In a move strange to fiction-loving me, much of my recent reading (or listening, as the case may be) has been of non-fiction. I’ve already written about my thoughts on the importance of having heroes in our lives, inspired by The Closing of the American Mind by Allen Bloom. I’ve also been listening to a really amazing book about living a creative life, Big Magic. (Warning on that one–it has some language. But if you can overlook the occasional F-bomb, it also has some really interesting and unique views on our creativity.)

But in both of these books, my dander was raised by nearly throw-away lines that demonstrated how each author fundamentally misunderstands the core of Christianity. Without quoting either Bloom or Gilbert directly, both made the assertion that the reason Christianity was flawed and even dangerous is the fixation on suffering. Both seemed to imply that Christians desire suffering–that we all have a martyr complex, thinking that by suffering we earn our reward.

I’m a bit baffled by this. First, is this really what most people think about our faith? That we just love to be miserable? And if it is…WHY? Where are the throw-away lines about the Christian Joy? The Christian PEACE? The Christian LOVE?

My friends, if we’re known for our suffering instead of those things, then we are doing something wrong.

Because yes, suffering is a part of Christianity. But we are not–or should not be–taught that our own suffering is necessary in order to achieve salvation. We are–or should be–taught that when we suffer, which is inevitable, Jesus will be there with us. That through His suffering, ours has already been paid. Because he willingly took that for us.

The beauty of Christian suffering is that we can rise above it, through Him. That we can sit in a prison in chains and sing for Joy. That we can lose everything the world says should matter and rejoice in all He’s given. That we know where true value lies and that nothing the world throws at us can strip us of that ultimate gift. 

The misconception seems to be that we seek pain, trials, hardship, and agony because we think that without it, there is no Joy. I wonder who these authors knew that believed this. I’m sure there were people. I certainly know of fictional ones who fell into this trap. One of L.M. Montgomery’s neighbor characters (whose name I’m drawing a blank on). Dorothea from Middlemarch. I’m sure there are plenty of others, and I’m sure they’re based on reality.

But I so want to talk to these two authors I’ve been reading and say, “Oh, man. Look. Suffering is at the heart of Christianity, yes–because suffering is inevitable in life. But we don’t seek it. He already did, so that we don’t have to. We seek Him, and what we find is that those dark parts of life aren’t so dark anymore.”

And I am so, so sad that this is what thinkers, people who actually give the subject thought, not assumption, come away with. I’m sad because that means that the Christians they know have shown them this untruth. That we’re preaching pain instead of Joy without actions. That we’re showing loss instead of gain. That the world thinks we’re dangerous, not because we oppose the evil they might love, but because we’re coming off as self-destructive.

Yes, Christ calls us to suffer for Him. As in, when we suffer–which we will–make sure it’s for a good cause and not a bad one. If we’re going to be accused, be accused of being a Christian, not a criminal. If we’re going to be persecuted, let it be because we’ve gone toe-to-toe with evil, not because we’re filled with hatred. Suffering is assumed for all–we’re just supposed to make ours count and have Joy in the face of it.

I pray that if any of these thinkers come in contact with me, their throw-away lines in their next best-selling books won’t be about how people of faith have a martyr complex. It’ll be how people of faith sure do exemplify what it means to seek the good with a Joy that goes beyond logic.

Let’s show the world that we’re not about clinging to pain. We’re about walking in love.

I’ve written about literary heroes before. I’ve written about what we’re remembered for and what I feel is so critical about preserving the legacies even of those with whom we don’t agree.

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But in listening to a book called The Closing of the American Mind and hearing the acclaimed Mr. Bloom discuss American’ aversion to heroes and how he’d observed that it has impacted our culture as a whole, I realized that all my thoughts on literary heroes and my sorrow when I see statues of Southern heroes being torn down are really about this greater question.

Why do we need heroes? Not just in literature, but in life? And why don’t we have them anymore?

The book in question looks specifically at university students and how they’d changed over the course of this professor’s thirty years of teaching them. The book, though written in the 80s, certainly pinpointed the patterns that continued and which we’re still seeing play out today. I don’t agree with his every conclusion, of course, but there’s no denying the general trends he puts to paper.

The root of them all is the current American mindset that we must accept all viewpoints, all cultures, all beliefs as valid, and that the only things that aren’t valid are the ones that oppose that openness. Which of course is ironic, because no other culture believes the same, and so while we say we grant the validity of another culture, we don’t really, because they’re too “closed.” It’s a cycle that renders the starting point absurd and yet is fully embraced by Americans…which results in a shallow belief system founded on nothing.

Enter the idea of a hero. We had American heroes, in generations past. Washington and Jefferson. Adams and Hamilton. Lee and Grant. Even though we knew they were imperfect human beings, we still honored them for what they’d done in and for our country. At one point, hero worship of these founders and generals was so complete that it began to worry some educators, and they decided they better start reminding kids that Washington was still human. “He had wooden teeth!” they began to teach. A reminder that he had his weaknesses, his humanness. But it wasn’t yet meant to strip him of his title of “hero.” Merely to remind us that heroes are human.

As the years went on, the teaching continued on this trend. “Let’s teach our kids about their heroism” became “Let’s teach them how our heroes are human” became “Let’s teach them about their faults and flaws” became “They can’t be forgiven for their faults and flaws” became “These men weren’t heroes, they were monsters, and we’ve founded a country on them! GASP!”

The logical conclusion is to tear down the country built upon such monstrosity. And that is exactly what we see happening today, especially in the educational arena.

But that won’t just damage us as a nation. It will damage us as individuals. Because we need heroes.

We need people to believe in.

We need people to aspire to be like.

We need examples to follow.

We need causes to fight for.

We need causes worth dying for.

We need to believe there’s something bigger than ourselves.

This is human nature. And when we don’t fill those needs one way, we just fill them another. Anti-heroes become the people we believe in. We aspire to be like the rich since they don’t ever pretend to be great on a human level. We follow our instincts. We fight for universal acceptance, never ourselves accepting that it’s oxymoronic. We die
only for our own pleasures. And the only thing we’re willing to grant is bigger than ourselves is our need to tell others they’re the same as us.

Here’s the thing–we have this idea today that heroes have to be perfect. Or that we have to agree with them 100%. That if we dare to honor someone for something and then we discover a fault, we’ve committed a grave sin and are endorsing the fault.

That’s simply not true.

We do not have to be on the same side as a soldier to grant that he fought heroically. We do not have to agree with someone’s cause to admire them for sacrificing themselves to save others fighting for it. Heroes don’t have to be on the winning side.

This struck me a week or so ago when my dad had me looking up the memorials at Gettysburg. Thousands of men were lost on both sides of the war during that bloody battle. And memorials to men from both sides were raised after the war. Memorials that show how bravely they fought. That remember their names.

I’d never paused to realize that there were memorials for both North and South on that battlefield. But of course, there were. Because there were men who fought and died on both sides. There were acts of heroism on both sides. And in this case, it wasn’t just the winners that told the story–and even the winners recognized that the cost was hardly worth the win. This was a story owned by both sides of the divide–a story that belongs to our nation, whether you live in the north or the south.

Activists today are making a concerted effort to destroy the memory of American heroes with whom they don’t 100% agree. What they don’t seem to realize is that by doing so, they’re destroying themselves. Because if they teach the next generation that anything “closed-minded” is evil, what happens when that next generation realizes that their very teachers were closed-minded about something? They’ve rendered themselves null.

I believe there are heroes. In the past, and among us today. I believe there is Truth. I believe there is Right. And I believe a person can be a hero even when they’re wrong. I believe being human, having faults, doesn’t negate what they do right. And I believe honoring them for their victories can teach us all something, even when we disagree with some of their stances.

If we don’t believe in something we’re left fighting for nothing. And that is sure to ring empty in the ears of those who follow.

We’ve been reading through Matthew lately, and really digging deep, as we tend to do in our Bible studies. This weekend, we were in Matthew 14–quite a chapter! We learn about the beheading of John, and how Jesus sought some solitude after getting the news, He tried to go off by Himself…only to be followed by quite a crowd that He ended up feeding. After that miraculous meal, He sends the disciples off on the boat, goes to get that prayer time that was interrupted before, and then catches up with them…in the middle of the storm-tossed lake. On foot.

These familiar stories that we know oh-so-well can sometimes be hard to dig deeper into. We’ve heard them so many times, we just assume we know what they’re saying, and what they mean, and what their import really is.

This time, something new jumped out at me.

As Jesus is walking to the disciples on the water, they see Him and think it’s an apparition. The Greek work used is phantasma, from which we get phantom–used to mean vision more than disembodied spirit, for which they frequently used angelos (angel). Regardless, the disciples are a little freaked out, to say the least.

And Jesus is quick to say, “Hey, chill out! It’s just me!” (Totally his words. Very literally translated. Ahem.)

We all know what Peter said in response. But have you ever really thought about it? Look at this.

“Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

Um…what? Who here has ever reacted that way? “Lord, if that’s You nudging me to do something, command me to perform a miracle”… “Lord, if that’s you tugging on my heart, tell me to jump out of the airplane”…”Lord, if that’s You beside me in my troubled times, tell me to do the impossible.”

That isn’t the human response. We never ask for anyone, even God to prove Himself by having us do something risky and awe-inspiring. We ask Him to do it, maybe…but in this passage, He already was. He was walking on the water already. (I mean really, who else could it have been??)

That takes a particular kind of faith, that Peter invokes. And as my husband said, “I wonder if this is the moment where it became so clear that Peter was the Rock on which the church should be built.” Because he’s the only one who greeted terror with, “Lord, let’s do something miraculous together.” Yes, he took his eyes off Jesus, and when he did so, he began to sink. But still–let’s not forget that first he not only asked to join Him, he demanded it as proof.

Do we do that? Do we demand, as proof of our Lord’s identity, that He do something amazing through us?

Should we?

When Peter and Jesus make it back to the boat, the storm ceases, the wind dies down. And the disciples all say–for the FIRST TIME in this Gospel–“Wow. This dude’s the Son of God.”

Why? Why then do they proclaim it? Just a few chapters before, Jesus calmed another storm on a tumultuous sea, and it made them ask. Made them wonder who this guy was. Why, this time, did it become clear?

My first thought was that it was because He did that little walking on water bit.

But many prophets had subdued nature and the laws of physics before. We have Elijah praying for no rain, then for rain. Making an ax-head float. Making oil never run out. We have a dead man springing to life by merely touching his bones.

Miracles, all. So Jesus calming storms made them certain He was, at least, a prophet.

But there’s a big difference between a prophet and the Son of God.

A prophet could have calmed the storm. Maybe a prophet could have even walked on water (after all, if an ax-head can be made to rise to the top of the water, why not a person?).

As I debated this question in our study, there was only one thing I could come up with that really set this incident apart as Son-of-God-unique. And that was Peter. That Jesus could command Peter to come to Him. So far as I can recall, no other prophet could confer the miracle like that. Yes, they had people act in faith–go dip in the Jordan five times; pour out the oil and make a cake. But the miracle wasn’t performed by them.

Peter partook in the miracle, though. Peter was the doer of it. Much like the disciples went out and did the work in Jesus’ name. That means that Jesus had to have the authority, to grant it to them. Only an heir could do that. Only a Son of the Most High.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Peter…and in this passage, he really taught me something about what my faith should be. It shouldn’t just ask for God to DO…it should demand He do it through me. It should demand to partake of the miracle. Not just to watch, but to do. To be a co-heir. To have some of that authority.

Whenever I’m in doubt, I shouldn’t just say, “Lord, show me the way I should go.” I should be saying, “Lord, do the impossible through me.”

For my daily study each morning, I’ve been reading through a chronological Bible called So That’s Why Bible. I love the history and context this Bible gives me–I’ve never been a huge fan of the “application” style notes in a study Bible, but I’ve always loved the historical notes (you’re shocked, right? LOL) so this Bible is right up my alley.

My readings last week took me through the end of King David’s reign. First the account in Samuel and then in Chronicles. The historians who put this Bible together had already pointed out that the prophetic account of Samuel and the historical account of Chronicles tell of the same events in very different lights–namely, that Chronicles never sheds a bad (or realistic) light on David, only noting his victories and good qualities.

This came into sharp focus in comparing 2 Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21–when David orders a census of Israel. Both agree that this was a big deal and a big mistake, and that it resulted in a plague sent by God that destroyed 70,000 Israelites before the Lord relents.

But in 2 Samuel, it says, “Again the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.'” Contrast that with I Chronicles 21:1. “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.”

Whoa. God…or Satan? Which one moved David to do this? That seems like a pretty big difference, right? And quite a contradiction.

I brought this up with my husband the other day, and then shared another interesting historical note from these commentators. That the notion of Satan has changed over the centuries. In the earliest Jewish writings, Satan wasn’t written as a figure of evil. He was more what we’d consider a prosecutor in a legal setting. He’s the one against us, the defendant, but he’s not necessarily evil. He’s an adversary in a legal or even political sense. But the only times we see Satan mentioned in the Old Testament are:

Here in Chronicles. In Job, where God and Satan are discussing Job and Satan is given leave to test him, and then in Zecharaiah, where again Satan is present in the throne room of God, opposing the high priest. The evil force we associate with Satan–which we in fact put on the serpent in Genesis, though it never names him as such–isn’t present in those early histories.

Where and when did that understanding come in? According to these historians, not until the Babylonian exile. While in Persia, they would have been rubbing elbows with worshipers of Zoroastrianism. I wrote about this in Jewel of Persia, so I perked up when I read that, LOL. In this monotheistic religion, there are two opposing forces. Ahura Mazda, who represents all good. And Angra Mainu, who is all evil. Both have a host of deities equivalent to angels and demons on their side, and they are constantly at war. Humans must decide which side they’re on, which battle they’ll fight, and it is a matter of human decisions which one will ultimately win. In this system, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainu are equals. Diametrically opposed, but by nature equal.

You can certainly see some similarities between their religion and Judeo-Christian beliefs, right? But I’d never really paused to realize that this idea of Satan as evil wasn’t even present in Judaism before that. Satan was an enemy, yes. Like a lawyer on the opposite side of a case is an enemy–that doesn’t make him by nature evil. I’d never realized that this could have come in part from Persian beliefs.

Of course, I’m not trying to answer the question of whether that was when they realized the truth of the matter or what. Historically, it’s just an interesting note. And as my husband pointed out, it actually answers my question of “Don’t those passages contradict?” with the Samuel and Chronicles accounts of the census.

Before the idea of Satan being the ultimate evil, he was mostly just depicted as a tool–a necessary part of divine justice. The one to accuse mankind. In this way, it’s not so contradictory, is it? God was angry with Israel, so he stirred David against them…how? Perhaps by using Satan to do it? It’s an interesting question, anyway.

I’m not pretending to have uncovered any profound answers here, but I do love viewing the Bible through a historical context and seeing what new things I discover!

Over the weekend, my husband and I took a drive to meet up with some good friends for a dinner, halfway between where we live. We’ve been trying to do this somewhat regularly, and it’s inevitably a wonderful evening.

This time, we realized that it’s been 18 years since we all met and became friends–our first week of college. That’s half our lives. And after being a bit staggered at that, we took a few minutes to laugh and just be glad that we’re still friends. That even though sometimes a year has gone by without us getting together, as soon as we’re back in each other’s company, it’s like it’s only been a few weeks.

I know most of us have friends like that. The kind that can just pick up where we left off. The kind with a firm, solid foundation that time can only temper, not crack.

It’s especially wonderful to know that these friends are those kinds of friends, because we’d talked about it in our college days. In those first few years, as we began losing touch with high school friends and realized that, sadly, some were just “high school friends,” we expressed our desire to be more than just “college friends.” And we are.

Certainly, I still have friends I love from my earlier days, from childhood. We too can get together and it feels like it hasn’t been as long as it’s been. But let’s face it: we all also have friends for a season. Or friends in particular circumstances. We have work friends that don’t translate into best friends. Or maybe we have church friends that we never see out of church. I have writing friends that I only ever talk to online now and then, occasionally meet at a conference–we get along, we have a great time, but that’s all it is.

But then there are the ones that transcend the type or circumstance, right? Stephanie began as a writing friend, a critique partner, but we certainly talk about more than writing now. We talk about everything. It was strange, eight or nine years ago, to realize that this young woman I’d only ever met once, who I emailed every day, had become my best friend. And yet now, all these years later, it’s a given part of our lives–that our best friend lives a thousand miles away, we only see each other in person once a year, but we can still be there, daily most of the time, through the wonders of the internet.

There are still Martin and Kimberly, with whom we can have conversations filled with depth and laughter and insight, the silly and the profound. We can know that whether it’s been a month or a year, we’ll pick up where we left off.

I’m so grateful that God brings people into our lives as we need them. Some for a season. Some for a particular reason. Some forever. I pray that I can be the kind of friend each of my friends need–again, sometimes just in glimpses, sometimes steadily and forever.

Do you have any friendships that you were surprised to find had deepened beyond the season or type? Or one that has persevered for decades? How did you and your best friend come to be best friends?

We set goals.

We work hard.

We sweat.

We cry.

We bleed.

We tumble down exhausted.

We stretch out our hands, willing our fingers to reach that last . . . single . . . inch.

Did we get there?

There. The end goal. The place we want to be.

There. The thing always just out of reach.

There. The place that, when we think we are there, can slip away the moment we’re not looking.

Have you been in that position? Where you think you’ve gained ground, only to lose it? Or where you feel like you’ve fallen just short of your goal?

Have you, on the other hand, been resting long and safe in this There, not stretching for another goal when maybe you should be?

I’ve been giving a lot of thought this last week to my there. My here. Where goals and realities meet and where they clash. What I count a failure and what I count a success, and what’s really within my power to change.

And I keep coming back to one simple truth.

There can be anywhere–but it’s only a success if I’m in the There where He wants me to be, fully reliant on Him. Sometimes, at least for me, success means taking things for granted. Success means slipping into pride. Success means that I begin to think I can instead of He can. In those moments, success in the world can mean failure in the soul.

Thank you, Lord, for reminding me always that while I’m called to do Your work, I’m not called to do it on my own strength, but through Yours. ONLY through Yours.

What is the There that you’re reaching for right now? Is it close? Too far? Are your in a period of straining or a period of rest?

Are you stretching far enough?

And most importantly, are we stretching our hands out only with His?