On the Meaning of Life

“Nothing like cooking on a freshly cleaned stove to make you contemplate the futility of all human endeavors.” Some of you may recognize this as a Facebook status I posted a while ago. It was a joke. But it was also deadly serious.

I could blame it on the lockdown. Not seeing anyone in person has this way of making relationships less satisfying. Or maybe I just have too much time to myself to think.

On a pretty regular basis lately, I’ve been feeling like everything is pointless. I cook. I eat. I run out of food and need to cook again. I clean. Dirt piles up. I exercise. It makes no discernible difference in my health, unless I do it again and again and again. In the short term, the exercise might even make me sore. And in the long term, I’m still going to die.

Yes, but what about those things that only need to be done once? My knitting and writing, for example. Each of these produces a thing that wasn’t there before. But does the world really need another baby blanket? And my dissertation … will be read by exactly four people in the form I’m working on right now. If I’m lucky, I’ll publish it after significant revisions. Maybe someone will read it in that form, too. Maybe someone will be convinced to look at the Bible closer to the way I do. I think that will be a good thing? But my confidence in my ability to come to the truth right now is very low.

And then there are relationships. Normally, I tell myself that if I can make life better for one other person, then my life counts. But is that happening? “Making life better” is a vague goal, and it’s harder to convince myself I’m reaching it when I can’t see people in person. My presence in a room feels significant in a way that silently lurking on a zoom call isn’t. Talking on a zoom call feels more like a contribution, but sometimes I don’t have anything to say. And in the long term, other people are going to die, too.

Fun is … fun. But it doesn’t really matter if I have fun. Work is always there afterward. And does anyone other than me care if I enjoy myself? Maybe because they’re kind, but not because it actually helps them in any way.

But writing this has been somewhat artificial. I was feeling life’s pointlessness at the beginning, but as I wrote, I kept thinking about other things. Things that go beyond the futility I was describing. Like how making something that wasn’t there before is me exercising the image of God. Like how other people are made in the image of God, and that’s why improving their lives is a good thing. Like how even though we’re all gonna die, that’s not the end of the story.

I guess what I’m writing is a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. There is nothing new under the sun, including this blog post. Ecclesiastes talks about life under the sun, in a world without God. It concludes that everything is meaningless. But then, the implication is, we must turn our eyes to something greater than the sun. We live under heaven, under God, and that is what makes this life significant. We do good things, even if we’re just going to have to do them again, because he made us to do them. Our relationships matter because people are walking pictures of God, and they’re going to exist forever. What we create is valuable not because the world desperately needs another baby blanket or even another dissertation, but because by making, we are acting out the image of our Maker, and that brings Him pleasure(!). Even fun matters as we enjoy the good world He made or good things made by his “sub-creators” (a term I shamelessly borrow from Tolkien).

In some ways, it’s good for us to “contemplate the futility of all human endeavors.” We tend to make the good things in life more than they are, as though we can make our own meaning. But that’s impossible, for meaning has to connect to something outside of us to count as meaning. We need to be humbled, to recognize that what we work for and worry about isn’t as big as it seems.

And yet, right now, we also need to be elevated. We need to look up and see beyond the sun to the heaven that makes our lives matter. We need this both for our own sanity and because it helps us focus on what truly matters. Yes, fun is valuable if received as a gift and rejoiced in, but using it to numb ourselves to pain is a misuse of it. The same goes for work, and relationships and everything else. We must relate them to the Creator for only in Him do they find their meaning.

On Empathy and Race

In a previous post, I discussed the importance of empathy in communication, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality. But there’s another hot-button issue where empathy is just as important, or more so: race.

I grew up in a white family, where my parents almost never mentioned race. I had Black, Hispanic and Asian friends, and I don’t think I reacted differently to them because of their race. I just thought of them as friends. But what I didn’t understand was that my friends of different races have very different life experiences than I did.

Race is not a biological category. There is no “gene” for race. It’s a social construct based on certain physical characteristics that are common in people whose ancestors lived in certain parts of the world. But the fact that it’s a social construct doesn’t mean it’s not real. It’s real enough to be one of the first things people notice when they look at someone. It’s real enough to have been the source of tremendous amounts of conflict in history and today. It’s real enough to affect people’s lives profoundly and even to cut those lives short.

I attended a celebration for a mime group’s anniversary at a mostly Black church in South Bend. One of the men who led the group stood up and talked about how miming had affected his life. He announced with pride that of the young men who started the mime group with him years before, all of them were still alive, except for one who had died of a disease. There was a murmur of surprise and a few shouts of “Amen!” It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about. This man was amazed that none of the teenage boys who started the group had been shot! I’ve never had to worry about one of my friends being killed. He was living in a whole different world than I was. 

Of course, that's not to say that all African-Americans have the same experiences either. It just means that we should be cautious  in thinking we know what life in America is like. Life for us can be very  different from what life is like for others.

I’m really not qualified to write about anyone’s experiences other than my own. I did get a taste of what being a racial minority was like when I lived in Taiwan. But that doesn’t tell me much about what it’s like to be an African American, for example. The only way to understand others’ experiences is to listen to them. Ask questions. Resist the urge to interrupt and change the subject to your own experiences. Recent events have shown just how much racial tension is present in America. There’s a lot that needs to be done to fix it. But the first, most basic step is to listen and empathize.

Continuing Christmas in the New Year

Christmas isn’t over yet.

Most people think of the Christmas season as stretching from the end of November until December 25, possibly followed by some time celebrating New Year’s Eve. Then on January 1 (or maybe 2), we all go back to our ordinary lives, staggering from the quantity of food we’ve consumed and resolving to lose weight of save money or do something else we know we should do but haven’t actually done.

But traditionally, Christmas didn’t even start until December 25. The weeks leading up to Christmas are actually Advent, a time of waiting and preparation for Christmas, like Lent is for Easter. Then came Christmas day, followed by 12 days of celebration stretching to January 6, which is Epiphany, the day that celebrates the arrival of the Magi. Hence, the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

What this means is that even as we go back to work or school, Christmas is still going on. Although my inner Hobbit would love to use that as an excuse to continue stuffing my face with cheese, returning to work and/or taking steps to improve our lives is actually a perfectly appropriate way to celebrate the last few days of Christmas. Christmas is about the Incarnation, the moment when God became human and began to experience all the pleasures and frustrations of a normal human life. No area of life is outside His concern, whether it be health or finances or anything else. And therefore, whatever area of life we choose to focus on has a touch of holiness, and whatever actions we take can be done for God’s glory.

Lately, I’ve realized that I have a dangerous tendency to focus on my mind while neglecting my body. I’m trying to fight that by remembering that my body is a good (although not perfect) creation of God; it is part of what Christ came to redeem, and I will have it in some form for all eternity. My body has a part to play in my ultimate purpose of serving and glorifying God. I expect this will be a far more powerful motivator to live a healthy lifestyle than disgust or shame over how I look. In other words, the concern for all of life demonstrated in the Incarnation means that my health matters and is worth attending to. And whether you’re making a resolution or just continuing life as you have been, your daily concerns matter for the same reason.

I write this post mostly for myself, but I hope it will also help you to see the glory in whatever you are doing this week, whether you’re starting a new resolution or just going back to normal life. Everything has value because of the Incarnation. Christmas isn’t over yet.

A Tale of Two Nations

An article I wrote about the paradoxical nature of the United States inspired by C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength" is up on the Breakpoint website.

A Review of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy

Last week, the Colson Center posted a review of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy that I wrote on its Youth Reads page. The page is dedicated to young adult fiction, and while the space trilogy isn't written for young adults, I read it in high school.

I Must Speak: Abortion

We live in a world full of injustice. And what can one voice do? I do not know, but I know this: one voice speaking can do more than ten thousand silent tongues.

We live in a world full of injustice. And there are so many causes worthy of attention: slavery, murder, rape, terrorism and persecution of so many different groups. I cannot speak about everything. And yet, I must speak on something first, or watch in silence as all continue. For too long, I have sat, holding (what I think are) the correct views, but saying nothing. Ideas that remain in my head do no one any good.

As anyone who is aware enough of current events to read my blog will know, three videos of Planned Parenthood officials have been released over the past few weeks. Some debate has occurred over whether the practices discussed in the videos are better described as “selling baby parts” or “donating tissue.” Frankly, the issue of whether the organs are being sold or donated (with the clinic receiving compensation) is beside the point. It’s a bit like arguing over whether a serial killer stole a victim’s wallet. The issue is where the organs are coming from in the first place. The “tissue” in question here is undeniably human tissue – human lungs, hearts and livers. They’re available to be sent to researchers because the humans to whom those organs belong were killed. Yes, the humans in question were not fully developed. But my friend’s 2-year-old son isn’t fully developed either, and his parents can’t just decide to “terminate” him, however many tantrums he might throw. I hope these videos will help people see abortion for what it is – the dismembering of a living, growing human being. Next to that, any ethical concerns about compensation for donating what is left over pale in comparison.

That’s really all I have to say. It’s nothing that hasn’t been said before many times, but maybe adding my voice to the chorus will help in some small way. At least it’s better than silence.

God is not a god (part 2)

In Part1 of this article, I argued that God in a monotheistic religion is a fundamentally different type of being than the gods of a polytheistic religion. This means that Christians who are talking to polytheists can use more or less the usual arguments for the existence of God to show that a being with the characteristics monotheists ascribe to God exists. It’s possible that this in itself might be enough to convert someone to monotheism. But if the polytheist says, “OK, your God exists, but so do mine,” I don’t think we need to convince them that their gods don’t exist. We just need to show why they should worship only the monotheistic God.

So why should everyone worship the monotheistic God instead of polytheistic gods? Simply put: He deserves it. If there is a supreme being, perfectly wise, powerful and good, who created everything, this being is supremely worthy of our devotion and worship. Moreover all monotheistic faiths insist that this supreme being has spoken and has forbidden worship of any other being. If God is perfectly good and all-knowing, He must have a good reason for giving this command. Even if we don’t understand His reasons, it seems reasonable to trust and obey Him.

It’s also pragmatically wise to worship the most powerful being out there. Many of the polytheists I’ve met are afraid that the gods will punish them if they refuse to perform the appropriate rituals. But isn’t an all-powerful being capable of protecting you from these lesser forces?

Moreover, Christians believe that our highest good is found in being in right relationship with God. This is the source of all true peace and joy and of energy to love others. If the polytheistic gods are good, wouldn’t they want their followers to receive these blessings, even if that meant giving up their chance to be worshipped? If the gods insist on their own worship at their followers’ expense, they are selfish and thus don’t deserve to be honored.

Some people object that the God of monotheism is selfish for not letting us worship anyone else. But this objection fails to hold up. We’re talking about a supremely wise, good and powerful being who created all things and offers his worshippers true happiness. This being deserves complete devotion from everything He created. There’s nothing wrong with insisting on what rightfully belongs to you, and in this case, worshiping the true God also brings created beings the best life possible.

In fact, given that our best life is found in following the true God, if God loves us He must want us to worship only Him. Worshipping anything other than God is inherently destructive. We were created to worship God, and when we put anything else ahead of him, we end up making poor decisions that hurt us and other people. For God to allow us to worship other gods would be like a human father allowing his child to drink bleach.

Ultimately, the supreme proof that God deserves our love is found in Jesus, and especially in the crucifixion. This is not a needy God who demands our service. This is a God who is willing to serve us, even if it costs Him His life. Coming face to face with love like this should inspire us to love Him back.

In the end, conversion is not a matter of intellectual arguments, though the arguments are useful and important. Conversion is a matter of meeting the good, wise, powerful, eternal God of love and choosing to follow Him.

God is not a god (part 1)

If you’re a Christian in a Western country, you can find an abundance of information about the common worldviews of the day. You’ll find massive numbers of arguments and counter-arguments for apologetics against atheism, postmodernism and to a lesser extent Mormonism and Islam. (Stand to Reason has some really good material on this.)

There’s just one problem: If you don’t live in the West and you’re talking to people with a different worldview than these, you don’t have a lot to work with. I discovered this when I lived in Taiwan and started talking to people who followed a polytheistic form of Buddhism. There’s not a whole lot of modern apologetics directed at polytheism.

But the earliest Christians were surrounded by polytheists. It’s no surprise then, that early apologists were more helpful than later ones in dealing with this challenge. (I found Tertullian’s arguments against Marcion particularly helpful.) The following is my attempt to formulate a strategy for debates with polytheists.

On the surface, the claim that there is one God and the claim that there are many gods seem pretty similar. But the differences go deeper than basic math. Actually, the type of being posited by monotheists is completely different from the type of beings posited by polytheists.

Monotheism holds that there is a single being who created everything else in existence, who is infinitely powerful, all-knowing and completely good. This being has always existed and will always exist and cannot in any way be diminished. This God is also a person (not an impersonal force) and thus is capable of making free choices and communicating with people. In short, the God of all monotheistic religions is the supreme being – the greatest being in existence, by definition.

In polytheism, however, gods are like humans only greater. They are extremely powerful but not infinitely powerful; each controls an area of life, but some can impinge on others’ areas, since life is complicated. For example, the Greek god Ares was the god of war, but other gods like Zeus also influenced battles. The gods were still way more powerful and more knowledgeable than human beings, so it was important to be on their good side. In most polytheistic systems, the gods are involved in the creation of the world, but it’s sort of a team effort. (The creation stories vary between religions.) Gods in polytheistic systems also tend not to be eternal. Most polytheistic religions have myths explaining how the gods came to be. Thus, polytheistic gods are really powerful, but they’re not infinite like the monotheistic God is. It’s just a different concept.

Actually, it’s logically impossible for more than one being to fit the monotheistic characterization of God. Monotheists define God as the greatest possible being (or at a minimum, the greatest existent being). There cannot be two greatest beings, by definition.

Another way of thinking about this is by looking at the idea of omnipotence. There cannot be more than one omnipotent being. To illustrate this, let’s try to imagine two “omnipotent” beings with the (very creative) names A and B. A intends to move a rock to the north, while at the same moment, B intends to move it to the south. Where does the rock go? If it goes to the north, B is not omnipotent, but if it goes to the south, A is not omnipotent. If the forces cancel each other out so that the rock does not move, neither being is omnipotent. The only way around this is for A and B to agree on everything all the time, in which case either one is subservient or they’re actually the same being.

So if I were going to have a conversation with a polytheist, I’d start by asking whether a being that fits the monotheistic definition of God exists. If the polytheist is inclined to say no, you can pull out all the arguments for God’s existence that have been articulated by really smart people elsewhere.

But it’s possible that they’ll say, “Yes, your God exists, but my gods exist, too.” At this point, I don’t think it’s necessary to prove that the polytheistic deities don’t exist. We just need to persuade them to worship our God instead of the polytheistic deities.

It’s logically possible that there is a single omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. being (God) and also lesser supernatural being with real but limited powers (gods). Many early Christians actually held this view. They thought the Roman gods were actually demons.

Note that this view is not henotheism. Henotheism is the belief that multiple gods exist but the group one is part of worships only one. It places the worshipped god and the non-worshipped gods on the same level. In contrast, a view that places the worshipped God in a different category than the non-worshiped gods is still monotheism, because it attributes to only one being the traits ascribed to the monotheistic God. In fact, arguably the polytheistic gods shouldn’t even be called “gods” on this view, since they are no longer on top of the metaphysical food chain.

Next question: Why should anyone give up the gods they’ve been worshipping and worship ours instead? I have some ideas about that, but since this post is already pretty long, that will have to wait for part 2.

In the meantime, for those of you who have experience with evangelism in polytheistic cultures: How do you go about it? I like my approach, but I don’t really have anyone to try it out with, so I’d be really interested in hearing about your experiences.

And for those of you who don't, the distinction between the God of monotheism and the gods of polytheism is still relevant. It refutes the atheist claim that atheists reject belief in God for the same reason monotheists reject belief in, say, the Greek gods. But, of course, the kind of being in question here is completely different. This also answers the claim that Christianity is just a rehashing of older myths about dying and rising gods. Christianity presents God as a fundamentally different type of being than do the myths it was supposedly based on. Thus,  the distinction here is relevant even within Western culture.

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Heaven

Yesterday morning I saw a news report about former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, which quoted him as saying, “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven.”

I think this is a pretty clear expression of most Americans’ thoughts about heaven. It’s not based on any particular religion (Bloomberg doesn’t even sound sure that God exists). But there’s a general sense that God is nice and will let people into heaven because they volunteered or donated money or did political work meant to help people or just were a nice person.

I wish it were that simple, but it’s not. One does not simply walk into heaven. To do that you would need to be perfect, and we aren’t. And if God simply overlooked the things we did wrong, it would violate His justice and make heaven less perfect in the process.

I can relate to the thought process that Bloomberg used. I thought more or less the same way when I was younger. At the time, I wasn’t really focused on getting to heaven. But I desperately wanted to know that God was pleased with me, and I thought that was something I can earn.

Do you think God is pleased with you? Maybe you’re certain that you’ve done enough good things to make God happy. Or maybe you’re thinking, “No, God isn’t pleased with me.” Maybe you’ve done something terrible in the past and you just can’t forget it. Or maybe you haven’t done anything really bad, but you know you’re not good enough. I fell into that last category.

I was always a “good girl.” I didn’t do drugs or steal or do anything that’s usually considered really bad. But I knew I didn’t measure up to what God wanted.

I sometimes argued with my brother or my parents. Occasionally I lied to teachers about whether I’d done my homework. I grew up going to church, so I knew God wanted me to be loving and friendly. But I was really shy, so I avoided my classmates instead.

These may seem like little things, but I felt terrible about them. They showed that inside, I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. At church, I kept committing to follow God, and I kept falling short. I was convinced that God was disappointed in me because I was disappointed in myself. I also wasn’t sure I had really been forgiven because I knew that receiving God’s forgiveness should change my life, and my life wasn’t changing.

Finally, when I was 14, I went to a church camp. They told me the news I had heard so many times before: That Jesus had died for me and taken the punishment I deserved for my sins. He rose from the dead and now offered me forgiveness. I just had to receive it.

I prayed and told God that I couldn’t live a good life on my own. As good as I might have looked on the outside, I was really messed up inside. I asked Him to forgive and change me.

That was when I finally realized that God doesn’t save us because of good things we’ve done or because He knows we’ll do good things in the future. He saves us just because He loves us.

After I asked God to change me, He did. I began to want to pray and read the Bible. I became more patient and loving, and I gradually stopped being so shy. But the best thing is knowing that God is pleased with me. And I can be sure that when I die I can simply walk into heaven. But it’s not because I’ve earned it. It’s because Jesus earned it for me. 

Myths About Work Part 5: Work Defines Our Relationship With God

This is the final post in my series on myths about work. If you’re interested, here are part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. For this post, I’d like to broaden my focus a bit to include not only the work we are paid to do but also other things we feel we must accomplish. That includes things like housework, serving at church or volunteering. Many people buy into the myth that these actions define our relationship with God.

In the Babylonian myth that I’ve been comparing to the Christian story, the gods created people to do work for them. Since the work was assigned by the gods, we can infer that their attitude toward you would depend on how well you work. In Babylonian religious life, this worked out as sacrifices. People would give sacrifices as food to the gods. In return for these gifts, they would bless their worshipers (theoretically, at least).

Here in Taiwan, I often see people burning incense or paper money or leaving out food for gods, ghosts or their ancestors. But even in the religions that no longer require these kinds of sacrifices, one’s relationship to God (or the gods) is often dependent on obeying a set of commands or moral principles.

Even in churches, this myth is prevalent. I accepted it for much of my childhood. Sunday School lessons tended to focus on what God wanted us to do and examples of heroes to follow. Or at least, that’s how I understood it at the time. When I got into junior high school, the gospel message was proclaimed a bit more often, but it still took an awfully long time for me to get the point.

Throughout junior high school I felt incredibly guilty because I couldn’t bring myself to do what God required of me. Most notably, I knew I should reach out and share the gospel with people, but I was painfully shy and couldn’t work up the courage to do so. Finally, I gave up. I told God, “I can’t do this. If You want me to be a good person, You have to change me.”

Little did I know that that was exactly what God wanted. I admitted that I couldn’t earn His love, but I turned to Him in faith, believing that He could and would accept me anyway.

When we look at the Genesis creation story, God did ask Adam to tend and keep the garden He had made. But it was already a beautiful place filled with fruit trees. God showered Adam with blessings even before Adam had had a chance to do anything. In other words, the Biblical creation story starts with a free gift.

And although the Israelites and the Babylonians both performed sacrifices, their purposes were very different. The Babylonians sacrificed in return for favors to provide the gods with food. (Don’t want the immortals to starve to death.)

In contrast, the Israelite sacrifices were given either to atone for sin or to express gratitude. God was very clear that He didn’t need sacrifices. He didn’t even want them as much as He wanted His people to obey Him. But the real meaning of the sacrifices became clear thousands of years later. They were a picture of Jesus, who died on the cross to bring people forgiveness for their sins.

It is this gift, the sacrifice of Christ, that allows us to have a good relationship with God. Not sacrifices we give God. Not even our own obedience. Only a gift of grace.

The Biblical view of work is complex and multifaceted. We’ve seen how it is a good thing that reflects the image of God in us. But it is neither our purpose nor the thing that determines our value. We work, not primarily because God told us to, but because God works, and we were born to be like Him. God’s work is the foundation for our work. And it, not our own effort, is the foundation of our relationship with Him.

Myths About Work 4 – Inferior People Do Inferior Work

This is the fourth part of a series on myths about work. If you missed the first parts, please see part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Some of the lies we believe in any area of life are held consciously, while others sneak in through the back door. We absorb the latter from the glances and body language of those around us, the jokes we laugh at, the tropes that dominate TV. Often, if we were directly asked if we believe these lies, we would recoil in horror. But they lurk behind our attitudes, priorities and actions. The myth I want to discuss today is one of those sneaky lies that many people hold without knowing it. It is the myth that inferior work is for inferior people.

Many people judge the worth of others based on the kind of work they do. They automatically think of business owners, doctors and lawyers more highly than they think of truck drivers, fast-food workers or garbage collectors. The probably wouldn’t say these people are inferior, but the way they think of them and treat them shows that kind of condescending attitude. Sometimes, this manifests itself as arrogance about one’s own job. In different circumstances it could be the refusal to accept a steady but unglamorous position like flipping hamburgers because you feel it is beneath you.

Like the other myths I have discussed, I see this one reflected in the Babylonian creation myth. The story says that the gods created humans to do work, because work is beneath them. Clearly, the gods are superior to humans, so if the gods can pass work off to inferior beings, humans can do the same. This was a justification for slavery in many ancient cultures; those who were born into noble families were expected to cultivate their minds and leave menial, physical labor to lesser people.

The Bible, however, leaves no room for such a distinction. It presents all human beings as descended from one set of parents, which means that we are all equal in terms of our heritage. Moreover, the thing that gives us value, the image of God in us, is shared equally among all people. It is who we are, and nothing we do can change that. Seeing someone as less valuable because of their career is essentially saying that their work is a more important part of who they are than God’s image is. It makes one’s career more important than God.

The Bible never allowed people to view manual labor as inferior. In fact, it encouraged manual labor, and any other kind of honest work: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4:28). Paul, who wrote that verse, set an example of that himself. Although he was a teacher, and thus could be expected to gain an income through his teaching, he chose to make tents to earn money, rather than let people think he was preaching for selfish reasons.

Jesus goes a step further. He doesn’t merely that manual laborers are as dignified as intellectuals. He actually says that serving others, even doing the lowliest tasks like washing feet, is the way to greatness. The greatest person in the kingdom of Heaven the one who serves others.

I have found in myself a tendency to succumb to this lie and to believe that people who do certain jobs are less intelligent than myself. I believe the key to combating it is recognizing it for what it is. Since this is a myth that hides in the unconscious recesses of our minds, we must bring it out to destroy it.

We must also make sure we behave with respect and dignity toward people, no matter what their position is. Everyone, including waiters, bus drivers, janitors, and the tech support people at the company that produced your stupid, malfunctioning computer, is made in the image of God. The way you treat them reflects your attitude toward Him.

Update: See part 5.

Myths About Work Part 3: Work Is Life's Purpose

I began this series on myths about work by summarizing a Babylonian creation myth. I think modern people and the ancient Babylonians share some misconceptions about work, and I am contrasting them with what the Bible says. Make sure you look at part 1 and part 2.

                                                                                                                          

My previous post addressed the idea that work is inherently bad. This time, I’m discussing the opposite extreme – seeing work as the purpose of life. The Babylonians thought that people were created to work, and many people today act that way.

Last time, I said that “Work is bad” might be the most common myth people believe. I said “might be” because this one is also remarkably prevalent. Think of people who stay late at the office every night, neglecting their families and their health. We identify with careers so much that “What do you do?” is usually the second question we ask each other after “What’s your name?” Children are taught to study hard and go to college so they can get a good job, and not having a job carries a strong social stigma.

Although the Bible affirms that work is good and is part of what God created us to do, it does not turn our effort into the total of our existence.

Work is an expression of the image of God in every person. We work because we are like God. But even God didn’t work all the time. He set the example of resting on the seventh day after working for six days to create the world.

Similarly, God commanded His people to rest one day out of seven. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).

In both the Old and New Testaments, the greatest commandment is to love God with all of ourselves – heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus added “love your neighbor as yourself” as the second great commandment. This is as close as the Bible comes to giving a purpose statement for human life.

Our work can be one way in which we love God and others. For example, my current work of producing English-teaching materials is an act of love for the students because it helps them acquire skills that will help them earn money, learn more about the world and live richer lives. Anything that people pay you to do is somehow beneficial to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t pay for it. And any act of service to others shows love for God.

But for most of us the greatest opportunity to love others is by spending time with our families. And work is notorious for cutting into family time. Overwork also takes time away from loving God through personal prayer and Bible study. It also leads us to worry rather than trusting God as He tells us to do.

So what’s the solution? Surprisingly, it’s the same as the solution to the opposite problem of seeing work as evil: “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” That means work is a means to the end of glorifying God, not an end in itself. But “whatever you do” includes resting, building relationships with family and friends, exercising, enjoying hobbies and anything else you spend time on. These things can and should glorify God just as much as your work does.

Update: See part 4 and part 5.

Myths About Work Part 2: Work is Bad

The first post in this series described an ancient Babylonian myth and pointed out that, although we may have shed its polytheistic trappings, it reflects false beliefs about work that are still common today. Now I’d like to talk about the first (and arguably the most common) myth I listed.

The Babylonian creation myth says, in essence, that the gods created humans because they didn’t want to work and deserved better than to be forced to do so. That means work is a bad thing. Similarly, many people today view work as a necessary evil. We complain about our jobs and look forward to vacations and, ultimately, retirement. We think of “living the good life” as lying around on a beach somewhere far from the demands of the workplace. When people win the lottery, often the first thing they do is quit their jobs. And some Christians take comfort in the idea that in heaven, we won’t need to work.

But is that what the Bible teaches? Although it doesn’t directly say whether people will work in heaven, the Bible does tell us a lot about the nature of work. And it begins right where the Babylonians did – at the very beginning.

The first place where the word “work” appears in the Bible is Genesis 2:2 “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” So the first person to do work was God, and the result of His work was a “very good” universe.

Of course, the verse does say that God rested, indicating that work wasn’t the only thing that mattered to Him (more on that in the next post). But that doesn’t mean He gave up working as soon as someone else could do it. Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17) So clearly the Bible’s view of resting does not equal retirement.

When God created people, He did expect us to work. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28) God’s statement is a blessing, but it’s also a job description. Any parent can tell you that “being fruitful and multiplying” is one of the hardest jobs anyone can be given. Filling, subduing and ruling the earth means developing its resources. That includes farming, building cities and other economic activity. So God began His relationship with people by telling them to work.

But unlike the Babylonian gods, the God of the Bible didn’t make people work because He didn’t want to. We work because we are created “in the image of God.” That means we are like God and do the things He does. Being made in God’s image separates us from the rest of creation and gives us unique dignity. So work is a sign of nobility, not of inferiority. We work because God works, not so that He doesn’t have to work. Perhaps this is why God’s first assignment of work is described as a blessing.

But work doesn’t always feel like a blessing. Even though I love my job, there are still mornings when I’d rather pull my quilt over my head and sleep than get up and face a day of work. There are afternoons when I feel like if I look at one more page of text, my brain will turn to liquid and start dripping out of my ears. And that’s with a good job.

The Bible explains this, too. When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground, saying it would yield “thorns and thistles” and that Adam would produce food from it “by the sweat of [his] face” (Genesis 3:18-19). This is the point where work, which is good, becomes toil, which is bad. The pain associated with toil is real and impossible to ignore. But the rest of the Bible tells about God making all things new, restoring that sin poisoned, including work.

In conclusion, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Your job isn’t bad; it was created by God and can be used to glorify Him. When we see our work as an act of worship and a way to better the world around us, we restore the goodness it was created to have and join God in rolling back the effects of the Fall.

Update: Please see part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Myths About Work Part 1: Beginning at the Beginning

I began this series back in 2012 but never finished it. This is a reboot, so I’m revising the posts I wrote earlier and (I hope) finishing the series.

According to ancient Babylonian legend, the world began with a god and a goddess who gave birth to several other gods. The younger gods became disruptive, so their parents decided to destroy them. Naturally, the younger deities didn't want to be destroyed, and a cosmic battle began. Eventually Marduk, one of the younger gods and the chief god of Babylon, won the battle and was installed as king of the gods. This primeval conflict brought the forces of chaos under control, allowing Marduk and the other gods to form everything in existence.

Marduk and his fellow deities wanted to sit back and relax, enjoying their triumph. However, there was still work to be done. After all, immortals have to eat too. Marduk considered making the losers of the war do the work as punishment, but it didn’t seem fitting for divine beings to do such menial tasks. So the gods created human beings to do this work and free up all the gods, winners and losers alike, to relax and enjoy their unending lives.

“That’s nice,” you’re probably saying, “but why should I care what the ancient Babylonians thought? I don’t know anyone who still believes in Marduk.” No, I’m sure you don’t, but myths both reflect and shape a culture’s underlying assumptions about what (and who) is valuable. And I many of the assumptions expressed in this myth are surprisingly prevalent today. The Babylonian creation myth could have led people to conclude that …

1. Work is bad. After all, it was beneath the dignity of gods, even the gods who lost the war, to work. People were created as the gods’ slaves to do unpleasant things.

2. Work is the purpose of life.  According to the Babylonians, we were created to work, which makes work our purpose.

3. Inferior people do inferior work. This story doesn’t make distinctions between classes of people, but if the gods pass unpleasant tasks on to inferior beings, there’s no reason for humans not to do the same.

4. Work defines our relationship to the gods. Since the Babylonian gods see people primarily as workers, it would be logical for humans’ relationship with them to depend on how well people fulfill their function.

Do any of these attitudes look familiar? They should, because even though the story I drew them from has passed into obscurity, these ideas are alive and well.

Like the Babylonian myth, the creation account in the Bible says that God created the world, then created human beings and gave them work to do. This led some scholars, like the college professor who first taught me the Babylonian story, to compare the two. But behind any superficial similarities stand two completely opposed worldviews. The Bible presents work as something that is good but that does not determine a human being’s value or relationship with God. In future posts, I hope to look at each of the myths I listed in detail and contrast them with the Bible’s view of work.

Update: The series continues in part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Chasing Dawn

I began the year 2014 with an adventure. Invited by my friend Zoe, I traveled to Keelung, a city on the northern coast of Taiwan. There Zoe, two other friends and I saw the harbor and a night market, enjoyed a meal of hot pot (meat, vegetables and noodles that you cook at your table in boiling broth) and watched fireworks. This was fun, but the excitement really began during the next leg of our trip, a journey to Fulong Beach on Taiwan’s northeast coast to watch the first sunrise of the new year.

The trip to Fulong itself was an adventure. Twice we were asked to wait for later trains because the earlier ones were too crowded. The train we did get on was hot and packed full of people. After a 50-minute train ride we got off, and the station was so full of people that it took us about 40 minutes to get out. And all this happened at the time of night when I was feeling most tired.

But finally we arrived at Fulong. Zoe and I rented bikes at the train station to travel to the place where we would watch the sunrise, while our third friend, Belinda, decided to take a shuttle bus and meet us at our destination. (The other friend had gone back to Taipei to rest.) All my frustration and tiredness melt away as I glided out of the station and down the slope toward the seashore. Taipei has too much light, pollution and cloud cover for stars to be visible there on most nights. But Fulong is far smaller, and it was a clear night, so I was delighted to see stars scattered above us.

Street lights and windows on some nearby buildings provided some illumination, but the path was quite dark. At several points, I couldn’t see the road itself, so I had to steer by looking at a wall that ran beside the bike path or by Zoe’s head as she rode in front of me. At one point it became so dark that we rode by the light of Zoe’s smartphone flashlight.

Even when the path ran next to the highway and our road was illuminated, the ocean lay in a field of blackness to our left. The utter lack of even a distant lamp or a faint star made the water appear as a shadow within a shadow. I found myself thinking of Genesis 1:2. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” I took comfort in the knowledge that God’s spirit is still hovering over Taiwan and all the earth, ready to bring light and hope out of the darkness that blankets our world.

After what I think was about 40 minutes of riding, we reached the spot where the shuttle busses dropped people off to walk up a mountain where they would watch the sunrise. But police officers blocked our way and told us we couldn’t bring our bikes up. We didn’t want to leave the bikes because the rental shop hadn’t given us locks. Belinda had already started up the mountain and was left without a cellphone signal. Zoe sent her a text message, hoping it would get through, and we continued on to look for another place to watch the sunrise.

Then we saw another, smaller path up to the top of the mountain. This path had fewer people, so we walked our bikes up the hill. This worked well for about five minutes, but then the slope changed into stairs.

Zoe and I walked on the concrete stairs, rolling our bikes up the muddy slope beside us. There were a few points where we had to lift our bikes over obstacles or move them to the other side of the stairs. People coming down from the top kept telling us that there were too many people and we couldn’t bring our bikes all the way up, but we were determined to try. When the path finally got to steep, we hid the bikes in the bushes by the trail.

We were hot and tired when we reached a plateau overlooking the ocean. Hundreds of people were gathered there to watch the sunrise. Singers were performing on a stage, and several representatives from the local government spoke. By the time we arrived, it was around 5:45, and the sun was expected to appear at 6:37. So we stood listening to the music and watching the sky grow lighter.

Soon pink and purple clouds appeared in the eastern sky. They then faded as the light grew and the whole sky turned silvery gray. The crowd waited eagerly as the set time came and went. The sun was still not visible because the horizon was covered with clouds.

Finally at around 6:45 the sun rose above the clouds, and the crowds cheered. We had reached the goal of our adventure. Zoe and I found Belinda and enjoyed the view of the sun rising over the ocean. The road back was incredibly beautiful, once it was light enough that I could see it. When I returned to the Fulong train station, I was tired but happy.

When I watch the news, I often become discouraged at the amount of violence, suffering and evil in the world. The Earth is a dark place, and sometimes it seems like it’s just getting darker. But just like the crowds waiting for the first dawn of 2014, we know that light will come into the world. God has promised to bring a new day free of darkness, confusion, war and pain. We may not know when it will come, but we can be as certain that God will fulfill His word as we are that the sun will rise each day. He is present in our darkness and will move decisively to bring an end to it once and for all.

None of us know what 2014 will bring. It may be a year full of toil and struggle, or it may be full of sunlight and beautiful views. But we can take courage, because we know how our adventure will end: with the defeat of the darkness and the dawn of a new, perfect day.

A Meditation on Isaiah 35

One night when I was in the depths of depression, I was getting ready for bed. Out of force of habit, I sat down to read a psalm. But in my tiredness, I missed Psalms and ended up reading through all of Isaiah 35 before I noticed my “mistake.”

Here’s what I read:

1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;

the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;

2 it shall blossom abundantly

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the Lord,

the majesty of our God.

3 Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees.

4 Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert;

7 the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

8 And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

the unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

9 No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there.

10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

I believe that God directed me to the “wrong” passage that day because this was exactly what my hurting soul needed. I needed to read this promise of renewal for the deserts – the empty, lonely, broken places of the world – because my heart felt like a desert. I needed to hear that no matter how hopeless I felt, I wasn’t really without hope because God had promised to make things right.

Verse 10 in particular stood out to me with its promise that “sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” I believe the complete fulfillment of these verses will come when Christ returns. But until then, God’s promise that better things are coming can give us hope and comfort.

But is that all our faith offers? Is it merely a piece of positive thinking or an “opiate of the masses”? Not according to Isaiah.

Verses 5 and 6 speak of healing for the blind, the deaf, the lame and the mute. Just as God gives us emotional comfort, He offers healing. We see that in the pages of the Bible, and I believe that God continues to work miracles today. Yet once again we will need to wait until Christ returns for all disease to completely disappear.

OK, so Christianity offers emotional and physical healing – for us. But is it just a personal thing that only touches its followers? Again, the answer is “no.”

The whole point of this passage is that the physical world will be healed. Verses 1, 2, 6 and 7 speak of desert being turned into lush, fertile land. In a sense, this is undoing the effects that sin had on all of nature. Part of God’s curse after the first sin was that the land would be unfruitful, producing thorns and thistles instead of good crops. But here we see the curse undone. Even the harshest, least hospitable lands are transformed into lush valleys. The whole earth becomes a fruitful, safe and holy place.

How does all this happen? The passage doesn’t explicitly say, but verse 8 points to the answer. It refers to the “Way of Holiness” in which the redeemed walk. Verse 10 indicates that it leads back to Jerusalem, the city of God. In the Bible, Jerusalem is seen as the place of God’s presence, and we know from the New Testament that the way back into God’s presence is Jesus. He is the One through whom our hearts, our bodies and all of creation will be healed. When we believe and obey Him, we walk in the way of holiness.

We all face moments when we feel dry and empty. We sometimes fall and wander away from the way of holiness. But we must “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not!’” That means picking ourselves up when we fall, but it also means building others up when they are weak. We must remember, as it says in verse 4, that God will come and save us. We can be strong and work to restore the things that are broken in human lives and the outside world only when we place our hope in the One who has the power to accomplish this seemingly impossible mission.