Monthly Archives: August 2023

A Twisty Thing

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Christ said rather plainly, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Matthew 5:37). His point was relatively uncomplicated. When communicating, do so before the divine stage lights standing upon the planks of honesty and integrity. Observing the Lord’s words, perhaps R. C. H. Lenski said it best:

“The man whose heart is true to God utters every statement he makes as though it were made in the presence of God before whom even his heart with its inmost thought lies bare. With a heart thus pledged to truth, his lips will find no need to add anything to his ‘yea’ and ‘nay.’

Unfortunately, some folks use language more so to conceal than communicate. They use it to move away from the truth rather than draw closer. To do this, they bury their actual purposes beneath rhetorical devices. But these devices are far different from others. As someone who uses rhetorical devices regularly, I assure you that most writers employ language devices to help readers, not confuse them. They want what they’re writing to be clear, memorable, and above all else, profitable. But there are other devices—sinister ones—meant to confuse communication. They’re more so meant to distract and evade rather than confront and clarify. Chances are you’ve participated in conversations demonstrating these devices. They’re the kind of exchanges that make simple discussions frustratingly unbearable, making a plain question with an easy answer confusingly distorted.

Thankfully, these devices are relatively easy to detect. They’re typically abrasive and often little more than ad hominem in nature. Unfortunately, however, they almost always prove powerfully gravitational. In other words, they draw a person into unnecessary defensive positions, ultimately shifting the burden for answers from the evader to the questioner. I’ve experienced this before—relatively recently, in fact. Following a series of social media postings maligning my efforts in the public square, I reached out to one of the more influential culprits after I’d noticed a particular post had been deleted. I think I know why it was scrapped. Still, I wanted to know for sure. I began the private message by asking from curiosity why the post had disappeared. Before offering an explanation, he replied, “You’re curious? We’ll see if it is just curiosity.”

His tenor was readily detectable, but the evasive distraction was trickier. The blurring occurred when he met my question with a question, one that focused on my intention rather than my words.

You’ll end up on your heels if you’re not paying attention in such conversations. You’ll miss that by reversing the flow in this way, the objective nature of the original inquiry is made subjective and ultimately framed as suspiciously disingenuous and justifiably unanswerable. With this one rhetorical play, the one being approached for answers has established many potential escape routes, each capable of leading away from what he would prefer not to acknowledge.

Indeed, it is as Homer described: “The tongue of a man is a twisty thing.”

Sadly, not much can come from such dialogue. The mind is already made up, and the conversation’s end is already established. The best advice would be to keep it short, bowing out graciously and trying again at a different time. That’s certainly within the boundaries of God’s will. Indeed, even as our Lord insists that we work things out as soon as possible (Matthew 5:25-26, 18:15)—and Saint Paul insists similarly, warning that we ought not to let the sun set on our anger (Ephesians 4:26)—still, we are instructed to labor patiently (2 Timothy 4:2). And so, we do.

Inevitably, I’ll be back. I struggle to let things like this go, especially when I’m dealing with someone I once held in such high regard. Until then, I suppose there’s one final lesson to be learned from all this. It begins with a confession.

Some people can’t have a conversation with others—not a real conversation, that is. Why? Because they’re very nearly immobilized by self-absorption. It’s hard to hear others when you’re only willing to listen to yourself. When I’m around people like this, I feel like fighting—not with fists, but with words. Unfortunately, I rarely experience this urge because I genuinely want to help reform the person’s behavior. I realized this last week after a friend gifted me a quotation by George Santayana. He sent the words as reassurance, encouraging me not to worry and reminding me that people always get what’s coming to them in the end. I know what he was trying to do, and it was a noble gesture. But the words didn’t help. They accused me instead. Santayana wrote, “To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight to the blood.” In other words, it makes a person feel good to collapse a prideful person’s self-importance.

I agree. It does. And to feel that way is the worst kind of arrogance. It’s to believe that mercy belongs only to me.

Is that what Christians are to be about? Is someone else’s doom supposed to be an option noted in our reconciliatory schematic?

No.

Sure, there are times and places for teaching arrogant people a much-needed lesson. Interestingly, even as Christians are not to be pushovers, the lesson often gets taught with or without our help. God has His way of sorting these things out. In the meantime, the Christian’s immediate goal is not an opponent’s doom. Instead, “so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). Vengeance is not our job. Therefore, Saint Paul continues, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (v. 19).

But again, delivering a shattering blow to an arrogant opponent brings intoxicating delight to the blood. This means we’ll need help overcoming this powerful form of self-righteousness. Divine help is the only kind that can do it. I recommend two things. Firstly, confess your own failings and be absolved by God’s wonderful Gospel. By this, you’ll remember your needs are just as great as everyone else’s, and you’ll be ready to meet an opponent with grace-filled words. Secondly, before reaching out to the opponent, go to your knees in prayer. Ask God to crush your haughty spirit. Even further, plead with Him to give you the courage to reach out with the right words at the right time. You want to be brave. You want to approach when the time is best. You want to restore, not destroy.

One final thought: Remember Saint Paul’s introductory phrase, “So far as it depends on you….” Don’t forget those words. Indeed, the other person plays a vital role in the effort. Still, so far as it depends on you, be faithful. Do your part. Don’t worry about the rest. God already has all of it well in hand, and He’ll work the results for the good of those who love Him. That’s His promise.

Light or Dark, Day or Night

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Apart from our basement living space, which is a visual explosion of movie memorabilia, the rest of the Thoma home betrays our minimalist nature. We store nothing on the kitchen counters. The available shelves are not cluttered. The walls are mindfully decorated. As it is for most people, the wall adornments vary.

The stairwell is where the family photos hang. The only other place we display family pictures is in the master bedroom. There are four images of the children on its north wall. A uniquely designed horizontal frame with wedding photos is on the south wall above our bed. Excluding the furniture (which includes a fireplace mantle Jennifer and I restored and put on the longest wall), the rest of the bedroom’s walls are relatively bare.

Almost every morning, I awaken on my right side. The first thing I see is a five-foot by eight-foot sky-blue wall with nothing on it. At least it used to have nothing on it. I bought and hung a 5-inch by 10-inch crucifix last week. Relative to the space, the crucifix is somewhat small. At first glance, it may even look swallowed up by the area around it. Still, I’m keeping it where it is. It’s crisply distinct, hovering as the space’s only focal point.

Interestingly, I can see the crucifix day or night. In the daytime, it casts a notable shadow. At night, after my eyes adjust, its contours are not lost in the blackness. It’s harder to see, but it is not invisible. There’s a unique comfort to be had by this, which means the crucifix is doing its job. But before I explain what I mean, I should clarify something else.

Some people despise the usage of crucifixes, icons, and other religious items. In their ignorantly hasty opinions, they blanketly consider them idolatrous, being little more than talisman-type objects that can only nudge God from center stage. Admittedly, some people do treat religious objects this way. I knew someone who once told me he put a Bible on his bedside table, not to read but to help him sleep more soundly. He believed its presence helped ward off evil spirits. That, of course, is ridiculous. Still, my guess is that most Christians don’t keep religious items around for such reasons. Instead, they have something else in mind.

Take, for example, the crucifix on the wall beside my bed. It’s where it is for a reason. I didn’t put it there for pseudo-spiritual reasons or because the wall needed décor. I’m not afraid of the devil, and Jennifer has more than decorated our bedroom, making it a cozy place of refuge and rest. I hung it there because it’s likely the first thing I’ll see when I wake up and the last thing I’ll see when I go to bed. I’ll see it when the lights are on or off, in the sunbeams of daylight or the pitched darkness of night.

A crucifix—a cross with a body on it—is the Gospel depicted. It’s a visual proclamation of Saint Paul’s words, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23). It is a silent sermon wholly concerned with the person and work of Jesus Christ, the world’s Savior. That’s its job—to preach. You don’t worship a crucifix just as you don’t worship a pastor. Neither replaces Christ. Both preach Christ’s visceral efforts to defeat Sin, Death, and Satan. The preacher speaks it. A crucifix shows it. The one on my wall is no different. I awaken to its quiet preaching. I also close my eyes to it, finding rest in the Gospel promise of God’s forgiveness and care for me, a sinner needing daily rescue.

Relative to optics, there’s certainly more it teaches. I mentioned I can see it in both the daytime and at night. Things are simpler with the sunlight’s ease. You know what’s going on. You can see where you’re going. Your steps are freer and more leisurely. Life’s darker moments are harder. Terrors creep there. Perceptions are skewed. It’s far more difficult to see. Nevertheless, Christ’s payment stands. In the ease of daytime or the terrors of night, Christ’s sacrifice for our eternal future remains the solitary point of reference to everything this life presents. Faith sees it. It knows it. And it is at peace.

Goodbye, Summer

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This summer has been and continues to be a challenging one. I don’t intend to bemoan my circumstances. Neither am I pleading for a reprieve from the arrayed struggles. I’m simply relaying that I do not expect to look back on the summer of 2023 with any measure of fondness. It has been busier than busy, sometimes crueler than cruel, and occasionally sprinkled with some enjoyably restful moments. Our time together in Florida was one. Taking Evelyn to see a NASCAR race was another. In between, far too many negatives filled the gaps.

As I said, I don’t mean to complain. Complaining accomplishes nothing. Muscle through and do; that’s more my way. Complaining invites excuses and accepts defeat. Ask Jennifer. I don’t accept defeat too well, but mostly because there almost always seems to be a way to succeed. You just need to find it. The adage rings true that you can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.

Part of acknowledging any challenging situation means admitting to what’s really going on behind the scenes in this world. Sin is a very real thing, and it has infected everything. I should not be surprised when the season I look forward to more than any other becomes something to endure rather than enjoy. Sin will do that. God certainly doesn’t promise immunity from tragedy to His Christians—at least not in the way the name-it-and-claim-it charlatans of this world suggest.

On the contrary, He assures us we’ll experience trouble. Jesus said as much to His disciples, saying, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:23). But He didn’t end His words there. He continued, “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Here the Lord promises His care. He promises to give us what we need to endure. Saint Paul echoed the same, writing, “God is faithful…he will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

While He gives what’s necessary to each believer as He knows best, as you can see, there’s something He sets before the whole world: the Gospel—absolute hope through faith in Christ and the promise of eternal rest apart from sin’s terrifying grip. That hope is endurance’s fuel. Interestingly, Christian endurance produces some pretty neat behaviors. For example, in times of trouble, when I discover myself stretched to my emotional extremities, I become attuned to the humor in seemingly humorless things. Just this morning, my backpack on my shoulder, my rolling bag in one hand, and a cup of coffee and my keys in the other, I attempted to use my foot to open my office door only to lose my balance and stumble forehead-first into its solid oaken barrier.

It hurt. How I managed to fumble like that, I don’t know. Still, I laughed because it was ridiculously funny.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the man who can laugh at whatever befalls him demonstrates a type of lordship over this world. From the Christian perspective, he proves a Job-like verve capable of saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). He can speak along with King David who wrote so daringly, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1). He can be at peace because he “is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord (Psalm 112:7). He’s already asked and answered himself, “What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:4).

Nothing. Everything sin has corroded is passing away. “Behold,” the Lord said, “I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

With this trustworthy Word from our gracious Savior, bad news is a toothless beastie, tragedy is a pinprick, catastrophe is a mouse’s shadow, and heartbreak is a wound needing little more than a Band-aid. All this is true because, as Saint Paul wrote so plainly, we are justified before God by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). The endgame has already played out on Calvary’s cross. Now, everything is endurable by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us. I’d say, maybe even laughable. Paul explains:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5).

In conclusion, please don’t think I’m making light of anything you might be enduring right now. I’m not. And neither is our Lord. I’m merely setting a point of origin for steering into all of it. You have hope. God said so.

Absence

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It’s happening. The days are getting shorter.

Those of you who read these meanderings regularly will know that I struggle at summer’s end every year. It’s not so much that the longed-for season of effortless schedules is leaving (although this summer has been anything other than easy), but instead, it’s that the sun begins making less time for us. Moving into autumn, the sun makes drastic changes to its schedule. For one, it gets up late and goes to bed far earlier. Some of us will go days without experiencing its presence, traveling to and from the office in the pitched blackness of its absence. On an occasionally cloudless day, you’ll see it pass by the window—but only if you have a window. If not, it’ll be as if the sun used to exist but does so no longer.

My stomach turns just thinking about it.

Jen posted something on social media last week. It was a snippet from our family’s after-dinner cleanup. Essentially, Evelyn asked, “Momma, did you know there is something called S.A.D.? It’s when people get very sad when summer ends.” She was referring to Seasonal Affective Disorder. And before she even finished her testimony, I was already answering, “Yes. And would you like me to explain it to you?” I wasn’t being snarky. The moment was a jesting one. However, looking back on the moment, I wonder if she planted the question. She knows how disjointed I become in the perpetual darkness of the sun’s absence. I get the feeling she asked Jennifer the question to spare me a momentary cloud while also showing me she is paying attention and understands. She’s like that. She’s mindfully caring.

It usually takes me a few weeks to get into autumn’s rhythm. In fact, by the time I discover myself finally beginning to appreciate fall’s colorful detonation, the snow arrives and covers it. Gripping summer’s absence tightly, I put myself at a disadvantage, resulting in being a step behind other opportunities for joy. Admittedly, I am forever learning a lesson from these things.

Honestly, absence is a tricky thing. John Dryden said that when you love someone or something so much, an hour of absence is like a month, and a day is like a year. Jennifer and I were talking about this one night last week before bed. She mentioned that family dinners will soon be very different. She’s right. Like a curious organism, absence will grow. Right now, dinners together as a family are quintessential to our lives. We do everything we can to ensure all six of us attend. But life’s seasons are changing. Soon six will be five, five will be four, and then four will be three. And then it’ll just be Chris and Jen. For the Thoma family, that’s a big deal. We’re knitted very closely together. When one is absent, it’s as if the world has suddenly become strangely uninhabited.

I get it. At least, I’d better get it. The day is surely drawing near when Chris and Jen will be Chris or Jen. Some of you already know what I’m talking about. Absence—the experience of being apart and missing that person so incredibly much—can be devastatingly palpable. I miss the sunshine during winter. Still, that’ll be nothing compared to an empty nest—or Jen’s empty chair. Personally, and in a selfish way, I hope my chair is found vacant first.

Having said these things, there’s something else to the topic of absence. Christians know what it is.

For some, absence means loss. Not just any kind of loss, but permanent loss, as if the person they miss is forever out of reach. One of my favorite texts from God’s Word is “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). I like it because it serves as a capstone statement to Paul’s previous preaching in the chapter that Christ has conquered all things, and by His resurrection, the seemingly impossible obstacle that brings ultimate separation—Death—has itself been massacred and tossed aside in the cosmic contest for our eternal future. As a result, no other enemy stands between us and our God. Christ saw to it. His resurrection proved it handily. From this vantage, one of Death’s offspring—permanent human separation from God and each other—is included in the list of enemies defeated by Christ’s work. In other words, because of Christ’s victory against Death, Christians can’t really even speak of a loved one who died in the faith as absent in the sense of being lost or gone for good. Those who are no longer with us, while absent from us, are not absent from the Church’s eternal fellowship. This means we’ll be with them again in person. Right now, they’re with Christ, and according to His plan, their time of physical separation from us is already on a trajectory of reversal. Their mortal absence might indeed stir sadness. Still, we really can’t justify the kind of sadness relative to permanent absence or being lost. The absence is not permanent. Believers are with Christ in His nearest presence. And if you know right where a person is, how can he or she be lost?

Indeed, in natural time, the sun goes away during autumn and winter. Likewise, the day is coming when either I’ll be without Jen or she’ll be without me. But only for a time. The spring and summer sun will return. Believers won’t be apart from our loved ones who’ve died in the faith for long. Soon enough, there will be an eternal sunrise in an unending time of togetherness outside of time. That’s Christ’s promise to His faithful. Until then, the faithful have another powerful guarantee. The same risen Christ vowed He would never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He promised He is with us always, even to the end of all things (Matthew 28:20). That promise meets with right now. While ten thousand sermons could be preached on either of these two texts, all with unique renditions of Christ’s beautiful assurances, each would bear a common thread of consequence: You’ve been won by the person and work of Christ, and now, by faith, no matter what, you are never alone. Interestingly, you can be confident of this because of something Christ cannot do. He cannot break His promises, and therefore, He cannot be absent from those who are His own.

To close, remember these two things during autumn’s darker days, whether that autumn is seasonal or human: Human absence is not our forever, and in Christ, you are never alone.