It’s been a week. In the normally limp and newsless lazy days of late August, our senses have been assaulted by horrific images, at home and abroad. We’ve learned that the Syrian government is exterminating their own people, and that options of intervention run the risk of a full scale attack of Israel, an event which puts the middle east, and hence the world, in a heightened state of vulnerability – more ready to burst into flames than a California forest.
Meanwhile, our pop culture offers one of it’s stars at a music awards show and we’re struck with the realization that nobility, inspiration, edification, and real beauty are all lying on the ash heap of a previous era. In their place, we’re offered objectified and sexualized bodies, bawdy lyrics, and the stark realization that our cultural “elite” have played their hand, declaring that this is, and will be, the new lower norm. CNN’s elevation of the event to front and center news is newsworthy in its own right because the huge spike in readership for this “news” over any real news reveals the depths of depravity (yes, it’s an Onion article, because truth is sometimes best told through satire) to which our collective culture is rapidly sinking.
It’s tempting to respond to all of it by turning off all media and withdrawing to a cave, or a fundamentalist church that’s working on personal purity and self-fulfillment while waiting for Jesus to come fix it all. Nope: that’s a false hope leading to disengagement and private faith. It’s tempting too, to mobilize, aligning ourselves with campaigns to reign in the crass media, and make sure our military, and Israel’s are both strong enough, not only to win the impending wars, which could be massive, but also the wars that will happen AFTER the wars are won, because God only knows who will fill the power vacuum in a new Syria. It will become Egypt 2.0, only worse. Nope: that’s false anger, leading to public rage, and more fear based responses.
How about this instead?
Thus says the LORD, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the anciengt paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ – Jeremiah 6:16
What are these ancient paths that will enabling us to know peace, beauty, hope, in the midst of the meltdown?
1. They are paths that take intimacy with God seriously. Jeremiah lived in similar days, when people couldn’t look outside or inside without getting depressed or overwhelmed. When all hell breaks loose, whether personally, culturally, or globally, it will be good to already have habits that take intimacy with God seriously. This was Jeremiah’s point in my favorite Bible verse, found here. He said that no other pursuit is worthy of “boasting”, which is a way of saying that nobody really cares about the car you drive, or the mountains you’ve climbed (corporate or literal), and neither, in the end, should you. Your real joy, real meaning, ultimately should have intimacy with God at its foundation. He’s the one who, as Jeremiah says, “practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth…” Make knowing God a priority, and God’s priorities become yours. You’re called, in the midst of all this insanity, to look like Jesus, and you will, as a by product of making intimacy with God your main priority. We won’t always have economic prosperity, national greatness, physical strength – but we’ll always have our relationship with God – right up to our dying breath, and beyond.
Knowing God means looking for revelation from God everywhere, as I’ll write about later next week. But to begin with, everyone needs a lens through which to look at everything differently. Acquiring this lens comes by making a habit of listening for God’s voice in a daily encounter. If you need help with that, let me suggest this resource, or this one, or this one.
I rise early, make my coffee, open my bible, sit in the forest, receive God’s revelation, pray a bit – and get on with my day. Over time, I’m gaining a perspective on reality that’s different, more hopeful, less fearful. I wish the same for you!
2. It’s a path that looks around and does something. It’s easy, when the bottom drops out, to allow our concerns to shrink until our concerns become nothing more than our personal peace and safety. Jeremiah, though, writing to people in the midst of a world (and culture) gone mad, writes: “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
This is Jeremiah’s way of saying that hand wringing, and moaning, whining and withdrawing into our Christian ghettos to talk about how the world’s all “gone to hell”, or spinning conspiracy theories about birth certificates or NSA wire tappings or whatever it is that Limbaugh’s saying today isn’t, in any way, the Christian life. Rather, the Christian life means being the presence of Jesus, right where you are, which means:
Giving stuff away, throwing a party for the neighbors, visiting someone in the hospital, spending time with children, mentoring a young mom, or young teen, serving in a homeless shelter, planting a garden, making beautiful music or art or great coffee, visiting someone who’s lonely, spending quality time with your grown children, or o so much more.
The days ahead don’t look very bright from my chair. Years ago, though, I read this about that:
Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.
Good idea… I think I will.