St. John Studies

Paul tells us in the Bible, “the wages of sin is death.”

I wonder if that is true?

The way a minimizer thinks, I guess it’s not.  Literally, if you sin, Paul means you are in the process of dying.  However the mimimizer believes just a little sinning is not going to hurt.  It does not bother God if I am having just a little fun.  He will forgive me for having a little fun.

That’s the way major problems usually start.  They begin with little problems, little steps that lead to making serious bad decisions.

The minimizer thinks that death is too serious a punishment for a “little sin” so they are quick to excuse it, quick to make light of it, quick to say “no big deal.”

Is death occuring?

It is.  Tiny increments of death are beginning to happen as the minimizer slips toward more serious sins, exusing himself or herself all along the way.

Pastor Idleman recounts a woman in his church “In tears…because of an affair, she lost everything: her marriage, family, and relationship with her kids.  With tears running down her cheeks, she shook her head and said, ‘It just started with some harmless flirting at work’”.

“The wages of sin is death.”

In today’s world, we see people who are able to excuse “little sins” throughout society.  Christians are confronted by people of this world who believe that anything goes.  Having a little fun is ok, no big deal.  There is an assumption that people can have a little fun and just stop but sometimes the human brain does not work in such a disciplined manner.  If you enjoy a little, you want a little more, and then a little more.  Soon, the disciplined thought is gone and what was perceived as a small thing has become an accepted thing, a new part of your lifestyle and you don’t even see it as a problem.

I am old enough to see several changes in our contemporary society.

I watch tv from time to time and I hear some dialogue on primetime network tv that shocks me.  Language that used to be taboo is now being used.

I am not alone.  Some of you have noticed this too.

What has happened?  People have excused the taboo language to the point where it has become “normal” on tv.

I know I am risking being perceived as an old “fuddy duddy” but minimization works just like social acceptance of bad language on tv.  A word gets said and we chuckle and don’t make a big deal of it.   It gets said again and again and pretty soon it becomes common vocabulary.

The wages of sin is death?

Let me throw a cliché that Pastor Idleman uses in Chapter 7.  He says we have all heard “familiarity breeds contempt” but adds a new spin that “familiarity breeds indifference.”

He also says, “The journey to the pigpen almost always starts when we minimize our sin.”

How many times have you heard that phrase or how many times have you used it?

Minimization—the acknowledgement of the reality of a situation and even owning responsibility for it but denying its seriousness.  This is the topic for the week. Maybe you have done a favor for someone or maybe someone has done something for you and the phrase “no problem” is used.

But what if it is a problem?

A REAL PROBLEM.

Why do we do this?  Maybe we want to express the idea that it was not that much effort and the other person does not owe us anything in return.  Maybe we want to be “cool” about the effort we just expended; we don’t want to show how much work it was.  Maybe we just want to not make a big deal…

But what if it is a BIG DEAL?

By labeling it “no problem” does that really change reality?

Does the label change a serious problem into a less serious problem? What if what has happened is a sin?

You’re a student and another student has asked you to cheat and you do it.  No problem. What if a man is “coming on to you” and you decide to reciprocate and this goes too far to the point that you commit adultery?  No problem. What if your friends encourage you to take drugs and you try them and really like them and suddenly you think they are ok?  No problem.

The list of sins can go on and on.

Really, does saying it is no problem really diminish the fact that you are right in the middle of a problem, a serious problem? I don’t think so. We live in a high stress world today and some folks may say that we just need to be calm and worry less.  I am all for less anxiety but if we have less anxiety by living in a dream world, what are we doing?  We are living in a dream world and we are not facing up to our problems.

Like hiding from the real me when I need to face up to the real me [Chapter 5].

Like denying that I have a problem when I need to admit that I have a problem [Chapter 6].

Like projecting my problems off on to others when it is my problem, not theirs [Chapter 7].

As in these earlier chapters, Pastor Idleman is trying to get us to realize that we need brutal honesty, not another defense mechanism. We are not going to grow if we hide from the real world.  We are going to have arrested development.  We are going to be in a “stuck state.”  We are going to find ourselves going nowhere fast.

This week we will be looking at “no problem” as another way of running from our problems.

Pastor Idleman uses many ways of explaining projection in Chapter 7 but I wanted to comment on an idea that grabbed me the most.

The story he used seemed so ironic but it is so true.  It summarizes what he says in Chapter 5 about not recognizing our true nature.  It reflects back on denial from Chapter 6 and it is a wonderful way to end Chapter 7 on projection as we begin to move on to Chapter 8.

“Every day you take your lunch to work, and every day it’s the same thing—chicken salad sandwiches.  You continually complain to your coworkers that it’s always chicken salad sandwiches in your lunch.  You are sick and tired of chicken salad sandwiches.  You even tell a coworker you’d rather die than eat one more chicken salad sandwich.  Finally someone says, ‘Why don’t you ask your wife to make you something else?’  You reply, Oh, actually I make lunch myself.” [page 120]

Yes folks, we make lunch ourselves.

I don’t know how many times in my life that I avoid recognizing my true nature, my real identity.  I don’t know how many times I try to deny that what I am doing is wrong.  I don’t know how many times I try to shove my problems off on someone else.

I make my lunch myself.

A personal revelation:  I don’t know why God has put it on my heart to blog.  I am never even sure that the blog is doing anything for anyone but reading this book and putting my thoughts down on the page has been very good for me.  It seems like Pastor Idleman has been ministering to me.  Maybe I should say God is using Pastor Idleman’s book to minister to me.

Don’t kid yourself.

I may sound like I “have my act together,” but I am just like everyone else; I am struggling to do better in my Christian walk.

I need to be honest with God.  I need to confess my sins.  I need to deal with my weaknesses.

I am getting tired of the chicken salad sandwiches, aren’t you?

Toward the end of Chapter 7, Pastor Idleman returns to the Prodigal Son story and addresses the idea of blaming God for our problems.  He uses the car he dented on the very windy day as an “act of God” example.  He uses the Moore Oklahoma tornado as an “act of God” example and he also says the Prodigal Son could have used “it is God’s fault” as an excuse for all his sins.

Why do we sometimes blame God for the horrible things that happen to us?

I have to admit, I have struggled with this over the years because I have seen this happen in really tough times.  I have seen people lose their faith in really tough times as they ponder God’s role in those tough times.

It all boils down to this point: did God cause the pain and suffering that you are experiencing?

It is natural for believers and unbelievers to ask why when things happen.  However when we ask why, it points out that we have problems in two areas of life.

1.bad things should not happen to us.

Nope, bad things do happen.  The old expression that it “rains on the just and unjust” comes to mind.  Good people suffer right along with bad people.  Believers suffer right along with unbelievers.  Just because you have a belief in Jesus Christ does not mean that you will be protected from tough times.  They come for all of us.

2.people lose faith in the sovereignty of God.

When bad things happen, the usual human reaction is a feeling of loss of control.  We just can’t figure out what is going on in the tragedy.  We wonder why God allowed this because we know he has total control over everything.  I believe as finite human beings we are really searching for reasons and that is a worthless exercise.  Our culture is obsessed with determining causes for effects.  When the airplane crashes, we obsess with why.  When a measles outbreak occurs, we want to know why, who is spreading it, and where the outbreak originated.  When a terrorist commits a murderous act, we want to know why and how.

God knows.

We don’t

We can’t accept that.  Our finite minds cannot figure everything out.

This is a tough pill to swallow for us.  We want to know it all.

This is where faith comes into the picture.   We have to believe that God is in charge and we cannot understand His ways.  We have to have faith in our Lord and Savior.

This takes me back to the title of this blog entry.  How can we blame God if we cannot understand Him?

We can’t…..but we do it anyway.

Pastor Idleman spends a part of Chapter 7 discussing his marriage.  His marriage, like all marriages, is not just one happy day after another.  Problems occur in every marriage.

Projection occurs in every marriage.

Spouses always want to blame the other spouse for the problem when in reality it is something they have done together.

Relationship experts often refer to this as the “dance of marriage”, as couples live together on a daily basis and they interact in patterns that can make them forget how closely they are intertwined with their partner.

In fact, in most marriages, couples develop habits of interacting and sometimes the habits are bad ones.  For example a husband could say his wife is too demanding.  The wife complains that he withdraws from the relationship too much.  This pattern may start with the man who says “I withdraw because you are so demanding.”  The wife says “I demand so much because you withdraw.”  After this pattern begins, it is impossible to say which accusation is accurate; a sort of what comes first, the chicken or egg argument.

In reality, one person makes their contribution and the other makes their contribution and together, they create a problem.

To solve this situation, the couple has to assume joint responsibility but how often does that happen?

Seldom.

Finger pointing is the rule of the day as one spouse swears that the other is “the problem.”  “I have no blame in this situation.”

Instead of projecting the problem onto the other spouse, the couple needs to say “let’s stop this, recognize this for what it is, and we need to try to do things better.”

Pastor Idleman recounts a marriage exercise he did with his wife on page 121.  He sat down with her and they drew a circle on a piece of paper.  Inside of the circle they listed all the problems they have in their marriage.  After completing this, they were to take the circle like a pie and carve out the pieces of the problems they were responsible for individually.

They could not do it.

They realized that the problems were problems they created together.

For one moment, projection ended in the Idleman marriage.

Questions from Chapter 7:

Who or what do you tend to blame when you find yourself in “the pigpen”?

Why is it so difficult for us to accept fault—with no ifs, ands or buts?

Is there someone you need to admit fault to right now?  Write out what you need to say to them, and watch for projection and subtle ways you try to excuse yourself.  Then go to them and read what you’ve written.

I have always been fascinated by how people see their world.  What got me started with this is the study of how people communicate one to one, sometimes referred to as interpersonal communication.

The aspect of interpersonal communication that was most fascinating to me was how people understand themselves and others.  In my study, I found that this is a very inexact activity, with humans trying to find reasons for human behavior by basically guessing about what was going on with themselves and others.

Social psychologists are rarely ever happy to say that “human beings guess” as a reason for behavior, so over the years, many research hours and dollars have been spent to see patterns in human guessing.  Patterns are the clues they have found for human behavior

One of the most common patterns they found is, we try to provide very positive reasons for what we do.  Social psychologists say that we employ something called “self-serving bias.”

Let me give you some examples so you can see the pattern.

Let’s say someone in the office messes up a job.  We will say they are poor listeners.  If we mess up the job, the boss is very poor at giving directions.

When a friend loses his cool and lashes out in anger, it is because he is moody and overly sensitive.  When we lose our cool, it because of all the stress that we have in our lives.

When she got her speeding ticket, we say that she is a reckless driver.  When we get a speeding ticket, we deny that we were going too fast and we were the victim of an overzealous policeman who had to make his ticket quota.

When he uses profanity, it is because of a flaw in his character.  When we use profanity, it is because the situation called for it.

Now let’s get real.  Is all this “spin” the truth?

No.

We are very charitable with ourselves aren’t we?  That’s why social psychologists call this self-serving BIAS.  We are biased toward ourselves.

In chapter 7, Pastor Idleman has been discussing projection as another way to dodge responsibility for sin.  Now I guess I have provided another excuse.  When the time comes for us to blame others for our faults, we can say “I have employed self-serving bias.”  That will buy us some time as others will wonder what that means.

Another skill we can employ in the art of placing blame…….

Pastor Idleman’s use of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a perfect example of projection.

You have all heard the old expression of “The Buck Stops Here.”  The phrase was publicized by Harry S. Truman, one of my favorite presidents of all time.  Truman was a man from Missouri, an intelligent and plain-spoken man who was thrust into the presidency by the death of Franklin Roosevelt.  He had some tough decisions to make, the most famous one was the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, which hastened the end of World War II with Japan.  It also killed 225,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Many of them were non-combatants–women and children.

Roosevelt was not to blame. He had died.  Truman could have blamed his advisors but he didn’t.  Maybe he could have blamed his wife Bess, but that did not happen.  Truman weighed the pros and cons of dropping this new weapon and he did it and he took all the blame.

It changed the world.

America became a “superpower.”  Atomic weaponry was introduced to the world, the USSR especially.  The specter of atomic annihilation still lingers in the world as we consider what Iran can do with a bomb as well as terrorists.

I remember studying Truman in college and hearing my Modern American History professor say “After deciding to drop the bomb, Truman went to his private quarters and took a long nap.”   I was never sure that this was documented but Truman was asked about his decision to drop the bomb later in his life, “I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war … I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again.”

Back to the Garden of Eden.

Pastor Idleman writes of an imaginary dialogue between God and Adam.  Adam says “Yes, God.  I confess. I broke your command.  I have sinned and not obeyed your word.  Here and now I take responsibility for my rebellion.  I don’t deserve it but I humbly ask You for Your grace and mercy.” You know that did not happen.  There was a lot of passing the buck in the Garden.  Adam said that woman that you put here God, she made me do it.  [projection to Eve and God]  Eve said that serpent your created God, he made me do it.  [projection to the serpent and God] .

Ok, ok, the devil made them do it !

How many times have you heard that what man got from the Garden of Eden and this episode with Adam and Eve is the idea of original sin, that stain that we still struggle with to this day.

Think about it.  Maybe man also got a perfect example of projection, dodging responsibility, excuse making that lingers today.

When it is your time to take responsibility for your acts, which catch phrase rattles in your brain?

“The Devil Made Me Do It !”  or “The Buck Stops Here.”

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

Hard to say isn’t it?

So far Pastor Idleman has discussed how we just can’t see ourselves in an honest way.  We can’t accept that identity that is really us.  We hide from it.  He has discussed how we can’t even face reality.  We deny that it exists.  Now he discusses in Chapter 7 how we project our sins, we place blame for our problems on others who indeed may be innocent.

What is he wanting us to say to ourselves when we look into the mirror?

I am a sinner.

What is he wanting us to say when we deny we are a sinner?

I am a sinner.

Now, what is he wanting us to do when we project our sin off on others?

Take responsibility and say,

I am a sinner.

It is just so hard to admit our failings and it is so common for Christians to put up the perfect façade. I was in a meeting at church with a “elder” woman of the church.  I refuse to call her elderly, even though most would call her that.  She is a brilliant woman, so knowledgeable about the Bible and so knowledgeable about life.  I can’t remember how the subject came up but the leader of the meeting was discussing a topic and she interrupted.  She had some things to confess to the group.  She talked about her health a little and a recent weight loss.  The weight loss was the segway that tied her comments in to the group.  We did not know she was going to stray away into confession.  She talked about how satan had taken her weight loss and used it to inflate her ego.  Soon, she said, she was spending too much money on clothing she did not need, racking up debts that could not be paid, for vanity.  She started getting emotional.  She felt awful that this had hurt her family’s budget.  She felt awful that she fell prey to satan’s temptations.

What were the rest of the people in the group doing?

Feeling uncomfortable, you know having that tight feeling across your shoulders.  Eye contact going everywhere except to this woman.  No one saying anything.  Just quiet…… What was she saying to her fellow Christians?

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

I am a sinner.

How did her fellow Christians handle her confession……not well.

She looked hard in the mirror and saw herself for what she was.  She did not deny reality; she accepted it.  She did not project her vanity problem onto her husband, her parents, her friends etc.  She took ownership.

I will never forget what she did.  I will never forget how poorly we responded.

In Chapter 7, Pastor Idleman takes us this week into the wonderful world of projection.

I should not say “wonderful world” because being stuck in sin and not growing beyond it;  that’s not “wonderful”.

Remember the whole point of his book AHA is to shake us up from our way of life, to make us deal with the things we are doing wrong.

Here is a definition of projection:

“Projection is the misattribution of a person’s undesired thoughts, feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those thoughts, feelings or impulses. Projection is used especially when the thoughts are considered unacceptable for the person to express, or they feel completely ill at ease with having them. For example, a spouse may be angry at their significant other for not listening, when in fact it is the angry spouse who does not listen. Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and feelings.”

We could also throw in other terms  to explain projection, terms like responsibility.

Have you ever been around someone who just cannot take responsibility for their actions.  Responsibility gets spread around all over the place.  Here is a “real life” example I just experienced today.  I have an online class that I teach for my college and sometimes I get what I call “excuse” emails.  I don’t call them “reason” emails because students do not provide reasons for their struggles; “excuse” emails throw responsibility all over the place.  The email is full of excuses.

This online student is not doing well in my class.  She does not really say that.  She does not say it is “all my fault.”  It is because I am not putting in the time I need for study.  I don’t stay up with assignments because I don’t ever look at the due date page.  When the reading gets hard, she does not admit to being a lazy reader.  She gives up and does not put forth the effort to dig out the meaning.  For many days I never even log on to the class website.

Here is what she says:  “I went to a poor high school and my teachers did not know what they were doing.  They did not challenge me with the reading assignments they gave me and they let me be lazy.  My Dad and Mom never emphasized education so reading and learning was never something that was important in my life.  Besides that, I have a four-year old child who had surgery and her special needs keep me from finding quiet time to study.”

Ok, it is her teachers, her parents and her child.  What can I say to her when she asks me for advice about how to do better in class?

You are projecting all of your problems in my class onto everyone but yourself and you are responsible for your grade, not your teachers of the past, your parents and your child.

I don’t tell her this.  This is not what she wants to hear.  She does not want a teacher to be brutally honest with her.

After all, she is not being brutally honest with me.

Guess who is getting a large measure of the blame for her poor performance in the conversational area of her family and friends?

Me.

He got that degree.

 He almost lost his family.

Pastor Idleman spends chapter 6 discussing denial and the man in “Almost” a few posts ago had become a master of that.

Convinced that he needed more education, he enrolled in a Ph.D program at great sacrifice to his family.  Not only was the program expensive but it was several hundred miles away from his home.  He would have to uproot his wife and child in the summers to go to summer school and eventually he would have to move to the University to live there 4 days of every week.

To paraphrase Pastor Idleman’s words on page 107, “When I went to college I started studying, and I guess that was about the time I stopped going to church.”   To paraphrase Pastor Idleman’s words, “I started falling in love with the idea that I would have Dr. in front of my name and that’s when I stopped going to church.”  To paraphrase Pastor Idleman’s words, “My marriage was falling apart and it was about the same time I started going back to church.” Whoa…… That third sentence is not even close to what Idleman says on page 107 but that is what happened to the guy.

As his marriage was going “down the tubes”, he started going to church.

When his wife told him she had left him, he faced all the horrible things he had done.  He cried out to God in confession, he admitted his wrongs and asked for help and guidance from our Lord and Savior.

He almost lost his wife and child.

Almost.

God saw something in this family.  God did not want satan to tear hearts and people apart so He sent help.

That church had a pastor that worked with this couple and child.

That church had members who supported this family in troubled times.

“Christians” who were acquaintances now became close friends; friends who would grab your hand and pray with you.

A marriage counselor was an excellent resource and even though she did not let her employer know it, she was s strong Christian and she let us know it.  She was not just a marriage counselor, she was a Christian marriage counselor.

Some of you may be familiar with the Emmaus Walk.  Well this couple went on the Emmaus Walk at just the right time in their lives.  God’s timing.  Tears were shed.

You get the picture.

Once this guy admitted his sin, God sent His resources.

It is what Pastor Idleman calls “the moment of truth”.   “You come to the place where you stop disagreeing with truth and you honestly say ‘here I am’ “.

Almost holds out hope.

God won’t give up on you if you get honest with Him. I did.

Of course it was me in this story and I am thankful for God’s grace.

It all started with me getting down on my knees and saying to Him “here I am.”