Tag Archives: persecution

Peace I Leave with You

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“Peace I leave with you,” the Lord said in John 14:27. Did He leave peace with us, though? It sure doesn’t seem like it sometimes.

The National Catholic Register reported that anti-Christian hate crimes are up 44% in a single year. Open Door’s “World Watch List” shared that more than 365 million Christians faced “very high or extreme” levels of persecution last year. This means that one in seven Christians has experienced excessive physical violence because of their faith. Nearly five thousand of these experiences resulted in death. Pretty much all of them happened in African and Asian countries.

Strangely, looking at the color-coded map, North America and Europe are greyed, which means that the kind of active persecution intent on snuffing faith entirely is nearly non-existent. I wondered about this.

But not for long.

Apart from the proof that much of mainstream Christianity’s doctrine is meme-generated, I mentioned in my sermon on Easter Sunday that countries like ours aren’t exactly robust targets for the Devil when it comes to battling faith. We’ve proven more than capable of battling it ourselves. A few examples…

In stride with its neighboring European countries, and for starters, Scotland’s parliament just made misgendering someone a criminal offense punishable by up to seven years in jail. It received vocal support from no small number of churches. Across the Atlantic in North America, Canada has been experiencing this same scenario for years. Just south of Canada’s border, here in the United States, we’re certainly not far behind. Christian pastors bless Planned Parenthood clinics, claiming Jesus was pro-choice while defending a mother’s so-called right to kill her unborn child up to and after birth. I was at this year’s State of the State address in Michigan. The Invocator, a Christian pastor, spoke this way. Should I expect anything different? Just shy of 60% of Michigan’s pew sitters elected state leaders who continue to make this infanticide possible. Those same leaders support children undergoing chemical castration and the criminalization of protesting parents. Add to that their targeting of Christian businesses and non-profit organizations for adhering to Christian doctrine.

Still, so many American Christians yawn.

I also mentioned in my Easter sermon two weeks ago that as a nation, our own president, Joe Biden, is proof that the Devil is likely disinterested in us. He already has one of his faithful in the White House, and with that, he can labor elsewhere. Even as a self-described (in every sense of the word) devout Catholic, Biden went out of his way to declare Easter Sunday to be “Transgender Day of Visibility.” Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C., called Biden a “cafeteria catholic,” meaning he picks and chooses what he wants to believe. That could’ve been a zinging indictment if it didn’t also apply to most of mainstream American Christendom.

Either way, I chose to push back against Biden’s executive proclamation rather crisply from the pulpit. Interestingly, after the service, I was met with a visitor’s venom, insisting before an observing line of exiting worshippers I was a bigot. As you can see, I’m still thinking about it a few weeks later.

Oh well. For some of us, it goes with the territory, becoming little more than sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones and all that. Still, I suppose I got off easy by comparison. I read about someone burning a trailer filled with Bibles in front of a church in Tennessee on Easter morning. Unsurprisingly, the media let it slide. The usual suspects at the helm of American culture who did mention it said things like, “Any church preaching hate should expect some level of backlash.” And by “preaching hate,” the lesbian commentator who remarked meant anyone who doesn’t believe as she believes when it comes to human sexuality, or worse, who publicly teaches what the Bible teaches about sin, gender, life, and other topics.

As I said, I wondered about America not making the persecution cut. But only for a moment. I think we’re already doing the Devil’s dirty work for him. There’s really no need to behead anyone for faith in Christ when the mouths on those heads couldn’t tell you much about Him. I can’t tell you how many posts from Christians I saw (and still see) claiming a connection between Easter and Ishtar. The ignorance in our churches of Christian history and its vernacular is absolutely astounding. But again, what should one expect from a Christianity that learns its theology from the internet? What should one expect from a Christianity that wants to look and feel like the culture in almost every way rather than being the holy body of Christ, distinct and set apart from the world?

Maybe to frame what I mean, imagine if I walked into a rock concert wearing jeans and a T-shirt. No one would care. But if I walked into that same concert wearing my alb, stole, and chasuble, people would probably notice and be put off by it. That said, it seems too many people in too many churches would be put off by it, too, preferring a pastor in rock concert attire. But it’s not only that the Church and the world are to be noticeably different. Our vocabulary is different, too. We communicate using terms like catechesis, Sanctus, Tenebrae, kyrie, sacrament, and Agnus Dei. Moreover, we move differently. We carry processional crucifixes. We bow our heads when the Lord’s name is spoken. We do things like make the sign of the cross and sing sacred scripture to one another. We prefer church names that could never be mistaken for nightclubs, but instead, teach what we believe, names like Holy Trinity, Redeemer, and Our Savior.

Side by side, the Church and the world look very little alike. Even further, the world isn’t going to hate itself. It’s going to hate what is apart from it. And it won’t stand idly by when something is snatched from it. Indeed, the Lord told us these things, saying, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

This leads us back to where I began: persecution.

Ann Landers once said something relatively intuitive. She wrote to one of her readers, “Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.” I know what she meant in context, but in this instance, it had me thinking in a different direction. Just because your dog loves you doesn’t mean you’re wonderful. And so, the absence of the types of overt persecution happening elsewhere in the world might not be a sign that things are okay. It could just be that the world is disinterested in paying much attention to what it believes it already owns. Or, at a minimum, it sees American Christianity as a form of spirituality that can be easily molded to its liking.

Maybe.

I suppose, in conclusion, the Lord did say, “Peace I leave with you.” But that’s not all He said. The complete text of John 14:27 is, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

The Lord said this because He knew the Church on earth would exist perpetually in an unsettling time of oppression. Still, Jesus gives His believers peace. It’s not the peace we might expect, as in the absence of conflict. It’s the kind of peace that can endure persecution’s fires, no matter how hot they get. It’s also the kind of peace that inevitably draws the world’s attention. This is true because it tends to speak up even when doing so is dangerous. By the power of the Holy Spirit at work for faith in Christ, believers have this peace. It settles a troubled heart and smothers fear, just as Jesus said. How could it not, especially when the One who promised it also conquered the last and most terrifying enemy, death (1 Corinthians 15:26)? If not even death holds dominion over us, what else is there to fear?

You know the answer.

A Turkey Flag

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Turning left out of my subdivision, a few houses down on the left, there’s a home with a flagpole bracket attached to a tree in the front yard. The homeowners change the flag with the seasons. In the spring, they have a more flowery flag. On the approach of Christmas, the flag is appropriately festive. At other times, the flag demonstrates team pride, flapping their favorite football or baseball team’s symbol and colors in Linden, Michigan’s breezes. Right now, the flag is taking aim at the forthcoming Thanksgiving holiday, displaying a bright-eyed and smiling turkey character surrounded by all the Thanksgiving feast’s usual food suspects. Across the front of these things, in colorful letters, are the words, “Be thankful!”

Of all the flags this home displays, the first time I saw it, I laughed. I’ll tell you why in a moment. However, the more I thought about it, the more the flag became my favorite in the homeowner’s collection. It isn’t my favorite because I appreciate the style of cartoony banners it exhibits. I’m fond of it for its deeper message.

If you’ll allow me an extra minute or two, I’ll offer its explanation this way.

I know plenty of stories from Christian history, but what immediately comes to mind is one I just shared in passing with my wife, Jennifer, and my daughter, Madeline, this past Friday. It’s the story of Antonio Herrezuelo and his wife, Leonore. Herrezuelo was a lawyer in 16th-century Toro, Spain. He and Leonore had converted to Lutheranism, joining the secretive congregation of only seventy Christians in Valladolid. Relative to the times, this was, by nature, dangerous. The Reformation’s contention was in full bloom, and so was the Spanish Inquisition, which, as you may know, was an already well-established conquest intent on purifying the Church through brutality.

As the account would go, the little congregation was discovered, and all its members were accused of heresy—that is, they were accused of believing as Luther believed, which is that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law (Romans 3:28). At this point, accounts begin to differ somewhat. Some say that nearly all the church’s members recanted to save their lives. Other reports say that many did not. Either way, what’s common to most accounts is that as a principal nobleman in the region, Herrezuelo, along with thirteen others of similar status, was imprisoned and brutally tortured. In the end, only Herrezuelo maintained without recanting.

Leonore was kept separate from her husband throughout the ordeal. One account records that eventually, the two stood together before a final court of inquisition. The tribune interrogator is the only one among the court who spoke, and he did so with merciless brevity. He offered the couple what were essentially three choices. First, they could recant immediately and accept imprisonment, trusting that perhaps, in time, a pardon might be granted. Second, if any hesitation occurred relative to their recantations, they would be shown mercy, but only in that they’d be strangled to death before being burned at the stake. In other words, when asked, an immediate recantation was required. Third, if they refused to recant altogether, they would straightway be burned alive.

The interrogator turned first to Leonore and demanded, “What will you do?” Her words were soft between trembling gasps. “I will recant,” she said.

“Repeat it for God and Emperor!” the inquisitor fiercely demanded.

“I recant,” she said, this time with more fervor.

Without pause, the same question was put to Antonio, who, at that moment, stood captured in a frozen stare at Leonore. Prompted again, this time more vehemently, Antonio turned to his ferocious questioner. Still stunned by his wife’s words, it’s said he gave barely an intelligible slur, tearfully offering, “I cannot. I cannot recant.”

He was not asked a second time. A motion from the chief inquisitor stirred the guards to immediate action. Antonio was shuffled from the room to the nearby square. Another account depicts Antonio reprimanding his wife as he left. Others do not. Others portray a man led to a pine post on a readied platform at the center of a town swelling with as many as 200,000 onlookers. Tied to the post still nubbed and sap-sticky from branches hastily pruned for the event, a blindfold was added. Antonio’s last words were an unrelenting plea to his wife, “Leonore! I thank God for you! Please return to Christ, my love!”

Unable to see, he called in every direction, doing all he could to shout above the taunting noise from the gathered spectators, some even crowding the rooftops. Indeed, and surprisingly, Leonore heard him.

“Please return,” he continued crying. “We will be united together in heaven!” Annoyed by his persistence, one guard shoved a burlap wad into his mouth. For good measure, another stabbed him with a spear.

After a ceremony that included an hour-long sermon against the so-called heresy of salvation by grace through faith alone, the fire was set. The flames were stoked. Dreadful moments passed, and Antonio was dead.

Still in prison several years later, Leonore called to the guards from her cell early one morning. She requested an audience with a magistrate. Eventually, a court representative arrived. With the same quivering voice as years before, she informed her visitor, first, of her thankfulness for her husband’s steadfast faithfulness to Christ at his death, and second, she expressed gratefulness to Christ for His continued grace measured against even her dreadful betrayal. With that, she demanded her visitor send word that she had rescinded her recantation.

The message was delivered. Leonore was judged, condemned, and executed the next day.

It’s said she whispered to her executioner as he tied her to the post, “My first words to Antonio will be, ‘I have returned to our Jesus, my love.’” Her last words were, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.’”

So, what does this have to do with the flag adorning the tree around the corner from my subdivision’s entrance—the one with a smiling turkey?

The story I just shared has both of its victims giving thanks when thankfulness seems wholly inappropriate. When you think about it, a turkey is the one guest at the Thanksgiving Day feast who is killed, cooked, and eaten. And yet, there he is on the flag announcing to every passerby, “Be thankful!” Again, for as cartoony as the banner is, this is an extraordinarily rich image. It is a Christian image.

A lot is happening in America right now; there are some incredibly dreadful things. For one, Christianity is more than being pushed further and further into the shadows of criminalization. People are considered backwater bigots for holding to the truth of God’s Word. As this devolution continues, the temptation increases among us to ask, “What, exactly, is there to be thankful for?”

Many churches don’t offer a Thanksgiving Day service. That’s unfortunate. We do here at Our Savior. In case you’re interested, it happens on Thanksgiving Day at 10:00 a.m. Interestingly, one of the appointed texts for the day is the same as Leonore’s last words. At some point during the liturgy, God’s people will sing, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1). Why would we sing these words? Well, it isn’t because of what we see occurring in the world around us or because of what we must endure day after day. Instead, it is because of what we know by faith.

By the power of the Holy Spirit at work in believers for faith, even as everything around us may be coming undone—even as the fires of persecution rage, as we are betrayed, slandered, unjustly maligned, and brutally mistreated by the powers and principalities of this fallen world—we can and will be thankful to the Lord. Why? Because the most insurmountable of all insurmountables was conquered by Christ. He defeated Sin, Death, and the powers of hell for us. By His person and work, through faith in Him, we’ve been made His own. Knowing this, let the world kill, cook, and eat us. From among all on this transient blue ball hanging in space, we’re the only ones with an otherworldly viscera enabling us to lay our heads on the chopping block the same way we’d lay them on a pillow to rest. We can close our eyes in peace, knowing we are not inheritors of this world. We are inheritors of the world to come (Matthew 25:34, Luke 12:32, Romans 8:17). For a believer to live is to do so beneath Christ’s gracious benediction, no matter what we suffer. For a believer to die is not loss but gain beyond measure (Philippians 1:21).

Remember this. And when you forget it, may God be so gracious as to remind you. He reminded me this past week while driving past a flag with a turkey on it.

Do We Have What It Takes?

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The world appears to be burning, doesn’t it? I read a statement this morning in which NATO officials called Biden’s abrupt and chaotic withdrawal of the United States presence in Afghanistan the biggest, most tragic debacle by a U.S. president since the organization’s founding in 1949. German Chancellor Merkel’s administration released a statement clarifying that the U.S., and the U.S. alone, owns the horrors of the situation. A nearly unanimous British Parliament made clear that the United States has lost significant credibility in the international community. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

The situation in Afghanistan is bad.

Despite the news media’s reluctance to share the information, it looks as though the first real reports of Afghani Christians being brutalized and killed by the Taliban after the withdrawal are making their way to us here in America. I read that Glenn Beck’s organization raised more than $22 million in two days to help fund evacuation efforts. I read that David Barton and the WallBuilders organization is raising significant funding, too. Praise God for their efforts.

Curiously, the reports I’ve read, mostly by way of texts and emails from pastors and missionaries to partner churches in the United States, have not necessarily portrayed the concerns of Afghani Christians as fearful cries to foreign agencies to do whatever they can to rescue them from the gory dreadfulness. Rather, their petitions have been of a far different character, and noticeably two-fold in nature.

First, their hope is that their partner churches around the world would join them in praying that all Afghani Christians would remain faithful to Christ as they face imminent torture and death; and second, that God would use the Gospel witness of their martyrdom as a means for softening the hearts of their bloodthirsty persecutors, so that they, too, would turn to and believe in Christ for salvation.

Read that again.

The Christians in Afghanistan are facing the all-consuming storm clouds of a merciless evil. Not only do the forthcoming gales promise unthinkable forms of mortal suffering, but they also pledge by their waves a vicious temptation to renounce Christ in exchange for safety, which in the end, can only result in a believer’s eternal doom. I find it astounding, then, that these Christians are not asking for deliverance from these terrors. They’re asking for us to pray that God would continue to give them the will to steer into and endure them until the end. Even more strangely, while we might expect to hear them ask us to pray for a way of escape for themselves, instead, they’re asking us to pray that by the Gospel witness of their own deaths, their persecutors would discover Christ as the way of escape from unbelief leading to eternal Death.

Go ahead and read that again, too.

Having re-read my own words, I wonder if these are foolish prayer requests being made of the churches in America by the Afghani Christians. I mean, does American Christianity really even have what it takes to comprehend the substance of their pleas? The Afghani Christians are enduring apocalyptic-like onslaughts of misery. And yet, knowing full well that Taliban squads are going door to door sniffing for the slightest hints of Christianity—looking for bibles, devotional apps on phones, Christian symbols, and the like—still, and perhaps most astoundingly, the Afghani Christians refuse to abandon the most visible (and now most dangerous) sign of Christianity: gathering together for worship.

They refuse to forsake Christ’s mandate for gathering in fellowship to receive the preaching of the Gospel for forgiveness and the administration of the Sacraments for the same.

Is it really possible for any of their requests to make sense to American Christians who were so quick to close churches for fear of a virus that had a casualty rate of less than 1% at its peak? Considering only Michigan, the last I heard, around 15% of Michigan churches are still completely closed even as the state currently tracks at 21,344 deaths among 1.03 million cases. Doing the math, that’s around a 2% casualty rate. Will the Afghani Christians’ requests be intelligible for those who, even post-vaccine rollout, still refuse to attend worship for fear of this minuscule threat to personal safety? Will the phrase “faithful to the end” resonate among churches that have forsaken God’s Word and succumbed to cultural pressures just to avoid the woke attack squads? Will anything the Afghani Christians have asked for be translatable to a generation of families who’ve become so accustomed to prioritizing sports and leisure over faithfulness in worship with Christ?

Sadly, I don’t think so.

I suppose some church communities will get it. I’m guessing that for the most part, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has a grip on it, although I haven’t seen much written in this regard, just yet. I’m confident that most here at Our Savior in Hartland are equipped to translate the Afghani’s requests. I know various individuals beyond our borders who are more than capable of interpreting them rightly. My friend, Jack Philips, will know what they mean. Barronelle Stutzman will get it. My Canadian friend, Pastor Artur Pawlowski, will understand. Reverend Dr. Juhana Pohjola, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, will get it, too.

Nevertheless, beyond the ever-increasing ranks of persecuted folks like these, I’m concerned that the mainstream Christian churches in America just don’t have the spiritual wherewithal for understanding anything the Afghani Christians are asking. And while I certainly agree we should be praying for them, I’m hoping in secret that they’re praying for us. I get the feeling we need their prayers far more than they need ours.

With all of this in mind, I suppose I’ll conclude as the Afghani Christians began, which is by offering a two-fold request.

Firstly, I’d urge all Christians to take heed of Christ’s clarion call not to choose the comforts of safety and security in this life over faithfulness to Him. Then I’d urge you to continue past the Lord’s gracious warning to His sweeter encouragement to trust Him—to take heart in His victory over Sin, Death, and the grave, knowing by this Gospel the peace that only He can provide.

“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels’” (Mark 8:34-38).

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Secondly, there is the saying that goes something like, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” Pray for the Christians in Afghanistan. Do this remembering that the Church on earth—or the Church Militant as it’s commonly referred to throughout history—was not built to remain safely in harbor, but rather to set sail, no matter the temperament of the seas. She does this knowing Christ as the steady Captain at her helm. She goes into the winds and waves knowing that He’s steering the vessel toward the final shore of eternal life. As He does, it’s all hands on deck. We come up and out of the vessel’s innards to gather. We swab the decks and repair the masts. We hoist sails and mend tackle. We batten hatches and secure riggings. In other words, we come together to pray for one another and our world, to labor faithfully, to endure, to love as Christ first loved us, all the while being strengthened by the bountiful provisions of forgiveness—Word and Sacrament—being doled out in worship from our trustworthy Captain’s very own galley.

Know that I’m praying for the Afghani Christians and their persecutors. I hope you are, too. But know I’m also praying for the Church here on American soil just as fervently. Again, I hope you are, too.

Virtual Overlords and a Few Lessons Learned

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So, what is there to talk about these days? Yeah, I know, right?

I don’t know about you, but the events of the past week have been concerning. And without sounding completely tone deaf, I should at least acknowledge that while I know what’s going on, I just don’t feel like visiting with it in the detail some may expect.

To be honest, with all of the conservatives on the news and social media platforms being rounded up and digitally executed, I think my time on certain networks is coming to an end. I’m not as active on Twitter as most, but I do have a few thousand followers, and so on Saturday night, just to see if I’d been affected by the mass cleansings, I discovered that about half of them were gone. I checked again later before the 12:30pm Divine Service on Sunday and saw that the number had risen to about two-thirds having gone MIA. Whether they’re leaving the platform or being punted, I think that’s a foretaste of what’s coming for guys like me who do what they can to bring the concerns of the Gospel to bear in the public square and culture.

Either way, no worries in this regard. I’m already in the process of closing my Twitter account as soon as I can get all of my data downloaded. Although I noticed that the Twitter overlords intend to craft the contours of that decision for me, too. Their archive downloading instructions read: “You can request a ZIP file with an archive of the data we think is most important to you.”

“…the data we think is most important to you.”

I can’t have all of my content. I can have what they decide I can have.

For the record, I’ve been trying to leave Facebook for a few years. Just ask my wife, Jennifer. She’ll tell you the only reason I’ve stayed as long as I have is because it’s been incredibly useful for introducing Our Savior Lutheran Church and School to the surrounding community—who we are, what we do, and why. Beyond that, everything else I write could just as easily be housed at one of my blogs: AngelsPortion.com or CruciformStuff.com.

But give it some time. Those might end up on the virtual book pyre in the next few weeks, too. I mean, I do scribe and share things on both sites that say horribly divisive things—like abortion is a no-no, and marriage is God’s property.

It should scare Americans that it’s only the conservative, pro-life, and Christian thinkers who are being booted, even as groups like “PornHub” (which, by the way, was successfully convicted of dealing in child pornography), most chapters of Antifa, and countless other liberal echo chambers are being allowed to stay and spread their doctrines. Interestingly, I read through Joe Biden’s presidential campaign donor report, and can you guess who some of the biggest donors were to his campaign? Yep. Big tech. He received lots of help from the likes of Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and Bill Gates (Microsoft).

Perhaps even more terrifying is that Amazon.com gave notice to Parler, which is a conservative competitor to Twitter, saying that unless Parler begins employing the same kind of draconian content policing policies that Twitter employs—which is code for cancelling conservatives and Christians—it’ll be dropped from their servers. I think the threat actually became reality last night. And both Apple and Google have already dropped the Parler mobile application from their stores so that no one else can join. They just don’t want conservatives to be able to communicate with mass momentum. I’ve read that MeWe, which is the conservative competitor to Facebook, is on the chopping block, too.

“That’ll never happen,” so many among us have said. “Just stay in your lane and leave it to God to handle.” Well, it’s happening. And oh, by the way, God handles these kinds of things through His people. There are countless portions of God’s Word urging us to be engaged in our communities and world. If the reader of these texts is being honest, then he’ll realize they’re nothing short of mandates for Christians to be who they are in the unavoidable areas of life. Stripping away rights, mass censoring of the conservative Christian voice, unjust fines and jail sentences, the murdering of the unborn, politics in general, and so much more—these topics are all born from the unavoidable areas.

Get in the game.

Now, I’ve already talked about this more than I wanted to when I sat down at the computer screen. But as I said, I didn’t want to sound tone deaf to the fact that we’re making our way into some serious times calling for solemn reflection and serious courage. Still, I’d rather steer in a different direction… that is, if you still have time this morning, because I have far more intriguing things that I’d still like to share.

Perhaps like me, at the beginning of every year you find yourself thinking on what you learned over the course of the preceding 365 days. If you don’t, I recommend making it a deliberate practice. I recommend grabbing a pen, a sheet of paper, and spending some time writing a list of the significant occurrences in your life from last year and what you garnered from them.

It’s not hard to do. I usually try to think of at least five, even though I know I could rake into a pile far more from the annals of my brain. I list these five events, giving each a title, and then beneath each one I write a short sentence—a summary statement of what I learned in that particular instance.

Sometimes it hurts to see what I’ve written. Sometimes it’s a joy. Either way, the result is that I can put a finger on and work to remember something I know now that I didn’t know before, and it continues to be a way to reach higher when it comes to being a better pastor, teacher, husband, father, friend, thinker, and all around human being.

One of the five things in this year’s list isn’t necessarily something I learned, but rather more of a recap. I was reminded that I am more than capable of lying to myself. I’ll give you an example.

There’s someone I know who, no matter what I say or do, just doesn’t seem to like me very much. Whether passively or with deliberate hostility, this person has proven a readiness to take anything I’ve said or done as a reason to lunge at almost any moment. Of course, it’s easy to see why this would bother me. No one wants to be treated this way. I certainly can’t think of too many people who enjoy being disliked. It’s painful. For me, it hurts even more because one of my New Year resolutions in 2020 was to make a genuine effort at bridging the gap of disdain between the two of us. And I did. But it seems each attempt only seemed to ricochet. In the end, however, the self-deception occurred, not in the sense that I was wrong in thinking I could better the relationship, but rather in thinking that it matters if the person genuinely likes me or not. The deception went deeper as I began believing that the person must actually be deranged for not liking me, because, I mean, how could anyone not like me? I’m so easy to get along with, and really quite wonderful in almost every single way.

Sure.

We all think this way sometimes, and with that, the poison of the lie begins seeping into our veins and arming us for retaliation—for giving us a false justification that gives us permission to despise them right back, and even worse, to act on that disposition.

Something else on the list of things I learned: Faithfulness means honesty, and honesty means responsibility, which is precisely why so many go out of their way to redefine faithfulness.

What I mean is that so many people appear to be able to keep their consciences clean while doing just about anything, just so long as they believe what they’re doing is okay with God. But the only way to do something like that is to set honesty aside in order to redefine faithfulness. For example, skipping church becomes acceptable as long as the core of our definition for faithfulness means that our actions are in some way divinely approved, or perhaps that true worship can happen in any form and anywhere. Or maybe we deliberately choose candidates in an election who support the murdering of babies in the womb because, in our thinking, the social welfare programs offered by those same candidates intend to lift far more from poverty, ultimately bettering far more lives than the ones they’d allow to be snuffed out. In other words, in the economy of good deeds, certainly God would be okay with that calculation because it helps more than it harms. Or how about shaming a person in a store for not wearing a mask. If one believes wearing a mask to be an unarguably virtuous cause, a moment spent showing some tough love to a maskless perpetrator in a grocery store can be internally translated as a brave display of righteousness that has as its goal the saving of lives.

I’m taking better care to be aware of these darkly maneuverings, especially among Christians. And as the days of 2021 unfold, I intend to continue probing such foolishness and being ready to respond.

I’ll share one more of my five-item list. Like the first one I shared, it isn’t anything new, but rather a re-learning of sorts.

Other than God, everything has a beginning and end, and if you can just give the stormy situation you’re in a little bit of time, some prayerful consideration, and if required, some careful conversation, eventually the situation will dissipate like a raincloud that has wept all its tears.

Even some of the worst situations I’ve ever experienced as a pastor have all quieted down at one point or another. “This, too, shall pass” is a well-worn phrase for a reason. Although, the phrase will never outmatch the value of Saint Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4: 17-18, where he reminds us that the troubles of this life are momentary, and in comparison to the eternal glory that is ours in Christ, they just can’t hold a candle.

To conclude, maybe give this exercise a try. Look back at 2020 and see what’s there. You may be surprised by what you discover. The Lord only knows what some of your lists might look like after the year’s remarkably unremarkable collection of insanity. Heck, even the last ten days of 2021 have been enough to generate those “Here, hold my beer” memes we all expected, and as a result, it’s likely you already have some items for next year’s list.

Still, whatever you discover (some of which I’m hoping will be Christian honesty, responsibility, and courage for faithfulness), as the knowledge of these discoveries flow from your heart and mind to the pen at the surface of the paper, as God’s child, be sure to keep in mind what He intends to teach you each and every new day: We needn’t be afraid of those who can harm us in this life but have no jurisdiction in the next (Matthew 10:28). God will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). He is with us to the very end of all things (Matthew 28:20). His steadfast love never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).