I had breakfast with an old friend
this morning. Never mind that I was only
five years old on the day he died in 1960.
Or that the conclusions I’ve ultimately drawn over the many years have
been significantly different from those he held out those many years ago. I still consider him a friend, and in many
ways an example.
Sometime after my son left for
school but before my morning regimen of pacing and caffeine really kicked in, drifting
in the nether regions between The Drudge Report and The Daily Beast, Camus
showed up uninvited. I have a strange
collection of friends. He didn’t seem to mind the mess so I invited him to hang
around for coffee and a bagel. It was
the polite thing to do, and it didn’t take long to recall why I liked him.
Albert Camus was a French Algerian
philosopher, author, journalist and winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize for
Literature. He was also a self-described
unbeliever, although he shied away from labeling himself an atheist. He didn’t like the stridency or finality that
accompanied the title. For him, every life,
every mind and every conversation was a work in progress. He was a master at
the art of dialogue. He had deep
passions and deep convictions and yet remained carefully open to a respectful
pursuit of mutual understanding, even in the midst of profound and animated
disagreement.
A recent article in the Huffington Post had caught
my attention, discussing the fact that a growing number of people are “unfriending”
longtime friends on social media platforms or are taking a hiatus from social
media altogether due to their weariness with the tone and conflict that
continues to embroil online communities over the outcome of the presidential
election. In case you hadn’t noticed, most
of the current experts have failed to notice that this has been about more than
an election.
I’ve written about this open and often blind hostility several times lately. I’ve
attempted to listen to voices from outside my own alleged echo-chamber and I’ve
diligently tried to avoid feeding into the “bigots” versus “snowflakes” genre
of non-discourse that persists in masquerading as communication in so many
venues.
Frankly, for the purposes of this post it matters
little how I personally voted. I did my duty and voted. Thoughtfully.
Prayerfully. I realize that some
of my readers will find this last point to be irrelevant, but so be it. As a Christian, that’s how I roll and I own
it without shame. My faith and my God are not private matters. They refuse to
stay safely tucked away in their socially acceptable boxes simply because
someone insists that to be the socially acceptable thing to do. They persist in
breaking out and meddling in everything.
I have crappy boundaries.
That said, it may come as a surprise to some that I
understand the uncertainty that many are feeling in our nation right now. And I share their sense of disquiet, though
not necessarily for all the same reasons
.
Still, having seen so many friends agitated into
such an uproar over the past months, it occurs to me that the worst possible
conclusion in all this would be to simply calm down now and go back business as
usual. We may be tempted to cave in fatigue and withdraw in hopes of a return
to some semblance of normal, but as Bruce Cockburn warned over thirty years ago,
“The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.”
So I am not, as a Christian, praying for God to
quiet the disquiet. On the contrary, I
am thankful for it. I welcome it and
pray that it might be stirred into a holy disquiet and a longing for something
beyond what can be accomplished by governments duly elected and then left to
run on autopilot until the next scheduled exercise in political theater and
national tantrum. I pray that we would
have eyes to see the truth that is staring us in the face. And hearts to accept
the weight of personal responsibility we each have moving forward. And the courage to start the kinds of
discussions we should be having instead of the ones we’ve been told to have.
If we’re truly dissatisfied with the answers we’ve
been offered, maybe it’s because we’ve been asking the wrong questions all
along. If we don’t like the narrative we’ve
been hearing, perhaps we need to change the talking points and frame a
different conversation. If we don’t like the choices, it might be that we’re
finally tiring of the national insanity of doing the same thing over and over
while expecting a different outcome.
November 8 is behind us, and yet the national and
international news feeds are still dominated by heated political discussion and
stories of protest, accusation, bewilderment and recrimination.
We have just completed one of the most contentious
election cycles in our history.
Christian and otherwise, people from all across the political spectrum
have been engaged in a process driven by passionate and often radically
different beliefs about how to address legitimate concerns and critical
problems and pursue change for the better.
Voting is an important activity in the rhythm of our political life, but
a deeply divided America went to the polls on election day and a deeply divided
America awoke the following morning. Casting
a vote and declaring a winner did not magically solve the key issues or erase
the often acrimonious disagreements.
In the end it was virtually inevitable that half the
country would emerge deeply disappointed, disillusioned, and even fearful. Whatever the reason or ultimate legitimacy,
the pain being felt and expressed by many is real and profound. It needs to be taken seriously.
And yet, it is possible that something else can be
found if we are willing to look past the divisions that trouble our national
soul. Something deeper and more
revealing. Something even potentially
redemptive. An actual answer to prayer
perhaps…or at least the first steps toward an answer to prayer.
Over the years, many have pointed to what they’ve
seen as a deep spiritual apathy in America, America’s churches and America’s
Christians. Moderation and civility and decorum have been the order of the day
for most churches and social interactions for generations. Even now, in our
cultural vocabulary, the word “extreme” is associated with an irrational
fanaticism. Passion is somehow something
to be embraced in small measured doses and reserved for appropriate times and
places like football stadiums and playoffs.
But in recent months we have seen people speaking from
places of increasingly deep passion.
Many in our country are no longer willing to wait for permission to
express what has been a quietly growing sense of desperation over the state of
their own lives, their loved ones’ lives, and their nation.
We evangelical Christians acknowledge that real
social change ultimately begins with individual lives. We say we want to see a
spiritual awakening in our churches and our land. We may even pray for it occasionally. Is it
possible that our Lord is already answering that prayer? By sending discontent and desperation?
If we are honest with ourselves, we’re often
startled by the manner in which God responds to our prayers. At times we don’t even recognize the answer as
an answer when we see it. Christians say
they want revival and renewal, but real revival and renewal are messy business,
full of rowdy desperate people willing to climb trees or rip off a roof to get
at healing and answers.
People throughout our country and others around the
world are hungry for real answers. Real solutions. Real transformation. Real action. Not just words, but something powerful
and practical that changes lives, lifts burdens, and shifts the course of
cities and nations and peoples. The people of God know better than anyone that
real and lasting transformation of lives and cultures begins with hearts and
minds. If we’re willing to listen to the Spirit of God, He will enable us to
hear the hearts of those around us. He will
enable us to hear His heart and draw us into prayer and action. Life by life and community by community.
We have an incredible opportunity in this
moment. An opportunity to be the hands
and feet and heart and voice of our Lord to the people around us. To pray and listen to the Spirit. To love courageously and fall on our faces
before God for real healing and transformation in our families, our friends,
our nation and our world. And to speak and live the truth of the Kingdom of God
breaking into every expression of human life one heart at a time.
We want to
be effective representatives of God’s heart and God’s Kingdom as we go about
life in our little parts of the world. We
want to recognize the needs of those around us and speak and live the truth in
loving and practical ways. We want to be
like King David’s wise advisors, understanding the times and knowing what to do…right
where we are.
Recently,
my online co-host Dave Huizenga and I have had the unique privilege of
discussing just such issues with our guests on the Marketplace Kingdom
podcast. We talked with our friend Ron
Jimmerson about really listening to God and listening to the hearts of the
people “at the bottom”, then developing strategies
that really work…“Leading Change from the Ground Up.” We spent time with Randy
Hekman as he shared his heart for bringing real healing and transformation to
lives and communities by crying out together in united prayer and creating a
landing strip for God’s presence and power right where we are. “HOPE AND AFUTURE: Awakening and Healing the Soul of a Nation” is a moving time of conversation
and prayer about prayer…for the revival of Christians and the awakening of a
country. You’ll definitely want to listen to these episodes again and
again. And pass them on to your friends.
We’ve talked a lot about the fact that
intimacy with God is the starting point for understanding how to live as
Christians. And we understand that it is
more than that. God’s presence and transforming power needs to permeate
everything we do and every part of who we are. But while we acknowledge that
Jesus is Lord, and believe that He wants to extend his lordship in practical
ways into all the various areas of our lives and activities, we still wonder what that looks like in the
details of 2016.
How do we
listen for His voice and direction as it pertains to our particular situations? Our passions. Our
vocations. Our finances. Our relationships and conversations with
friends, family members, and even casual aquaintances. The stranger on the street. The cashier at the gas station. The teller at the bank.
How do we recognize His voice and receive His
word for our day to day lives?
How do we lift burdens and shift the direction
and atmosphere of our families, communities and nations?
With these questions in mind, we’ve
put together a special podcast… “HEARING FROM GOD TODAY: Receiving Your Word”. This bonus episode of Street
Faith has been produced as a supplement to our Marketplace Kingdom series, and
its message builds on the one entitled “Seeing and Hearing from God” which we
released last March. It was recorded
live at a regional training conference involving prayer leaders and participants
from over nineteen different denominations and streams. We hope you find it encouraging. In the true sense of the word. Filled with the courage to become who you are
called and created to be. To do what you’re called and created to do. Speaking and living truth because you’re “Hearing from God Today!” and listening for His voice even in the voices of unbelievers.
In the end, my friend Camus the Unbeliever
left me with this thought and challenge:
“The world expects of Christians
that they will raise their voices so loudly and clearly and so formulate their protest
that not even the simplest man can have the slightest doubt about what they are
saying. Further, the world expects of Christians that they will eschew all
fuzzy abstractions and plant themselves squarely in front of the bloody face of
history. We stand in need of folk who have determined to speak directly and
unmistakably and come what may, to stand by what they have said…The world of
today needs Christians who remain Christians.”
–Albert Camus, 1948
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