How Western Christians Succumb to Disappointment with God and to Fear

Steve Bremner of the Fire on Your Head Podcast posted this graphic, and it got me thinking:

Spirit of Fear quotation

I was immediately struck by a one-word answer: disappointment. Christians in the West become disillusioned when we anticipate or expect an outcome and it does not meet expectations. The next time we confront a similar situation, heightened fear results.

The following passage bedeviled me for decades:

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
—Luke 11:9-12 ESV

I once had someone confess to me a lack of faith in God specifically because of me. How so? Because it made no sense to that person that someone who sought so hard to follow after God could have so many rotten things happen to him at the worst possible times as I did. That person had personally witnessed faithful, God-loving Dan asking God for eggs and getting what he thought were scorpions instead. Why serve a God who treated His most ardent followers that way?

What is behind that thinking? A Western view of entitlement and middle class privilege.

Jesus, a little later in Luke:

And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
—Luke 12:22-34 ESV

The Psalmist adds this:

The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand. I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing.
—Psalms 37:23-26 ESV

That said, when I look through the Scriptures, what I do not see is any promise of God that those who love Him should have a material expectation beyond God providing food and clothing. The Father promises not to let His children starve or go naked, but He makes no promises—for this life at least—that they will inhabit mansions.

Oh, and let’s make sure we look at all of the Luke 11 passage to understand what really matters most:

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
—Luke 11:9-13 ESV

Read that concluding sentence again. What is God most concerned about giving us? His Holy Spirit. Him we can have without limit.

It’s not about stuff. It’s about God giving us more of Himself.

The problem for us in the West is that we’re not satisfied with more of God.

Truth is, we’re not even satisfied with our daily bread. Or with enough clothes to keep us from being naked.

Back in Jesus’ day, and throughout most of human history, if one had food and clothing, that was enough. Because too often, those items could not be assumed. Sieges during war rendered even a crust of bread a luxury, and war was a way of life. Enemies burned fields and stole livestock. Armies laid siege to walled cities for months and years until the people inside broke.

God tells us in His Word that His children should not worry about this. He will provide food and clothing.

For those of us in the West, though, that’s not enough.

Basic needs met? Pishaw! At minimum, we must have what the other guy has. Or more. Because having more than the other guy proves our smarts are better than his. Shows how we’re better all around. Wiser. More successful.

In the case of Western Christians, having more than the basics says that whatever we’re doing religiously, we’re doing it right. We are holier. We are more committed. Our doctrine is the right one. That poor slob of a failure over there? He’s reaping what he sowed. His doctrine was bad. He sinned. He let God (or in all too many cases, the pastor or the local church) down. The loser.

So if we have less, we get disappointed. If we think we’re doing this Christianity thing right and God does not marvelously fill our material coffers, then He is being a grinch. Even if we’re not living up to some “Christian” standard, we’re mad at God anyway for not dishing enough grace to help us keep up with the Joneses.

Disappointment.

That disappointment with our perception of God’s provision leads to fear. Fear that we’ve sinned somehow. Fear that our doctrine is wrong. Fear that our entire faith has been in vain. Fear that perhaps God is not there. Fear that if God is not there, then life is all on our shoulders, and it looks like we already screwed up that life or will do so in the future.

Fact is, the myriad fears we see in the Church today have basis in whatever past disappointments with God we let fester. Despite what God may think is best for us, we think He didn’t come through. Ultimately, it’s a complete breakdown in faith.

This is rampant in the American Church.

In some sectors, it’s prosperity gospel teaching that breeds this problem. In other sectors that consider themselves above prosperity gospel teaching and who look down their pious noses at any fool who believes such things, it’s the pride of American Dream living that breeds it.

Envy and pride. Unrestrained, that pair will always lead to disappointment, which leads to fear.

In the end, all you and I can do is be the person God has made us now. We turn to Him and can expect Him to give us food, clothing, and—without measure—His Holy Spirit. Comparing our reality against anyone else’s is wrong. If anything, I think the Bible teaches that material things only serve to weigh us down, to become the very worries that choke the seed we read about in the parable of the sower.

It’s not so much that we ask our Heavenly Father for an egg and He instead gives us a scorpion. It’s that we want a factory filled with eggs and want almost nothing of our Father Himself. And we get disappointed with Him when we see evidence that God might have something different for us. Then we become afraid that we will never get our egg factory and the world will think less of us for that “lack.” Suddenly, everything looks like scorpions.

More of you, Lord, and less of everything else. Let us eat our bread and wear our clothes with glad, thankful hearts, and a deep, profound love for you and for others, while we treat everything else we may receive in this pre-eternity like gravy. For where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.

Men, Go Deep

Few plays in sports capture more excitement than a QB rearing back on his heels to launch a long bomb to a receiver deep downfield. The football hangs in the air, taunting fans, and raising adrenaline levels all over the stadium. Everything depends on what happens next.

Many of us men will recall days of backyard football, where we barked out plays in small huddles. Some of those plays were complex and needed a Ph.D. in neighborhood sports to decipher. Inevitably, though, one of those plays consisted of telling the fastest guy, “You go deep.”

We need deep. We need someone who is out there in case all else fails. When no other options exist, you can count on that one guy in the next Zip code, the one you sent deep, to save the day.

“Men, go deep.”

If I have a word for this year, it’s that.

What I say here isn’t specifically in the Bible, so you can take it for what it’s worth, but I think God made men to be deep. Deeper than women.

God gave women the gift of breadth. They have a social gifting that pulls in people from all realms and crosses social boundaries more easily. They are the roots of the tree that spread out to the dripline to capture the rain and find nourishment.

But God gives men the gift of depth, of being the taproot of the tree, the anchor, the leading edge, the part that goes where other parts don’t, that explores the boundaries yet holds it all fast. Being deep means you dwell in many places alone and unaccompanied. God alone can see you. God alone knows and understands your function.

I believe with all my heart that the combined social and theological crisis of our generation is a lack of men who are deep. Deeply rooted in God. Deeply committed to truth. Deeply in love with their Savior and not with anything or anyone else. Men who are deep because of their devotion to the only One who matters.

Men, go deep.

I say all this because it is my experience in this life. While I have met a few deep women, they are of a different quality than the deep men I have known. And those deep men are an increasing rarity.

Feminism hurt men more than we know. Whatever women gained by the feminist movement, men lost in kind. It was not a win-win. And when men don’t win, women don’t either. I think many feminists of those early days of the movement would look around today and wonder what happened to men.

Men don’t have any heroes anymore beyond fictional ones. Why are comic book superheroes our transcendent role models today? Because real men aren’t.

One could argue that younger men today manage successfully to dwell in the shadow of the full bloom of feminism’s flower, yet one could argue equally that young men today have responded by retreating into infantalism, stuck in the mode of Peter Pan, dealing with our cultural and societal experiment by forever staying 12 years old. Forever shying away from digging down.

But men go deep.

I don’t think there has ever been a time in human history when the clarion call for men has been more clear and loud. God calls for men to go deep in Him.

The challenge for men who heed that call is that no aspect of our culture or society supports depth. All of it, every shred, caters to shallowness. All of it is arrayed against God. Every little bit.

Men who go deep will have no support. Not from other men. Not from their wives. Not from their children. No one will understand the man who goes deep–except God.

If we want to point a finger at our churches and ask why there is no power, no revelation, no vision, no transcendence, no fire at all, it’s because of a dearth of deep men. Period. You can stop right there, because that’s the answer for almost everything that ails us.

Prostrate before God You can’t fake deep. You can’t look in the eyes of a shallow man and find wisdom, only in the eyes of the deep. And there are fewer men with that piercing, penetrating depth today, so good luck finding them.

Instead, you be that man. Go deep.

God holds out His hands to any man who will pull himself away from myriad distractions that hinder to instead find respite in the Him and go deep. You can’t buy depth. It comes only from intimate time spent with God away from the rest of the world. It means turning back to God every moment of every day. Again and again. It means having zero confidence in oneself, none, but taking it all back to God and operating out of His Spirit’s empowering alone. No substitute exists.

Men today want to be inoffensive, liked, entertained, in control, and successful by the world’s standards. Theirs is a wide, well-trod path.

The man who goes deep into God will be misunderstood, chastised, and even hated. Often by people who should instead be supporting his desire for God and the deep places God alone can take him. We used to have men like that. Used to.

Such men are our only hope.

Because the clock has wound down. It’s fourth and 25. Without a man open way downfield, there will be little chance for victory.

“Men, go deep.”

3 Major Ways a Church Misses the Mark with Insufficient Theology

The Bible, old school style... Cerulean Sanctum deals largely with how the American Church lives out what it believes. Where I only occasionally stray is into the theology that undergirds that belief.

In crisscrossing the Christian blogosphere, visiting local churches, and viewing Christians posting in social media, I’ve witnessed repeated thought patterns based on “insufficient” theology. Too many statements made by supposed believers lack something essential to well-rounded Christian belief.

While the whole of Christian theology and apologetics encompasses a staggering breadth of topics and issues, I want to stick to three areas of deficiency that continually cripple solid understanding of what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century.

That said, an obvious one must be discussed, too, as well as one that is a “major minor.” But I’ll get to those two later.

First, a declaration. To do this subject justice requires a ton of footnotes and a plethora of Bible quoting. If I put all that in this post, it would end up in the TL;DR pile. So, we’re all adults here: I will leave the study to you. Please do look up these issues in your Bible and confirm them for yourself. I will be writing from the 30,000-foot view. I want to put these ideas out there. You can follow up as you see fit.

The Obvious

The Trinity.

Now you know why I’m keeping this high level. A study of The Trinity could fill 20 posts and still not touch on everything.

By Trinity, I mean God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Three unique, co-existing persons enveloped in one Godhood.

I say with no hesitation that if a church gets The Trinity wrong, everything else is wrong. Stop right there. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

While the word cult raises hackles in a politically correct age, you can separate a genuine, orthodox Christian church from a pseudo-Christian cult 99.999% of the time by how it portrays the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That criterium alone. Seriously.

What does your church believe about The Trinity? How does that square with small-“o” orthodox Christian belief? Find out. Really.

The Three Majors

How a church thinks and how that thinking informs its practice is not something most people ponder. They show up on Sunday, sing a few hymns, listen to someone talk about God, share an awkward handshake or two with some folks they don’t know as well as they should, and they go home.

You don’t want to be that person. You want something more.

I think that more you want hinges on how your church deals with the following three issues:

Sin
The Journey of Christ
The Kingdom of God

These three rise to the top because most people, even Christian leaders, don’t think much about them once they’ve convinced themselves of the basics, especially how teaching and understanding them manifests itself in practice.

Sin

We need to look at sin as two component parts:

Estrangement from God
Bad behaviors we do (because of estrangement from God)

Many Christians spend their entire lives managing bad behavior because that’s what their churches teach. The Christian life becomes an endless wrestling against those couple rotten behaviors we can’t seem to overcome.

That’s picking nits, though, and it’s doomed to failure. Constantly monitoring oneself for sin slipping in here or there leads only to despair. And that’s where many Christians are regarding their sin.

In reality, the core problem isn’t sinful behaviors but estrangement from God. The first thing God said to Adam and Eve after the Fall was not “What have you done?” but “Where are you?”

Whenever we talk about sin, the word repentance follows close behind.

Want an interesting exercise? If you have a King James Bible, do a word search in the Old Testament for the word repent.

Not many uses, are there? And usually only related to God changing His mind about something.

Yet the history of God and His People in the Old Testament was a history of God doing what? Asking those people to repent. But if God didn’t use that word, how did He ask? By holding open His arms and longing for His beloved people to walk away from their idols and return to Him. To come Home.

What does biblical repentance that ends estrangement from God look like? Read Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15).

God wants a relationship with us. He wants us to turn from whatever it is that distracts us and come back home to Him. At its core, that’s what repentance truly is.

A funny side effect occurs when that happens. You find it in this classic hymn:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

When it comes to the second half of that sin theology, first dealing with our estrangement from God tends also to diminish greatly our sinful behaviors. The closer we draw to Him after we’ve come home, the less those sins bedevil us. Drawing close to God matters most.

The Bible says this:

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
—John 17:3 ESV

The problem many churches have with their theology of sin is a focus on managing sinful behaviors rather than a focus on coming home to God and deepening intimacy with Him. Knowing God deep in our very core makes all the difference. THAT is eternal life. If a church does not spend the majority of its time helping us deepen our intimacy with God, then we may forever struggle to manage sinful behaviors.

The Journey of Christ

Ministry –> The Cross –> The Resurrection –> The Ascension/Pentecost

Please note the four component parts of The Journey of Christ. Now realize it is highly likely that a church will not fully teach and minister from an understanding and practice of all four parts equally.

That’s a huge theological deficiency.

The worst part: Most churches and denominations insist they teach and practice it all equally. They don’t, though. Most cherry-pick a place or two in that journey and throw those select few all their time and effort. This diminishes how they frame the Christian life, teach it to others, and practice it.

For instance, it’s easy to see many charismatic churches skip right to the end and spend most of their time living their faith out of The Ascension/Pentecost. Sure, there’s a little talk of the other three parts, but they remain forever secondary. That diminishment skews the way charismatics look at everything. A lack of teaching on The Cross as a means to end the willfulness of the Christian almost never gets discussed. It’s one reason why so little humility exists in some sectors of the charismatic movement.

Many mainline churches jump right to The Resurrection. They talk a lot about new life and clearly perk up around Easter time, but they don’t do as well dealing with the old life and its troubles or with the charismata. The Cross and The Ascension/Pentecost get short shrift.

Likewise, stopping at The Cross with one foot into The Resurrection explains why some of the loudest Reformed voices on the Web get hung-up on sin, talk less about what a new life looks like in full, and rarely venture into The Ascension/Pentecost and what that means for the Church. As a result, you hear a whole lot of sinner and not much saint. Oddly, as much as Reformed and Holiness churches clash in the rest of their theology, they both share this affinity.

It is highly probable that your church and mine do not deal equally with the four parts of The Journey of Christ. Again, leaders will protest this like crazy, but it’s true. Something in that journey is being overemphasized and something under-. It’s a very human failing.

To be a balanced Christian in our theology, we must identify the dearth in our church in regard to The Journey of Christ and supplement from other sources that highlight the underserved part(s) of the path. Those sources will likely fall outside the ghetto of our church or denomination. Because, hey, blinders. Don’t be afraid to step outside your familiar church neighborhood. You will be a more well-rounded Christian if you do.

The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God consists of both The Kingdom Now and The Kingdom Not Yet. Jesus brought The Kingdom of God with Him in His incarnation and it persists in the Church (Now) until He comes again and restores everything (Not Yet). Almost every church will insist it believes The Kingdom of God is both Now and Not Yet, but too many of them don’t act as if they do. The Church in America struggles with its teaching and practice of The Kingdom more than almost any issue.

When a church is heavy in Kingdom Now, we see a strong emphasis on ministry to others and on the power to do so. Nothing wrong with believing that The Kingdom manifests in power through the living, dynamic Church. Charismatic churches tend to dwell in Kingdom Now theology.

However, that’s not all The Kingdom is. And this explains why so many charismatics become disillusioned when they assume Kingdom Now, but God is directing them toward Not Yet. We simply will not see every tear dried until Christ returns. We have the Lord’s Supper now, but the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will far, far outstrip it in glory. Kingdom Now folks need to bear this in mind and recall that our ultimate destination is not here and now.

When a church is heavy in Kingdom Not Yet, everything feels delayed until we die and go to heaven. This thinking reminds us of the temporality of this life and the eternity of the life to come, where we will see the fulfillment of everything we hoped for here and now. That’s a good thing.

However, too much Kingdom Not Yet can ignore the present. The Cult of Suffering I see in some Reformed and mainline churches today is a result of thinking only Kingdom Not Yet. That leads to a church that is powerless in the face of current problems, always preaching muddling through rather than any kind of triumph over the vicissitudes of life. Everything positive feels delayed until we see the Pearly Gates. Obviously, that’s a deficient way of looking at The Kingdom and what Christ empowered the Church to be and do this side of heaven.

The Kingdom is both Now and Not Yet. We must live and believe both parts fully to have a fully realized faith.

The Major Minor

How Christians view The Atonement of Christ, while a major aspect of our theology, runs under our radar and is therefore often assumed rather than understood. Pastors know which type of atonement theory they teach and preach, but most people in the seats can’t distinguish Penal Substitution from Christ Victor, much less define them.

By The Atonement, we mean what Jesus accomplished for us by His death on the cross. Many theories exist for what happened in Christ’s sacrificial act. Theologians will defend their particular favorite theory almost to the death and to the point of calling anyone who doesn’t share their singular belief a heretic.

I find that ludicrous. I look at the many Atonement theories and each has something interesting to say about the breadth of Christ’s finished work that I can see the Bible validating. Excluding all other theories to the acceptance of one alone is unwise, in my opinion. While YMMV, I believe we should familiarize ourselves with the many theories and use them as a means to widen our understanding of the enormity of Christ’s Atonement. This can only lead to a greater appreciation for all Jesus did for us.

Like the three Majors listed above, what we think about The Atonement will flavor what we believe about the Christian faith and how we manifest it…

…BUT…

…so will many other aspects of Christian theology. Our eschatology, how we view the End, factors into how we live now. As does our soteriology, what we believe about how Jesus saves. And many other -ologies within our theology. All have importance. All will lead us to the expression of the Faith we believe and show to the world.

Still, each of us must ask how our churches and denominations bend our beliefs and practices in one direction or another. Because the direction we do not go is likely valid, too, and when we skip it, we may just find ourselves believing and living a less-than-optimal Christian life.