Made for rhythm

I was recently watching a video on Facebook that our missionary colleague, Hazel Bech, put up. It was a video of a group of Christ-followers in Rwanda worshiping God. Their faces were vibrant as they sang and danced for Jesus! I was impressed by the sincerity and joy I saw in those faces. I also loved watching the worshipers dance. They had such rhythm!

As I sit here typing in a coffeehouse, they’re playing music. It’s good music and I can’t help but notice it has rhythm.

Did you know God made rhythm?

I just looked up a definition of the word online:

Rhythm: n. Movement or variation characterized by the regular recurrence or alternation of different quantities or conditions

Music doesn’t exist without rhythm, and its rhythm is really just a reflection of Creation. Everything God made has a natural rhythm.

For example, there’s the rhythm of the seasons: from summer to autumn, from autumn to winter, and so on…

There’s a rhythm to the day: from daylight to night and night to day…

And God also made the human being for rhythm.

Now, I’m not saying that all of us possess a musical rhythm. That’s disproven at any given concert, where everybody is clapping, by the occasional person who is clapping in between the beats!

But our bodies and souls are made for a natural rhythm and, without that rhythm, we don’t function very well. A song without rhythm is just noise, and a life without rhythm is just chaos. In fact, when we don’t respect the natural rhythms of our body and soul, we fall apart, just as the efforts of a symphony orchestra would fall apart as soon as the rhythm was lost.

I mentioned this briefly in my last post. We have to find the right balance in life — the rhythm we were made for — in order to be healthy, spiritually and physically. Let’s consider some of life’s natural rhythms and consider what happens when we lose the beat:

• The rhythm of sleep

  Part of the natural rhythm of our bodies requires proper sleep. If we don’t sleep enough, our bodies begin to break down. Lack of good sleep can lead initially to moodiness, irritability and disinhibition. Then, if a person doesn’t respond to these initial signs by getting the sleep they need, lack of adequate sleep in one’s life can lead to memory loss, the inability to multi-task and apathy. It reduces a person’s ability to be productive and can also make a person dangerous on the road as a person who doesn’t sleep enough is likely to have “micro-sleeps,” nodding off for 5 to 10 seconds, perhaps without even realizing he’s doing so. (reference: Why sleep is important and what happens when you don’t get enough)

  Some people are very proud that they feel they can “get by” with little sleep. They become so driven in their lives and careers that they sacrifice sleep and refuse to recognize they are destroying themselves in the process, by stepping out of rhythm with their body’s needs.

  When a person’s body is not continually renewed through sufficient sleep, his or her body’s healing process is impaired, and the body’s natural defenses against viruses and other illnesses are also broken down. PhD and diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, Michael J. Breus writes:

  Studies show an increased mortality risk for those reporting less than either six or seven hours per night. One study found that reduced sleep time is a greater mortality risk than smoking, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Sleep disturbance is also one of the leading predictors of institutionalization in the elderly, and severe insomnia triples the mortality risk in elderly men. Remarkably, sleep loss may also be a contributing factor to obesity.

  I believe a lack of sleep can be harmful to our spiritual condition as well. Some people legalistically think that they have to get up really early every morning for prayer in order to be “spiritual” enough, but some people’s bodies simply don’t cope with that kind of schedule. If we are made irritable by a lack of sleep, we can’t claim that as a spiritual victory and, if we aren’t taking care of our bodies properly in the name of “spirituality,” we’re missing the point terribly.

  Here’s something the Bible says about sleep:

  “In vain you rise early
  and stay up late,
  toiling for food to eat—
  for he grants sleep to those he loves.” — Psalm 127:2

  God made us with this natural rhythm for a reason and He wants us to honor that rhythm by finding the balance in life necessary to make sure we get our sleep! A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research study, released February 28, 2008, states that one out of ten Americans are sleep deprived. No matter how driven we may be, this is NOT honoring to God. God made your body with a natural rhythm for a reason, and you need to get your sleep.

  For more information about the body’s need for sleep, as well as a consideration of how to help people who simply CAN’T sleep, take a look at these Helpguide articles:

  Sleeping Well: Understanding Sleep Needs, Cycles and Stages

  Tips for Getting Better Sleep: How to Sleep Well Every Night

• The rhythm of sustenance

  When I’m visiting Africa, I sometimes see children whose bellies are extended; not from overeating, but from malnutrition. Due to their poverty, they haven’t had the option to honor their body’s need for sustenance. They truly know what it means to be HUNGRY, and their bodies suffer as a result.

  Most of us don’t know what true HUNGER is. However, we may know what it’s like not to eat PROPERLY. Our bodies have very real needs, and we need to respect those needs.

  The Bible says our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). Taking care of that temple, therefore, is not an optional thing. When we disrespect our body, we disrespect the God who made us and lives within us.

  Respecting the body’s natural rhythm of sustenance means eating properly if we have that option. I’ve had times when I’ve been so driven by my work that I forgot to eat! That’s not good! I’ve also been guilty of not eating PROPERLY. Junk food doesn’t keep the body healthy. My body has needs, and I need to work a proper diet into the balance of my life. To be honest, this is something I haven’t always done well, but I’m trying to work on it.

• The rhythm of exercise

  If our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, we have no right to abuse it. Exercise isn’t something we are meant to do only when we want to lose weight or get nice looking muscles. Exercise is a need that our body has, and we all need to seek ways to get the exercise our body needs. This takes discipline and, once again, it requires finding the balance we need in our life-schedules to make sure we are honoring our body’s needs thus, as a result, honoring the God who made our body.

  

• The rhythm of rest

  Genesis 2:2-3 says:

  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

  God put the rhythm of what came to be known as the Sabbath rest into Creation itself. Even God rested, and He wants us to follow His example. In fact, the Sabbath was so important to God that He put it into the Ten Commandments.

  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” — Exodus 20:8-11

  I don’t believe that the Sabbath was created as some kind of legalistic “religious” day to be forced upon people. It was created as part of the natural rhythm of creation. We NEED that day of rest each week and, when we don’t take it, we are putting ourselves in danger. The body and soul need time to rejuvenate and be refreshed, and we also need that time for important things like paying attention to our family relationships and our relationship with God.

  Airplanes can only stay in the air so many hours before they start to fall apart. Why is that? Because if a plane stayed in the air TOO long, the stress would pull it apart. The same is true for us. If we stay busy too long and don’t take those times to rest, we fall apart physically, emotionally and spiritually.

  I remember the day I made the commitment to take a weekly sabbath rest no matter what. I was VERY busy and wondered how I could get all my work done if I took a day off, but I also knew I was struggling to cope with the stress and that I was tired all the time. So I decided to SCHEDULE a day off each week and find out what happened.

  Here’s what happened; I discovered, when I took one day off each week, I actually accomplished MORE in the remaining six days of the week than I had previously accomplished while working all seven. I also discovered that I felt better, was happier and easier to get along with. I was beginning to respect the rhythm of life and, as I did so, life began to feel more and more like the beautiful song it was made to be!

God made us for rhythm!

To find out how you can help children like the hungry children I mentioned in Africa, check out When I Grow Up, a glocal initiative started by Redeemer’s Church in Reedley, California.

Does God always heal?

Years ago, I knew a woman who was very ill. The people from her church prayed for her and were convinced that God was going to heal her. However, she wasn’t healed.

When it became evident that she wasn’t going to be healed immediately, the people in her church started treating her differently. Why? Because they were convinced of two things:

• If she was ill, it was because there was unconfessed sin in her life.
• If she’d had more faith, she would have been healed.

Eventually, she left that church and found a church with a more balanced, biblical view of her situation. Its people came around her, loved her and helped her in her weakness, never judging her.

How sad, however, that Christians could ever take such a dangerous, non-biblical view. I have heard of others in situations similar to this woman’s whose stories have not ended so well. In some cases, the result has been that people have turned away from God altogether because they became convinced either that they were too sinful to be loved by God or that Christians were all judgmental and that God, therefore, must also be judgmental and unloving.

What would be a biblical response to this lady’s situation? Let me respond briefly to each of the above accusations:

1. If she was ill, it was because there was unconfessed sin in her life.That accusation is certainly not a new one. It represents the same attitude that some of God’s followers had all the way back in the time of Jesus. What’s funny to me, however, is that any Christian today would profess that same attitude when Jesus himself actually addressed it directly in the Bible.

   Lets look at these verses from a story about Jesus in the Gospel of John:

   As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’

   ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’ — John 9: 1-3

   Jesus’ own disciples had fallen prey to this false teaching. They believed that if someone was ill, it was because that person had sinned. When they met a man who had been born blind, however, they found it hard to reconcile with their theology. They wondered how his problem could be as a result of his own sin if he had it from the moment he was born. So they asked Jesus, “Who sinned to cause him to be like this? Was it him or his parents?”

   Jesus’ response must have surprised him, just as it would have surprised the people in the first church from the story above. He told them that his blindness was not the result of personal sin in his life or in the life of his parents. These words of Jesus shatter any suggestion that illness is always a result of personal sin and that it would always be healed if we would simply repent.

   In the case of the man born blind, Jesus said that his blindness actually served a higher purpose, even though the man certainly would never have been able to understand that up to this point in his life. The purpose in his particular case was that the glory of God might be demonstrated through the man’s healing. Might this mean that there is a higher purpose being served behind other people’s illnesses as well, even if in some cases they’re not healed? That raises a lot of other questions that we don’t have the time to go into here, but as we will see in the response to the next accusation, the highest purpose isn’t always immediate healing.

2. If she’d had more faith, she would have been healed.

   The Bible does talk about miraculous healings. One section of Scripture that talks about healing is James 5: 14-15:

   Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

   Does this mean, however, that every sickness will be healed? At first glance, it would seem to be the case. However, this particular verse takes place in the context of a larger argument in James. I can go into that argument in more detail in a different post sometime if anybody asks me to explain it in more detail. For now, though, suffice it to say that it’s too simplistic to assume that this one verse is claiming that EVERY illness will always be healed.

   Besides, reality gets in the way of such a simplistic interpretation. Even all of the original Christians, including James, died. Some of them were killed, but a lot of them also died of natural causes. To say that anyone who is not healed of an illness must be lacking in faith is to suggest that whenever Christ-followers die it is because they finally ran out of faith!

   1 Thessalonians 4 talks about the resurrection of the dead. It says:

   For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. — 1 Thessalonians 4:16

   The hope of the Christ-follower is the hope of the resurrection of the dead, not the avoidance of death and illness.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve known people who have been dramatically healed. Just recently in Africa, there was a blind woman who received her sight when Ernie, one of our team-members prayed with her. My own wife also had an excruciating pain in her back, and when I prayed for her one day it instantly went away.

But then, in the very same week, Karen and I both got really ill with some kind of bug that kept us nearly bed-ridden for a couple of days. When we prayed about that, God didn’t take it away. We just had to ride out that illness until eventually we felt better.

Why is it that sometimes God heals and sometimes He doesn’t? I don’t know. I could share some of the explanations I’ve heard, but the truth is that I don’t know. What I do believe, however, is that He is sovereign and that we just have to trust His final judgment in these things. Perhaps the reason He does NOT always heal is because we need to remember that it’s not ultimately about this life as we know it.

The Apostle Paul said clearly in the Bible that the Christian’s hope is in the resurrection of the dead when Jesus returns. He said in 1 Corinthians 15: 13-14:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Clearly, he did not see the Christian’s ultimate hope as being wrapped up in having perfect bodies here and now. In fact, he went on to say in verse 19:

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

He said that this body is perishable. It is true that God sometimes delays the inevitable through supernatural healings, but even the faith healer dies eventually. Here’s what Paul said:

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. — 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44a

What a wonderful hope we have as followers of Jesus Christ. Though we try to fight off the effects of old age with creams and medicines, the sad fact is that illness, wrinkles and death cannot be held off forever. The good news, however, is that that is not the point! The point is that God is preparing us for an eternity, and when that eternity dawns we all WILL be healed, and our healing will be complete and eternal.

Love yourself, part 2

In my last post, we began a discussion about the statements Paul made about God’s kind of love, agape love, in 1 Corinthians 13. As these statements can be applied to how God wants to teach us to love in all our relationships, we considered how each of these statements can be applied in our relationship with the one person we can never get away from…ourself. We specifically considered 3 of the statements from that chapter and now we will consider 4 more:

1. Love is not boastful or proud

   We are to love ourselves, but we are not supposed to be lovers of self. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul describes what happens when people become boastful and proud, turning into lovers of self.

   The New International Version translates the first part of verse 2 in this way:

   “People will be lovers of themselves.”

   Have you ever seen somebody who was clearly a lover of himself or herself? It’s not a pretty sight! Whenever we start to think the world revolves around “me, me, me,” we become annoying people to be around. We’re being selfish and, really, of no earthly use to those around us. That’s the result of becoming self-ish. It’s a different thing than simply loving ourselves with God’s kind of love.

   “Love is patient and kind.
   Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
   It does not demand its own way.
   It is not irritable,
   and it keeps no record of being wronged.
   It does not rejoice about injustice
   but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
   Love never gives up, never loses faith,
   is always hopeful,
   and endures through every circumstance.”
   
   – 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

2. Love is not rude

   The root meaning of the word translated as “rude” in the Greek derives from behaving indecently, improperly, disgracefully or dishonorably. When we don’t treat ourselves honourably, we disrespect the person God made us to be. We are to treat our selves with courtesy and respect.

   Have you ever been rude to yourself? I remember I once had a good friend who was always putting himself down. I often got after him when he did that. Why? Because when we put ourselves down, we are dishonouring God’s temple, dishonouring the person God made us to be. Instead of talking down on ourselves and focusing on our flaws, we need to learn to celebrate the things we can do and thank God for making us all into people whose lives have a purpose.

3. Love is not irritable

   Did you know that when we are irritable, we do ourselves no favours? We just make it hard to be around us; alienating others and making ourselves miserable. To be irritable means to be easily irritated or annoyed.

   When we’re easily irritated or annoyed by others, this is usually a strong sign that we are not at peace with ourselves.

   I remember a point in my life when I was going through a time of depression & beating up on myself as a result. I noticed I was no longer happy around people anymore either. I would lose my temper easily if I had to wait too long in line or if somebody cut me off in traffic, I was easily hurt and offended by things other people said or did. But as I came to the place of being at peace with myself again, I realized that these other minor irritations in life didn’t really matter.

   If you get upset easily at situations and other people, I suggest you take a look in the mirror. Ask yourself if the real problem is that you are irritated with yourself — not at peace with who you are, the person God made you. God wants to teach you to let go of that irritable nature and let him fill you with his love.

4. Love keeps no record of being wronged

   I think we all know if we hold a grudge against other people, we’re not honoring God. If somebody has hurt you and you keep holding on to your anger — if your tendency is to not forgive but simply say, “I won’t talk to you anymore,” you’re not operating in God’s kind of love, pure and simple.

   But did you know that the same applies toward yourself? When you beat up on yourself and refuse to forgive yourself, you’re in the flesh. To not forgive yourself, in fact, is a sin.

   “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” — 1 John 1:9

   When you confess your sins to Jesus, he forgives you absolutely and completely. He even washes away your wrongs so that they no longer exist. When you continue to act as if the past is still there when Jesus has already taken care of it, you are living in contempt of the blood of Jesus, refusing to accept what Christ has done for you and failing to trust him to keep his promises. Not only that but you are sinning against yourself by violating the rule of love. When you love as Christ has taught you to love, you can’t beat up on yourself. You have to keep no record of wrongs. Say “I’m sorry” where you need to say “I’m sorry,” then forget about it.

   This is only possible with God’s help yet you need only ask him to help you as he wants to set you free from the sin of unforgiveness toward yourself.

   Believe me when I tell you that I know what I’m talking about here! I’ve struggled with this myself! But then, one day I wrote down a list of things I was holding against myself and burnt it, I reminded myself that these things were gone and I was no longer meant to hold onto them.

   Too many Christians spend too much of their time in self-examination. If you stare at yourself all the time you will always find flaws you can pick on! But if you are a Christ-follower, you are not called to excessive self-examination; you’re called to God examination! Look to Him and He’ll take care of you.

These thoughts are just a few examples of how the words of 1 Corinthians might help us change the way we look at ourselves. A Christ-follower has no right to live in contempt of himself. We are meant to love what God loves and to forgive what God forgives.

What kind of relationship do you have with yourself today? Will you let God renew your mind and teach you to see yourself the way He sees you…as forgiven and loved? It’s time to learn to love YOU as God loves you! Agreed, it’s not always easy to do, but that’s one of the goals of living in God’s love and, if you’ll be patient with yourself, God can teach you to love yourself more every day.

Love yourself, part 1

Jesus said there were two great commandments that He wanted us all to follow. The first was to love God; the second was,

“Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”

Was Jesus commanding us to love our neighbour and also to love ourselves? Technically, no. The command was to love our neighbour in the same way we already love ourselves. However, the assumption here was that we do love ourselves.

How can we follow this formula if we hate ourselves? Imagine looking in the mirror and scowling at yourself. Then imagine turning to the people you love and keeping that same scowl in place. That’s kind of what our attitude ends up looking like when we hate ourselves and yet attempt to love others.

I truly believe God wants us to love ourselves.

Four relationships were broken when humanity fell. 1) Our relationship with God, 2) our relationship with each other, 3) our relationship with Creation, and 4) our relationship with self. All these relationships have been broken, but I believe our Creator wants to restore us to these relationships that we may experience the joy of right relationships.

God wants us to learn to love ourselves.

But, some would ask, isn’t self-love wrong? Isn’t that selfishness?

Of course there is such a thing as selfishness, and that is destructive. However, there is also such a thing as a healthy self-love, a love that does not put self on the throne but which — at the same time — has a deep respect for the person God made us each to be. God doesn’t want us to hate what He has made. While that means we shouldn’t hate others, it also means that we should never hate ourselves.

We’ll explore the difference between a healthy love of self and selfishness more in another post but, for now, let’s begin to consider what a healthy self-image looks like.

Many believe that 1 Corinthians 13 is the best description of what real love looks like. That description of real love helps to describe the healthy attitude we should have toward one another, but I believe that the same principles can appropriately be turned upon ourselves as we ask how to rightly relate with the one person we can never get away from…ourself.

Let’s look at just a few of the statements the Apostle Paul made about love in this chapter and consider how they might relate to our relationship with self:

1. Love is patient

   Many of us are hardest on ourselves, expecting things of ourselves that we would never expect from others. We expect more of ourselves than God does, and I believe God wants us to stop being so hard on ourselves. We need to be patient with ourselves.

   Sometimes people get a new job, and they expect to be able to do it perfectly the first day. It’s not likely to happen, however, if we haven’t learned how things are done yet. We need to give ourselves the time to learn and not be impatient with ourselves.

   I remember, when I was learning Spanish, I often got impatient with myself. I wanted to know it NOW, but it didn’t work that way. I had to be patient with myself and learn it step by step; I later reaped the benefits of that. I can speak it fluently today but, if I hadn’t been patient with myself, I would have given up before I ever reached my goal.

   You may not have accomplished everything you want to in life yet, and you may not be where you want to be, but be patient with yourself. Live life step by step…that’s part of loving yourself as God loves you!

2. Love is kind

   A lot of Christians are really good at beating up on themselves. We may try to be kind to others, but we are unkind to ourselves. Sometimes we try to punish ourselves when we don’t think we’ve measured up. However, the Bible says “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

   “Love is patient and kind.
   Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
   It does not demand its own way.
   It is not irritable,
   and it keeps no record of being wronged.
   It does not rejoice about injustice
   but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
   Love never gives up, never loses faith,
   is always hopeful,
   and endures through every circumstance.”
   
   – 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

3. Love is not jealous

   How can I be jealous of myself? Jealousy is the feeling we have when we envy somebody else, and it often has a lot to do with our own self-image and relationship with self. We may look at somebody else and like their hair, we envy them and wish we could have what they have. Why? Because we’re not happy with who we are. We look at somebody else who has a nicer car than us or a nicer house or a better job…and we yearn with jealousy for what they have. Why? Because we’re not happy with who we are or what we have.

   The Apostle Paul said he had learned how to be content in every situation:

   “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” — Philippians 4: 12-13

   What did he say was his secret to living, his secret to contentment? “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” Through his identity in Christ; He had learned to appreciate that whatever he had, he had because that’s what God was going to use in his life and, wherever he was in life, that’s where God wanted to use him.

   Where was he when he said this? Prison. What did he have of the world’s possessions? The best carriage or the nicest house? No, nothing. He was a prisoner at the mercy of an oppressive government that hated Christians. But he was content.

   No jealousy there. He didn’t want somebody else’s life. He realised God had given him the life he had for a reason.

In my next post, we’ll continue to look at 1 Corinthians 13 and consider how a few other statements in it about God’s kind of love can be applied to our relationship with self.