Dad, Do What Is Best

Today's sermon title comes from The Message's rendering of those iconic words from the Lord's prayer, "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Dad, do what is best.

That's what dads are supposed to do, and as a kid growing up, I didn't always appreciate some of my dad's choices. There was one time in particular where I bought something and he made me return it because he didn't approve. At the time, I was really upset at him, because I felt like he just made me do what he wanted, and I had to go along with it.

The way I saw it, he got his way because he was the adult and I wasn't.

This, by the way, is the same reason why I used to have a problem understanding this part of The Lord's Prayer. I never understood why we're supposed to pray for God's will to be done. My analytical, philosophical side couldn't really make sense of it.

It's God's will. Of course it's going to be done.

Praying for God's will to be done seemed to be the logical equivalent of praying for the sun to rise every morning. It's happening regardless, whether we pray for it or not.

So why pray for it?

That's a question I struggled with, one that many struggle with today. What is the point of praying to God about an issue that seems like a foregone conclusion?

Looking back, I can honestly say that part of what led me to this question was an incomplete understanding of God's will. Like many good Christians, my concept of God's will was like… well, it's a stretch, but it was sorta like playing Madden.

See, anybody who has played John Madden football – the gold standard of video game football – knows that there's a great little option in the game called "Ask Madden." Former NFL coach John Madden was a legend in coaching back in the day, and so the game programmers were able to crunch a bunch of data and figure out the kinds of plays and formations he used a lot. So in any game scenario, if you don't know which formation to use or which play to call, you can just "Ask Madden." You press a button, and get a recommendation. If you use Madden's play, you usually end up looking like a genius.

This, to me, was my concept of God's will. Life is full of choices here and there, and amidst all of the options and alternatives there's always an official "God's Will" option, and if you can figure out which plays are "God's Will" plays, more often than not, you'll come out on top.

I realize not all of you are big football video gamers, so here's another metaphor:

I also tended to see God's will like it was a consumer incentive program.

It was as if when I became a Christian, I was issued this purple God's Will ™ Club Card, and every time I read my Bible or spent time in prayer, I earned some Discernment Points. These points would become useful anytime I needed to purchase something, because having my God's Will ™ Club Card gave me access to discounts on select divinely-endorsed "God's Will" products and activities. Using these products and engaging in these activities – in conjunction with regular Bible reading and prayer, of course – would earn you more Discernment Points, and thus keep you on track with "God's Will."

(Considering all the Christian bookstores I've browsed, I'm surprised this doesn't actually exist.)

Obviously, something is wrong with these images of God's will. Neither of them is totally wrong, but they're both incomplete. What these images lack is perspective.

Henry Blackaby, in his book Experiencing God, says that when people ask the question, 'what is God's will for my life?' they are asking the wrong question.

It's not that they're wrong for asking that question… it's just that it's the wrong question.

A better question is, "What is God's will?"

"Because people are naturally self-centered, we tend to view the whole world – even God's activity – in terms of our own lives … but that is actually an inverted life perspective. Once I know God's will, then my life gains its proper perspective, and I can adjust my life to Him and to His purposes. In other words, what is it that God is purposing to accomplish where I am? Once I know what God is doing, then I see what I should do. My focus needs to be outward on God and His purposes, not inward on my life."

God's will is much more than just you or I knowing which plays to run, which products to consume, or which activities to engage in. God's will is something much greater.

As we continue in this discussion today, I'd like to give you five rock-solid ideas about God's will that will help your understanding, and help make some sense of why it is that we pray for God's will to be done.

The first of these is foundational:

God's will is bigger than you.

Ephesians 1:9-10 (emphasis mine):

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

Luke 3:5-7 (emphasis mine):

'Every valley shall be filled in,

every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight,

the rough ways smooth.

And all mankind will see God's salvation.'

Daniel 7:13-14 (emphasis mine):

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Those are just three examples, but the Bible is literally full of them… if you read the Bible to cover, you'll begin to see that it's not just an anthology of books of various literary forms, but it's a collective tapestry of God's interaction with humanity. The Bible is way more than just "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" (did anybody else learn that in Sunday school?), it's a written record of God's desire to save humanity from itself by establishing the headship and rule of Christ over all.

All of the battles, all of the miracles, all of the stubborn kings, all of the evil prophets, every story that has ever unfolded from any page of the Bible… they're all chapters in the story that God has been writing from the beginning of time.

Once you begin to see that, even a little bit, it changes the whole equation.

It explains how the most brutal, unjust killing in the history of man can be commemorated on a day called "Good Friday." What makes the crucifixion good? It was part of God's plan.

So when you pray for God's will to be done, you're not just praying for your little thread in the grand tapestry. You're praying for the whole thing. That's part of the reason it says "on earth, as it is in heaven" … because God's will encompasses it all.

Despite its brevity, this is a big, huge, massive prayer.

While there are times when the choices we make play a part in God establishing His kingdom, our choices are infinitely small compared to the grand stage that God operates on. That's why it's so foolish to reduce God's will to only a series of choices that we make as individuals. God's will transcends and supersedes our choices. His will cannot and will not be thwarted, ever.

The chief proof I have of this, by the way, is the fact that He entrusted His majestic endeavor to fickle, random, unpredictable human beings. Nothing sinks a project like getting incompetent, sinful, fallen people involved in it. And yet, centuries and centuries later, disciples are still being made, Christ is still being preached, and God's kingdom is still advancing in every corner of the earth, even today. If that's not proof of God's omnipotence, I don't know what is.

The bottom line is, He's God and we're not.

Thus, when we pray for His will, we don't always know exactly we're praying for, which brings me to my second rock-solid thought:

God's will can't be fully understood by us humans.

Isaiah 55:8-9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,

declares the LORD.

As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The fact of the matter, not only is "thy will be done" a really big prayer, but it's a really dangerous
prayer, because when we pray this prayer, we do not really know what we're asking for. We may have a certain set of outcomes in mind when we pray this prayer, but fundamentally, we're acknowledging our inability to discern what is truly best in the largest sense of the word, thus entrusting that duty to One who is worthy of such a task. It's a spiritual blank check that only He can cover.

This, by the way, is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to belief for certain people. Some people, for whatever reason, cannot reconcile this… they think, well if God is all-loving and all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the world? How could an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God allow 9/11, or the Jewish Holocaust?

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with this very question without coming to a uniform consensus on the matter. So if you're struggling with it, let me provide a fail-safe answer: I don't know.

For some people, that answer is a deal-breaker. If it doesn't make sense to them, they cannot commit. They refuse to worship a God they cannot understand. For me, of course, that's entirely the point… why worship a god that can be understood by mortal men? Such a god, by definition, is not worthy of such adoration.

(Unless it was designed by Steve Jobs, of course.)

Jokes aside, the sad thing about such intellectual perfectionism is that it tends to be an all-or-nothing deal, where the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. Though God cannot fully be understood, that doesn't mean that there's nothing about Him that can be understood.

On the contrary, if we know how and where to look, there is plenty to be found, which leads to my next rock-solid truth:

God's will becomes evident as His character is revealed.

My favorite cable TV network is the USA Network, and not just because my two favorite TV series ("Psych" and "Burn Notice") are there, but because of their slogan: "Characters Welcome."

People become devoted to their favorite series if they can make a connection with the main characters involved. Likewise, people become devoted to God once they begin to experience a revelation of His character. And just as a person's character is not established by only one action or one line of dialogue, but from a series of actions and interactions, that's the same way God reveals Himself to someone who is looking for Him … over time, across a series of interactions, both interpersonally and historically.

This is why it's so important to read the Bible… like, all of it. We must use the Scriptures as the lens by which we interpret our own experiences, rather than the other way around. Every story or poem or letter or account in the Bible gives us a unique piece of insight into who God is and what He likes to do, and by taking these stories in, we give God a chance to reveal a part of who He is to us.

So for example… if you read the story of David and Goliath, you can tell that God likes to confound conventional wisdom, because it was the little runt from the house of Jesse, the kid that everybody forgot about, that eventually slew the giant, and later, was anointed as king.

If you read about Jonah and the great fish, you can tell that God wants to reach out to those who don't know Him, and that He cares about people who are lost more than He cares about making things convenient for His servants.

If you read about the story of Achan in Joshua 7, you learn that God is particular about obedience, and will find a way to get your attention if you disobey.

If you read about Nehemiah and how he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, you learn that God cares about cities, and that casting vision and community organizing make a difference.

These are the kinds of revelations we can experience if we get to know the God of the Scriptures. And every time we have an experience with God, either through His word, or personally, it's important for us to view it in light of all of the other things we know about God. If God reveals His will through His character, it's important to make sure you have enough information to have a clear picture of His character.

This is especially true when we're talking about the Lord's Prayer, because in it, we address God as Father… and there are many different kinds of fathers out there. Not all fathers have the same character. When we say, "our Father," I don't think we're all necessarily seeing God the same way.

Speaking of characters, does anyone remember Gordon Gartrell?

For those of you who haven't earned your 80s-sitcom-trivia merit badge yet, Gordon Gartrell was and is the name of a designer, a high-end NYC fashion designer, whose name was immortalized in one of my favorite episodes of The Cosby Show.

In this episode, Theo has promised his girlfriend he would wear a Gordon Gartrell shirt for an upcoming date, but when his father Cliff finds out the shirt cost $95 — in 80's money –, Theo must return the shirt for something more reasonable. Desperate to avoid losing face, Theo asks his sister to sew together a replica shirt of similar design… and wacky hijinks ensue.

Here's a question… if you had never seen the Cosby Show before, would you automatically assume that Cliff was being a good father when he ordered his son to take the shirt back?

I suppose it depends on your background and how much you would be willing to pay for a new shirt. Your interpretation might also be affected by your own experience, especially if, like mine, your father ever did anything similar (more on that later).

By and large, though, I think the episode is funny only because we believe that, in general, Cliff is a good dad, and his choice to deny his son the object of his desire (the shirt) is done out of a general desire to look out for his wellbeing. If we as viewers didn't have any other reason to believe that the character Heathcliff Huxtable is a good dad, we might see the episode differently.

This principle is critical to understanding the will of God. God's will is revealed through His character, so if you're going to evaluate His character, you can't just pick a few isolated situations or experiences and hope you've gotten a good picture. The key is to put those experiences in the proper context.

My other, non-USA-network favorite show is "Lost."

One thing that frequent "Lost" viewers recognize is that episodes often start with one single image, usually an extreme close-up.

In the pilot episode, that image is of a human eye.

It's kind of weird at first, but then it eases up. Then you see a head, a man's head. Eventually you can tell it's a man lying down in the middle of the jungle. The man gets up, and begins first jogging, then sprinting toward what we can now tell is the wreckage of a plane that just crash landed onto an island.

On a normal TV show or movie, the first images you see are normally wide shots of picturesque locales: an urban skyline, a boundless meadow, a majestic meadow, or wherever the action is supposed to be taking place. It helps the viewer establish a sense of setting.

But for this pilot episode, the director J. J. Abrams takes the opposite approach – a choice that is designed to leave the viewer, well, lost.

When we try to decipher God's will without really getting to know His character first, we end up the same way – disoriented, confused, and lost.

My earlier attempts to conceptualize God's will were futile because they focused mostly on the choices that I made from day to day. Knowing God's will is more than just making the right decisions, buying the right products, or engaging in the right activities. To know God's will, you must first know His character. Trying to do one without the other is futile, like trying to guess the plot of a random show based only on a few close-ups.

That doesn't mean that said decisions, products and activities are unimportant, just that they must be placed in the broader context of who God is and what He is doing in the world. The close-ups will come, but come on… first things first.

Which leads to my next rock-solid idea…

God's will is proven through the daily renewing of your mind.

Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Doing the work of discerning, proving, examining and discovering God's will as it pertains to life requires mental renovation every day. Renewal of mind can take on several forms – personal worship and/or devotion time, prayer, and Bible reading all quickly come to mind – but it's got to happen, and it's got to happen every day.

And part of the reason why I advocate for reading Scripture, especially in large quantities (several chapters at a time), is because if you grow up in church, you might hear people quote certain scriptures, and without reading them in context, you might be taking away a message that's not necessarily what God intended for you to receive.

For example, earlier I referenced Isaiah 55:8-9, where the prophet Isaiah is relaying a word from the Lord about how His ways are higher than our ways. If you're a Christian and you've been in the church for awhile, you've probably heard those verses dozens of times. But you might not have ever read the whole thing.

Take a few minutes now, and read all of Isaiah 55, including those two verses, and see if you look at those passages differently:

1 "Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2 Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

3 Give ear and come to me;

hear me, that your soul may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

a leader and commander of the peoples.

5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,

and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,

because of the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel,

for he has endowed you with splendor."

6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

7 Let the wicked forsake his way

and the evil man his thoughts.

Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,"

declares the LORD.

9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

12 You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD's renown,

for an everlasting sign,

which will not be destroyed."

Looks pretty different, doesn't it?

I don't know about you, but when I read verses 8 and 9 alone, I tend to project onto it a tone of derisive mocking. But that's not at all what the Lord is saying to Isaiah. When you read the whole thing, you read an invitation. It's the warm greeting of a loving God who desperately wants to extend His love and authority to His children, a God who wants His children to know Him, to be loved and reassured by Him. When He says that His ways are not like our ways, He's really saying, I'm not petty and vindictive, I don't seek only to tear down, but to restore. I know that's probably a foreign concept for you, but it's true.

What an incredible image this is!

This is why we must renew our minds daily. Renewing our minds through Scriptural intake is what helps our image of God's character stay fresh and accurate, and it helps us defend ourselves against the enemy's lies. This is a crucial, because whether consciously or unconsciously, we use our concept of God's character to evaluate His will.

So if we slack off with renewing our minds, then we're liable to believe things about God that aren't true. We end up thinking, just like my man Theo Huxtable, that Dad isn't really looking out for our best interests, that He really just wants to keep us from having fun, that He doesn't ever want us to have meaningful relationships, and that He's punishing us by being stingy with His resources.

And I know somebody is probably thinking, okay calm down, Jelani… it's just an old episode of Cosby. That's not really how I behave toward God.

If so, you're probably more mature than me.

That Cosby episode resonates with me because I actually had a similar exchange with my Dad during high school. Only it wasn't just a shirt, it was a suit, a magenta-colored, polyester and rayon blend jacket-and-pants combo that I purchased from Jeans West, the leading teen apparel store of choice at the time.

Unlike Theo, who charged it to his father's account, I paid for the suit with my own money.

And Dad still made me take it back.

Yeah, he tried to tell me that if I'm going to buy a suit I should spend a little bit more and get better value. He tried to tell me that it wasn't professional looking, that I had a responsibility to represent myself well in public, and that I wouldn't be able to wear it anywhere except high school dances. (Which, of course, was the very place I wanted to be seen wearing it.)

I wasn't hearing any of that. All I could think about was how unfair it was that I didn't have the freedom to choose. I was absolutely furious. And I would have stayed that way, possibly for a long time, except for the fact that I had a chance to sit and think for awhile.

And remember.

I remembered all the times where I took his correction and it ended up working out well for me. I remembered all the gifts he had given me, all of the times he did something special for me. All the times when I had disobeyed his correction and gotten myself into wads of trouble.

After sitting for awhile, I realized I only had two options. I was either going to ignore those memories, remain angry and hold a grudge, or I was going to let go, and just do what he asked me to do.

Eventually, I did the latter.

After awhile, I gradually understood that my Dad really did have my best interests at heart.

After awhile, the magenta suit joined the ranks of juvenile appearance fads that I coveted at first, then eventually let go of (along with jheri curls, Hammer pants, and African medallions).

By taking the suit back, I gave myself a chance to learn some powerful lessons, ones I would have learned the hard way had I kept it.

Which brings me to my last rock-solid idea…

God wants us to participate in His will.

Matthew 12:46-50 (emphasis mine):

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

As we've established, God's will is more than just the choices we make on a day to day basis.

But that does NOT mean that our day to day choices are irrelevant!

God wants us to be connected with Him, to have an intimate, familial relationship where we know Him as Father. And yet, as Jesus is pointing out here in this passage of Matthew 12, the only way to be in His family is to do the will of His Father.

Jesus wasn't trying to diss his blood relatives here. You have to understand the context. He had just spent all day healing people and teaching the crowds from the law. Yet, here He was being challenged by the Pharisees, who asked to see a miraculous sign, even though He had already been performing miracles of healing, and those miracles were denounced by many of those same Pharisees as being from the devil!

Jesus was tired of their relentless verbal traps, tired of their posturing, tired of them exalting their rule of law as the standard, and what's worse, doing so on the basis of their religious family traditions. So when He received word that His mother and brothers had been waiting for him outside, Jesus finally threw down the gauntlet:

You wanna be in the real family of God? You want to be a relative of my Father?

Do. His. Will.

Sometimes, it's really just that simple.

Because yes, you need to understand that His will is bigger than you. Yes, you need to be prepared for the fact that sometimes you won't understand His will exactly. Yes, you need to experience a revelation of His character, and you must also renew your mind daily to help apply it to your everyday experience.

But at the end of the day, if we want to be called Christians, if we want to be in the family of God, if we want to actually live for Him and not just pretend to live for Him, we must follow through and do what He is asking of us.

And that, in my opinion, why we pray, "thy will be done" in The Lord's Prayer.

When we pray that part of the prayer, we're not simply giving our intellectual assent to the certainty of God's purposes taking place.

We're taking a bold step of faith, and declaring to God:

No matter the ramifications, no matter what it costs me, no matter where or in what condition I end up as a result, I commit myself to discovering Your will and carrying it out.

That's why Jesus included "thy will be done" in his example of prayer, because that's how committed He was to His Father's will.

John 5:19 -- Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jesus knew that without that level of commitment, you won't last long in His Father's kingdom.

Now here's the deal.

Praying this prayer and living it out… is hard.

It's simple to say, but difficult to pull off, because it requires us to consistently give over our will to His will.

And some people think it was easy for Jesus because, well… He was God. Of course He did everything the Father said. They were almost the same person.

People who say this don't usually take the time to read the whole gospel narrative, because if they did, they would stumble onto Matthew 26:39:

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

This was Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, praying to His Father, asking Him to find a way to avert what Jesus knew was coming – his crucifixion at the hands of the people.

This was NOT easy for Jesus. He didn't want to go through it any more than we would if we were in His place.

(And don't get all religious on me here… you know good and well that if you were in this same situation you would be doing the same thing, looking for some kind of loophole or something. Nobody likes going through what Jesus went through, not even Jesus.)

This is what the writer of Hebrews was referring to in Heb. 4:16:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

Jesus modeled that prayer because He modeled that lifestyle. When given the option between the Father's will and His own, even when His very life was on the line… He did the Father's will.

Jesus had this in mind when He asked us to pray the radical prayer of "thy will be done," because He knew that sometimes actually following through and submitting to God's will is tremendously difficult.

And yet, it is the path to which we are called, a path that, almost inexplicably, almost paradoxically, offers us the greatest sense of fulfillment imaginable.

And that is part of the divine mystery; that such self-denial could lead to such glory in the end.

What Jesus knew then is the same thing that we are invited to learn every time we have a chance to submit to His will… that God is good, and thus, His will is good.

Good enough to sign up for, sight unseen. Good enough to give our lives for.

And certainly good enough to pray for.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Driving in the Spirit: Traffic Epiphanies for the Modern Christian

While vacationing in December, I stumbled upon an engrossing book with a gloriously inflated title (even longer than the title of this post):
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt.

It's a fascinating read, because it manages to synthesize mountains of research into understandable concepts illustrated with funny stories. I recommend it, if only because it sheds some much-needed light onto a subject that you probably think you understand more than you do -- the way that you drive your car.

One of the overarching concepts in Traffic is that safety is a malleable concept, and that our preconceived notions of safety are often too-far removed from reality. Roads we normally consider to be safer -- wide, clearly marked lanes running straight for miles and miles at a time -- are actually more dangerous, because the predictability lulls us into driving faster while paying less attention to the road. Conversely, roads that look dangerous -- two-lane mountain roads with no guardrails, for example -- are statistically safer, because people actually have to SLOW DOWN and pay close attention.

After crunching the data and examining the topic of driving from every which angle imaginable, one of Vanderbilt's conclusions is that advances in technology do help, but traffic fatalities persist because people always find ways to push the envelope of socially acceptable behavior. You can post a sign and set a speed limit, but that doesn't mean people will follow it. Engineers cannot factor in the capricious, unpredictable outcomes of human decision-making.

In an Amazon Q&A session, he sums up the human element of driving:

We make mistakes, we misjudge our abilities, we’re not as aware of what’s happening in traffic as we think we are, we act differently in different situations, we get angry over things that matter little in the long run, we’re susceptible to distortions in our sense of time, we have trouble living beyond the moment, of seeing the big picture — oh, and also, that everyone has a different opinion on who the worst drivers are and where they live…"Los Angeles! L.A. drivers are the worst… No, Atlanta has terrible drivers… No way, Boston drivers are nuts…"

Straight from the horse's mouth -- sorry Tom! -- there it is.

The problem is humanity.

Being human is a condition that no government safety mandate can fix. So we all struggle in similar ways, among them being a willingness to break the rules as we see fit, while railing against the gridlock that such lawlessness inevitably produces.

Humanity, as the problem? Sounds like a spiritual issue to me.

No, seriously.

If you think I'm out of line, just try this exercise. Look up a few Scriptures that use walking as an analogy, and then exchange the word "walk" for "drive":

"Blessed is the man who does not drive in the counsel of the wicked" (Ps 1:1a)
"I am God Almighty; drive before me and be blameless" (Gen 17:1)
"If you drive in my ways and obey my statutes and commands ... I will give you a long life" (1 Kings 3:14)


Feeling convicted yet?


As Christians, we ought to pay more attention to the way that we drive, if for no other reason, so that we don't ruin our witness. (Nothing says "hypocrite" quite like a maniac driver with a Jesus fish bumper sticker.)

Not only that, but driving usually stands alone in the category of Most Mentally Demanding Activity With Unspeakably Catastrophic Potential. Unless you practice brain surgery as a weekend hobby, you probably don't do anything else quite so dangerous quite so often.

Furthermore, I'm convinced that by examining not only our personal driving habits but also the driving cultures that surround us, we can learn and discern a lot more about life in general.

As always, the Word of God is the key.

(The IGNITION key! ** rim-shot**)

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself there.)


* * *

Not Just A Good Idea, It's The Law

The way we drive says a lot about how we interpret and understand the law. And the way we understand and interpret traffic laws influences the way we interact with God's law. If you grow up in a Christian household, you are taught to obey the law as an extension of God's authority in your life. This makes plenty of sense, especially in light of Paul's teaching on the subject. For a ten-year-old budding believer, obeying God, the law, and your parents are essentially the same thing.

Problems crop up, however, when we reach adulthood and we do the converse -- we obey God in the same manner that we obey the law.

Because how do most of us obey traffic laws? Selectively. Sure we generally obey the traffic laws. But the rules of the road seem much more elastic once you've been around the block a few times.

This, by the way, is part of the natural struggle when parents begin teaching their teenagers to drive. Children are astute observers, so it's hard to make a compelling case for coming to a complete stop at every stop sign if your natural habit is to slowly roll through them.

Some of this is complacency, but part of it stems from incomplete understanding.

God's laws are fundamentally different from traffic laws, because God is fundamentally different than man.

Traffic laws are designed to coerce citizens into order by threat of punishment by enforcement officers. If you break the law, you'll face a sanction from the state, either as a fine, or as in some cases, incarceration. But, if you run a red light and no human (or camera) is there to record your infraction, then practically speaking, it didn't happen.

Not only that, but traffic laws tend to change over time. Child safety devices are much more strict than they were three decades ago. Speed limits increase as more and more vehicles are designed to maintain stability at higher speeds. So if enough people think a law needs to change because it's unfair or unsafe or unconstitutional, it will change.

God's law is fundamentally different, because it's not supposed to be an external code of conduct that results in right living. Christianity is more than just obeying the rules, it's engaging in a personal relationship with an almighty God who knows far more about our lives than we can ever hope to know. This is why James referred to God's law as a mirror... it's God's way of giving us tangible signs of warning in case we go astray.

God's laws do not need enforcement, because they are inherently immutable -- they do not change, because He does not change. As humans, we have the freedom to engage in behaviors that go against God's will for humanity (as stated in the Ten Commandments, for example). But by doing that, we place ourselves outside of His will. As a result, bad things that God never intended to happen, happen.

This is the fundamental difference between God's law and traffic law. Traffic laws can be broken; God's laws cannot.

If you violate His law, you're the one that gets broken. The punishment for violating a traffic law depends on whether or not you get caught. With God's laws, there is no punishment. There is no punitive action designed to coerce a desired response. Rather, there are only the natural consequences of being outside of His will.

So, for example, God does not mete out His divine punishment upon someone engaged in an adulterous affair, simply because their choice violates the 7th commandment. Rather, He allows the consequences to unfold -- in this case, a broken relationship. And it doesn't matter if the cheating spouse is "caught" or not, because the relationship is severed either way. The very act of violating a spouse's trust is what rends the relationship -- which is one of the reasons for the commandment in the first place.


It seems to me, then, that the current state of affairs as it relates to driver behavior tends to follow this general pattern:

1. First we learn to obey traffic laws.
2. Once we get older, we realize traffic laws are a pain in the arse to obey all the time, so we stop trying. Instead, we just do our own thing, trying not to kill anyone in the process.
3. The only thing that keeps from abandoning the law altogether is the fear of getting zapped for a serious infraction.

Come to think of it, that's the way most people follow God's laws, too.

But anyone with an authentic Christian spirituality knows that it's not just about following God's rules, it's about engaging in relationship with Him. As Christians, we need to be plugged into the Holy Spirit if we want to really live. We must maintain a real connection, in real time, to a real God who really knows what's going on.

Assuming that there's a most excellent way to live, why can't there be a most excellent way to drive?

What would it look like to drive in the Spirit?

I'm guessing that in some cases, it might look a lot... slower.


* * *


Of, But Not In


In Traffic, Vanderbilt cites Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an English transportation planner, who, in discussing complex traffic configurations with multiple types of vehicles, makes a notable observation about eye contact:

"Hamilton-Baillie suggests that it is more than coincidental that as drivers get above 20 miles per hour, we lose eye contact with pedestrians, while our chances of dying as pedestrians if hit by a car also begin to soar dramatically... in the modern world, Hamilton-Baillie adds, this may explain why being struck by a car becomes so much more exponentially dangerous above that speed" (emphasis mine).

As eye contact declines, so does our awareness of our fellow humans. For Christians, this is not merely a safety issue; it's a spiritual issue. It's a matter of actively engaging in the world rather than blithely zooming through it.

Consider the nature of the car -- a private space amidst a public arena (the road). As Christians, we are called to traverse this public space with grace, humility and awareness. Our behavior is supposed to stand in contrast contrast to the pattern of the world, which is to generally look out for yourself. This is why many of us like to say that we are "in but not of" the world -- a phrase derived from a passage in John where Jesus is praying for His disciples.

That's the goal, anyway. But the reality too often is the exact opposite.

We mirror the world in our driving habits; we're myopic and self-centered, lenient regarding our own failings but harshly critical about the failings of others.

Yet we often use our cars as a safe little cocoon where we can escape the oppressive rigor of modern life. Our Christian radio stations are there to drown out any vestiges of sound that may bleed into our sealed, climate-controlled interiors.

Thus, as we drive with little regard to others around us, we are of the world, without being emotionally present in it.

This is one of the true tragedies in the parable of the Good Samaritan. We're all used to hearing accolades go to the Samaritan who helped out the victim, but that good deed happened only after the religious people, who are charged with the responsibility of helping others, passed right on through without a second glance. The priest and the Levite might have seen him, but they didn't really see him.

Maybe it was because they were haughty and did not want to get into something messy and inconvenient. Maybe they were just moving too fast to stop and take notice. Maybe both.

One modern equivalent to this parable would be when marginalized people are displaced from their neighborhoods because of freeway expansion. It's been happening for years. To those on the receiving end, it's like a slap in the face. In both cases, the poor and victimized are shunted aside in favor of the upwardly mobile.

These are injustices. As Christians, we are called to care about them.

If more people outside the church are passionate about these issues than people inside the church, that's a sad indictment against the state of the church in America. The extent that we fail in this arena is the extent to which we fail to learn the lesson of the good Samaritan.

Driving in the Spirit means, at least some of the time, we need to slow down enough to interact with our neighbors.

And like any other example of obedience to God, it also has a bonus side effect -- safety on the road.

It's God's version of traffic calming.

(See, who said the Bible isn't relevant to everyday life?)



Rules Rule... Except When They Don't

Now you'll notice I said, "some of the time." I didn't say that being a Christian means you never drive over 20 mph, because if that were the case, a vast majority of Americans would be going to hell in a handbasket Honda, and fast. The fact is, there are some situations where driving 78 miles-per-hour would be less reckless than driving 20 -- in the left lane of an interstate freeway, for example.

Then again, there are also certain situations where driving 20 mph in the left lane of a freeway is the safest thing you can do -- like when you're attempting to travel from Portland to Seattle and the rain and snowmelt leave several inches of standing water on the roadway, leading officials to eventually close off the freeway.

(And yes, I was on I-5 when they closed it off. It was annoying, a little bit scary, but quite redemptive. More on this later.)

So let me see if I've got it... you're supposed to drive slow in general, except for when you're on a freeway where you can drive fast, except for when it's raining cats and dogs and then you should drive slow again?

No wonder people get in trouble on the road.

Often rules appear to be the solution, yet relying on rules only can be just as bad as ignoring them altogether.

Abiding traffic rules is not as simple as it seems, because rules are never supposed to be followed without interpretation, especially rules of the road. (This is why it's so difficult to teach a robot how to drive.) Rules exist to guide us toward a particular way of action or existence. Attempting to follow each rule as it is written, without an understanding of the underlying principles involved, can end up creating outcomes that actually violate the spirit of the rule in the first place. (Hence this great scene from "Rain Man.")

Things get even more complex when you add the human element.

People are unpredictable. Sometimes they follow rules, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they have good reasons for not following the rules, and sometimes they don't. The temptation, then, is to keep adding more rules and raising the ante of enforcement until the general populace will behave according to a pattern of manageable conformity.

The only problem is, this doesn't work.

What you get is actually more chaos.



Kill, Or Give Life?

There's a reason why the Lord limited the Commandments to ten -- because anything more than ten just brings more confusion and frustration. (The American tax code comes to mind here.) There is a limit to how many rules and statutes we can juggle before we start dropping them, one by one, until they’re all over the floor.

God's laws are supposed to be moral signposts that we can rely on to figure out where we stand in relationship to Him. But when humans decide to help God out by introducing more and more rules, this amounts to more and more signage. At some point, we become over-saturated with stimuli, and we lose our ability to discern what we should do at any given moment.

This happens in the physical world of the road, and in Traffic, Vanderbilt provides another great illustration (last one, I promise!), when he discusses the work of the late Hans Monderman, one of the world's great traffic engineers:

If people have heard of Monderman, they tend to recall something about "the guy in the Netherlands who hated traffic signs." But there is, in fact, one traffic sign that Monderman loved. It stands at the border of the small village of Makkinga, in Friesland. It announces a 30 kilometer per hour speed limit. Then, it says, welkom. Finally, it says: verkeers-bordvrij!! In English, this means, roughly, "Free of traffic signs."

A traffic sign announcing the lack of traffic signs is a good joke, but it's also a perfect symbol of Monderman's philosophy. The sign itself is superfluous, for a driver can see that there are no traffic signs in Makkinga. After all, Monderman pointed out, what do traffic signs actually tell us? One day, driving through Friesland in his Volvo, Monderman gestured toward a sign, just before a bridge, that showed a symbol of a bridge. "Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?" he asked. "Why explain it? How foolish are we in always telling people how to behave. When you treat people like idiots, they'll behave like that."

Monderman's methods were so bold that his premise was sometimes misunderstood.

It's not that rules are bad, but rather, it's better to promote a broader rule like "be considerate of others on the road" rather than a bunch of smaller directives posted on signs like, "turn here," "slow down here," "watch for pedestrians," "yield to bikers," etc. None of those instructions are bad, but taken as an aggregate whole, they do more harm than good. It’s much better, then, to go by the spirit of the law. “For the letter kills,” as Paul says, “but the Spirit gives life.”

Jesus espoused a similar principle when He was challenged by the local authorities of his day, as recorded in Matthew 22:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hand on these two commandments."

Here we see a similar idea. According to Jesus, all of the Ten Commandments, as well as the thousands of rabbinical commandments that had been built upon them, can be summed up in two very simple ideas.

(Along with being a profound truth, this passage is proof that Steve Jobs did not come up with the simpler-is-better ethos.)

The biggest difference, though, between Monderman’s vision and Christ’s commandment was that Monderman put his faith in the goodness and intelligence of man, whereas Jesus made it abundantly clear that God is to be the source of all that is good, authoritative, or trustworthy.

This is where the Spirit-gives-life part comes in.

Giant Rubber Skis? No Thanks.

As a frequent driver along the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle, I like to think I have a pretty good handle on the spirit behind all of the traffic laws, and I do my best to stay on top of the little things that enhance the overall usability of the road. I signal when I change lanes. I slow down for construction workers. I leave a lane of clearance if there is an officer conducting a traffic stop on the shoulder. (And thanks to Tom Vanderbilt, I no longer feel bad about being a late merger.)

These things I do because I Generally Try to Do the Right Thing.

Yet, sometimes my instincts fail me. Why? Because I am a fallible human being. To expect otherwise would be foolish.

The good news for me, though, is that I don’t have to rely solely on my instincts. I can listen to the Holy Spirit, because as a Christian I know that the Holy Spirit dwells inside me, 24 hours a day. (Like OnStar, but without the overbearing commercials.)

Thing is, though, I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and yet I still occasionally have a hard time discerning the difference between my instincts talking and the Holy Spirit talking.

Sometimes I don’t find out which until much later.

Which brings me back to that ill-fated journey up toward Seattle for a presentation I was supposed to do last week. It had been raining and windy all day, and I wanted to leave around noon so that I could still make it to my destination before dark.

But, true to form, I was running behind on my packing and other stuff I wanted to take care of before I left. Pretty soon, my noon departure turned to 1:30, and then 2:00, all the while I still had plenty to get done. At this point, I had a decision to make.

I could:

A) cut my losses and leave, still making it into Seattle before dark, or

B) stay and finish what I started, but not leave until closer to 5pm, driving almost completely in the dark and hopefully making it there by 8pm (my presentation wasn’t until morning).

Normally my choice would be A, because I generally try to be as safe as possible on the road, and every bit of daylight helps. But I promised my wife I would tidy up the living room and take care of some of the dishes I had left in the sink from days prior. So for once, I took the nobler path, and hoped for the best.

Fast forward to mile marker 68… it’s pitch black, raining cats and dogs, and through the blurred visage of my windshield I see a sea of red.

Brake lights.

Briefly, I shudder.

Another accident? Geez… we’ve all been driving too fast in the rain. Slowing down will help us all.

As I got closer, I could see the road flares, the orange cones, and the emergency vehicles that normally mean an accident has taken place. The only thing I couldn’t see was wreckage. And then I noticed.

Waitaminute… ALL the lanes are closed? What the… ?!?

I had no choice but to follow the stream of traffic off of the freeway, where I learned of the flooding and road closure from a convenience store clerk who had her hands full trying to explain the situation to dozens of irritated motorists. (“I guess we’ll just have to party here tonight,” she said. “We’ve already got the snacks!”)

My first response was disbelief, because I had never seen an interstate close because of rain. Snow and ice, sure, but rain?

My second response was frustration, because I knew if I would’ve just left the house sooner, I would’ve made it through with no problem. Choosing option B ended up with me missing my presentation. That part sucked.

My third response came while I was driving back to Portland, and it was a mild sense of relief. Just because I could’ve made it before the roads were closed doesn’t mean something bad wouldn’t have happened to me on the way. I thought back to a comment I heard a Drivers Ed instructor make when I was in high school:

“It only takes an inch of standing water for a car to hydroplane, which is fancy word for waterskiing without a boat.”

I’d never been waterskiing before, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to try that way.

But my fourth response happened the next day, after I told Holly that I felt a little bit guilty because I know I could’ve left earlier and still made my appointment.

“Yeah, that’s true,” she said. “But then you’d still be stuck there.”

She was right. The interstate was closed for three days, and I had another three-day journey due the following week. If I would’ve left when I planned to, I would’ve spent eight days away from home.

It was at that point that I realized… picking option B wasn’t just my instinct.

It was the Holy Spirit.

What Does This All Mean?

I was drawn to Vanderbilt’s book because in it, I found more evidence of Biblical truth in action.

Sometimes rules can be helpful, but sometimes they’re not. What’s more, we need more than rules to live by. We need understanding. We need relationships with one another. Most importantly, we need a relationship with God.

I recommend Traffic, but what I recommend more than reading it is embracing the conviction that precipitated its existence – the need to examine one’s self and surroundings. I’m convinced that nothing innovative, revolutionary or legendary ever happened without someone asking the questions, “why are things the way they are?” and “is there a better way?”

Finally, I offer an addendum to a time-honored axiom.

My mother-in-law used to tell my wife Holly when she was little that couples who are thinking of getting married should first be forced to tile a bathroom together.

In our first year of marriage, we never had to tile a bathroom together, but we did move across the country, taking a few days to drive from Chicago to Portland. So I offer the multiple-day road trip as a worthy substitute trial.

Because trust me… you haven’t seen how a person really lives, until you’ve seen how they drive.

I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.

For Those Who Must Drink Coffee in Church

I know that a few of you will be in church services this evening, because many churches hold New Year's Eve services. And because it'll be an obviously late evening, many of you will probably do something you normally do when you come to church -- bring coffee.

With that in mind, I offer a parody of one of my favorite songs, Kirk Franklin's "My Life Is In Your Hands." Here's a rendition on Youtube if you've never heard it.

Like many parodies, it's actually much funnier if you actually sing it. If I had more time at my disposal, I would record it myself and send it around. (One of these days I may do just that.) Until then, those of you with taste for satire, feel free to actually sing it on your own, out loud even.

By the way, I wrote this parody over a year ago, and I'm realizing now that I was in a much darker place than I thought. Writing this was a form of stress relief, methinks. When I shared it with my wife, she didn't find it as funny as I did -- probably because she drinks coffee and I don't.

To each their own, I guess.

My Latte's In My Hand

(sung to the tune of Kirk Franklin's "My Life Is In Your Hands")

I don't have to worry
I don't have to be afraid
The lines are short at Starbucks
And the coffee is Fair Trade

See, every Sunday morning
This routine is what I do
I can only sing with one hand
Cause really praising Him takes two

Oh, I hope the church will make it
I hope it's in God's plan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte's in my hand

I used to go to small group;
But it took up all my time
We studied from a workbook
And I kept forgetting mine

Now my ministry is different
Now consuming is enough
And I find my inspiration
From the quotations on the cup

Oh, I hope the church will make it
I hope it's in God's plan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte's in my hand

Without it I feel naked
And in a year, I'll spend three grand
But no matter what may come my way
My latte's in my hand

Some people don't drink coffee
That's a promise I can't make
If I don't have my latte,
Then I cannot stay awake

Cause I used to get in trouble
When I fell asleep alot
But all I need to hear the Spirit,
Is a couple extra shots

I hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way,
My latte’s in my hand

If there’s a need, let pastor take it
He seems like a good man
But no matter what my come my way
My latte’s in my hand

I hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way,
My latte’s in my hand

I still might send an offering
To that mission in Sudan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte’s in my hand

Let the church say amen. And if you can't say amen, say 'ouch.'

The Seven Pound Blues

In the neo-beatnik classic Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller extols the virtues of the titular great American music (I’m referring to jazz itself, for those who don’t know what titular means) by saying that it, like life, doesn’t resolve.

I’m curious, then, about what he would feel about the latest Will Smith vehicle, Seven Pounds, for many of its qualities share a commonality with jazz. It’s mysterious, beautiful, enigmatic.

And it, too, refuses to resolve.

Which isn’t to say that the film doesn’t come to a conclusion, because it does. And it’s not that this conclusion isn’t believable or emotionally satisfying, because on many levels, it’s stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. It’s just that, well, it doesn’t pass the reality test. You know, the that’s-just-not-how-real-life-works test. Will Smith’s character makes a choice that is well intentioned, but ultimately misguided. The film works, sort of, but only because what’s happening is onscreen.

I dare not reveal much else, because the effectiveness of director Gabriele Muccino’s storytelling is rooted in not giving the audience too much to work with on the front end. Eventually, the viewer is tossed morsels of plot, one at a time, until the protagonist’s journey begins to finally make some sense.

It’s the journey, of course, that makes the film so compelling. In Seven Pounds, Smith’s IRS agent Ben Thomas is bent on executing a plan with unflinching determination. In a great display of emotional range, he is alternately ruthless and sympathetic, someone who can punish wrongdoers yet still be drawn to beauty and wonder. Those two qualities are epitomized in spades by love interest Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), whose unexpected vulnerability sparks a bond between the two.

One of the pivotal scenes in the film comes when this bond is still in its initial stage. (Minor spoiler!) After Ben has done his best to engender trust and favor from Emily by serving her and generally becoming her friend, she asks him a few probing questions, and he recoils. “That’s not part of the deal,” he says. This angers Emily, who retreats into her own shell as a result.

This exchange illustrates the problem Ben faces in his attempt at redemption. Ben wants to help others, but only on his own terms. His refusal to alter his plan short-circuits his desire for relationship and connectedness. In a way, one could say that Ben is playing God. Like all others, his attempts are well-meaning, but futile.

The pain of a life-threatening situation like Ben’s makes his adamant, steely-eyed resolve toward redemption sympathetic, but ultimately the finality of his choice forfeits the moral high ground that the film works so hard to establish. As such, the screenwriter shoots himself in the metaphorical foot. By placing the protagonist on such a rigid collision-course with his fate, the ending sabotaged all of the audience’s built-up goodwill.

If film theory analysis isn’t your thing, I’ll put it this way: I know what it’s like to be stung by the pain of regret that drives you to make things right, but I guarantee you, if I made the same choices as Ben Thomas, my story would NOT end up being memorialized in a theatrical tearjerker.

Thus, it doesn’t ring true. And no, it doesn’t resolve, at least not in my book.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable. Smith and Dawson are both in fine form, and their on-screen romance is touching and visceral. It’s too bad they couldn’t have been in a real love story, or at least one that isn’t such a freaking downer. That this film comes so close to being really good is a testament to the chemistry between the two leads. Saying they carried the film would be an understatement on par with ‘These Detroit Lions are terrible’ or ‘the economy isn’t doing so well.’

By the way, if you’re like me and you finished watching it only to still be confused by the title, then you might want to brush up on your Shakespeare.

The Upside Down Kingdom Does Football

If you're tired of giving the regular answer, and someone asks you what Christmas is about, you can tell them that sometimes it's about football.

(And not the Charlie-Brown-and-Lucy kind either.)

Some people refer to Christianity as a backward religion, but I prefer to think of it more as an upside-down kingdom.

Obviously, I'm not the first person to coin such a phrase, but sometimes I think it just fits. Because, when you get right down to it, Christianity at its core tends to run counter against everything this world tends to stand for. And sometimes the contrast is downright startling.

Like, for example, this story, brought to the masses by Sports Illustrated's ESPN's Rick Reilly. I'm not usually one to prop up the work of a mass media juggernaut like ESPN, but in this case I think this story deserves all the hits it can get.

Suffice it to say, though, it won't make everyone happy. I'm sure that Christopher Hitchens could read Reilly's piece and think, those dumb Christians... they can't even figure out which side they're on. And in a way, he'd be right. Most of the time, we don't.

But every once in awhile, we figure it out, and the results are priceless.