In the last blog post I wrote that there is a common brokenness or emptiness we seem to carry. I want to discuss the part about emptiness in the next blog. For now the discussion on brokenness is our focus. Whatever the brokenness we have in our life, though it is all different for each one of us, there is this brokenness. Now the brokenness seems to always be related to a sense of fairness or justice. There seems in us a sense in which we desire for things that were once broken to be made right again. We have a sense that says things are supposed to be a certain way. When someone cuts in line in front of us we sense it because we feel we have been wronged. When someone hurts us, we feel that this hurt was not meant to be and we sense that there was a wrong committed.
When we sense that there is a right and a wrong in a particular situation we admit that there is a particular standard that humanity is supposed to live up to, and if we have done wrong we still refer to this standard when we try to make the case that we have not broken this standard. Indeed it seems that if you were to try to hold someone accountable to “not cut in line” or to “stop hurting you” the perpetrator in question would either have to admit to the wrong he/she had committed against the standard and therefore make some restitution or the alternative would be to deny that there was any wrong or breaking of the standard and rationalize their action (usually by way of some excuse). The wrong-doer would say something like “well I had to cut in line because …” or “there was a good reason for hurting you because…” . But though there maybe a good reason at times, there is nothing in experience that says that there would always in every case be a good reason. In fact, more often than not there are very bad reasons as to why people do what they do. If we were honest with ourselves we would admit that we all in some sense do wrong from time to time. It is impossible to do right all the time, but we cannot deny the one thing that always lies behind our decision between right and wrong and we hear it strongly when someone does any measure of wrong towards us. That something we hear is the sense of this standard that exists within us. It is a standard that has dwelled within all humanity since the beginning. How do I know? Well however different the societies and cultures that have existed throughout the ages, there has never been such a difference when it comes to the standard of which I speak. This standard since the ancients was called the Law, or the Law of Human Nature and in fact has held many names, but this much is true, it has always existed because we know that every society and culture however different from our own has always contained a system of right and wrong that never much differed from our own sense of right and wrong.

This sense of right and wrong or the law of human nature as I would like to call it, teaches us something. Somehow like all other laws in the universe, say like gravity or mathematics, it exists, except with one difference. Whereas all other laws cannot be broken, the law of human nature can be broken. We can break this law. We do not have to do the good, the right and the peace-giving. We do not have to be kind, gentle or loving. No, if we are honest with ourselves even many of our acts of kindness are in some sense tinged at times with a self-serving desire. “I will give $20 more in tip to this waiter, which is far more than he deserves, but it will impress Dianna.” or something much more explicit like, “I will give to this charity so long as it gives my business recognition” in short there are multiple ways in which even our best efforts in some way still are highly self-serving at heart, possibly selfish and still breaks the basic standard of right vs. wrong. I am not faulting business men for what they do or the man trying to impress the lovely date. No, what I am merely pointing to is that we live with a standard within us that tell us good vs. bad or right vs. wrong, but that though we would often want to do the good for, as the old saying goes, “do good for goodness sake” we hardly every truly do the good simply because it is good and right to do so. Instead we do seem to either choose the wrong for the most part or half-heartedly do right with ulterior motives. By now I assume that you think i am somewhat obnoxious, a wise guy, or otherwise pretentious because you say to yourself, “of course, isn’t he just pointing out that we are not perfect? He is just going about it in a round about way, but anyone with scruples knows from experience that no one is perfect and life is not fair.” I hope I am at least presenting some of the tensions some of you may be feeling by now.

So in many ways we agree that yes, for the most part we are not perfect, but here is the crazy thing. In most cases laws say how thing are supposed to work and they observe and describe how the rock will fall because of gravity. Whereas it is peculiar that even though there is a standard, a law within us, that tells us how to act, react and for the most part how we as human beings are supposed live, yet we do not follow this law. It is peculiar to me not because it exposes what we all already know, namely that we are not perfect. Instead the crazy thing is that for however many times we do not live accordingly to this law of human nature, and do the wrong instead, we still deeply within us desire greatly to live in a world where others do live by this basic good and right law and we also desire it for ourselves. I have never met someone that did something absolutely wrong or even evil and did not in someway feel guilty and bad about and wished to have done right. What is even more interesting is that even those of us whom we consider sociopaths, even they still do horribly evil things seeking after a feeling or idea of something good. The evil serial killer, still kills so that his sexual desire may be satisfied, but sexual desire in and of itself is not evil and I would say that for the most part is very good. So we can agree, that even those who deeply desire to do evil can only do evil by perverting or corrupting what is already good. If even sociopaths as well as ourselves continue to be haunted by not mere instincts and desires, but this standard that tells us not what we want or need, but what we ought to do, then should not this sense point to something that is somehow outside of ourselves? It is one thing to distinguish between an instinct for preservation and instinct for eating, but what about the sense that lies behind the instinct, that thing that tells us what we ought to do. You may have an instinct to save Bobby from drowning, but there is something that lies behind the instinct that tells us that “you should save him from drowning”. That “should” beckons to do something good and right even if it may be at the expense of our own lives. If we surrender to it we may die in the process, but die heroically. If we do not respond, then we may still have the sense “you should have helped” and may even again feel remorse, guilt etc. The point stands that this sense or standard or as I like to call it the Law, it points to another reality that we seem to be out of tune with.

I remember seeing a young girl learning to play piano. In her learning I noticed that she needed to continue to look at the notes on her piano sheet to be able to play the music correctly. The instincts, desires, needs, and all the things that make up our inner life are very much like the keys on the piano. And the Law of human nature is much like the music sheet with the notes. None of the keys on the piano are wrong, but the right key at the wrong time becomes the wrong key to be played. Similarly instincts and desires are not wrong in and of themselves but can be followed at the wrong time. We were all meant to play a particular song in life, a good song, a harmonious song that is beautiful and right. But for some reason we do not play the right notes, something has gone wrong and somehow we freely choose to play these wrong notes. We desire to play the right song, but we continue to play the wrong notes in life. Why? that is the question I want to tackle first. There is an answer to this in the next blog.

Lastly, I hinted at something earlier that I did not want to tackle right away and which I intend to confront head on in the next blog, but for now I wish to clarify for a moment. Earlier I made the point that the standard seems to be within us in such a way that it is something we expect ourselves and others to live up to, but we do not. This expectation if we all lived up to it would point to some sense of perfection which to many of us should sound like a great thing. But again the problem is we all at some point  freely choose to do wrong. The keywords are “free” and “choose”. I want to come back to part of the original question that started all of this “Why is there brokenness in the world?” Can you guess it? Sadly, so many of us and indeed all of us choose the brokenness freely and in the process we break ourselves and break others. The breaking of this standard is not only a free choice, but it would be folly to think that this choice between right and wrong, between good and bad does not affect others. In fact if all of us are terribly honest with ourselves we admit that it has been the free will choosing of others (who have chosen for the wrong or the bad) that have hurt us and it has also been our choosing that has created brokeness that exists in the world. Free choice has a part to play in this discussion because it is the freedom to choose that allows for evil to exist, for brokenness to exist and for the emptiness to continue. The power to choose is a good thing, but it is also the origin of a great many evils, sins that have created brokenness in the world.

Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell

“I did not know what to think, I want to die,” said the young man when asked how he was doing. The young man was in a lot of pain. How would you approach this? What if you felt that way? Does life have value and why?

When I was studying to become a minister I remember being out with friends, family and even meet strangers and at some point many of them would ask me questions like the ones I mention above. Some of the questions were to the effect of, “So, Jesus, God, who’s to say that people like Muhammad or Buddha didn’t get it right? I mean isn’t there multiple truths for a multitude of people? multiple roads to heaven?”
Just so you know people that normally say this to me, I will normally ask, “have you read the Quran and learned what Buddha taught or learned the teachings of say Shinto or Daoism taught?” I ask this because most people I speak with will reply with a very reluctant shake of the head and admit that they have not.
More importantly, if you listen intently there are questions behind the questions. There are concerns and past hurts that these people were carrying as baggage as they ask these very deep spiritual questions. In fact, I think once in the airport while in line for check- in, a man said, “Why does God allow for bad things to happen and for Evil to exist? And let me tell you that it is only fair that I am carrying a lot of baggage with this question.” All these questions aren’t mere intellectual questions because I have never met someone that did not have something riding on the question. There always seemed to be a personal history, a struggle and wrestling with the questions. So I approach the questions very gently because I have learned that we all carry baggage. We all in some sense have a lot riding on how we think, accept and understand the answers to those questions, after all the questions affect our outlook on life and therefore our living.
With that said, my aim in these next few articles is to consider the fact that we are all in some sense on the same boat and we are all looking for some answers. This discussion is very personal for me because I have my integrity on the line and I have seen my own thinking, beliefs and teaching tested by very real experiences. The real impact of how you answer these questions hit me when I spoke with a friend who told me that they had considered that there life had no value. So with such a conclusion he told me “I don’t believe in suicide, but I do believe in a feeling. I believe that when I snort cocaine it will produce an emotion in me, in fact I only seem to feel anymore when I take cocaine. I believe in a bottle because it is always there to take the pain away, the ringing in my ear that says ‘I am not worth anything. You will never amount to anything.’” My friend John revealed something very dark, but this thinking is not unique to him. John truly believed he was alone on this life journey and he felt ashamed to admit that the cold he felt in the pit of his stomach was the emptiness that haunted him.
Why do we all at some point feel it? We feel this emptiness and it doesn’t matter where you are life or what you’re doing. It hits you like a ton of bricks when your making breakfast for the children before they go to school and you wonder “what has my life become?” and you feel that same emptiness inside the pit of your stomach. You feel that emptiness overcome you when you find out your spouse is having an affair. Emptiness wrenches your soul and your heartaches when you see your grown up children make a mess of their lives. Emptiness hurts when your faithful spouse of sixty years develops a disease like cancer and now there are few moments left and the darkness creeps in. Emptiness for those sleepless nights when you did not know if you could live another day with the shame given to you because someone you trusted abused that sacred trust. Though many of us have many different paths of life that have got us this far, we all have come through valleys of emptiness, heartaches, suffering, loneliness. At some point we ask, “Was this what life was supposed to be like?” Whether you are a soccer mom or high school student, a person who is well off in life or a person who is down and out on their luck, we all confront the questions in life that ask us, “What is life supposed to be about? What is my purpose? What am I here for? Is there more to life than this?”
I invite you on a journey with me in these next few blogs. In looking to answer the many questions life poses.

Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell

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Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell

The Word Says “iron sharpens iron”, referring to how we grow with those who grow with us. But think for a moment with me, what does that actually look like when the person you are growing with is a dull knife? In other words if you are dull and they are dull in your spiritual walk how will you sharpen each other? Probably very slowly if at all. What am I getting at?

Engaging the Christian faith is at times not a piece of cake, in fact at times it takes a great deal of thought and at other times heart-wrenching sacrifice just in making an effort to understand what God teaches through the scriptures. At times it helps to grow in the Christian faith to grow along with others. What I have noticed in the Christian Church is that many people want to grow with others like themselves, which in many ways makes sense because we want to grow alongside friends, people we get along with and people that help us to feel more comfortable and less threatened. However, there is one word of caution here that needs to be discerned “how and who are we growing into?” On the Christian journey if I only hang out with Spiritual novices or with other Christians who are less mature than myself it may not lead to growth, but may lead into spiritual stagnation. Now I am not one to usually paint such a bleak picture and my point is not to say for people not to hang out with other Christians who are relatively on the same spiritual wave length. Instead I am proposing that many times we ignore how the people and things we associate with on a regular basis affects our spiritual growth.

The old saying “you are what you eat” is remarkably true. In other words you become what you take, and accept into your life. A simple moral teaching that has lasted over a 100 years. Who or what do we allow in our lives so consistently that we drown out how God makes a difference in our life? Who we spend our precious time with will in part affect the direction we go in. Who do you choose to hang out with?Let me give you an example, it is observable that if you hang out with a person that is the equivalent of the fictional Homer Simpson it is safe to say that you will probably not find yourself Spiritually growing by leaps and bounds. Homer Simpson hangs out at bars to drink away his worries and fantasizes to escape his reality. Homer consistently finds himself in trouble because he does not think things through and his temper often digs him into a deeper hole until someone, usually his wife Marge, helps him out of a predicament. Now, while this may make for a funny show, the sad part is that too many people live out lives and hang out with people that too often reflect a very desperate and gloomy reflection of Homer Simpson’s life. What I mean is that in the show we see some sort of resolution despite great lack of reflection, but in real life Homer’s lack of reflection does not lead to a better outcome. What I have noticed through many years of meeting with people is that they settle to live a “Homer Simpson” type of life and never reach any sense of satisfaction, joy or even love in life. I believe that in part this is not only true of those who do not believe in Christ, but also some of us who are supposed followers of Christ.

What kind of life do you want to live? You may already believe in Jesus Christ, but live like your a follower of Homer Simpson more than your a follower of Jesus. Maybe you are not a watcher of the Simpsons, the point is that you may be living a lifestyle that reflects the darkness that only hurts you. You live out and do the very things you don’t want to do, but you follow a certain crowd a certain culture and a yes you even follow the identity that you have developed for yourself. In the Christian tradition we have called this type of problem idolatry. Who you follow, who you spend your time with and what you allow to shape your life will form you and give you a direction in life that will either end with fulfillment or becoming more like Homer Simpson.

There are so many people that can help us grow into solid joyful and strong followers of Jesus and we can experience a quality of life that is exuberant and life-giving. We learn to follow mature Christian leaders not because they are great people, but they do reflect a glimpse of Jesus better than we do so we learn to mimic them so that we may learn to be more like Jesus. There is a point in the scripture where the Apostle Paul says  ’follow me as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Get to know Christians that are stronger, healthier and more Spiritually mature than yourself. Choose to connect with others who are looking to grow in their Spiritual Maturity and you will find yourself maturing. Make an effort to become open to letting others who are more mature than you help you grow, which may mean allowing yourself to receive constructive criticism. The Word in Proverbs 27:17 Says “iron sharpens iron”. I want to encourage you that if you find yourself needing some direction sometimes it is as easy as looking to Jesus and to make it easier sometimes it is as close as looking at a good Christian friend.

I have spiritually grown when I have allowed someone to “sharpen” me. I can engage a good Christian whenever I pick up a good book rather than turn on the T.V. and I find that I can always find a good elder, pastor or just friend to engage in talking about growing to be more like Jesus. I encourage you to find someone to connect with that helps you grow. Whether it means reading and engaging a good Christian author like C.S. Lewis or finding someone who you know can help you dig deep in your faith to grow closer to God. And a little prayer once a day doesn’t hurt either.

Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell

Funny thing about being Holy is that I never feel holy. Oh, sure one might say that I am made righteous and therefore Holy by the blood of Christ. I understand that concept as a truth in my head, but often I find that it is difficult for God’s people to truly feel it in their hearts and feel it in their day to day lives. Yet when we fall into sin, despite the crimson of our sin we miraculously find that we are pure. Incredible, the scriptures attest that though are sins are as scarlet, Christ through the Cross makes us as white as snow. So when we are cut off by that inconsiderate driver or have a moment when our loved one drives us crazy, when we feel that the world is out to get us and frustrations creeps its ugly head yet still by the blood of Christ we are Holy to the Lord. Though we live with a sinful nature we also have the Holy Spirit. The Holy in the Holy Spirit, is something that is given to us, becomes a part of us and glory, though in no way produced by ourselves and in no way are we deserving, yet the Holy and the Glory is powerfully with us. So it is not a matter of whether we need to be Holy to have Holiness, but it is a matter of having Holiness and needing to daily hold onto the gift of Holiness God has given us. God’s Holiness is present with us always, Praise be to God. Amen.

Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell

Pastor Rod will be writing here soon on a periodic basis. In the meanwhile, subscribe to his posts via your favorite RSS reader, or sign up for email updates, or check this page often (you may want to bookmark it!), so you’ll always be up to date on Pastor Rod’s latest thoughts, teachings, devotions, and studies of scripture.

Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell

The ordination of Pastor Rod will be held Sunday, November 13, at Calvary CRC. Everyone is welcome to attend. The ordination service will begin at 10 AM. Pastor Tim Hoekstra of Suburban Life Community Church in Downers Grove, Illinois, will be officiating.

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Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Lowell