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Yea, all things

come not by chance but by His fatherly hand - Lord’s Day 10

*****

The lot is cast into the lap,
but its every decision is from the Lord.
– Proverbs 16:33

The Heidelberg Catechism is both a confession and a summary of the doctrines of Scripture. The words of the Heidelberg can be easily understood, even though they convey the deep truths of the Bible. Two men, Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, were commissioned by Frederick the Pious (III), Protestant ruler and devout Calvinist, Elector Palatine of the Rhine (1559–76), to write this catechism for the people. Ursinus was a timid scholar, who preferred study to the limelight, and Olevianus was an eloquent preacher. Both were uniquely gifted and were providentially brought together by God to write the wonderful questions and answers in the Heidelberg.

When our children were younger, my husband Anco and I spent much time in teaching them the Heidelberg Catechism. We considered Lord’s Day 10, dealing with the providence of God, an important section, and we took our time with its questions and answers.

Question 27: What do you understand by the providence of God?
Answer: God’s providence is His almighty and ever-present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by His Fatherly hand.

At the close of breakfast each morning, even at the risk of missing the school bus, we would recite the phrases in unison. These words were a spiritual intake that contained the past, the present and gave much confidence in the future.

Odd but true

The truth that God is totally in charge of all things, things that occur each day, has been a comfort throughout my life. There is a rather odd, and simultaneously humorous, story which I heard from my sister some forty or more years ago – a story which illustrates God’s providence. Because she is a truthful person, I believe it happened. It runs like this.

A retired preacher was living out his days of retirement together with his wife in a two-story condo somewhere in the States. On Saturday mornings he was wont to take a bath in preparation for Sunday. One Saturday, as he was soaking in the tub, his wife let out a blood-curdling scream in the living room. It chilled him to the bone and he hopped out of his bath. In the altogether, he raced through the hall, into the living room, only to find his wife standing on a chair, totally upset.

“What is it, Mary?” he asked, alarmed by her loss of composure.

She pointed to the couch. “A snake,” she finally managed, “there is a snake under the couch.”

“A snake?” he responded, slowly turning his head, searching the room.

“Yes,” she went on, “I was watering the flowers and suddenly it crawled right by me and crept under the couch.” She again pointed to the couch.

Cautiously Stan, the preacher, walked over and knelt down to take a peek. He couldn’t really see much as it was dark under the couch. As he was investigating, their dog came up behind him, nudging the pastor’s posterior with his cold nose. Thinking it was the snake, Stan promptly fainted, face-down, on the carpet. Mary, brave woman that she was, got down off the chair and hastened over to her husband.

“Stan!” she called out, “Are you all right?”

Stan, however, was out cold. Thinking that he’d suffered a heart attack, Mary ran to the phone and dialed for help, calling for an ambulance.
The ambulance arrived just as Stan was recovering consciousness. Two men raced up the stairs, introduced themselves and skillfully maneuvered the pastor onto the stretcher they had brought with them. Gently and carefully covering him with a blanket, they took his blood pressure, finding it high.

“Sir, it is possible you suffered a heart attack,” they explained, “and we’re just going to take you into emergency to make sure you are not in trouble.”

Reassuring him and his wife in this way, they calmly carried him out of the room into the hallway. Standing at the top of the staircase, one of the two ambulance attendants began a slow descent, holding onto the foot end of the stretcher. The other man, also beginning to descend the stairs, suddenly dropped his carrying end. The snake, who had left the nether region of the couch, had quietly slithered into the hallway across his shoes. It startled the latter attendant to such a degree that he lost control over his end of the stretcher. Stan, the preacher, tumbled down the steps, breaking his left leg.

The providence in this little story lies in the fact that two ambulance attendants were immediately on hand to give first aid to an aging preacher in a rather unfortunate, strange chain of events – events orchestrated by God. The attendants were there to help the preacher in his time of need as God intended.

Our heavenly Father is One who not only sees everything beforehand, which is what providence essentially means, but He also brings about all He determines. Knowing and accepting the fact that God sees everything and brings events about can be a scary thought because it demonstrates that sinful man cannot hide anything from God. But providence is also comforting because it illustrates that God knows and cares for His people.

God has us in the little things too

Last week I had an unanticipated dental appointment. An infection in a bottom molar caused sudden and painful swelling in my left cheek. Resembling a chipmunk, I could barely open my mouth. The dentist immediately prescribed an antibiotic to take care of the infection. After the antibiotics had run their course, I had a second appointment – a consultation about what to do about a tooth that would very likely require an extraction. Like many people, I have anxiety, concern and wariness about sitting down in a dental chair. Yet, the morning of that second appointment my morning devotional had the heading of Psalm 81:10 which read: “I am the Lord your God, Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

Our God is a God of not just the things we consider huge in life, (such as cyclones and world wars), but also of the little things, the mundane and ordinary. The given text, prior to my dental appointment, made me grin. But the reality is that it also greatly strengthened and encouraged me.

The truth of it is that we may be encouraged to ask God to bless us in all matters pertaining to our daily life. We may open our mouth as wide as we can and request whatever is needful. Spurgeon, in his Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith, gives the example of baby birds being fed by their parents. Squawking away, beaks open so wide you’d think they were going to split their little mouths, they are sustained. Spurgeon says:

“God is ready to fill us if we are only ready to be filled. Let our needs make us open our mouths; let our faintness cause us to open our mouths and pant; yes, let our alarm make us open our mouths with a child’s cry. The opened mouth shall be filled by the Lord Himself. So be it unto us, O Lord, this day.”

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Our family’s trip to the Ark

Ken Ham’s creationist organization Answers in Genesis has built a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark in the State of Kentucky. These Christians are proudly leading with the Flood – one of the most ridiculed portions of Scripture – and attesting to the reliability of God’s Word in this big bold way. It is glorious! ***** It started in the airport. We were picking up a rental car and the friendly agent asked why we were in town. I had a moment’s hesitation, the mental blip I get when a stranger totally sets me up to talk about God and I’m wondering what the guy will think if I take him up on it. A fear-of-man moment. It helped that I was wearing my “Made in His Image” t-shirt so onward I plunged: “We’re here to see the Ark.” "It just kept getting bigger and bigger!" “Oh that’s great! I think half the people who rent a car from us are here to see it,” and then he went on about his uncle – or maybe it was a friend of his grandfather – who had donated a biblical manuscript featured in the Ark’s Bible Museum display. Not quite sure I got that all right, but what I do remember is the surprise of meeting a stranger who just started talking about things biblical. I come from a small town where there’s about 5 churches for every coffee shop, and I was still struck, in this spot somewhere in Kentucky, that this might be the most Christian place I’ve been. And the airport was just the beginning. Shucks, even our Airbnb rental was bedecked in a full shopping cart load of Christian crafts and signs. But what we came for was the Ark, and it is enormous. You can’t see it from the parking lot because it’s situated in the middle of 800 woodland acres – these folks are planning for all sorts of expansion possibilities (we could see the beginnings of their ancient Jerusalem walk-through exhibit). The Ark is set so far back you have to take a five-minute bus ride just to get there. Then you see it! It is wonderful and just a bit surreal. A replica of the Ark, to try and reach a lost world? But the world thinks the Ark is a fairy tale, and kids’ stuff! They’ll make fun of anyone who takes it seriously, won’t they? Yes, they will. And worse too. When the Ark opened they had to have pretty intense security – there are still guards everywhere – because they were getting all sorts of bomb threats. So, yes, the world will mock anyone who believes the Bible’s Flood account, and that’s what got me just a little verklempt as we walked up to the Ark. It kept getting bigger and bigger! I couldn’t miss just how many people had to have been involved to plan and build it. And to keep it running there are more than 1,200 part- and full-time staff employed by Answers in Genesis across their three enterprises – the Ark, their Creation Museum, and their publishing arm (it had me thinking of 1 Kings 19:18). These are Bible-believing folk who are happy to risk the ridicule of the world to proclaim the gospel of their God. If that doesn’t get you right in the gratitude, I don’t know what will. Favorites inside the Ark Our family went to the Ark one day by ourselves, and a second day with our neighbors so we got to share our favorite sights with them, and see what you might skip if you just had the one day. The first floor should be your last priority. It is still interesting – half the length of the floor is filled with bamboo cages showing how Noah and his family might have housed the smaller animals. How could just eight people feed and clean away the waste for thousands of critters? Well, the exhibit designers had some ideas: gravity-fed water and food dispensers that would only need to be filled every few days, and chutes that would also use gravity, this time to funnel the waste away from the cages to where it could be easily collected and carted away. This is all “Arktistic” license (as one display puts it), since the Bible doesn’t go into detail about the Ark’s inner workings. But these cages show how a small crew could have taken care of thousands of animals. So the first floor is worth seeing, but all our kids’ favorites were on the top two floors. As you move from one level to the next, challenge your kids to spot Noah and his family. All eight members can be found on each of the three floors, caring for the animals, and doing other chores. That’s 24 family members to spot in total. We all had our favorite spots and exhibits. One of mine was the bookstore below the Ark. It’s one thing to read online reviews of creationist books, but so much better to be able to page through a physical copy. Another of my favorites were the two ten-minute films being shown on the third floor. It was just nice to take a break from walking, but these were also clever stories. They take place 4,000 years apart, but cast the same actors in both films, and in similar roles. The first is set right before the Deluge, with a hostile secular reporter scoffing at Noah, asking why he built his boat. The second story takes place today, and once again we have a hostile reporter, this time asking the Ark Encounter president, Noah Zomarsh (a Ken Ham stand-in) why they built the Ark. Street evangelist Ray Comfort, who might be familiar to some readers, makes an appearance via holography to issue a call to repentance, and offer up a gospel presentation. The Gilgamesh ark was not the seaworthy vessel the ark was. My wife Janice loved how everything was a gospel presentation. She also enjoyed the science and engineering aspect, with Ark Encounter designers addressing the problems Noah’s family would have had with pumping waste out, and bringing fresh air in. We don’t know how they did do it, but the designers showcase some pretty ingenious ways they could have done it. Our neighbor Brian loved how he didn’t have to correct the information for his kids, like we get used to doing whenever we go to a secular museum. Everyone enjoyed the crew quarters. Again, a lot of imagination was involved, including names given to Noah’s wife, and his daughters-in-law (the Bible doesn’t list any). Since Noah’s three sons probably all bore a resemblance to each other, the Answers in Genesis folk wondered if the differences we see today among the world’s ethnicities came about via Noah’s sons’ wives. The three women are presented as the progenitors of the three “races” – one looked African-ish, another Caucasian-ish, and the third Asian-ish. It’s an intriguing idea, so long as your kids understand it is more “Arktistic license” and just a guess, not a fact. The third floor was tops among almost everyone, though for different reasons. My oldest was intrigued by the different Ark stories found in other cultures, and the mock-up models of their Arks. Bible skeptics will point to the Story of Gilgamesh and its flood account as the precursor for what we read in Genesis. They say Noah’s Flood is just a rip-off. But if you work out the dimensions of Gilgamesh’s “Ark” you get a square that would get rolled over and over by the waves. The dimensions of Noah’s Ark are the only realistic measurements among all these accounts. The top floor also featured a teaser exhibit for the Bible Museum in Washington, DC. My youngest liked the very last hall which features what was basically a comic book enlarged and thrown onto the walls. The plot revolves around a group of university friends who are wrestling with the purpose of life in very different ways. The story’s got a bit of grit to it, and, again, ends with a gospel presentation. Favorites outside with the animals What would an ark be without animals? The zoo here isn’t as large as you might find in some big cities – there’s no lions or elephants – but when was the last time you’ve pet a kangaroo? (They aren’t soft like a cat, but are maybe as soft as a Labrador.) For just a bit extra, our girls got a short camel ride, and for free they got to pet goats named Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. We all got to see a Zorse – half horse, half zebra – and a Zonkey – half zebra and half donkey – which highlighted that these species might all be part of the same single horse “kind” that was taken on the Ark. Janice and our girls caught a “creature feature” – a zookeeper bringing out an owl to speak about it and show it around – and Janice was struck again by how this too was a gospel presentation. They didn’t want the audience to miss how amazing this owl was, and more importantly, how amazing its Creator was. 3 tips Depending on when you go there can be some pretty lengthy lines to enter the Ark. If you start with the crowds, it’ll be slow progress all the way up. One way to skip the lines is to enter through the gift shop on the bottom floor at the front prow of the boat (on the far left end as you approach). Then take the elevator up to the third floor and start there where it won’t be crowded yet. If you do go through the entrance at the back of the boat, they’ll try to take your picture, which you can purchase as a souvenir later. It only takes a minute, but you can save your time and money by politely but firmly expressing that no, you don’t want a picture. Food, even snacks, are quite expensive, and they don’t want you bringing in food. There are cheaper options nearby, but be sure to get a wristband before leaving so you can get back in. One caution Before our visit, a friend suggested we read Genesis 6-9 for family devotions, to act as a refresher for what the Bible actually says about the Flood. It was a great idea. And while you’re there you’ll want to encourage your kids not to take everything on display as fact. This is quite the counter to the Ark-as-a-children’s-bathtub-toy, or as a fable likened to the Greek myths, but there is still a lot of imagination going on here – possibilities and maybes and might have beens. And our kids need to know it. Conclusion An Ark selfie, with my wife Janice So who would enjoy the Ark Encounter experience, and how long should you go? I can’t really imagine a Christian adult not loving this. I could have stayed longer, even after sneaking in part of a third day while my family was resting back at the rental. Some of my appreciation comes from remembering my youthful wrestlings with evolution, back when it disturbed me. I’ve long since settled that issue in my head and heart, but I still appreciate the encouragement and insight on offer in such a concentrated form at the Ark Encounter. My kids and my wife loved going two days. That was, in part, because going two days meant we didn’t have to race through the whole thing. We could meander, linger, and stop wherever we liked because we knew we were coming back to see the rest. That also meant we didn’t have to make it a super long day. We didn’t even get to the third floor on our first day. Our neighbors went for just one day, and with a little help from us, were able to hit the highlights. If you skim through that first level, and focus on the last two, and the zoo, that’s do-able, and a good way to save some money – tickets are expensive! As to age, adults are going to be awed, and teens will find lots of little things here and there to pore over. It’s more of a question of how young is too young? All of our kids – both the neighbors and ours – are ten and over and I suspect that’s about how old you’d need to be to get a lot out of the experience. So if you have only littles, you might want to wait a few years yet before making it a family trip. And then what a trip it will be! After I marked 25 years as RP editor, the RP Board gave the whole Dykstra family a wonderful present, sending us to the Ark and to the Creation Museum (which I might have to write about too!). It was the trip of a lifetime and we are very grateful!...

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“It’s only a dollar!” – on bingos and raffles

Some churches hold bingos and sell raffle tickets, so can gambling really be wrong? ***** “I think we should have a bingo night to raise money for our community.” “All you spend is $1.00 on a ticket and you could win $1,000,000!” “Our organization is having a raffle to raise money for the handicapped; will you buy a ticket for only $1.00? You might win a 10 speed bicycle!” “I just won $2,000 in the lottery – isn’t that great?” Often we have friends and neighbors and perhaps even relatives who participate in the lottery, raffles, or other types of games of chance. And among secular and some professing Christian groups, games of chance are popular fundraisers because they are a fairly easy way to raise a large amount of money fast. I once came under quick attack in a neighbors’ meeting for refusing to participate in a raffle. “What do you mean it’s against your Christian principles? St. Whoever’s church at the corner has bingo every week, and raffles twice a year to raise money. How could it be wrong?” It was too difficult on a moment’s notice in a suddenly hostile group to formulate and express my reasons. I finally stated that I was not going to defend myself there in front of an entire group; however I would be willing to explain to them individually at another time just why I was against all forms of gambling. Happily, one Baptist neighbor spoke her agreement with me and the issue ended. It is sometimes difficult to give a quick answer because there are no specific Bible verses which state, “you shall not gamble.” Is it “only a dollar” and therefore unimportant whether we participate? Or are there principles from God’s Word which regulate even this small purchase? Does it become acceptable when the recipient is a worthwhile cause? Furthermore, how do we react to a friend or relative’s big winnings? Though the odds are ridiculously high, you might know a winner from time to time. Should someone feel so generous as to spread his/her newfound wealth in our direction, what should be our reply? (The questions only get harder, for instance: what if a relative won a large sum of money – what about accepting a Christmas gift of a new car?) I spoke with our minister, the Rev. Kenneth A. Kok, concerning how to express an answer to the basic question, “What’s wrong with gambling?” He provided three answers: 1. It encourages a “something for nothing” mentality Throughout the Bible, we clearly find that God expects us to work to provide for our material needs: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…” (Gen. 3:19) “He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues vain things lacks sense. The wicked desire the booty of evil men, but the root of the righteous yields fruit.” (Prov. 12:11,12) “He who tends the fig tree will eat its fruit; and he who cares for his master will be honored.” (Prov. 27:18) “…give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” (Prov. 31:13-31) Why would we want to get something for relatively nothing? Aren’t we thankful to God for all He has given us? Doesn’t He provide us with all that we need? And as LD 42, Q 111 of the Heidelberg Catechism states in regards to the commandment “You shall not steal,” here we also learn, “In addition God forbids all greed…” Perhaps we are tantalized with the thought of what we would do if we could only have $1,000, or maybe $5,000, or better make it $10,000, or what if we got a million? With the character Tevye, from “Fiddler On The Roof”, we inwardly pray: Lord, who made the lion and the lamb You decreed I should be what I am But would it spoil some vast, eternal plan If I were a wealthy man? Does this reflect the same sentiment expressed by Paul in Philippians 4:11-13: “Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” It is one thing to work hard and have God bless your endeavor. It is another to look for an easy break. 2. It encourages poor stewardship Gambling often encourages the people with the least amount of money to be irresponsible with what they have. Much money is wasted on chances and this money could be put to better use – saved, spent well, or given to a worthy cause. As Heidelberg Catechism question 111 goes on to say, “…God forbids all greed and all abuse or squandering of His gifts.” Numerous references are listed there. By participating in even a small way, we promote an activity which may be weakening the financial status and even the family life of others. Only one or a few win, at everyone else’s expense. Is this loving our brother as we love ourselves? As Question 112 further states, “I must promote my neighbor’s good wherever I can and may, deal with him as I would like others to deal with me, and work faithfully so that I may be able to give to those in need.” Even if the “chances” benefit a worthy cause, we still have the question from point 1 regarding our attitude. In this case, if we want to help, we should simply donate the money and not take the raffle ticket. 3. It encourages seeing money as one’s savior People begin, with the larger gambling items, to see money as their savior. Their hope is placed upon money, rather than God. This is evident in the long, long lines which form as the state lottery “pot” soars to $24 million or more. People call friends in other states requesting the purchase of these tickets for them, just for that chance – that possibility of being one of the ones to win. Conversations at the office turn to: “What will you do with it if you win?” Smiles and sighs. “Pay off all my debts.” “Buy a fabulous house.” “Quit working here.” “Take a trip to Hawaii.” Or perhaps even “Make a large donation to the school/church/hospital.” It seems, in those few moments of dreaming, as though our main problems in life, i.e., financial ones, would be solved. We do not believe the various accounts we’ve read or heard about money causing new problems. But the point here is this: “My God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in glory” (Phil. 4:19). We must behave as children of God, children who present our needs and desires to Him, who work diligently for them as far as possible, who trust Him to provide, and who accept with thanksgiving, not as a young child asking after Christmas, “Is that ALL I get?” “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant… ungrateful, unholy, unloving… without self-control… reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these” (II Tim. 3:1-5). The next time we are faced with the temptation to “get rich(er) quick,” to spend “only a dollar” with the mostly false promise that we might gain much more, let us ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Does this reflect a godly, thankful attitude? Am I looking for a different savior?” God’s Word answers the whole question the best: “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (I Tim 6:6-12). This article was originally published in RP's March 2006 issue....

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If businesses tithed

Christians are familiar with the Biblical principle of tithing, and support many kingdom causes as a matter of course. They apply the principles of Galatians 6:10 with their talents, time and treasure: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Followers of Jesus Christ are known for their enthusiastic support of their local church, Christian education, organizations helping the homeless and poor nearby and in other parts of the globe. We are giving, and we can see God blessing those gifts. So, what might the Lord do if Christians who own their own businesses or are shareholders in a venture with others, found ways to apply these same principles in their business operations? Retained earnings Often in the first years of establishing a company, funds can be tight, and any profits that are made need to be invested back in the business to pay down debt, or to purchase new equipment, or to hire more staff. (These profits that are not pulled out of the venture, but are used by the company are often called “retained earnings.”) Sometimes, a new firm can operate for years without paying out profits to its owners, but meanwhile, the company is growing, owns more assets than when it was starting up, and itself is now worth far more than it was when it was just an idea percolating in the minds of its founders. When Christian owners or shareholders are rewarded with a dividend payout from the business, it’s relatively easy for them to make an individual decision about giving back to the Lord from these earnings, just as they would decide when receiving a regular paycheque. All these good gifts that we receive are really the Lord’s, and for us to “give back” from our first fruits should be a given. In Proverbs 3:9-10, Solomon reminds us to: “Honor the Lord with your wealth, and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” But what about the wealth that has been building up inside the venture, the “retained earnings” referenced above? In Luke 12:16-21, the Lord Jesus warns against covetousness and greed with the story of the rich fool: “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Stewards, not owners The rich man’s declaration of what he will do with “my grain and my goods” tells us how he thought of what he owned – it was all his, and not the Lord’s. That’s a point that the Lord Jesus makes again and again – not to think of the possessions God has entrusted to me as mine. All of it is the Lord’s, and all of it is only lent to us here on earth, to use wisely, and give back to Him (Luke 12:42-48, Matt. 25:14-30, etc.). And leading into this passage, He also warns us against thinking that one's life consists “in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). Although it’s not an exact analogy, the retained earnings inside our companies can function like the grain and goods in the rich fool’s barn – our company’s growth can be a temptation to measure ourselves by what we have built – so we need to be very careful how we view them. So, how can we resist that pull? Firstly, we should consider all of it the Lord’s, to be used for His kingdom and His glory. This does not mean we can’t invest in new equipment, or purchase additional property for our companies, or keep a prudent amount of funds available for potential emergencies. All of these are good business practices. But we should have in the forefront the idea that all of this is the Lord’s: just like the servants entrusted with the master’s property in Matthew 25, we will also be asked to give an account by our Master for how we managed what He lent to us. Secondly, just as we financially support kingdom causes by giving from our paychecks and dividends, our companies could do the same with their retained earnings and with other resources they have built up. I was exposed to this idea of “corporate tithing” years ago by other Christian business owners. At their annual shareholders’ meeting, where they reviewed the past year’s performance, the shareholders were given an update on how much, and to whom the company had donated in the past twelve months, with the expectation that it would add up to a tenth of the retained earnings from the previous year. This built-in accountability helped the company’s management be intentional about their charitable giving, because there was a specific expectation around a measurable quantity – ten percent of last year’s retained earnings is a clear expectation, and one that can be easily communicated and measured. So how about it, business owners? Could a principle like this be adopted in your business? Can you encourage the company you work for to consider more than nominal support of causes that promote the Kingdom of God? May we be encouraged also by Paul who writes in 2 Cor. 9:6-7: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Just imagine Business tithing brings with it all sorts of opportunities and possibilities. Imagine a business tithed from their profit of $100,000: they could cover the cost of a part-time special needs assistant at their local Christian school. If they tithed from $1M, they could provide the means for a church or non-profit to hire a full-time employee, or do a renovation, or fund a medical clinic in the third world for a year. Imagine doing this consecutively over 10 or even 40 years? It really adds up. It could cover the cost of an entire orphanage etc. Another way businesses can tithe, beyond money, is by hiring people who are otherwise not likely to get a job, or a great job. It might be people with special needs, or who are in a place in life where they really need help/grace. Employment is so meaningful. But if we are only thinking about the bottom line, we won't be keen to take them on. While this editorial focused primarily on the financial portion of a company’s giving back, there are many other ways that businesses can contribute to their community with their employees’ and owners’ time and abilities. If you have suggestions for good practices that encourage good stewardship in these areas, we’d be delighted to learn more! Send us your thoughts. Marty VanDriel is the chief executive officer of two small businesses in Washington State, voluntary treasurer for three non-profit organizations, and assistant editor of Reformed Perspective....

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Little Free Libraries can be a big deal

If you have a (too) well-stocked home library of good Christian books, but you still want to keep stocking it, start passing along your already-read titles to a local Little Free Library, which invites users to “leave a book; take a book.” What a great opportunity to share your favorite Christian authors with the neighborhood! And if you want to be subversive, the books you take when you leave a book can be the kind that you don’t want your neighbors to read. Take out the trash and leave them the treasure instead. It’s a service too, to put garbage into the garbage can. For instance, in my neighborhood’s Little Free Library, I gave up a copy of A.W. Tozer’s God and Men, in exchange for the bigger, but definitely not better, The Origin of Species – Charles Darwin’s kickstarter for the evolution movement – and dropped the latter into my little free wastebasket. On the other hand, more positively, to be more clearly salt and light in your neighborhood, include a bookmark in each book you donate, with suitable contact information and an invitation to email you, or, even better, to talk with you over coffee, about the book. If you want to start your own Little Free Library, check out LittleFreeLibrary.org....

Assorted

Write down your story

Sharing your history is sharing His story ...things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their ...

Assorted

Don’t follow your heart

When it comes to finding true happiness, do the opposite of what culture says ***** Making the happiness crisis in America even worse, especially fo...

Assorted

How to write

…for Reformed Perspective ***** Everyone has at least one article in them – I’m convinced that’s true. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking...

Assorted

Life in bloom: The gift of flowers

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”...

Adult non-fiction, Assorted, Book Reviews

Necessary Endings

Finding the courage to let go in business, church, and family ***** Why did my dad’s tomatoes and cucumbers always flourish? I used to think it may have something to do with the tobacco smoke from his pipe, which he puffed while tending to them. But the success carried on even when the days of the pipe ended. I got my answer some years ago when my dad checked out our greenhouse and noticed lanky cucumber bushes with little fruit. He showed me how to identify “suckers” and shoots that needed to be pinched off. For a new gardener, it seems strange, even shocking, to cut off healthy branches and flowers. But whether it is cucumbers, apple trees, or flowers, God designed many plants to produce more buds than they can sustain. Plants have limited energy, so without pruning, that energy goes towards growth that literally isn’t fruitful. I was looking for cucumbers, not huge cucumber plants without fruit. In other cases, sick branches or dead branches need to be removed, as they will hold back the plant or tree from flourishing. Contrary to popular thought, nature doesn’t do best when left alone. Through these plants, God is teaching us something about our own lives and the causes we invest in, including in business and the Church. We need deliberate pruning – we need to make endings happen. That is true for all stages of life, but especially as we feel the effects of age. Endings are necessary As much as we value beginnings and growth, God has made endings a natural and important aspect of life, even before the Fall into sin. There is day and night, and a season for planting, watering, harvesting, and cleaning up so that it can start over (Eccl. 3:1-2). Accepting endings, and making them happen at times, is the design that God wove in the very fabric of our lives. “In your business and perhaps your life, the tomorrow that you desire and envision may never come to pass if you do not end some things you are doing today.” That is how Christian psychologist and business coach Dr. Henry Cloud opened his book Necessary Endings. This book gave direction and encouragement when I had to make some hard endings a few years back. But the value of it keeps resurfacing as I notice how much we can struggle because we resist endings: • We hold onto possessions that have no more use to us; • Teens refuse to end their childhood, and continue doing little to help the family; • Young adults grow older but fail to launch, continuing to be cared for by their parents; • Seniors don’t deal with past hurts or ongoing sinful patterns because they have resigned themselves to who they are; • Spouses endure abuse because they think they have no choice. In some cases, endings seem to be even a bigger challenge for Christians: • Committees and societies continue longer than they should because the people involved are simply fulfilling their term, and don’t think it is their place to end something that others started; • Poor performance by people in positions of authority (pastors, elders, deacons, volunteers, school board members) can carry on perpetually because others feel that if they speak up, they will be seen as the problem, inviting unwanted conflict and stress into their lives; • A church member can take advantage of the kindness and care of their congregation year after year, without consequence; • Church leadership can struggle for years with following through on church discipline because of the desire that things will turn around. Dr. Cloud pulls no punches in response to scenarios like these. Endings are crucial and “your life and business must face them, stagnate, or die.” He explains that we prune our lives for the same reasons we prune plants. 1. “If an initiative is siphoning off resources that could go to something with more promise, it is pruned. 2. “If an endeavor is sick and is not going to get well, it is pruned. 3. “If it is clear that something is already dead, it is pruned.” Why aren’t we pruning? This is a proven formula for flourishing. So why do we sometimes have such a hard time doing it? An obvious reason is that endings often require confrontation and some pain. Cutting away an apple tree, or pulling flowers off a plant, doesn’t feel good. There are no immediate rewards. We convince ourselves that the status-quo is a better option than change. But the problem with this approach is that we are being led by our feelings rather than reality. It is wishful thinking. Dr. Cloud compares our reluctance to make necessary endings to getting an infected tooth pulled. It isn’t a pleasant experience. But it is so important to get done. “We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow…. That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.” Another reason why we may not be making necessary endings in our lives is because we don’t know what we are aiming for, or pruning towards. We are drifting with the current, reacting to whatever comes our way. This makes sense for our unbelieving world, which struggles to understand what it means to be a human being, man, woman, parent, or senior. The world isn’t interested in following God’s blueprint. It isn’t sure it even wants the cucumber plant to produce cucumbers. Unfortunately, it is also an issue for Christians, even though God gives very clear direction for our lives. We struggle with disciplining our children in response to behaviors that need to stop, even though the Bible makes it clear that God has entrusted parents with this task. We let teens have the responsibilities and expectations of children even though an entire Bible book was given to them to chart a path of responsible living (see Proverbs). And even church leadership can have a difficult time seeing through commands like 1 Corinthians 5:13 to “expel the wicked person from among you.” When we refuse to prune, not only are we making growth more difficult, we are also getting in the way of the beautiful plan that God has for our lives, the church, and society. Perhaps another reason why Christians may feel uncomfortable with this talk of pruning is that it seems to clash with our calling to love even our enemies, or to care for the vulnerable. As we read in Isaiah 42:3, the Lord sustains the weak: “A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.” This is where we need to realize that the pruning metaphor has its limitations. The point of this article, and Dr. Cloud’s book, is not at all to cut away people who have weaknesses. Caring for the vulnerable is one of the goals we are pruning towards and aiming for. We are pruning away what hurts the vulnerable. For example, a church committee that has long passed its expiration date will continue draining the time of its members, and cut into their capacity to help those who really need help. And a person or family who is taking advantage of the care of others in the congregation because they keep asking for help (when they could be taking care of themselves) is preventing the congregation from caring for those who really need it. If all of this sounds like it is based on worldly motivations for productivity, it may help to remember that our Lord Jesus Christ spoke strongly about this: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (John 15:1-2). He was also willing to leave an area and move on. For example, in Mark 1 we read how Jesus went to a solitary place to pray. When his disciples came they said “Everyone is looking for you!” To this, Jesus replied “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Proactive pruning I have written elsewhere how I learned the hard way (through burnout) that life produces too much to sustain. Unfortunately, I had to feel significant pain to pull the pruners out. The problem with waiting until something crosses a line is that it unnecessarily leads to lasting hurt for ourselves and others. My lack of pruning may have seemed to benefit my family (as I was fixing up our home and property) and employer in the short-term, as there was a lot of growth, but it ending up hurting them both. As we age, it is critical that we make pruning a normal and healthy practice of our day-to-day living. As with a cucumber plant or apple tree, this pruning should be done before there is obviously a problem. Proactive pruning also means that we have to let go of meaningful relationships that we once had, even though there is nothing wrong with them. Dr. Cloud points to brain research that shows we seem to have capacity to manage 140 to 150 relationships. As we grow older, our circle will grow quickly. Trying to juggle 300 relationships in a meaningful way is a recipe for doing a horrible job with all 300. So we will only be able to take on new ones if we are pruning old ones. Settling in a new community will mean having to let go of wonderful people from your old home that meant so much to you. Serving on the school board may mean having to give up that weekly visit you treasure so much. And yes, this also means that some people that we used to send a Christmas card to may no longer get it. It doesn’t mean that we no longer care for these people. Rather, it means we are investing in the relationships that God is calling us to in this time and place. Like a cucumber plant, we are directing the limited energy or “juice” we have to the fruit God wants to see. It also means pruning off parts of our lives that haven’t been fruitful, even if we really hoped they would be. A successful business like Starbucks will still regularly shut down hundreds of stores. Dr. Cloud notes that often “when that occurs, the stock prices go up.” That is because the business community understands that pruning isn’t a sign of weakness but of health and strength. The fact that a church plant isn’t growing to the point where it can sustain itself is a reason to consider working towards an ending, not to stop planting churches, but to try again somewhere better. More fertile ground may be waiting, but your next effort can’t start until the other has ended and sufficient resources are freed up. This is also why it was so important that Christian aid organizations have come to realize that simply giving more money, food, and supplies to people in need isn’t necessarily a blessing. In fact, it may be the very thing holding back people from making the changes necessary to succeed long-term. Sometimes the best way to help a person, family, or non-profit is to stop giving them what they are asking for. They won’t make necessary changes until you stop enabling them to carry on as they are. The wise, the foolish, and the evil Throughout his book, Dr. Cloud coaches the readers to figure out if endings are necessary and how to make them. He teaches the reader to get realistic, and even get hopeless if they expect change while carrying on the same way, so they’ll get motivated. But I found the most value in a chapter he devoted to figuring out how to discern whether the process of change is even worth it. For example, “how do you know when to invest the effort with someone to work on making things better and when should you tell them that you are done talking about it?” He does this by explaining that there are essentially only three categories when it comes to people’s character: the wise, the foolish, and the evil. Although his audience isn’t all Christian, he explains that these Scriptural categories are proven true in all fields of life, including business, psychology, and law. It is critical that we understand whether the person we are dealing with is wise, foolish, or evil, because it will determine the track we take and whether an ending is necessary. A wise person recognizes truth for what it is, takes it in, and adjusts themselves accordingly. When corrected, they listen and change their life. As a result, they improve every day again. They are motivated to change, and are willing to show genuine remorse when they need to. When dealing with a wise person, communication goes a long way. They are eager to be trained or coached. Talking helps. A fool doesn’t adjust to the truth. Rather, they adjust the truth so that they don’t have to change themselves. He or she isn’t the problem. Others are. They are defensive, they blame, and talking to them doesn’t help at all. Instead, it creates conflict and division. “At this point it is time to change the conversation from trying to get them to change to talking about the fact that no change is happening and that is the problem…. Roger, this team and the environment we want to have around here are important to me, so I can’t allow your abusive behavior to ruin it anymore.” Adding consequences is often required. “Dave, I want to live in a sober house, and since you have chosen to not do anything about your addiction, I won’t be living with you anymore until you get treatment and get sober.” The key with dealing with foolish people is to end the pattern. “You cannot control them or get them to change. What you can do is create an ending to the effects their refusal to take responsibility is having on you or others.” Although we would love to think otherwise, there are no shortage of fools in our lives. Apart from God’s grace and the working of His Holy Spirit, we are all fools. But we have been born again, and it is important that we act accordingly. Finally, there are evil people, who intentionally want to hurt you. An evil person is the “kind of person who likes to bring others down, is intentionally divisive, enjoys it when someone fails, and tries to create the downfall of others or of the company is to be protected against at all costs.” As Christians, we can be guilty of a living in a pretend world. We see numerous examples of evil people in the Bible, including among God’s covenant people (e.g., Old Testament Israel or the New Testament Church). But we act as if there are no evil people in our families, schools, or churches today, even when the evidence is clearly stacked against us. Untold pain has been caused by tolerating wicked abusers in our circles, simply because we foolishly assumed that if they came from another Reformed church, they must be trustworthy. Parents, elders, and school boards must have the courage to do whatever is necessary to protect God’s children from these wolves in sheep’s clothing (see Matt. 7, 1 Cor. 5). It's time for change Is God looking to you to make a necessary ending? Will you prayerfully consider this? It may be the beginning of a whole new life. A transition begins with an ending, not a new beginning. We don’t just become an adult. We first stop acting like a child. At this point I should add a caution. Some people are so motivated to see things change that they are too eager to prune. Pruning isn’t something to be done carelessly. It takes discernment. If you attack an apple tree with a chainsaw without knowing the right season or method (something I’m guilty of), your tree may die. The goal of this article, and Dr. Cloud’s book, is not to pursue endings for their own sake. Rather, it is to nurture flourishing lives. As such, if you are eager to see an ending, it would be good to first search your heart to discern what is motivating you. Dr. Cloud is a Christian, but the book is written for a broader audience. If we go to Scripture, we can find even more wisdom and perspective as it relates to the importance of endings. God makes it clear in His Word that our lives, and all history, are progressing towards an ending: our impending death and the judgement we will face before His throne. Whether it is through the pain of burnout, disease, or old age, God is reminding us that our lives on earth won’t carry on forever and we shouldn’t pretend they will. He has given us a blueprint to show us how He wants us to use the time He has given. And He also warns us to “keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (Matthew 24:42). But Scriptures also show that God is not a harsh boss who is only interested in the bottom line. Our works aren’t going to satisfy Him. Thankfully, because of the good news of Jesus Christ’s victory over death in our place, death isn’t an ultimate ending. Rather, it is a door to a whole new life of joy. Once again, we see how endings are necessary and open the door to a new life. May our willingness to make endings here reflect the confidence we have in the new life that is waiting. ***** Necessary Endings: The employees, businesses, and relationships that all of us have to give up in order to move forward by Henry Cloud 2011 / 238 pages It is one thing to see the need for pruning, and another to know how to do it. The idea of ending an activity that has gone on for years, or cutting someone out of our lives, can be scary and needs to be managed carefully. Space doesn’t allow me to summarize all of Dr. Cloud’s advice so I’m going to instead encourage readers to get a copy of the book to discover the wealth of wisdom he shares. This includes topics like “having the conversation: strategies for ending things well.” And if you find it difficult to read a whole book on the topic, it is also available as an audio book. Perhaps you can listen to the book with someone else who would be blessed by it....

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The peculiar blessings of Covid

God used even this evil for good ***** In the early spring of 2020, Christian pastors from across Alberta sat on a telephone townhall with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Chief Medical Officer Deena Hinshaw. On the call – which had been scheduled to offer Alberta’s religious leaders an opportunity to ask questions about Covid-related regulations – pastors shared opinions, asked for medical advice, and requested clarification on the government’s early pandemic guidelines. Uncertainty about the future of the pandemic and its effect on in-person worship dominated the conversation. In the months following the townhall, as pandemic restrictions became more hotly contested and closely enforced, pastors and other church members reckoned with deep theological questions about the nature of human embodiment, the importance of in-person worship, and the efficacy of the Lord’s Supper. In addition to such practical theological questions, Canadian Christians – like their non-Christian neighbors – faced a litany of disappointments and devastation over the course of the pandemic era. These included cancelled weddings, cancelled funerals, the death of loved ones from Covid, the death of loved ones from suicide, frayed family relationships, and crushing financial hardships. As a result, many Christians – and most non-Christians – now view the pandemic as a long international nightmare which must never be repeated, and which would best be forgotten. This response to the human devastation of the Covid pandemic is natural. And in many ways it might even be healthy: a desire to constantly relitigate past events at the expense of tackling present problems serves no good purpose. However, underneath the severe difficulties of the Covid-era are surprising proofs of God’s covenant-keeping faithfulness – proofs that should make Christians rejoice in God’s sovereign activity during the Covid pandemic, and should produce hope about God’s activities amid today’s often-grievous cultural developments. Nothing to do but be renewed For some, the hated pandemic restrictions became the means through which God saved their soul. Allison, a young government employee from Alberta, spent much of the pandemic in the United Kingdom, unable to return home. As a result, she stayed at the house of a kind friend who invited her to watch livestreamed worship services. Convicted of her sin and curious about the God proclaimed in the sermons, Allison’s atheistic thinking began to fall apart. Renewed by the Spirit, she embraced the gospel. Today, she is a member of a local church in Calgary, having rejected the godless ideology of atheism and instead now embracing the whole counsel of the God who purchased her with His blood. Jared, a young data scientist from Hong Kong, was unable to find work at the height of the pandemic. Forced to change plans, he moved to Canada to pursue his education and career in a new country, eventually taking a job in Calgary. With no immediate social connections in his new city, Jared started consuming hours of YouTube content and the site’s algorithm eventually led him to Christian apologetics. Intrigued by arguments defending Christianity, he was learning as much about the Christian faith as he could, and soon turned to Christ for salvation. He now faithfully serves his local church where he is beginning to teach theology classes to fellow church members. As Covid spread throughout the world in March of 2020, God carefully laid the foundation for Allison and Jared’s conversion. Long before patient zero, God had chosen vessels of mercy to be converted during the pandemic and ordered the decade’s darkest circumstances to bring His chosen sons and daughters into the marvelous light of His grace. Public education exposed A second proof of God’s covenant-keeping faithfulness during the pandemic is the dramatic expansion of Christian school and homeschool participation in Canada. As school buildings closed, and mom and dad began to pay closer attention to the public school content that was now being streamed into their homes, parents didn’t always like what they were hearing. Some then responded by homeschooling their children, or by placing them in faithful Christian schools. As a result, both homeschooling and Christian school registration rates skyrocketed in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. Jeff Park, the Executive Director of the Alberta Parents Union, commented that, during the Covid pandemic, parents, “…saw hostility to their values, and less competence than they had always assumed. Public trust in public schools took a big hit, especially for people of faith.” According to Park, “God meant for good – to wake up the sleeping giant of Christian parents and save their children from godless indoctrination.” God is using the previous difficulties of school closures to help Christian parents think more deeply about their children’s education. And He is causing many to ask deep questions about the kind of education that will most benefit the souls of their children. Conclusion The Lord grieves the death, division, and persecution of His people. However, He is never surprised by such occurrences. As Christians braced for the unknowns of a viral pandemic in early 2020, God had already prepared for the salvation of men and women who previously cursed His name. As congregations bitterly disputed about distancing requirements, God applied His pruning to strengthen the unity of His church. As governments made school closure decisions, God established the steps of Christian families. In 2020 – despite the fears of many of His people – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not falter in His promises to the church He’d bought with His own blood. He used a virus to build and strengthen His chosen assembly, against whom the gates of Hell have not prevailed. And if God’s faithfulness did not falter through some of the most dramatic world events of the modern era, should we not also have joyful confidence that He will use every other sin and disaster that besets Canadian society for the good of those who love Him? None of this lightens the tragedy of death, the pain of unhealed division, or the grievousness of sin. It does, however, offer a small glimpse into the eternal perspective. As we approach today’s news – war in Ukraine, war in Israel, a society in rapid moral decline, skyrocketing inflation – we must not do so as those without hope. Instead, we do so with the expectation of eternal joy and with a lasting confidence in the wisdom of an Almighty King who will one day split the sky and prove forever that what man meant for evil, God meant for good....

Assorted

More time to pray

Martin and Christina Veenstra on retirement in your nineties ***** Little did Christina Veenstra know, more than six decades ago, that meeting her future husband, Martin Veenstra, at Reformed Bible Institute would help her preparations for retirement. I recently had the opportunity to interview Christina and Martin, and as she explained, prayer was a part of her life then, and is all the more so now, in her nineties. “I went to Reformed Bible Institute (RBI). I wanted to go into nursing, then, but I didn’t know enough English yet, after three years, so they advised me to take . So I went to RBI and that’s where I met Martin. He was in his first year, and I was in my last year, and for me, it was love at first sight. But he had other plans, and he had other girlfriends, but I prayed for three years. When I was in nurses’ training, I prayed for three years that the Lord would give me Martin. “I was a C student in nursing at RBI, but I always passed everything. But then I did not pass my state boards for nursing, because it was multiple choice, and I still was having some problems with dealing with English, so my mind went blank. So I became a graduate nurse. And after I graduated, I think it was either the same week, or the week after, I got a letter from Martin that we would correspond. Then I knew that’s what the Lord meant me to be, that the husband I prayed for would become my husband.” While we do not always get the spouse that we desire, even when we pray for them, in the grace of God, Christina’s three years of prayer brought her two great spiritual benefits: a partner to pray and serve with, and practice in persistent prayer, which she carries on now in her retirement years. Partners in prayer and service God did see fit to grant Christina the husband who, sixty-three years later, continues to join her in prayer for the people they care most about. Martin: “Now that we’re retired, and we’re both 90, I think that our service is more here , because I don’t drive anymore either. But we do get a ride to church every Sunday. So we talk to people here, the people here who don’t know the Lord. We hope that we can help to mold them, and talk to them at hymn sing.” Christina: “We have a hymn sing every Monday evening. Martin plays the organ, and I more or less lead it. We have 50, sometimes 60 people come, and some of them are not from the church. So we are so happy about that. I pray the Lord that I can sing until the day I die.” Practice for persistent prayer Three years of earnest prayer for a very specific thing is good practice for the life of prayer that is now the focus of Martin and Christina’s retirement. Me: “What do you see right now as your role in your own family?” Martin: “Prayer, and more prayer, and then some more prayer, because we have some grandchildren or great-grandchildren that don’t walk with the Lord. They all love us, and we love them too, but they need the Lord.” Christina: “That’s why I pray every morning for the whole family, every one of them, in the morning.” Me: “What do you think is your greatest challenge in life right now?” Martin: “The greatest challenge is prayer, and just, to live daily for the Lord. And hopefully that somehow, in time, rubs off on our children, that they say, ‘We love the Lord.’” Christina: “The Lord can change the heart. As long as we are alive, we’ll pray for them until the very end. The Lord can change their hearts and lives.” “Living the dream” Of course, a life of prayer is not what our culture sees as ideal “golden years.” Back on May 20, 2000, John Piper told a crowd of 40,000 college students to aim for more than just comfort in their retirement: “I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is: ‘Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Fla., where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’ “That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter, before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: ‘Here it is Lord – my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!’ “Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.” Is that “Freedom 55” attitude still around? It seems to be harder to achieve now, but many of those who have the money still want it. Recently, as I was waiting in line at A&W beside an older gentleman, he said that it was good that “we” retired people (I guess I look retired) had plenty of time to kill. So I asked him what a typical day was like for him. He told me that he spent six months every year in Arizona, playing softball and tennis. Living the dream? A counter-cultural daily life Martin and Christina have certainly not bought into that “American dream.” Me: “In what ways are you staying close to the Lord?” Martin: “I love to read Scripture. One thing we learned at Bible school; we fell in love with our Bibles. We love our Bibles; we want to read it more, and I should read more, and now I have the time, so I can. There’s some wonderful things in there that we can know, and remember, and put into practice.” Christina: “I do it in the morning. I’m an early bird. I’m up at five, and Martin gets up at seven, so I have my devotions in the morning.” Martin: “So I read more at night.” Me: “Do you have any things that you share, Bible readings that you share?” Christina: “More or less all day long. If he finds something, then he will tell me, and if I find something in my Bible reading….” Me: “Do you have a list of people that you pray for?” Martin: “Mostly family. We pray for people when we hear about the need, but it changes all the time…” Christina: “And people from the church…” Greatest joy in life So, what is retirement like without the 30-foot boat, the shell collection, or even a driver’s license? For Martin and Christina, it is, even with all the problems of aging, a time of joy: Me: “What is your greatest joy in life now?” Martin: “You raise a wonderful subject. Yesterday we heard about Levi, who is a tax collector who came to know the Lord. He could instantly know the Lord. I think the greatest joy is that we can serve the Lord, and we know that we are His. He made a covenant with us: ‘I am your God, and you are my people,’ and we take that to heart, and believe that, and we rejoice in that. I do think that sometimes there may not be joy enough in this place. We need to dwell on that more. The joy of the Lord is our strength.” Christina: “What is your only comfort in life and death? That I belong with body and soul to my Lord Jesus Christ.” Martin: “I think He strengthens us daily for the walk that we have with Him, and if we want to live with Him, we get reminded of that daily. He wants us, daily, to read the Scriptures, how He loves and cares for us each day….” While Christina needs a walker for her daily walk, because of peripheral neuropathy – ”The outlying nerves don’t like getting old, so they let me know” – she also finds joy in the Scriptures, and the opportunities she has to serve others less formally. Christina: “Over the years, the Bible means more and more to you – how much the Lord means to you. It’s just wonderful. I love this age. You have all the time in the world to be of help, or to read the Bible. When I see somebody that looks a little bit sad, I do encourage them, as much as I can.” Martin: “You want to encourage people as much as you can. When people live in a community, it gets very lonely for people, especially when their spouse dies. So when somebody says, ‘Hi, how are you today?’ – sometimes that’s all it takes.” Christina: “We love it here. We do believe that God put us here….” Unlike Bob and Penny from John Piper’s illustration, who have cause to tremble at their eventual meeting with their Creator, Martin and Christina are not wasting their lives. They are, instead, living in genuine hope in the time that God continues to give them on this earth, as the final Bible passages we discussed show. Me: “Is there a specific Bible passage that lifts you up at this time in your life?” Martin: “Philippians 1: ‘For me to live is Christ; to die is gain.’” Christina: “‘The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life.’ (Ps. 27).” Martin: “Or 103 would be a good one: ‘Bless the LORD and forget not all his benefits.’” Christina: “He is in communion all the time.” Interview responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity....

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Christians don’t retire

Retirement is unbiblical. Before you think that I’m accusing everyone over the age of 65 of unbiblical behavior, let me lay out the case for why Reformed Christians should be wary of the concept of retirement. God created men and women to work – He placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to “work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). This was an application of the cultural mandate to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion” (Gen. 1:28). Although the fall into sin made work toilsome (Gen. 3:17-19), God continues to call each and every person to work and to labor for His Kingdom. Now, this work is not just paid employment. Paid employment is work, but caring for children is work too. Doing chores inside the house and out in the yard is work. Volunteering is work. Serving and ministering to others is work. Going hard six days a week Throughout our entire lives we are called to work six days of every week, with the gift of regular rest on every seventh day. And Scripture is full of rebukes for those who shirk work. Proverbs calls upon the sluggard to consider the industrious ways of the ant (Prov. 6:6-11). In the parable of the talents, Jesus condemns the servant who buried his talent in the ground, exclaiming, “You wicked and slothful servant!” (Matt. 25:26). In 2 Thess. 3:11-12, Paul warns against idleness, having heard that some “walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” Beyond just providing for ourselves and our families, a Christian is also called to “labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4:28). We are called to work as we are able, for the good of ourselves, our neighbors, and ultimately for the glory of God. Worldly view of retirement But our wealthy, twenty-first-century culture has invented the concept of retirement from work. Public policy and cultural expectations encourage people to work until they are 64 years and 364 days old and then quit working entirely on their 65th birthday. From that day on, our culture promises that life can be one of leisure, full of exotic vacations, games of golf, and doting on grandchildren. It is some sort of horrible, evil thing if people have to work past 65. It is this caricature of retirement that I suggest is unbiblical. There is no biblical precedent for retiring from work or picking an arbitrary age to stop serving in the Kingdom of God. Perhaps some will push back and say that rest is good and biblical. And so it is. But perpetual rest on this side of glory is not. The fourth commandment, although the emphasis is on rest, still commands “six days you shall do all your work.” That is the pattern that God gave from creation. Our eternal rest doesn’t start when we reach the age of 65. That rest is only to be found in the life to come. From one line of work to another And so, to those who are retired from their paid employment or whose retirement is on the horizon, Reformed Christians should encourage each other to look around for ways to consider laboring in God’s Kingdom as they are able. Perhaps that is paid employment. Perhaps that is looking after grandchildren. Perhaps that is serving more in the church or volunteering in the community. (And it is worth repeating as you are able. The diminished health and energy of old age can and do limit opportunities for service.) There are any number of suggestions for service that could be made, so I’ll just make one from my personal experience. This is for the older men in the church. My home church in Abbotsford is very blessed to be a young congregation. It is literally overflowing with families and young children. As beautiful as that is, it comes with challenges too. One of those challenges is that many of the potential office-bearers are young and haven’t served as office-bearers before. I just finished my first term as a deacon and, aside from one experienced brother, the other five of us were first-time office-bearers in our twenties and thirties. We all served to the best of our abilities, but doubtless our youth and inexperience shone through many times. It is in situations like these that retired office-bearers have a perfect opportunity to mentor, advise, and encourage younger office-bearers, perhaps going along on visits, joining with a younger office-bearer in prayer over his task, sharing book recommendations, or offering their expertise and advice on difficult situations. The opportunities for service throughout retirement are endless. But the central point is that we view our entire lives as devoted to service of the Kingdom of God. Not just our first 65 years....

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On the Truth, and the cost of lies

"Remember: one lie does not cost you one truth but the Truth" - Hebbel **** It seems that truth is bendable - it has become elastic during the las...

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Why write?

You might not make a lot of money writing, but you can have an impact ***** It’s been said that all that is needed to become a writer is the stron...

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How to be happier

Keep long lists, and short accounts ***** As I pad down the hallway to my home office, sometimes I’ll look down and remember that the laminate pla...

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How to look forward to the future

Hopefulness is a skill we can learn, because… God ***** Doomerism: despair and apathy caused by a disbelief that anything can get better; most oft...

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The pot experiment has been a disaster

If marijuana definitively destroys lives, should we be free to smoke? ***** A few weeks ago, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports publicly supported a measure that would legalize marijuana in Florida. “As an adult,” Portnoy said, “I should be allowed to smoke weed, watch football, and eat pizza on Sunday regardless if I’m at home in Mass or Florida.” To which, Matt Walsh replied: "Can you point to any state or city in the country where life has been, in any way, measurably improved after legalizing marijuana? Where are the legalization success stories? Give me just one please." After the rushed social experiment by many states to legalize marijuana, we know the answer to this important question. Study after study has demonstrated that legal pot has been even more disastrous than predicted. The most obvious consequences have been in basic safety concerns. Legalizing pot correlates with a rise in auto crashes, as well as property and violent crimes. Also, despite the fact that this is now a multibillion-dollar industry, legalizing pot has grown rather than reduced the black market. Promises of health benefits have also proven to be more smoke than substance. Pot’s most devastating impact has been in the arena of mental health, which has declined to epidemic levels in the U.S. This is largely due to the increased potency of pot that is sold today, which is significantly stronger than what was passed around at Woodstock. Analyzing medical data from 6 million people, researchers in Denmark found that up to 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men could be linked to marijuana use. Though advocates and lawmakers have worked to “decrease the public’s perception of its harm,” as the study’s lead author said, they have misrepresented the reality. Other studies also have shown a clear link between marijuana use and psychosis. For example, according to a report at CBS News, "eople who smoked marijuana on a daily basis were three times more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis compared with people who never used the drug. For those who used high-potency marijuana daily, the risk jumped to nearly five times." In other words, pot isn’t a victimless crime and, given its social impact, cannot simply be reduced to a matter of personal freedom. Not only are cannabis users more likely to start using opioids, but the National Academy of Medicine reports that using pot “is likely to increase the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Between 2006 and 2014, emergency room visits for marijuana-induced psychosis tripled to 90,000. Most troubling of all is the link between pot and teen suicide. According  to Colorado state statistics, the drug was found in the system of some 42% of teens who had taken their own lives, a rate nearly twice that of alcohol and four times that of any other substances. Colorado consistently ranks among the worst states in terms of suicide rates. Critics will quickly argue that correlation does not imply causation, but connections like this must be investigated. If nearly half of stroke victims took the same medicine, would we wonder if there was a link worth our consideration? Why the reluctance to connect the dots when it comes to marijuana? Since suicide rates have risen every year that pot has been legal, we’re far past giving the benefit of the doubt. Of course, if lawmakers took up Matt Walsh’s challenge, they’d have to reconsider and recant their promises of personal liberty, not to mention millions of dollars for education and better roads. The science here is all but settled. Pot is bad for individuals, and it’s bad for society. The kind of freedom Portnoy is claiming ends in slavery, a slavery to one’s own passion. It is a freedom from rules and restraint, not a freedom for the good life. True freedom is a necessary means for human flourishing, but as Chuck Colson often noted, there is no true freedom without virtue. A freedom that wrecks the mind, puts families, children, and neighbors at greater risk, and contributes to general social degradation is not freedom. It’s license built on selfishness. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to Breakpoint.org. This is reprinted with permission from the Colson Center....

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6 on Anxiety

“I have anxiety.” How often do we hear this phrase nowadays? And most of us can relate to it. There’s so much to be anxious about in our modern world, with so many things changing all around us. But one thing that doesn’t change, and the one thing Reformed Perspective aims to focus on above all else, is the God Who is our Rock in the midst of the storms. It can be so hard to let Paul’s words “do not be anxious about anything” sink into our souls. But article after article, published through RP’s many years, repeats this simple biblical message. And they pair that biblical foundation with our authors’ personal experiences of how challenging and how peaceful the act of putting these words into practice can be. Be encouraged through these reads below! You can click on each heading to go to the linked article. Learning to be anxious for nothing Mark Penninga shares his own journey through anxiety and burnout. He shares the highlights of his years of learning, counseling, and slow change in the hopes of helping other Christians along the way. He explores how care and concern for others is a good thing, but can cross a line into bearing cares and concerns we were not meant to carry. Anxiety and the triumph of hope: 3 biblical counselors explain anxiety In this interview, three biblical counselors bring their wisdom to explain anxiety and how we can approach it. They give insight into whether anxiety is more common in the Church, and how Christians can sometimes experience it differently. They also give some practical tips. Do not worry… Sharon Bratcher suggests that one root of worry can be our pride, and gives some suggestions for addressing that particular root of anxiety. Technology and our anxious hearts One of the biggest causes of anxiety is our use of technology. Even pastors see this come up in their congregations. Reuben Bredenhof explains why technology can cause such anxiety in us, and how we can recalibrate our relationship to technology in the light of God’s word. Just how bad is the teen anxiety epidemic? While adults are anxious, teen anxiety has been described as an “epidemic.” How bad is it? According to the stats, it is far more common, and there are many reasons for this. This list of factors may help teens and parents sort out what might be contributing to anxiety. Gezellig: cozy, restful What’s the opposite of anxiety? In Dutch, there is an untranslatable word, gezellig, which captures the idea of coziness and restfulness. This concept can be a helpful guide to slowing down in our fast-paced and restless world. Anxiety is a challenge, but we hope these articles give you encouragement and a place to start your journey to the peace God promises us in His Word!...

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A New Atheist loves that old time Religion

In 2007, four now fairly famous atheists – Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins – met to discuss their views. They filmed the discussion, titled it “The Four Horseman,” and when it went viral, they became known as the “Four Horseman of New Atheism.” The name of their group was ironic, since they certainly had no interest in the book of Revelation, in which four horsemen bring God’s judgment on the rebellious world; however, it was also fitting, since the Four Horsemen of Revelation are destructive, as are the New Atheists. Even they seemed to understand the destructive nature of their godless stance. Daniel Dennett saw Darwinism’s Dangerous Idea (the title of his 1995 book) as “a universal acid" that would eat through whatever it came into contact with. The despair of our current culture supports that, though in a way that Dennett did not intend. Cultural Christian? Of these “horsemen” the most famous today is Richard Dawkins, who is best known for his book The God Delusion. His prominence is partly because he is one of only two still living: Christopher Hitchens died in 2011, and Daniel Dennett died just this past April. But Dawkins’ fame is also because he has repeatedly made news for embracing aspects of the very Christianity he’s made his name attacking. And God has allowed Dawkins to live long enough to see some of the impact of his own form of atheistic evangelism, so that the lead horseman could begin to understand the destructiveness of his godless stance. This past year, in an interview with journalist Rachel Johnson, Dawkins declared that he “was slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan was being promoted instead” of Easter, because: “ culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer.” Dawkins noted that “there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian.” But as British evangelist Glen Scrivener noted, Dawkins has maintained his “cultural” Christianity for quite a while now. Dawkins offered to read a chapter of the King James Bible for the Bible Society during the 400-year anniversary of the publication of the KJV back in 2011. Dawkins wasn’t paying tribute to the truth of God’s Word – he was only expressing a “historical interest” in the KJV, equating it to a similar appreciation for Richard Wagner and the Greek gods, since all three give us a better understanding of English literature. He also said that “it is important that religion should not be allowed to hijack this cultural resource.” Scrivener also noted that in 2018, Dawkins tweeted a picture of himself with the following caption: “Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals. So much nicer than the aggressive-sounding ‘Allahu Akhbar.’ Or is that just my cultural upbringing speaking?” Dawkins was more pointed in his 2024 interview with Rachel Johnson. He said: “I love hymns and Christmas carols. I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense,” And later in the interview he added: “Christianity is a fundamentally decent religion.” Comparing the treatment of women and homosexuals in both religions, Dawkins admitted that Christianity’s treatment of all people, whatever their sex or sin, is fundamentally more decent than that of Islam. But he still cannot, or will not, acknowledge why it is more decent. And that why is rooted in Christianity's working out of the truth of Genesis 1: that all people are created in the image of God. There is no fruit without the root Glenn Scrivener makes a great point about Dawkins’ inconsistent positions: he said that Dawkins is like the birds pecking at the seeds of the gospel in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower (Matt. 13:1-8). You can see such pecking in his Easter conversation with Rachel Johnson. He kept pecking at her own limited faith, asking, repeatedly, whether she herself believed in the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus Christ (she could only reply that she’d like to believe it). Scrivener says that Dawkins wants the fruits of Christianity without the root that brought it into being. He makes a connection to a later parable in the same chapter: the Parable of the Mustard Seed where a giant tree grew out of a small seed (Matt. 13:31-32), and suggests that Dawkins is one of the birds that is allowed to perch in the branches, enjoying the earthly fruits of God’s kingdom, even while he saws at the root of the tree. Every knee shall bow (Phil. 2:10) So what is the good news in Dawkins’ claims of cultural Christianity, even as he continues to deny the objective truth of Christianity? Let’s go back to the first Horseman we looked at: Daniel Dennett, who saw evolution – Darwin’s dangerous idea – as the acid that would transform everything it came into contact with. Dawkins has been admitting the terrible truth of Dennett’s boast. Evolution’s attack on the root of Christianity has left the West vulnerable to false gods, like Allah and trans ideology – two things that horrify Dawkins. Dawkins’ confused, but stubborn and hostile, attitude toward Christ shows the truth of Galatians 6:7-8: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” And some people have, unexpectedly, been brought by the Spirit to begin sowing to the Spirit. For instance, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who first embraced atheism in her rejection of her Muslim upbringing, has seen, like Dawkins, how the New Atheism helped open up the West to destructive gods, and how atheism had nothing to counter them. She has been brought to acknowledge both the fruit and the root of Christianity – Christ himself – and in a conversation with Dawkins, opened him up to at least admit that the existence of God is “a dramatic important idea.” The good news is that the lead horseman has to acknowledge that what he and his friends have been sowing – the wind – is reaping the whirlwind. Even better, that whirlwind is preparing some to be blown over by the wind of the Spirit that Jesus tells Nicodemus about (John 3:8). In that way, willingly or unwillingly, they already have to fulfill the truth of Philippians 2:10, and bend the knee before the King....

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RP’s guide to “adulting” – our top articles to help you gain the skills to feel grown up

Young people nowadays feel more anxious and overwhelmed about the future than ever. There are several reasons for this– a relentless onslaught of bad news in the media, the rising cost of living and the overcomplexity of our modern world, and our safety culture that restricts children from practicing independence when young. It’s telling that “adulting” has become a verb, that we feel a need to describe the actions adults take as a skill young people struggle to learn. In the past, young people had a more defined roadmap, and the community surrounding them guided them as they began to take their first steps into the big world. Young people today still can use that guidance from our elders who have navigated this before! That’s why we created this list of articles we have published in the past that offers guidance on different areas of life that young people face. Just click on each title to go to the linked article. Use this guide as a bit of a “roadmap” of options. SHOULD YOU GO TO POSTSECONDARY? We did a whole issue on this topic that’s also worth checking out. I’m graduating – Now what? – Graduating from high school can be a big crossroads – from that point on, your path isn’t so clear. You need to make a choice about the next steps, and here's some advice on how to decide what to do next once you've graduated high school. Thriving at a non-Christian university? – There are many choices of universities, but if you're thinking of attending a secular university, here's some advice! What about a Christian university? – Christian universities aren’t always perfect, but there are some benefits! If you're considering a Christian university, this article has advice for that. Podcasts to get you educated, not schooled – Formal schooling is not the only option for getting educated. Here are some options to learn even if you decide not to go to college or university. Learning can be lifelong, and is not limited to university! CHOOSING A CAREER Having trouble choosing a career? No one can tell you what you should do for work, of course, but it can help to get some insight into what a particular career is like. Your own path in a career will be different, but it’s still helpful to hear from the inside about what others have found. Here are some of the careers we’ve covered in the past, and what it’s like to be a Reformed Christian in these fields. Teacher: Paul Bartels: from carpenter to high school shop teacher Journalist: 87 – The Need for Redeeming Canadian Journalism – Alexandra Ellison (Real Talk Podcast) Comedian: Comedy as a calling Artist: Reformed Perspective has a series of interviews with artists to check out Illustrator: Stephanie Vanderpol has a zoologist in the house Book Publisher/Seller: Albert van der Heide’s passion for print Lawyer: Albertos Polizogopoulos: lawyer for the Lord Entrepreneur: What does a Reformed entrepreneur look like? Homemaker: “Homemaking is the ultimate career” – C.S. Lewis (sort of) MARRIAGE Marriage rates are declining worldwide, and yet many young people desire that loving, secure, lifelong partner in life. It’s just not that easy to find a good match! Here are some articles we’ve published to guide you along the way. How to get married younger – The trend is to get married later in life. But getting married is a worthy aspiration. If you want to get married younger, here’s some advice on how to do it. How I married your grandmother: dating advice for a young man – Sometimes it’s helpful to hear how someone else “did it,” so here’s a personal reflection on exactly how one young man found his wife. Obstacles and roadblocks to having children – Many of us desire to have children, but it’s not always as simple as wanting to have them. First, of course, you have to find someone to get married to. But even then, challenges and obstacles can come up. Here’s some encouragement that children really can be a blessing. BUYING A HOME Home ownership is one of the major things that feels out of reach for young people. It's harder than it used to be, but here are some tips on different ways to reach this goal. Home ownership for Christians: how it happened in the past, and how it might now Tiny home contentment FINANCES A common question is, why didn’t I learn more about finances in school? This is a gigantic topic that is important to learn about! However, a lot of advice depends on your situation and your goals. That said, we’ve covered some general financial topics before, and we encourage you to keep learning about this area. Frugalship: 37 ways to save a buck – on being frugal On investing, with Wade Van Bostelen …but I have a couch – on hospitality FINDING MEANING IN LIFE As Christians, we know the meaning of life, but there can be a difference between knowing in our head and feeling it in our hearts. A big part of growing up is figuring out what’s the “point” of everything we do, and how we as individuals fit into the big picture. Here are some links on finding that meaning and putting it into practice. How to live your best life: knowing, and participating in, the greatest (true) story C.S. Lewis on real happiness and real Christianity CONCLUSION No one can give you a complete roadmap for exactly what you should do with your life, but hopefully the perspectives offered in these articles help you through making decisions. Growing up can look daunting at times, but shouldering the responsibility of living well, and learning to use the gifts God has given you, is a worthwhile and fulfilling journey to take....

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Christians don’t retire

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How to be happier

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How to look forward to the future

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The pot experiment has been a disaster

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6 on Anxiety

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A New Atheist loves that old time Religion

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RP’s guide to “adulting” – our top articles to help you gain the skills to feel grown up