Category: Self-Sufficiency

Breaking a hard heart

Published by Daniel on February 9, 2016

Recently my church offered a time of prayer for healing. As I waited for my wife, who was praying for someone, an elder approached me and asked if I myself needed prayer.

I thought I didn’t, but my heart knew. Immediately I said yes, and when I was asked what to pray for, the words rushed out: “My hardened heart.”

I realized just how badly my hard heart did need healing prayer. After a wonderful advent season, as 2016 began I had started to feel deluged by political speeches, social media debates, and “awareness” campaigns over injustices about which I can do little, except worry over how little I can do. At such times, my old patterns of cynicism, sarcasm, and apathy tend to start sneaking back into my heart. After all, my flawed logic assumes, if I act superior or uncaring, then all of the bad things can’t bother me.

But this assumption is not true; those things still do bother me. And so my heart unconsciously hardens. I build a wall against the world—a defense against watching humanity make one bad choice after another, with evil flooding in wherever goodness seems weak or absent. At times I‘ve tried to deflect my feelings with humor, but sometimes that can offend people too. So withdrawal and apathy seem to provide better protection from the overwhelming feeling that the world is spinning out of control.

I begin to see myself as a detached, objective observer, sitting above other humans and mocking them as idiotic Neanderthals. However, my passion and emotion always seem to slip out as sarcasm, passive-aggressive put-downs, and biting comments. Though I try to stuff it inside, I seethe until I reach a boiling point. Then, I launch.

Unfortunately, the sinful choice to withdraw and harden my heart has serious side effects. The heart, as strong as we think it is, cannot completely close itself off from others. It cannot create an unbreachable wall. We angrily try to make sure no more pain gets in, but we cannot prevent our own corrosive bitterness and aggression from leaking out.

I’m guessing this is not God’s intended modus operandi for Christ-followers.

After all, when Jesus approached Jerusalem for the final time, scripture says that he “wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes’” (Luke 19:41-42, NIV).

What brought on Jesus’s deep, unexpected emotion?

Simply put, his heart broke for the people.

In Jerusalem at that time, the Jews were hard-pressed on every side – taxed, abused, and marginalized in their own land by Roman occupiers. Seeking freedom from Rome, some Jews—one could even call them terrorists—issued stealth attacks against both the Roman oppressors and their Jewish collaborators. The city was in great turmoil and unrest.

But that wasn’t all. In addition to external oppression from Rome, the Jews also faced internal oppression from their own spiritual leaders, who had created a huge body of religious regulations governing every detail of life. Breaking just one small rule, intentionally or not, could lead to serious consequences and penalties – so everyone lived in constant worry and fear, trying to follow all of the rules. In about forty years, Jerusalem would be razed and its temple destroyed. And within a week, Jesus’s own fellow Jews, who would at first praise him as their king, would turn on him and kill him.

Yet his heart broke for them.

Me? Most of the time, I just want to shake my head in disgust and brush the dust from my shoes as I desperately seek a saner, less stressful life. “The world is going to hell in a hand basket,” I say to myself from my lofty perch. “Screw it. Let them. World, meet sin. Good luck. I will have no part of it.”

But I’m pretty sure my response is not the right one. I don’t need a tough, hard heart. I need a broken one—one that weeps for my city, my country, my world. A hardened heart wants to fight; a broken heart wants to heal. A hardened heart is selfish and stands apart to judge; a broken heart is selfless and jumps in to help.

So how can a hard heart be softened – or, better yet, broken?

Once I understood the process my heart took to become rock-hard, I realized that I cannot soften it through will-power. That’s what prayer is for. Only prayer and repentance can undo the damage.

In the last year, some political and spiritual leaders – even some Christian ones – have implied that praying is basically doing nothing. But these skeptics are blinded to the supernatural power found in prayer.

Prayer acknowledges our helplessness. It is a concession that despite all of our supposed knowledge, we cannot fix our problems but can only present them to a good and holy God and ask for his help.

Prayer includes our confession. It is an admission that we are—I am—responsible for breaking this world, which God created as good, and it forces us to see things through God’s eyes instead of our own.

Prayer restores our unity. It is an affirmation that I am not apart from the world God created; instead I am involved in it, both as part of the problem and as a living reflection of grace. And I definitely can’t reflect grace if my heart is hard.

Every heart must be broken. God can get us there in infinite ways—some very forceful and painful. However, having experienced some of those other ways, I do not recommend them. I think prayer is God’s preferred method.

Because becoming like Jesus requires that our hearts break over the world, seeing it the way he saw Jerusalem.

This is the world he died for.

This is the world he loves.

This is the world he invites me to love as he loves.

And that invitation to love starts with prayer.

New life in the zombie apocalypse, part 4: Spiritual weapons and sustenance

Published by Daniel on November 13, 2014

Note: I love zombie apocalypse stories because they are a great metaphor for life crises. This blog series on the topic has four parts: 1) waking up in the crisis; 2) defining “alive”; 3) abandoning self-sufficiency; and 4) spiritual weapons and sustenance. All scriptures are NIV unless otherwise noted.

To conclude our journey through the zombie apocalypse, we’ll discuss the two most important keys to survival: What about weapons for self-defense? And what about sustenance (food and water)?

So, what about weapons?

Would I choose a projectile-type weapon (for example, a gun or crossbow), or a melee weapon (such as a hatchet, sword, or dagger) for close, hand-to-hand combat?

There is no better reassurance than having a gun hanging off one shoulder—the bigger, the better. However, a gun is loud (zombies can hear, you know!), bullets could be hard to find, and a lot could happen in the moment it takes to reload. In fact, in a 2013 television episode of Mythbusters, Jamie and Adam took on the question of weapons in the zombie apocalypse. They compared a melee weapon (an electronic axe that registered fatal hits) to a projectile weapon (a gun which did the same) and found that the former kept a person alive longer, because the latter took too much time to reload. So if they say so, it must be true.

Similarly, in our daily spiritual battle against evil, the Bible recommends a melee weapon—the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17) against Satan’s projectile-type “fiery darts” (Ephesians 6:16). This sword (the word of God) is silent, precise, and strategic. It requires getting up close and personal, rather than rushing in with guns blazing and possibly attracting more enemy attention. And, although this sword must be kept clean and sharp through regular maintenance (that is, scripture reading and study), it never requires a reload.

Finally, what about sustenance?

Food is a huge question—so big that I won’t even try to touch it here. But water—water is everything. Even with the best living space, the greatest community, the strongest defenses, and the most inexhaustible food supply, no one survives without water. And the lack of it can drive people mad with thirst.

Without water, the Hebrews in the wilderness cried out to return to slavery in Egypt, arguing that being slaves with water was better than being free people without it (Numbers 20:5).

Without water, Hagar abandoned her own son, Ishmael, in the desert because she could not bear to watch him die of thirst (Genesis 21:13-16).

Without water, Elijah became so depressed that he didn’t want to live (I Kings 19). He was also suffering from lack of food, rest, and encouragement; but water is such a basic physical need that I’m convinced the lack of it was a factor in his depression.

In the same way, water is the top priority in the zombie apocalypse. And again, there is a spiritual solution: Christ, the living water.

During the insanity and desperation of my own personal apocalypse, I was pulled every which way from thirst. I was in a spiritual desert. I wasn’t living; I was merely surviving, just trying to get by. But somehow Jesus quenched my thirst. I never asked him to do so; I never even thought to ask. But in mercy and love he got me through each day, giving me just enough hope to keep going. I see that now, but I couldn’t see it then. It is difficult to see his goodness in the midst of the apocalypse. Somehow, you just have to know that it is. That he is.

As Jesus told the woman at the well: “[W]hoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

We Christ-followers must continually drink of Christ himself, the living water.

So, from this post and my last one, let’s recap the conventional wisdom on how to survive the zombie apocalypse: Leave the “city” of self-sufficiency and learn to live “in the country,” depending on God every day. Join a small, close-knit community for support. Keep the sword of the Spirit sharp, clean, and ready to strike at the enemy. And above all, stay close to the source of living water, which is Christ Jesus.

I’m living proof that, if you do all of these things, when you awaken in your own personal zombie apocalypse you will get through it.

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New life in the zombie apocalypse, part 3: Abandoning self-sufficiency

Published by Daniel on November 10, 2014

The Walking Dead, a zombie show based on a serialized graphic novel, is one of the most-watched shows on TV, while other zombie books and movies continue to sell like hotcakes.

Why is the zombie genre so popular?

I think one reason is the compelling question at the heart of it: In a zombie apocalypse, what would I do? Or more specifically, excluding the suicide option, what would I do to survive?

This question faces all fictional people in zombie stories, and stirs such passionate interest in actual people that a real-life industry has grown up around it. Amazon.com sells a survival manual, and other websites offer real-life training camps on the topic. In 2011, even the History Channel aired a special (Zombies: A Living History) about outlasting a zombie takeover. The History Channel!

The question of survival can be broken down into more specific questions, such as: Where would I go? With whom would I associate? What about weapons for self-defense? And what about sustenance (food and water)?

Each of these questions has spiritual applications. Let’s tackle them one at a time.

First, where would I go?

Would I go to a city or to the country, and would I settle into a secure, well-equipped home base or stay on the move?

A city contains more scavengeable resources for greater self-sufficiency (or the illusion of it), but it also has more zombies. To get around the zombies to the resources, I’d need massive courage and ninja-like stealth – attributes rarely possessed by a guy of my size and agility. Also, in the city, there’s more danger of getting trapped in tight spaces (narrow streets, tall buildings) with no escape, whereas in the country there are fewer zombies and more escape routes. As for establishing a well-equipped home base, doing so could attract other survivors who’d kill for it; better to stay mobile.

Zombie wisdom says: Don’t follow the crowd to the cities, and don’t settle in one place. It’s safer to keep moving through open country and live off the land, even though resources might be scarce. At least, according to my sources.

In the Old Testament, the dichotomy was the same. As people built cities, they began to “follow the crowd” and develop wealth, resources, and delusions of self-sufficiency, all of which laid the foundation for many evils. Think of the people of Babel building a tower, seeking to become almost godlike: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). Or think of the Hebrews establishing cities in the Promised Land, then rejecting God as their leader and demanding a human king like “all the other nations” (1 Samuel 8:5).

In actuality, a city in itself is not evil. But symbolically, it is a monument to human strength. Living in a “city” (metaphorically), we can forget our dependence on God and find ourselves trapped in dangerous places, like in the delusion that we are self-sufficient.

Perhaps this is why, before the Hebrews became a nation, God led them away from the cities and toward complete dependence on him in the wilderness, where they had to trust him to provide manna every day (Exodus 16).

Personally, in the real world, I prefer books and computers to rugged outdoor life. But metaphorically, I believe that living in daily dependence on God’s provision – to me, represented in zombie literature by living off the land in remote places – is the way to go.

Second, with whom would I associate?

Would I remain a lone individualist, join a small group, or become part of a large group?

On one hand, a loner requires fewer supplies and can escape more quickly and easily—again, creating an illusion of self-sufficiency—but she has no one to watch her back or cover her blind spots. On the other hand, a large group poses logistical problems and offers little sense of true closeness. The third choice, a smallish, close-knit group, offers real interconnectedness and the best chance of survival.

Zombie wisdom says: Go with a small group. Small groups are stronger and safer than large groups or loners.

Jesus supported this model by forming a small group of disciples who knew each other intimately. He prayed that they, and we, would experience true unity (John 17), which is essential for spiritual strength.

I’m an introvert and I’m also from Montana, where personal freedom is a core value, so I tend to favor being “on my own.” When my world imploded in 2008, I just wanted to withdraw and be by myself. Thankfully, though, my church stressed the scripturally-based point that everyone, even an introvert like me, should join a home community for close relationships. So I found the nearest one and started attending. And this ragtag band of Christians surrounded me and lifted me up. They bound my spiritual wounds and defended me from further attacks of the enemy. They cared for me through prayer, encouragement, and many other forms of support. Had I stayed alone, I might still be living, but I probably would be more dead than alive. In the zombie apocalypse and in real life, living in a small, caring community is best.

So depending on human self-sufficiency, whether in a “city” or on one’s own, is not the best way to survive the zombie apocalypse. Instead, it’s better to depend on the strength of God and a few believers who know you very well.

In my next blog, I’ll wrap up the last two questions: What about weapons for self-defense? And what about sustenance (food and water)?