On George Bailey and Being Humbled

I have watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” a number of times over the years and have always enjoyed it as classic holiday fare, but  I can’t say that it’s been one of my favorite old films.  (There, I said it.  It’s taken me a long time to admit that.)  I’ve wanted to love it, I’ve felt I should love it, but something about it has always rubbed me the wrong way.  An article I read today made me realize why I’ve struggled with this movie.

Joe Carter, writing in First Thoughts blog, does a character study of George Bailey and the protagonist, Howard Roark, of Ayn Rand’s book, The Fountainhead.  In his essay, he compares the sacrifices of these two men and their purposes:

While both represent the artistic, ambitious, talented individual who is surrounded by stifling mediocrity, each character’s story unfolds in dramatically different fashion. Rand portrays Roark as a demigod-like hero who refuses to subordinate his self-centered ego for the wishes of society. Capra, in stark contrast, portrays Bailey as an amiable but flawed man who becomes a hero precisely because he has chosen to subordinate his self-centered ego to society.

There it is, in that last sentence, the reason this movie has bothered me all these years:  George Bailey dared to be a flawed human being with a self-centered ego!  I have always thought of this movie as some sentimental escape to make me feel good and restore my faith in good old-fashioned fashionedness.  Or as some reminder that my life is just as wonderful and worthy of saving as good ol’ George Bailey’s.  But no, the truth found in this movie is an inconvenient one.  It is a truth that tells us that we are  not naturally really wonderful people with wonderful lives that everyone should be just pleased-as-punch that we’re around to make them feel wonderful, too. It is a truth that tells us that mortifying our own desires and sacrificing for other people’s good is what brings true joy.  So, for all the anger and rudeness that George Bailey manifests throughout the movie, the fact that he continually sets aside his own desires for the good of others is the lesson Capra is attempting to portray.  In our 21st-century of  the “Me and My Needs” mantra, the lesson of “It’s a Wonderful Life” is often completely missed.  We find ourselves a bit miffed with everyone and everything in the movie that doesn’t help our friend, George Bailey, live his best life now.  We may even get miffed at George Bailey for not having a more purpose-driven life. I mean, really, George?  Can’t you tell some people that you have higher aspirations for your life and some personal goals that need to be met to find personal fulfillment? At the end of this movie, it’s all about how George Bailey needed to live so that others could do better in their life.

As I’ve contemplated this essay, especially as it relates to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I’ve been astounded at how my own sinful flesh has colored my perception of this classic movie.  I’ve bristled at how George Bailey always gets the short end of the stick, at how he gets angry about things but continues to take it, and how he doesn’t even get a new house or new job out of the whole mess.  I’ve even been frustrated with his character for being ornery about his life.  I mean, if you’re going to let people and circumstances run over you, then you have no right to complain.  Actually, Frank Capra’s just showing us a flawed and sinful man who, even though he struggles with it, does the right thing by not demanding his own rights.  There is a humility in acknowledging that this character that I’ve never really liked that much because I thought he was too whiney and complaining is actually a far better person than I am. I complain and get frustrated about my life like George Bailey, but I rarely sacrifice myself for the good of others.  In the end, George Bailey’s life is shown to be important not because of his own personal accomplishments, but because he has allowed other people to achieve glory, prestige, and even life.  This humility offends our modern sensibilities but is right in line with the teaching of Scripture.  George Bailey is loving his neighbor as himself.  And it is perhaps no coincidence that in a film portraying such unnatural behavior, there is a very huge supernatural element that dominates the storyline.  I don’t know much about Frank Capra, but his films seem to reflect an honor for basic biblical truths.  It is time once again for our hearts to be challenged by the truths shown in this film, but it looks like we’re going to have to undo the years of damage self-esteem books, pop-psychology, and our own sinful natures have wrought.

Now please excuse me while I humble myself and watch this movie with fresh eyes and a–hopefully–more teachable heart.

 

Marriage Quotation #1

The drama’s in the long faithfulness, and aged love is the heroic. God knows the passion of a covenant.

 

~from the blog Holy Experience

 

Empowered Birthing

Just the title of this post makes me chuckle.

One of the current “issues” women like to talk about is that of birthing experiences. Now, I realize that women throughout history have probably always been apt to gab about this topic, but these days it’s almost a guarantee in any given conversation among women.  With all the scientific knowledge we have about our bodies, all the medicine we may desire at our fingertips, and all the books telling us what we should do, it’s no wonder this is a hot topic.

The current trend seems to be towards natural birth.  I do understand the reasons for it, and I really understand what an experience it is having done it three times now.  However, as much as my pride would like to let me think that I am some kind of warrior woman for going natural, this article has helped give some perspective.

When my sister-in-law was approaching her delivery date, I spoke with her about all the fears and unknowns going into labor.  One of the things I told her was that I really do believe that our bodies are made to labor and deliver babies, but that God must give us a supernatural strength to make it through such a difficult experience.  For all the talk of feeling empowered by natural childbirth, I can truly say that I’ve never felt so helpless and weak as when delivering my children, especially my last two.  My last child’s delivery was so intense at the end that I didn’t know what else to do but cry out to the Lord. Perhaps my perspective is all wrong on that.  Perhaps I should have cried out to the Lord from the very beginning.  I do remember singing “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” in the early stages of labor, but I had no idea at that point that God would actually expect me to trust in Him!  No– for crying out loud, I’d already done this twice before!

I think Jennifer at “Conversion Diary” does a wonderful job of reminding us Who does the empowering:

It’s important to feel empowered, in the sense of not feeling helpless or fearful about childbirth, but don’t make the mistake I did and confuse empowerment with total self-reliance. The truth is that you can’t control your way into a good labor, and making a conscious, educated decision to turn over some control to medical professionals or accept a medical intervention that makes things easier on you is just as empowering as having a great all-natural birth. If I’ve learned one thing from having four babies in five years, it is this: Regardless of how or where you have your baby, a good birth experience is going to involve a lot more trust than control.

 

Her article helps give some balance to all the hullabaloo about natural verses medicated, natural verses c-section, natural verses anything other than natural. It is a gracious article that gently reminds us that our identity is in Christ, not in our birthing methods.

 

Althouse on baseball

Ann Althouse on players in pajamas:

I realize a sports game is not a fashion show, but I’m appalled at what these men are wearing. I remember when baseball players wore skin-tight knickers… And now, I’m seeing men that look like children in their jammies.

I saw a brief clip of a recent baseball game and thought the same thing–what happened to those dapper baseball players I grew up watching?  Is anyone else bothered by this?

 

All Hallow’s Eve

The following excerpts from an article by James Jordan are helpful for Christians wondering what to think about Halloween:

Each year at this time questions arise regarding the celebration of Halloween and if Christians should participate in it. Many Christians view Halloween as an expression of Satan-worship (with all its pagan roots and fruits). I’m sympathetic and certainly agree that not every practice connected with Halloween should be tolerated or imitated. Christians clearly, must be careful and thoughtful here and guard against the spirit of the world which does in fact worship Satan (though often unawares). But that’s only half the work. The other half involves refusing to allow Satan to get credit for things that don’t belong to him.

It is interesting how Satan works. He is not creative. He does not invent things. But he is expert in twisting good things into instruments of evil. He is a genius when it comes to perversion — turning things upside down. He loves to take the things of God and twist them into instruments of ungodliness.

The Church’s job in many ways comes down to turning everything that has been turned upside down by sin and Satan, rightside up again. Reconciliation means upturning those things that have been overturned by sin and twisted into instruments of unrighteousness, so that they bring glory to God again. This is precisely what the Church has done in regard to sensuality and sexuality. Over the years the Church has performed the service of re-instructing the world regarding the truth and proper place of the family, the arts, entertainment, business and labor, and many other fields of human endeavor.

But we must not forget that the Church has had to do this because it has itself been deceived and misled by Satan concerning these things. And such is the case, at least in part, with the celebration of Halloween.

It was no accident that Luther did what he did on “Halloween” — “all saints eve.” The word “Halloween” is of course simply a contraction for “All Hallow’s Eve.” The word “hallow” means “sanctify” or “saint.” It is simply synonym for the word “holy” (thus we pray “hallowed be Thy name” when we desire God to glorify and exalt His name in the earth). The church, following the pattern of beginning the celebration of feasts the evening before the actual feast day, began the celebration of All Saints Day the evening before (All Saints Eve, “Halloween”).

All Saints Day is the celebration of the victory of the all saints who, because of their union with Christ have triumphed over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and in the late 700s these various celebrations were united and fixed on November 1.

Contrary to modern legend, the origin of All Saints Day and All Saints Eve in European Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic paganism or the Church’s fight against the pagan Druids (and serious questions are being raised now by scholars about what we have been told regarding the Druids. Many are coming to believe that much of what we have been told is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans)…

The Christian calendar turns the entire year into a drama. Beginning with the Feast of the Incarnation, the world moves progressively from darkness to light. The death of Winter is turned into the resurrection of Spring which corresponds to the Feast of the Resurrection (Easter). Then comes Pentecost and the time of growth and maturity. We do battle with the effects of sin and the curse upon the ground — we fight the weeds and the bugs to protect the seed until the harvest. When the harvest comes in, Satan, seeing the defeat of his efforts to destroy us again, seeks one last time to achieve victory before the year’s end. October 31 came to signify that day. Satan seeks to destroy the saints, but he is banished again by the victory of Christ and the joy and gladness that now has filled the earth through the Church….

The Church vanquishes the demonic realm by its joyful worship of the risen and conquering Savior. Because Jesus has overcome, we are able to laugh and make merry in the face of evil. Indeed, this is the place for holy mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. He has been brought down by the Son of God and has endured a spectacular fall. Thus, we read that Jesus make a public spectacle of him by his work on the cross (Col 2:15). Satan has been exposed as a ridiculous pretender and impostor and has been publicly humiliated.

To drive Satan from us, we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan as being dressed in a red suit with horns and a tail. No one actually thought that he really looked like this (the Bible teaches that he appears as “an angel of light”) but the idea was to make fun of him because he has been defeated by the victorious Son and he no longer has power over us. He is not to be feared any longer but resisted steadfast and mocked.

So, October 31, the eve of All Saints, came to be associated with the defeat of evil and of all demonic powers by Christ and through Christ, by all His people. And it was for this reason, that Martin Luther chose October 31 to post his 95 theses against indulgences and the wicked practices of the Church on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. He chose this day intentionally, to connect it with the defeat of all things that exalted themselves against Christ and His glorious saving work. And ever since, Halloween has also been the day we mark as the beginning of the Reformation….

Now it is true that the world has lost the original intent of Halloween and they now think of it as a time of mischief and fear of the unknown. But this is not the first time the world has gotten our symbolism wrong is it? Satan still enjoys perverting holy customs and traditions and he has been particularly successful in twisting the meaning of Halloween. So that now this night has in fact become a night of fear and wickedness and debauchery for many as men take advantage of the time to destroy and injure others and carry on perversion. But this only serves as another reason for us to reclaim this day and put it back in its proper place….

Reformation Day or Halloween is not a time to look back wistfully at the past. We are not called to pine away for the past or to engage in sentimental dreaming about the “good ole days” (even if they actually were “good ole days”!).

The purpose of commemorative celebrations is to encourage us to move forward — armed not only with the knowledge of the past but with the confidence that history gives us because of what Jesus has done. We do not worship the past, but we do learn from it. One of the great lessons we can learn from the past is that the Church has never surrendered the past to Satan. The church has never retreated from reclaiming the world for King Jesus.

It is certainly understandable that Christians are uneasy and cautious about Halloween (and it seems to me that this is not at all unwise). But our uneasiness and caution must not move us to surrender truth. Originally Halloween was a Christian celebration and that is why we need to celebrate it today. We need to again refocus the world upon the victory of the saints. And thus, All Saints Eve is an important opportunity to demonstrate the victory of Christ over all evil. And it is a victory not just for Protestants, but for the whole world.

This celebration gives us another opportunity to imitate God. The psalmist says that when God observed all the conspiracies and perverse efforts of men to oppose and destroy His purposes, He laughed (Psa. 2). Halloween, All Saints Eve, gives us an opportunity to join in God’s holy laughter and mock the enemies of our Savior — from the least to the greatest. No matter what the world says or does, He is the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God — Lord over all Lords, king over all the kings of the earth. The world may revel in death, but we will celebrate life — life abundant, eternal, and triumphant.

 

The Ingratitude of Eco-guilt

Ben Merkle has a great article on the guilt poured onto us by folks who have made an idol out of environmentalism.

“Global warming (a.k.a, “Premillennialism for Non-Christians”or “Y2K Part Deux”) has now worked up enough hysteria that most rational people understand that the whole discussion needs a few important qualifiers. But even after the necessary qualifiers, this issue is still given far too much credence. “We don’t want to be all Al Gore about it or anything,
but . . . climate change is still something that we need to responsibly consider.” This sort of attempt at evenhandedness is becoming more and more common in Christian circles, where the issue is seen as yet another opportunity for the Church to make the Gospel relevant to the world.

For the Christian, the seemingly evenhanded argument looks something like this: global warming is a real threat to creation, a Christian doctrine of creation gives the strongest motivation possible for one to be concerned about the creation, thus Christians have a good reason to work with environmentalists in preserving creation, and maybe we can use this as an opportunity to witness to them as we sit on the curb together and sort the clear glass from the colored glass. But this approach misses the point where evangelism needs to begin. In making environmentalism our common cause, we have begun sharing in idolatry rather than confronting it.

To understand this, we must take a diversion and consider the importance of gratitude. The Christian life, a life lived in fellowship with God, is a life of gratitude. The Triune God made the world through His creating Word and gave this world to man, His creature. Man was to gratefully receive this gift of his own existence along with the rest of creation. Gratitude is the duty of the creature. This is the way the Creator/creature relationship is supposed to work. But this relationship was mangled at the fall of Adam and man has been grappling with gratitude ever since. Since the fall, every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve has struggled with the most basic of good manners—simply saying “Thank you” (Rom. 1:21). But, like all of God’s law, the obligation of gratitude is written on our hearts. Though a man may not acknowledge his Creator, the debt that he owes for his creation nags at him. The more he is blessed by the goodness of God’s world, the more intensely he feels the obligation of gratitude.

But gratitude left unexpressed turns sour. It goes rotten and spoils. It turns from the new song of praise and thanksgiving into a heavy and onerous burden of guilt. Guilt is gratitude gone rancid. It shows a man the unworthiness of his place in life. Guilt rides heavy on a man, like Pilgrim’s burden, until mercy intervenes, cuts its cords, and puts a song of gratitude on the weary pilgrim’s tongue. But without this new song, mankind staggers on under the guilty weight of unexpressed thanksgiving.

Some, like Augustine and Luther, must struggle under the burden of this guilt for a long time before mercy intervenes and fills their hearts with gratitude. Others are blessed with no memory of a time when they weren’t singing God’s praises. But for those who never turn from guilt to gratitude, the weight of their guilt calls for some sort of medicine, some way to take the edge off, some kind of feeble sensation that they are atoning for their debt. They craft idolatrous systems of works righteousness, where they are somehow able to pay off the debt of the countless blessings that they have received in this life. Again and again, throughout history, man has concocted ludicrous schemes to justify himself before others and various ways of silencing the nagging voice of guilt in his heart. And it has always been the job of the Church to expose the hollowness of these guilt-remedies and to point sinners to the only true atonement found in Christ.

The priests of climate change are but one more manifestation of this age-old idolatry, preaching another Christ-less righteousness. They have come down from the mountain-top and have delivered a new eco-law, before which we have all fallen short. They begin by appealing to the innate sense of guilt that plagues the Western conscience.

We have polluted the planet by making our mark on it. We have altered eco systems and endangered wetlands. We have sinned and our carbon footprints are deep. We have been making too many babies for this tiny globe, and we’re using too many plastic bags at the grocery store. We have been very bad. Of course, the best of lies contain some truth. It makes them sound so much more believable. And the eco-law falsehood contains a great deal of truth. We have messed up the planet. Our sin has scarred creation. Paul says that all of creation has been subjected to futility because of man’s sin and it groans waiting for its deliverance
(Rom. 8).

But the problem that is causing this frustration in creation is man’s sin and not deforestation. The cure for creation’s frustration is the proclamation of the Gospel and not an earnest resolution to reduce, reuse, and recycle. The preachers of this new eco-law have delivered an alternative gospel. They preach a new way of living an atoning life, a life where you can make up for all the places that you have broken the eco-law. At the moment there seem to be two varieties of this new Gospel. The first is the Al Gore / Johann Tetzel version for the weak-willed, SUV-driving Bobos who happen to have a slight pang of conscience. For a small fee they can purchase a carbon offset indulgence, and they will be absolved all the way back to carbon neutral. The second version is a sort of Saint Simeon the Stylite approach, lighting the entire home with a three-watt bulb, eating neither animals nor vegetables, but only minerals like salt and bicarbonate of soda, and exhaling only once a fortnight. Only the most determined of ascetics can attain to this level of carbonless nirvana, and once they get there they usually come to the conviction that the world would have been better off had they never been born to squander its bountiful resources.

Though this false gospel comes in varying degrees of intensity, the thing that must be pointed out is that it is a false gospel. And Christians should not be searching for common ground with a false gospel. Elijah did not appeal to the priests of Baal on the grounds of their shared interests in cultic sacrificial rites. Christians topple idols. They don’t try to relate to them. This is why the Church needs a much stronger stand on the climate change nonsense. It’s not just a matter of enjoying the hilarity of liberal Chicken Little madness. It’s a matter of confronting unbelief.

Any truly Christian response to the Global Warming alarmists must be uncompromising on two points. First, it must be clear that only the Gospel will clean the earth and nothing else will. Men who are in rebellion against the Gospel are in rebellion against the earth, no matter what they say to the contrary. These men need the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the only cure. All true renewing of the earth subsequently flows from this cure. Second, the Christian life is a life of gratitude. Global Warming nuts insist on guilt. They insist on guilt because guilt produces a rabid frenzy which has the illusion of progress. But as an enduring motivation to work, guilt is nothing to gratitude. We are thankful for everything that God has given us. This includes the beauty of God’s creation. And when we look at the natural world with Christian gratitude, we can’t help but want to clean it up.”

This is a great reminder for believers to live lives of gratitude before their God; otherwise, we end up making small idols to satisfy our need for redemption.

 

Some thoughtful books I want to read

My current wishlist:

1. Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies by Steve and Candice Watters

2. Womanly Dominion: More than a Gentle and Quiet Spirit by Mark Chanski

3.  The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on the Church and Culture by Mary Kassian

4.  When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert

5.  Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem by Jay Richards

(I’m noticing a trend towards sub-titles here…)

 

Birth Control Culture

Jess at Making Home as some excellent points on the effects of birth control in our society.  This is one issue that the Protestant Church will rarely touch–it is our sacred cow.  I believe the deal with birth control is that is says a lot about our worldview.  To touch upon the subject requires us to think critically about a lot of assumptions we have regarding marriage, sexuality, the family and God.

There is a lot that can be said about this issue, but this article is a great start!

 

A Grief Worked Out

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.

C.S. Lewis

I am sitting here this evening pondering. Pondering the news that arrived this morning in my inbox that yet another little baby has left this world too soon.  That is, too soon for her mother and father, siblings and friends, who had waited a long nine months to see her precious face.

The loss of one who should have celebrated her birth-day this week is impossible to comprehend.  My cry all day long has been, “Why, O Lord? Why does this happen yet again?”

As I cry out to the Lord, my mind remembers those days in the past when I cried those same words over my own loss.  Many well-wishers extended condolences, hugs, love and tears.  Many reminded me–some gently–that God is sovereign over all things, even the death of babies.  Of course I know that in my head!  But my heart is another matter.  That is why C.S. Lewis’s words above are so fitting.  When other believers remind Christians that God is sovereign in the midst of great suffering and that must be a great consolation, they must not realize that a true believer–in order to maintain sanity–is already clinging to that belief.  We feel He does not care, we feel He is not there, we feel abandoned, we feel we are being punished, we feel that He is not just.  But we know deep-down that all that cannot be true, because if we truly remained in that place of desolation, we would have turned our backs on Him by that time.

The Psalmist writes, “O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?”  (Psalm 88:14)  He feels abandoned by the Lord.  But the very fact that he is crying out to the Lord proves that although his feelings tell him one thing, he knows that the Lord is still with him.  In fact, the Lord is not only with him, but He is the one the Psalmist trusts to know and deliver him.  The God the Psalmist cries out to is the all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign God.

A gentle reminder that God is sovereign can have its own appropriate place in time, but it needn’t be the first response to a believer’s grief and suffering.  I remember thinking to myself, after being reminded by someone of God’s sovereignty after my own loss, “You must not realize the depth of my pain! Don’t you know that I’m having to remind myself on the hour that God is sovereign!  Otherwise, I’d just curl up and die myself from a broken heart, because if God isn’t there, or He’s just trying to hurt me, then life’s really not worth living.”  I had to tell myself that God was sovereign for many, many months before my heart began feel it.  Did that mean that I didn’t truly mean it, and that I was simply responding like some kind of programmed zombie?  No!  It just meant that it took a few months for my emotions to catch up with my head.  So, how did those emotions finally catch up?

The Psalmist, writing in Psalm 73 on suffering and injustice, says:

“But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,until I went into the sanctuary of God…I am continually with you; you hold my right hand…Whom have I in heaven but you…My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

The Lord is Lord over every part of us, including our emotions. Our bodies belong to Him, our thoughts belong to Him, and our emotions belong to Him.  We are called to obey with our bodies, thoughts, and emotions; so when we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, when we take every thought captive, and when we take our weary emotions to God’s sanctuary, He meets us there and draws us even closer to Himself, reminding us that only in His presence alone can we find fullness of joy.

 

Perhaps the Greatest Recipient Ever

We are talking of peace. These are things that break peace, but I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing — direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child — I will not forget you — I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible — but even if she could forget — I will not forget you. And today the greatest means — the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here — our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child — what is left for me to kill you and you kill me — there is nothing between. And this I appeal in India, I appeal everywhere: Let us bring the child back, and this year being the child’s year: What have we done for the child? At the beginning of the year I told, I spoke everywhere and I said: Let us make this year that we make every single child born, and unborn, wanted.

~Mother Teresa
from her acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979