Christianity in North America

That Gift—And Why We Need It

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For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.
—1 Corinthians 14:2

What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.
—1 Corinthians 14:15

Going deeper in prayer through tonguesI don’t think any spiritual gift causes more problems than tongues. Talk about tongues in some Christian circles and you’ll be ostracized. Fail to talk about it in others and you’ll be written off as a spiritual flyweight. Both reactions are a mistake.

I almost have to apologize in advance for being a charismatic, because charismaniacs have poisoned the well a million times over. But I came to the charismatic ranks through the Lutheran Church, believe it or not, so my journey has been a little bit different. Mostly, I praise God that He has kept me out of the excesses that plague some sectors of the charismatic movement. I think there is a pure strain of charismatic thought and theology that still holds true to the way things should be in the Church, and I thank God for those sane voices out there who have kept me on the straight and narrow.

That said, while I talk about charismatic issues from time to time here at Cerulean Sanctum, rarely do I talk about a specific gift, and never do I talk about tongues.

Do I speak in tongues? Yes, but usually only in prayer, and mostly when I am praying for other people and need direction for how to pray for them. Even then, I pray in tongues almost inaudibly so that it is more a prayer between the Lord and me and not for any showy reason. In other words, I’m not one of those loud SHAMBALAHONDA folks by any means. (And yes, they sometimes drive me a little bit nuts, too.)

Despite any negatives people might conjure about tongues, I want to be forthright here and say that I cannot run away from the truth that praying in tongues makes a huge difference in one’s prayer life. Huge. When I add tongues to my prayers, it’s like throwing gasoline on a fire. Like Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:15 above, I sometimes pray normally, then mix in tongues, especially in those situations where I need help praying, need supernatural insight, or when God taps me on the shoulder and asks me to pray in tongues.

The other night, I was with a group of fellow believers and we went into a time of prayer; immediately, I felt drawn to tongues. God directed my entire offering of prayer, and I only shared those portions with the group that I prayed normally. The tongues part I prayed quietly as I reached out by the Spirit to commune with the Lord on a deeper level.

And I do believe it is a deeper level, just as 1 Corinthians 14:2 above states. Praying in tongues quietly drove the public, English portion of that prayer that I offered to the group. I believe my spirit tapped into a reservoir of God and His spiritual riches, allowing me to pray more effectively. It was a more anointed prayer. Less of me, too, and more of the Lord. I could not have prayed that prayer any other way.

That’s why it bothers me that some Christians erect the wall right away when speaking in tongues is mentioned. When I think how much tongues betters my prayer life, I can’t possibly see why God would retract that gift or simply let it pass away with the last apostle. Praying in tongues makes for a better prayer life. How could God not desire that for His people?

Don’t get me wrong; this is not a first-class-tongues-praying Christian versus second-class-non-tongues-praying Christian issue! If anything, tongues itself takes the runner-up spot to prophesying. Paul saw the benefit in both prophesying and tongues, but he correctly notes why prophesying is the gift he desires most for people. I’ve also met plenty of Christians who claim to speak in tongues but who offer up “lead balloon” prayers while their non-tongues-speaking counterparts pray with obvious anointing.

Still, there is a mystery and power in tongues that should not be ignored. And as we all know, Christianity cannot escape being rooted in a lifetime of trans-rational mystical experiences. To simply say that Jesus rose again and lives inside each believer is by its very nature a mystical belief. So is the operation of tongues. Or faith, in general, for that matter: we believe in an invisible reality we cannot see save for the mystical eyes of faith.

As I get older, the more I see the value of tongues as a supplement in my prayer life; call tongues a spiritual multivitamin. It doesn’t comprise the entirety of the prayer “meal” I eat each day, but it ensures I get every spiritual nutrient in God’s bounty that was provided for me at the cross of Christ.

Avarice

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I call it the Green Pepper Price Index (GPPI).

Just two and a half years ago, I could buy a green pepper in my local grocery store for $0.59. Sometimes the price even went down to $0.49. This last Saturday, that same green pepper was $1.29.

People can’t seem to connect the rising prices of food in their grocery stores with the cost of fuel to truck it there. They can’t see that when a big farming operation goes through as much as 2,500 gallons of diesel a day, $4.59 a gallon diesel fuel (up from just $1.29/gal. in my area a few summers ago) drives up the cost of that green pepper.

And why are gas prices that high? Oil speculation. When you have to cover the costs of bid-up oil futures as one rich multi-millionaire after another plays the speculation game, you’ve got to raise prices. When a billionaire like Mark Cuban, owner of The Dallas Mavericks, says that rich guys are squeezing the little guys like us in their no-holds-barred gambling in the oil speculation market—and that it has to stop for the sake of our country (though the scoundrels behind this show no sign of easing up)—you know we live in unprecedented, self-centered times.

Every study out there shows the middle class losing ground. (Here’s an eye-opening analysis.) Meanwhile, the top 2 percent of wage earners in this country have never been richer. flytrap.jpgThe CEO of UnitedHealthcare made $1.2 billion in compensation in 2006. That’s billion. Yeah, with a b.

It’s not a word we use too often anymore, avarice. The continued dumbing-down of our vocabulary excludes it in favor of the more common greed. But avarice is a more compelling word, with a ferocity that greed lacks. Greed is snatching a slice more pizza than you deserve. Avarice is buying the pizzeria and forcing it to make pizzas for no one else but you. Avarice doesn’t merely want one more; it wants to change the structure of reality at a deeper level to feed that greed.

The problem with the kind of avarice I’ve highlighted so far is that it’s easy to spot. Some CEO runs his company into the ground and walks away with 9-digits of golden parachute exit money…well, only the CEO and his board of directors consider that a rational response.

But avarice goes much deeper, affecting the common man, too. Sometimes, we even see it in our churches.

The kind of avarice I’m talking about finds it’s revealing in these verses:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me —practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
—Philippians 4:8-9

I believe that at its core, avarice is an inability to consider the inherent good in what God has created or done for us and be satisfied with it.

Avarice cannot think on what is good or pure because they aren’t good or pure enough, at least as the person stricken by avarice thinks. Such a person sees a beautiful, verdant forest filled with the Lord’s good gifts to us and thinks, If we cut down all the trees, we could put in a strip mall. That shrunken soul finds no excellence in the forest. Such a mind is warped to only see what it believes is good, whether that “good” has any grounding in God’s good or not. Such a mind would pave Paradise and put up a parking lot.

The avarice of the average man and woman in America (a “Christian nation,” mind you) has led our country into a dark place. To that average person, no good exists save that it provide him or her an immediate, self-centered gratification. This even extends to our American heritage. Today’s Americans value freedom so little that we are willing to give it away for perceived personal gain, even if the wholesale barter of American guiding principles  destroys the country in the process. We have become people adrift on a tiny ice flow in the middle of a vast ocean, looking for ways to start a fire because “it’s a little chilly on this ice.”

And what about our churches?

Avarice in our churches means that we will moan and whine about our pet issue until it splits the church in two. No matter that the church goes belly up and fellow believers are hurt. No, it’s better to “stand up for the truth” (even if that truth isn’t) than to do a little self-discovery and realize the world doesn’t revolve around us and our pet issue. Better that we leave our sacrifice and be reconciled with our brother and sister in Christ before we might offer it.

Avarice in our churches precludes teachability. When our hearts swell with avarice, no room is left to grow in grace.

Avarice in our churches means that we won’t be satisfied with the speed at which God is doing good things in our midst, so we’ll find some man-made way to stoke that fire, ultimately burning everything up, including the good we started out with.

Avarice in our supposedly Christ-centered lives will force us to distrust the Faith of our Fathers and explore every newfangled Christian fad that comes down the pike, even if such fads derail our journey with Christ. That inability to appreciate the good for its inherent goodness only wrecks our faith as we seek to add to what is already perfect in Christ.

Avarice cannot meditate on the good because it perpetually searches for something better, even if that supposed better mauls everyone it touches. Woe to us if we are on the receiving end of that mauling! We’ll find that our “better” turns to devour us.

God, how we need to purge our lives of avarice!

Lessons from Suffering

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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

It’s hard to read the newspaper and think any other thoughts than this: people are suffering. I fear that much more suffering is to come.

Last week, I spent most of Wednesday in agony. And agony is a mild word for what it feels like to have a kidney stone. Worse: when you can’t keep the pain meds down because the waves of nausea are forcing up everything. After a prolonged fight, and a thankful passing of the stone, my day of suffering came to an end.

Just when I needed my parents most, they died. My son will never know my Mom and Dad. That’s a different kind of suffering.

Been through a lot of suffering through a series of career starts and restarts. Can’t really explain why. My wife and I have gone through more than our fair share of downsizings. We’re coming up on 12 years of marriage and in that time have endured seven layoffs between the two of us. We always got stellar performance reviews, too. Suffering hurts even worse when it makes no sense.

Last week, when I was hugging the toilet, my side felt ready to explode, I had a good chance to meditate on suffering. Here’s what I learned:

Suffering stinks.

I find it odd that some sectors of Christianity seem to have a love affair with suffering, as if suffering exemplifies the highest form of spiritual bliss. The photographer later killed himselfSome of those folks even go out of their way to suffer. I think that’s nuts.

This is not to say that one can’t learn from suffering. If you’re severely injured in an accident or happen to struggle with a painful, chronic disease, you understand the torment of the cross. How can any of us hurting that profoundly not think of what Jesus endured for us? People in pain can identify with the Savior and experience the fellowship of His sufferings.

In earthly suffering, each of us gets a taste of hell, even if that taste is a small one. Magnify it a millions times. Now who wants to go to that awful place? The Savior comes to save us from that suffering.

Thoughts of heaven permeate the lives of those trapped in earthly suffering. At least they should. People used to content themselves with heaven—note the past tense. Heaven seems remote to people today, even Christians.

Still, the thing about suffering is that its lessons are learned quickly. It’s like the little kid who sticks his hand in the fire. That lesson is well learned once. The point of experiencing sufferings repeatedly or for years and decades gets lost in the end. We know the lesson. Can we please do without more suffering?

I know that when I was twisting in agony, all the spiritualizing about suffering went out the window. I knew the lessons already. More suffering didn’t help me know them better. It didn’t make me any more holy or more Christ-like. Suffering stinks.

What makes the obsession some Christians have with suffering even more odd to me is that suffering is an aberrant condition. God didn’t build suffering into Creation. There’s no suffering in heaven, either. Suffering is the result of sin. Christ became incarnate in part to end suffering. He came into a suffering world and alleviated suffering. Seems to me He’s no fan of suffering.

J. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to Asia, went to the Far East to bring the Gospel to the lost people there. Today’s blazing Chinese Church, white-hot with revival as it is, owes much of its origin to Hudson Taylor.

But Hudson Taylor buried his family in China and came back to England a different man. Friends who knew him saw the change. A sadness permeated his life afterward.

In some ways, few of us Americans really know anything about suffering, at least suffering for the sake of the Gospel. To me, suffering for the Gospel is the only suffering that makes sense.

However, some better Christians than yours truly don’t see a distinction between suffering from a kidney stone and suffering for the Gospel. I wonder sometimes if they’re overspiritualizing things. If we’re being beaten with a tire iron, it seems to me a great difference if the person initiating the beating is doing so because we’re trying to share the Gospel with him as opposed to his reacting negatively to our complaint about the lousy job he did balancing our tires. A big difference exists between having our heart stop beating because some jungle native drove a spear through it because he didn’t like this Jesus we were talking about and us going into cardiac arrest due to a lifetime of scarfing down buckets of fried chicken.

But that’s just me. Perhaps I’m just not deep enough.