, and the like to enable us to see God more clearly. Anyone who has read C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia or John Piper's Desiring God could easily attest to their power to stir the heart toward God in ways we barely dreamed of before.

So what do most of us do? What do I generally do? I read; I am stirred; I am moved; I am energized; I thank God for speaking to me so clearly.

Then I close the book and forget everything. 

Oh, sometimes I manage to continue floating in the feeling of the book, in what some call a "book hangover"—that feeling you get the morning after finishing a good book, when the way it made you feel the night before is still lingering. But the particulars soon grow fuzzy. I'm left with a vague memory that I briefly heard the voice of God, and I am happy for the experience.

Except that happiness, that vague memory, that book hangover, has no real bearing on my life at all. I still go on loving the things I loved before; I still go on acting the way I did before. Somehow, what I call "experiences with God" have become nothing more than entertainment: a moving way to spend a few hours on a sunny afternoon, but going no farther than the end table to which I returned my book when I was done.

Don't we all do this? And what's even scarier: don't we all do this, even with the Bible?

This is exactly what Christ reproached the Pharisees for: knowing the Word inside and out, and contenting themselves with that. Their biblical knowledge was of an intellectual richness most of us will never experience—which only served to whitewash the tombs that they were (Matthew 23.27). 

The emotional experience of being moved and even inundated by good, biblical literature is not the same thing as knowing the Savior of the world. The emotional satisfaction of reading the Bible and understanding it is not the same thing as knowing its Author. If all I gain from my Bible study and prayer is the emotional satisfaction of a moving experience, I should just have a glass of wine and watch The Help.  

There was one Pharisee named Nicodemus who, as it's recounted in John 3, at one point took his nose out of the scrolls of the Torah and went to meet Jesus face to face. He spent time with him; he asked him questions; he exchanged with him. This was the one Pharisee to whom Jesus explained what it is to be born again; this was the one Pharisee who truly gained insight. Suddenly his knowledge wasn't a hindrance, as it was to the other Pharisees, but a help. But only once he went to meet Jesus face to face.

It is a good, necessary thing to read the Bible—to know it, to study it, to love it. But at some point I'm going to have to put down my Bible and go meet Jesus. I'm going to have to keep the conversation going when I walk outside. I'm going to have to take the clear pictures of God I read in C.S. Lewis and start seeing those pictures in the leaves on the trees I walk under; on the crazy, divinely ordained shapes made by the clouds; on the faces of my colleagues and friends and family and neighbors. I'm going to have to get to know the real, living Jesus even better than I know his image as it is (so exquisitely) painted in the Gospels.

If I don't, I'm dead; I'm a whitewashed tomb.

"And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'" (Matthew 7.23).

Let Him Forgive You

Psalm78 paints a pretty grim picture. The people of Israel are unfaithful; God forgives them; they are unfaithful again; God disciplines; it works, and they come back to him; but it doesn’t last, and they are unfaithful again. Anyone who has read the Old Testament knows this cycle gets annoying pretty quickly.

Up to a certain point, when they come back to God their remorse seems legitimate. But eventually even their repentance becomes a lie, a sin against God.

In spite of all this, they still sinned; despite his wonders, they did not believe. So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror. When he killed them, they sought him; they repented and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer. But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. (Psalm 78.32-37)

Does that remind us of anything? How many times have we prayed that God would forgive us, all the while knowing we had no real intention of changing? How many times have we asked God's forgiveness to get him off our backs, with no impulse that comes from the conversion of our hearts?

It is an offense to lie to our neighbors. But even if it's not a worse offense to lie to God, it's at least scarier. It should terrify us to know that we have not only lied to our neighbors, but to God himself.

Why am I saying this? Why call back to mind this dark and depressing tendency we all have to self-destruct?

For two reasons. The first is because I’ve been that liar. I have lied to God more times than I can count. I've even done so knowing perfectly well what I was doing...and not caring.

The second is because God’s grace to me has been greater than my offense. Where sin abounded, grace has abounded much, much more. This is more than the father welcoming the prodigal son back home; this is the Great King welcoming his would-be assassin to become his adopted son, dine at his table, sleep in his house.

Look at the rest of the passage:

But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues.  Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again. (Ps. 78.36-39)

God forgives not only the Israelites’ sin, but also the fact that they sinned directly against him. He not only forgives them when they lie, but when they lie directly to him. He remembers they are human, for he created them; he recognizes their weakness, for he sent his Son to die in order to do what they couldn't. And knowing their frailty, he forgives—rather reacting like an angry taskmaster who has been robbed by his slaves, God reacts like a loving father forgiving the selfishness of an immature toddler.

What's the point?

Jesus died for ALL of our sins. To the person who says, My sin is too great for God to forgive me, God responds: “Who are you to tell me I’m not big enough to forgive that sin? That my love is not deep enough? That my grace is not great enough to cover it? Who are YOU to tell ME that I'm not good enough to show you mercy?”

What an insult to say God isn’t big enough, loving enough or free enough to forgive my sin! It is an offense to sin against God, but refusing his grace to forgive is a sin that is infinitely worse—a sin that is ultimately damning. Jesus died for you; he died for this sin. Don’t mock him by saying your sin is too great for him, the infinitely great God. Honor him by letting him wash it clean. Christ came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as your ransom (Matthew 20.28). Honor him: let him forgive you.

Hard to Write About

So Jack has been here a little over a week now. He's our first. Since his birth I've sat down with my journal a dozen different times to try to chronicle what life has been like since his arrival, only to find my brain speeding off in a million different directions. I've still written nothing in my journal. 

Finally, a couple of nights ago, Loanne and I had a long talk about all of the things I'm having a hard time writing about. For the first time, maybe in my life, it came out more easily in speech than on paper.

Because it's not easy, for example, to write about how witnessing Loanne's unfortunate delivery (things didn't go well) and the violence it did her has made me appreciate Christ's sacrifice in new ways, for now I've seen before my eyes someone suffering for my sake—and, in this case, my son's. 

Neither is it easy to write about how this sacrificial suffering on her part has unexpectedly made me love her more than I ever have, in the same way my love for Jesus finally became real when I realized his suffering for me. 

It's not easy to write about the new (if still imperfect) understanding I have of God's love for me, because I now know a new kind of love for my own son. It's hard to describe the relief I feel in knowing that the violently protective, empathetic love I feel toward Jack—when his little stomach aches and he cries, my heart breaks, and I would do anything to take that pain away—that same love, God feels toward me.

It's not easy to write about the new convictions this has brought, especially at 3 a.m. when all I want to do is sleep and I get frustrated with this little screaming machine, because I remember how patient and caring God has been for me at my most purposefully infuriating.

It's not easy to write about the effect it had on me when Loanne, holding Jack while breastfeeding, looked down at him and said, "Can you believe that Jesus came like this?" And the thought that came on the heels of that: Can you believe God gave his own baby boy away to be slaughtered for you?

It was easier to talk to my wife about all those things, and it was a talk I think I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Saint Augustine Describes God to Himself

What, then, are You, O my God—what, I ask, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? Or who is God save our God? Most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most piteous and most just; most hidden and most near; most beauteous and most strong, stable, yet contained of none; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud and they know it not; always working, yet ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. You love, and burn not; You are jealous, yet free from care; You repent, and have no sorrow; You are angry, yet serene; You change Your ways, leaving unchanged Your plans; You recover what You find, having yet never lost; You are never in want, while You rejoice in gain; You are never covetous, though requiring usury. That You may owe, more than enough is given to You; yet who has anything that is not Yours? You pay debts while owing nothing; and when You forgive debts, lose nothing. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy joy, what is this that I have said? And what says any man when He speaks of You? Yet woe to them that keep silence, seeing that even they who say most are as the dumb.

- Saint Augustine, Confessions, I.IV

"The Shining" and the Death of Sin

I was a wee lad when I became a Stephen King fan; he is almost solely responsible for inciting me to love reading when I was young, and as a teenager I read every one of his novels. Regardless of one's opinions about the subject matter (people have understandable problems), no one can deny his talent as a writer of characters that often seem more real than the flesh-and-blood folks we live with from day to day.

I recently reread The Shining (Stanley Kubrick's film, which is the one everyone knows, can't hold a candle). I was seventeen the first time I read it, and I remember being thrilled by the story; but I'm not seventeen anymore. Now I'm thirty, and about to be a father—the story was wildly different for me this time around. While still thrilling, there was a sort of desperation in the thrill, the feeling that every father is actually not so far from Jack Torrance's horrific screw-up. 

Because in fact, Jack's not a bad guy. That's why the book is so much more compelling than the movie—Jack Nicholson gives you the impression his character is  nuts before he ever gets to the hotel. The novel's Jack Torrance is a regular joe, a thirty-ish recovering alcoholic trying to love his wife and kid and mend his past mistakes. The haunted Overlook Hotel exploits his frailty and pushes him to do its bidding—basically turns him into a walking robot that will accomplish its ends. As little Danny tells his mother when Jack begins his roque mallet rampage, "That's not Daddy doing those things—it's the hotel." 

What was different for me this time around was that I saw myself in Jack, especially in the middle sections of the book, before the hotel actually had a hold of him. He struggles not so much with temptation at that point, but with the idea that he's not going to live up—that no matter how hard he tries or how much he loves his wife and son, he won't be able to help making a mess of it. He doesn't lack resolve, but hope—he has the desire, but doesn't think he has the power to carry it out.

Sound familiar? I felt that same familiarity—that echo of prayers I've prayed in the past—reading Romans. Paul says, "For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." (Rom. 7.18-19). And like when Danny said "That's not Daddy doing those things—it's the hotel", Paul says, "Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me" (7.20).

Paul calls it a law (7.21)—sin lives in my body, and there's nothing in me that can stop it. I have no power over it myself (7.18); even the good that I do, if I do it on my own steam, is sin (Rom. 8.8, John 15.5, cf. 1 Cor. 10.31). What felt so tragic about The Shining this time around was knowing that if Jack had had the ability to resist the hotel's draw, he would have made a pretty good dad. But he didn't, and neither do we—none of us have the ability to resist sin's pull and weight. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Ps. 34.8); we have found pleasure in His presence (Ps. 16.11). And yet we've found this same law at work in us: the sin we cannot resist.

At least, not on our own. This is where The Shining falls short, and this is where the Gospel comes through. The Gospel tells us we don't have to rely on futile willpower anymore. Now, we rely on Jesus, who has given us much more than heaven. His death gave us the power not only to resist the sin dwelling in us, but to kill it (Rom. 8.13).

     His Word has made us clean (John 15.3).

     He will help those who wait on Him (Hab. 2.3, Is. 40.28-31).

     He is a solid help for us because He was tempted like us (Heb. 2.17-18).

     He has all authority, and He has given it to us (Matt. 28.18).

     His divine power has given us all we need to be godly (2 Pet. 1.3).

     We can do all things through Him, because He strengthens us (Phil. 4.13).

     We are more than conquerors in Him (Rom. 8.37).

    The weight is off our shoulders—any good we manage for Him is His own doing (Gal. 2.20).

     

Christ's cross frees us to live out the grace that has been shown to us. Our case is not lost; our story is no longer a horror story. The condemning power of sin is dead (Rom. 8.1); now we are free and able to kill its effective power. The Shining is a good cautionary tale, but it is incomplete; it's not enough for Jack to come back to his senses long enough to weep forgiveness and die with the ghosts.

In our True Story, Jesus rescues us far more completely. The hero wins; the villain loses; the child gets to grow up with his Daddy, and they really do live happily ever after.

That Was Me, Not Too Long Ago

It's not surprising that if we're rooted in God's Word, we hear His voice everywhere. 

Over the holidays this year I reread Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon". The short story was later expanded into a novel of the same name, made into a movie with Cliff Robertson (which earned him an Academy Award for best actor), and adapted again numerous times on stage and screen. The movie's good, but the short story is brutal and beautiful in a way the movie can't come close to touching. It's short enough to be a one-sitting read (and I read slowly), but even that succinct, it's crushing. 

Keyes tells the story of a mentally handicapped man named Charlie Gordon who undergoes an experimental operation to increase his intelligence artificially. His I.Q. more than triples; over a period of weeks he becomes a bonafide genius, recording the process in a series of progress reports he writes every so often. At the beginning he writes like a five-year-old ("Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on."), and after the operation improves little by little; by the middle of the story he's talking like Stephen Hawking.

There is one particularly difficult moment in the story: Charlie, still getting used to being brilliant, is eating dinner in a restaurant. A dishwasher who is clearly mentally handicapped breaks some plates. The manager yells at him; the restaurant patrons laugh and tease. The boy, not realizing they're making fun of him, laughs along with them. Charlie laughs too—it is funny, after all—but then realizes the irony of the situation; not too long ago, he was the one laughed at, and he was the one laughing along. This realization infuriates him; he stands up, yells at the clientele, and storms out of the restaurant.

Charlie finishes his progress report like this:

     How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It infuriated me to think that not too long ago I, like this boy, had foolishly played the clown. 

     And I had almost forgotten.

     I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. I was just like him!

Not too long ago

Reading this I realized how often I do this—how often we all do. How often do we get frustrated with unbelievers not following God? not believing? stubbornly resisting Him? persisting in sin and thinking they're doing nothing wrong?

Why do we react this way? Because we've forgotten that not too long ago we were in the same situation.

When Paul is teaching Titus how to pastor his church, he says that the congregation should be gentle and courteous to everyone. Why? "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. " (Titus 3.3) 

He says, "Be courteous to those who are disobedient, and hateful, because we have all been disobedient and hateful. And what changed wasn't us."—

"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, HE saved US, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy" (3.4-5, emphasis added).

Why are things different for us now? Because God showed us mercy. That's all. The dividing line between us and them is a cobweb a light breeze could tear through. We must always keep our old sin before our eyes (cf. Psalm 51.3, "my sin is ever before me"), because it helps us to remember how desperate our situation was, and that it is only God's strong hand that yanked us out of it and has held us out of harm's way.

So doing, when we consider our frustrating, unbelieving neighbors, we will realize we're no better, and show them the same mercy God showed us.