Whining (In the Lord, of course)

Have you ever entered into pious whining?  You know, telling your story of woes and then retelling your story of woes and then for emphasis telling your story of woes with a request for prayer.  Maybe or maybe not, but I suspect you can identify it.  This is what Scripture presents as a way of dealing with the normal human longing to whine. 

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.  Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls. 1 Peter 2:21-25 (NLT)

What does that look like lived out?  The early followers of Christ did it.  Paul gives a description of some “whine” worthy things he went through, but he did not whine. 

Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again.  Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.  Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.  I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.  I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.  Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches.  Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?  If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.  God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, who is worthy of eternal praise, knows I am not lying.  2 Corinthians 11:23-31 (NLT)

Elements of Whining

You can identify whining and find a different approach if you choose.  Here are some elements of whining to consider. 

Self-consumed

If all the bad stuff happens to you.  You might be self-consumed. 

If all the situations around you have to do with you.  You might be self-consumed.

If all you can think about are the situations and bad stuff that happens to you.  You might be self-consumed. 

If all you can talk about are the situations and bad stuff that happens to you.  You might be self-consumed. 

If all your conversations, answers to questions, and prayer requests are about the situations and bad stuff that happens to you.  You might be self-consumed. 

Boomerang Talk

If you have the super power of turning any conversation about the news, someone else’s life, or a Bible verse back to you and your current anxiety you might be a master of boomerang talk. 

If you are good at keeping a story about you going even after it has run its course, the topic has been changed, and someone else wants to join in you might be a Ninja master of boomerang talk. 

Heart Worms

Heart worms are dangerous. 

If you are consistently upset over people and situations not fitting into your idea of how things ought to go you might have heart worms. 

If you are seeking compassion for yourself, but rarely for others you might have heartworms. 

If you are more comfortable fretting, worrying and keeping a fire going under anxiety rather than listening to and turning to the living God you might have heartworms. 

Baiting Support

Using an expression, sigh, short answers in order to get people to ask with genuine concern, “So, what’s wrong?”  You might be baiting support. 

Using Facebook or social media as a tool to make a statement which causes people to jump in with alarm because of the seriousness of the tone with little real information.  You might be baiting support. 

Whining

Whining is an annoying high pitched sound or a person living below the character level God designed and letting everyone else know that it must be everyone else’s fault.  God has better for His people.  Lots better. 

Winning over Whining

It begins with really trusting the Lord.  Really.  We as His people are to follow in His steps.  Even in suffering we are to follow Him.  How did Jesus do with having His back laid open with the whip?  Humiliation in front of spectators and even His own mother as He hung naked on a cross and Jesus did…not…whine.  He had concern for his mother.  He gave grace to the thief on the cross next to Him.  He asked God the Father to forgive them.  That is quite an example.  Jesus had perspective.  Jesus was not self-consumed. 

Paul trusted the Lord even with beatings and hunger and being an outcast and having been ship wrecked.  No whining.  His concern was to serve and honor God.  He was interested in the wellbeing of others.  The connection of others to the one true and living God energized him.  He knew that was the hope for all people.  Anything else will collapse and burn someday.  Winning over whining means keeping the main thing the main thing. 

The thinking that I deserve better opens the door to whining.  Jesus and Paul deserved better.  They did not deserve what they got. They didn’t whine.  Getting to know God better.  Soaking Him up helps break the cycle of self.  Joshua had a big job ahead.  He had to get the people of Israel into the land God was giving them.  It required facing formidable armies, fortified cities, and fear.  God knew what was coming and what would help.  Here is the instruction to Joshua:

Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. Joshua 1:8 (NLT)

See the direction God went with this in order to help Joshua?   In order to accomplish what God had for him in life Joshua had to focus on God’s things not himself.  The whiner instead of studying God’s truth continually will continually study themselves and their circumstances and their heartache.  The whiner instead of meditating on God’s wonderful word will keep going over day and night all that bothers them.  The whiner will not do what God said to do, but instead will turn to stewing about the awful stuff in their life and find a way to whine about it to someone.  The whiner will not prosper or succeed in doing what God has for them to do.  God gave Joshua incredibly helpful directions.  And He had more to say to Joshua. 

This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 (NLT)

Instead of leaving room for whining God says, “BE strong and courageous.”  Fantastic.  Joshua doesn’t have to be afraid or discouraged.  Whiners live in fear and discouragement routinely.  But God has better.  The reason Joshua can move forward is that God was with Him.  Joshua had to do what God said.  When He did…wow.  God was with Him to live fully, to accomplish totally what God had laid out for him. 

Winning over whining as we follow Jesus means there is an attitude adjustment.  Paul describes it well in Philippians 2. 

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Philippians 2:3-5 (NLT)

How much whining would be left after a person gets rid of selfishness, self-aggrandizement and takes on an actual interest in the lives of others?  Not much I reckon. 

How does this work?  A person following Christ gets a grasp of the deep things of Christ, an understanding of the God of heaven, a desire to love truly, and then gets going on it.   

At church seeking to move others closer to Christ and to the Kingdom would replace announcing one’s own accomplishments and worldly pursuits.  Conversations would have an atmosphere of heaven about them.  Of course, the things of this life are matters to be discussed and to be brought before the Lord in prayer, but if they are central whining will soon break loose.  If those things are submitted under the things of God there is hope of solving them with God’s wisdom or of enduring them with God’s strength, but if God is an add in tagged on to the end then you can pretty much guess the outcome. 

Developing maturity in Christ we are people who are better able to see past our own feelings and opinions and enter into more spiritual reality with our feelings and opinions.  Jesus has feelings and opinions but they were not and are not based on the flesh or the world’s ways.  Spiritually healthy emotions can help us get beyond ourselves and into the “interests of others.”  By the way the “interests of others” does not mean if someone is really into college football that you should really be into their team or whatever.  No.  It is what is for their best interest.  It was best for people that Jesus come and live humbly among people of earth.  It was in their best interest He suffer and die on the cross.  Get the idea.  The best interest of someone at church is encouraging, building up, developing in another what they need to love God with all they’ve got and to live with love in their hearts for others.  This is far from being self-consumed, using boomerang talk, struggling with heartworms or baiting support. 

It is time to win over whining.  Now. 

A Story of Maurice, Rees and God

God uses people.  One by one.  Little by little.  Like links on a chain.  God uses people to help others come to know Him.  Maurice Reuben was one of the links for Rees Howells.  Here is a portion from Rees Howells biography that tells of Maurice Reuben, Rees Howells and our great God.  Take a look and see if you find the hand of God at work. 

Rees had not been long in his new home, when he heard that a converted Jew, Maurice Reuben from Pittsburgh, had come to the city for a mission. The first night that he went to hear him, Reuben told the story of his conversion and how the Holy Spirit had revealed Calvary to him. "I had heard preaching on Calvary scores of times before and believed it," said Rees, "but I had never seen Calvary before that night." He was being brought back to the very same point which had so struck him in his cousin's testimony.

Maurice Reuben told how he belonged to a wealthy family" and had the best the world could give him, and "how he had lived to make money. He was a director of Solomon and Reuben, one of the largest stores of Pittsburgh. But the life of one of his buyers used to put him under deep conviction, until one day he said to him, "You must have been born happy." "Yes," replied the buyer, "in my second birth. I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and was born of God. In my first birth I was no happier than you!"

Reuben was so moved by this testimony that he bought a New Testament, and there he was impressed with the fact that all those who followed Jesus were Jews: John the Baptist pointing to Him as the Lamb of God; Peter, James and John, the chief disciples; and to a Jew the Saviour had said, "On this rock will I build My Church." Then he came to the story of the rich young ruler. It was a dramatic moment -- a rich Jew of the twentieth century and under conviction, reading of the Saviour's dealings with a rich Jew of the first century! The way that Reuben saw it was that if Jesus had told that young man to sell all to inherit eternal life, how could he, Reuben, inherit the same gift, unless on the same condition? It was his supreme test. If he became a disciple, he knew that he too stood to lose all. But it was too late to go back; he had seen it, and he must follow; and as Reuben said those words, Rees echoed them in his own heart; it was too late also for him to go back.

Reuben faced it fairly and squarely and counted the cost. His wife might leave him, his brother put him out of the business, and not a single Jew follow him, but he had made up his mind; if he lost everything, he meant to do it. Then one day, on the way to the store, Reuben heard a voice repeating to him the words of John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." The truth flashed upon him -- he accepted Christ and entered into life that moment, he then told his brother and others. According to his father's will he was to forfeit every penny if he changed his religion, but his brother offered to give him 70,000 pounds -- his share of the business -- if he would cross U.S.A. and retire in Montana. But Reuben replied, "I have had the light in Pittsburgh, and I am going to witness in Pittsburgh."

Late that Saturday night detectives came and took him to the police station. On Monday two doctors visited his cell and asked him about the voice he had heard. "Do they question my sanity?" he thought. Two hours later warders came from the asylum and took him to a room where there were twenty-nine mentally deranged people. The bitterness of his position overcame him. He had victory in the lock-up, but this seemed more than he could bear. He fell on his knees by his bed and poured out his heart to the Lord. He did not know how long he was there, but he seemed to lose himself, and a vision of Calvary appeared to him. He said he witnessed every stage of the crucifixion. He forgot his own sufferings in the sufferings of the Saviour, and as he gazed on the Cross, the Master Himself said to him, "And must I bear the Cross alone, and all the world go free?" From a broken heart Reuben answered, "No. There's a cross for everyone, and there's a cross for me." From that hour he was a new man. Instead of complaining at being in the asylum, he began to pray for the other twenty-nine, and to the Saviour he said, "Let me suffer for You. Whatever You allow me to go through, I will never complain again."

Two weeks later, Reuben's brother came to see him, and reproached him for his folly in getting himself into such a place. "Why won't you be wise?" he said. "Get out of here and go to Montana." "Does that offer still stand? Then it is not a medical condition but something else that is keeping me here!" said Reuben with all the keenness of his logical mind. Some Christian friends he was in touch with caused inquiries to be set on foot. In six weeks his release was procured. It became a court case, and the test was on the voice. The judge called the doctor and asked why this man had been certified as insane. "Because he heard a voice," said the doctor. "Didn't the Apostle Paul hear a voice?" countered the judge, who was a Christian man. "This is a disgrace to the American flag," and he told Reuben to prosecute everyone who had anything to do with it. "I shall never prosecute one," answered Reuben, "but I will do one thing -- I will pray for them." He crossed the court and offered his hand to his brother, but he turned his back on him. He went to his wife, but she did the same. But what a victory he had in his own soul!

He rented a small room in Chicago, where he lived alone with the Lord and won many converts, though for two years he hardly ever had a square meal. A year later his wife came to hear him in a camp meeting and was converted, and for t-he first time he saw his little boy who had been born after his wife had left him. She was willing to make her home with him again, if only he would earn a living as other Christians did. His heart went out to his little boy, and this test was even greater than the first. Her request seemed so reasonable, but he knew that the Lord had called him from the world into this life of faith. He pleaded with the Lord, but the only reply he received was, "Back to Egypt!" It was enough, and once more Reuben embraced the Cross. He went to see his wife and child off; it was a costly experience; but as the train steamed out of the station it seemed that God poured the joy of heaven into his soul. He literally danced on the platform. He did not see his wife for another three years. Then, in another camp meeting, she too had a revelation of the Cross, as a result of which she testified, that whereas before as a believer she had not been willing to share the sacrificial life of her husband, if it would be for God's glory, she would now be willing to beg her bread from door to door. They were reunited and she became a wonderful co-worker with him in his ministry.

One thing that had hindered Rees Howells from coming through before was that while people said they were born again, he could not see that their lives were better than his. How then could he be convinced that they had something he had not? But he had sometimes said to the Lord, "If I ever see a person who is living the Sermon on the Mount, I will give in." Before Reuben came to the end of his story, the Lord said to. Rees, "Is this your man?"

What followed in that little Methodist Chapel Rees Howells tells in his own words: "As Maurice Reuben brought those sacred scenes before us, I too saw the Cross. It seemed as if I spent ages at the Saviour's feet, and I wept and wept. I felt as if He had died just for me. 1 lost myself. I had been living in the fear of death, and I saw Him taking that death for me. My parents loved me very much, and up to that time, to me there were no people like them, but they never suffered death for me. He did it. His love for me, as compared with theirs, was as high as the heavens above the earth, and He won my love -- every bit of it. He broke me, and everything in me went right out to Him.

"Then He spoke to me, and said, 'Behold I stand at the door and knock. May I come in to you, as I came in to Reuben and took the place of wife and son and home and store and world? Will you accept me?' 'Yes,' I replied, and He came in, and that moment I changed. I was born into another world. I found myself in the Kingdom of God, and the Creator became my Father. That night I received the gift of eternal life, that gift which money cannot buy.

"When I went home, my friend who had accompanied me to the meeting, but had seen nothing in it, seemed so rough to me. Everyone who was not born again seemed rough. The Saviour became everything to me. He was not only the fairest among ten thousand, but fairest among millions! That love of His had always been there, but before I saw it, there was no-response from me; but He had plenty of response after this. Everything of this world was rough, but everything about. Him, so holy, pure and beautiful. I changed .altogether. None of my old friends could understand what had happened. I had no fellowship with natural things. It wasn't a point of doctrine I saw; no, it was Calvary. It wasn't giving a mental assent; no, the veil was taken back, my eyes were opened, and I saw Him. That night I saw this world as a cursed place, and the thought came to me that I would never touch it again.

"The love of the Saviour was revealed to me, You can't explain what a revelation is. I saw that the Saviour and Father, before I should suffer, would rather suffer for me. No natural love is in the same world as His love. It was not merely that the Saviour helped me outside Himself; no, He took my place. I saw every other love so rough in comparison. Self was the motive of it. But I could see that love enduring through the countless ages of eternity. When you receive the Saviour, you receive the love of God. That love flooded my being, and it has flooded my being ever since. I .saw that by His coming in to me, He would love sinners through me, as He loved me. It would not be forcing myself to love others, any more than the Saviour forced Himself to love me. No person could be an enemy to me, because I had been an enemy to Him before I was reconciled. If I live in the realm where He is, I live to have mercy, and to be kind, to love others. Could the love of God in me do harm to anyone? I had left the world and its folly, and been born into that Kingdom where there is only the love of God -- the most attractive life on the face of the earth."

Rees always spoke of this, his spiritual birthday, as the most outstanding day of his life. It was the day which brought his stay in America to a close. He never forgot that it was in the U.S.A. and through a Jew that he found the Saviour, and that he owed a debt to God's chosen people which he was to repay in later years, but he felt that his first witness should be to his own folk, who had nurtured him in the things of God. The thought of returning home was crystallized for him within a few days by a sharp temptation on the point of his previous weakness -- the love of money. The manager of the works where he was employed had a high opinion of him, and offered him a job at 2 pounds 10s. a day, a good wage even for America in those days, but it would have meant more claim on his time. He told his friend that he was leaving as soon as he could, "because the manager is putting a temptation before me, and I told the Lord I would never live for money." The new life was quickly pushing out the old. As he said, he had gone out to do sight-seeing, but had seen the greatest sight in the world -- Calvary!

DO WE BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST?

The importance of the Holy Spirit is pointed out by Samuel Chadwick

In this article from the book The Way to Pentecost, Samuel Chadwick, takes on the ways of the church in his day and of the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of the follower of Jesus.  Chadwick (1860-1932) was a Wesleyan Methodist minister in northern England and in Scotland.  He ended his career as Principal of Cliff College where famed evangelist Leonard Ravenhill was trained.  

His family were devoted Christians.  His father worked at the cotton mill, and at age 8 young Samuel joined him working twelve hour shifts.  At age 21 Chadwick became a lay preacher, but it was later in his 20s that the experience of God so shook him that he was aflame with passion for Him.  The book from which this portion is taken was being printed as Samuel lay dying in 1932.  He has a lot to say to us in our day about being aflame for God.  Here are a couple of noted quotes by Samuel Chadwick: 

The soul's safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power. Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.

The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.

I hope you are blessed with the insights and instruction of Samuel Chadwick:

 The Apostles' Creed contains ten articles on the Person and Work of Christ, and only one on the Holy Spirit. The proportion of ten to one about represents the interest in the doctrine of the Spirit in the history of Christian thought. No doctrine of the Christian faith has been so neglected.

Sermons and hymns are singularly barren on this subject, and the last great book on the Spirit was written in 1674. This is all the more remarkable when we remember that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate fact of Revelation and the unique force in Redemption. No other religion has anything corresponding to the Christian doctrine of the Spirit, and in the Christian religion there is nothing so vital, pervasive, and effective. John Owen speaks of it as the touchstone of faith; the one article by which the Church stands or falls. Thomas Arnold said it is "the very main thing of all. We are living under the dispensation of the Spirit; in that character God now reveals Himself to His people. He who does not know God the Holy Ghost cannot know God at all."

The Holy Scriptures declare Him to be the revealer of all truth, the active agent in all works of redemption, and from first to last the instrument of Grace in the experience of salvation. In Him, and through Him, and by Him, is the power that saves. Illumination and Conviction, Repentance and Regeneration, Assurance and Sanctification, are all the work of God the eternal Spirit. To the Church He is the Source and Supply of wisdom and power. The Church is the Body of Christ, indwelt and controlled by the Spirit. He directs, energizes, and controls. From first to last this Dispensation is the Dispensation of the Spirit.

The Fruit of Neglect

The Church affirms its faith in the Holy Ghost every time it repeats its Creed, but does the Church really believe its belief? Modern writers are contending that the name is nothing more than a figure of speech for spiritual atmosphere. They regard it as one of the misfortunes of the Christian religion that Personality has been claimed for the Spirit. The life of the Church witnesses to the same attitude. The things of the Spirit are ignored as of no account. Atmosphere is valued.

Religious assemblies of a certain order give a large place to silent pauses which produce emotional excitement.  When our fathers glowed with fires kindled in the soul, they gave vent in noise. The modern way is to be still. Spirituality and silence are as wedded as were revivalism and rowdiness. Both types are emotional, but revivalists did believe their work was of the Spirit; the Quietists cultivate psychological influence. They speak of the Spirit with a different content from that of the Creeds.

The blunders and disasters of the Church are largely, if not entirely, accounted for by the neglect of the Spirit's Ministry and Mission. The morass of speculation about the Bible takes no account of the Holy Spirit. It regards inspiration as negligible, and insists upon interpreting Revealed Truth by no standards save those of history and literature. Miracles are condemned without trial. Prophesy is dismissed without inquiry. Revelation is ignored without reason. Under the plea of breadth, all truth is thrust into uniform ruts. Our Lord spoke of the Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and promised that He would guide His people into all Truth. He spoke by the Prophets.

There were many writers, but He is the Author, and the Bible can neither be accounted for nor interpreted but by His guidance, He holds the key; He is the Key. Revealed Truth can be known only through the Revealer.  Ignoring this, scholars and historians, grammarians and antiquarians, critics and agnostics, are blind in the midst of light. The same result is seen in the belief about our Lord Jesus Christ, the Experience of Grace, and the Doctrine of the Church. No man can say Jesus is Lord save by the Holy Ghost, but men are seeking to interpret the Christ in terms of reason, history, and philosophy. The Christian religion begins in a New Birth in the power of the Spirit. It is developed under His guidance, and sustained by His presence; but ignoring the Spirit, it becomes a matter of education and evolution. The Church is the Body of Christ begotten, unified, and indwelt by the Spirit, but forgetting the Spirit, men wrangle over limbs, functions, and orders. The Christian religion is hopeless without the Holy Ghost.

The Problems of the Church

As in truth, so it is in service. The Church is helpless without the presence and power of the Spirit. The Church never talked so much about itself and its problems. That is always a bad sign. The lust for talk about work increases as the power for work declines. Conferences multiply when work fails. The problems of the Church are never solved by talking about them. The problems arise out of failures.

There is no need to discuss the problem of reaching the masses, so long as the masses are being reached. There is no problem of empty churches, so long as churches are full. There is no class-meeting question, as long as the class meeting throbs with life and ministers to the manifold needs of heart and life. The power to attract is in attractiveness, and it is useless to advertise the banquet if there is nothing to eat.

 We are acting as though the only remedy for decline were method, organization, and compromise. The Church is failing to meet modern needs, grip the modern mind, and save modern life. The saints are the ordained rulers of the earth, but they do not rule; indeed, they have dropped the scepter and repudiated the responsibility. The helplessness of the Church is pathetic and tragic. There might be no such Person as the Holy Ghost.

Believers Without the Holy Ghost

The Church knows quite well both the reason and the remedy for failure. The human resources of the Church were never so great. The opportunities of the Church were never so glorious. The need for the work of the Church was never so urgent. The crisis is momentous; and the Church staggers helplessly amid it all. When the ancient Church reproached God with sleeping at the post of duty, God charged His people with being staggering drunk. The Church knows perfectly well what is the matter. It is sheer cant to seek the explanation in changed conditions. (cant: British term for humbug; statements, especially on religious or moral subjects, that are not sincerely believed by the person making them)

When were conditions ever anything else? The Church has lost the note of authority, the secret of wisdom, and the gift of power, through persistent and willful neglect of the Holy Spirit of God. Confusion and impotence are inevitable when the wisdom and resources of the world are substituted for the presence and power of the Spirit of God. Proofs abound.

The New Testament furnishes examples of Churches filled with the Spirit and Churches without the Spirit. The differences are obvious. The Church of which Apollos was minister had not so much as heard that the Spirit was given. The Church in our day has no such excuse. Ours is the sin of denial. He has been shut out from the province in which He is indispensable. Religion has been reconstructed without Him. There is no denial of the supernatural, but it is insisted that the supernatural must conform to natural law. It is admitted that truth is inspired, but its inspiration must develop along the lines of natural selection and growth.

Religion cannot be allowed to have come upon any other lines than those of literature, philosophy, and ethics. The Christian religion has simply the honor of being less faulty than the rest. Jesus Christ must be accounted for in the same way. He is simply the crown and consummation of a progressive humanity. The emphasis is upon the Man, and in that emphasis there is reason to rejoice but the strange thing is that in the intense interest in Jesus the certainties about Him that come through the Spirit have been lost.

Doctrine Without Experience

The Church still has a theology of the Holy Ghost, but it has no living consciousness of His presence and power. Theology without experience is like faith without works: it is dead. The signs of death abound. Prayer-meetings have died out because men did not believe in the Holy Ghost. The liberty of prophesying has gone because men believe in investigation and not in inspiration. There is a dearth of conversions because faith about the New Birth as a creative act of the Holy Ghost has lost its grip on intellect and heart. The experience of the Second Gift of Grace is no longer preached and testified, because Christian experience, though it may have to begin in the Spirit, must be perfected in the wisdom of the flesh and the culture of the schools. Confusion and impotence are the inevitable results when the wisdom and resources of the world are substituted for the presence and power of the Spirit.

The rebound from materialism is seen in such movements as Christian Science, Spiritualism, and Theosophy. It is the truth in these things that gives them their power, and it is useless to denounce them. They are the reaction of the spirit against the bondage of the flesh and of the mind. The cravings they represent must be met by the experience of Pentecost. Modernism and Mysticism are also the products of a religion that is not baptized of the Holy Ghost. Sacerdotalism is another. (Sacerdotalism: tradition, beliefs in the authority of priests to bridge the gap between God and His people)  These things flourish on impoverished soil and dunghills. They are the works of the flesh, and the product of spiritual death. The remedy for them is not in reproach and bitterness, but in floods and rivers, winds and sun. The answer is in the demonstration of a supernatural religion, and the only way to a supernatural religion is in the abiding presence of the Spirit of God.

-Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost

Why Lent, Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras or Carnival?

A season of getting things right with God

Over the centuries Since Christ was here a variety of practices developed and that is the nature of Lent, Ash Wednesday and Mardi Gras (Carnival).  There are varieties on the theme, but basically the high holy time in the Christian calendar is the day of resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  The days leading up to this holy day began to take on significance and it was thought good to prepare the hearts of Jesus’ followers for such a time.  

 How would they prepare? They would focus more on a right relationship with God through prayer.  They would focus less on the things of this life and fast or give up certain things they enjoyed.  They would get right with the ways of God and repent of their sins and then do things to prove their seriousness in repentance.  

 How long would they do this?  The Gospels tell of Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the desert, and the number stuck.  Counting backward from the Sunday of the Resurrection (Easter) forty days of fasting you get to…umm not quite.  Some traditions include 6 Sundays.  Sundays are non-fast days and are not included in the forty.  So, forty plus 6 Sundays we get 46 days before Easter.  Which places us on the calendar on a Wednesday.  

 This year that Wednesday is February 18.  It has the name Ash Wednesday because of a practice among some Christians of placing a cross made of ashes on the forehead.  The ashes are from the remains of palms used in the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration.   They are blessed and used to denote one is entering into the season of getting things right with God.  The person is to repent, confess and get things right on Wednesday and be marked by the cross made of ashes on the forehead to begin the journey to the cross and beyond to the resurrection.  It may be something like the “I Voted” stickers one receives after voting in an election.  It identifies you as one who participated in the system.  

 What happens before the beginning of Lent and Ash Wednesday?  Tuesday is the final day of Mardi Gras (Carnival, Fat Tuesday).  Fat Tuesday is the last big juicy meal before the fasting starts Wednesday.  It has become a huge party in New Orleans and in Rio, but in times past it was a celebration for good to come not a celebration of the flesh to run amok.  The whole period of Carnival celebrations ran from Epiphany (Celebrated January 6), the twelfth day of Christmas which is when the Wise Men came to see Jesus the King to Mardi Gras the day before Lent begins.  A special cake has been part of that festivity called the King Cake.  Inside this cake is a bean or a plastic baby representing the baby Jesus.  The one who has the King in their slice of cake is blessed and in some traditions is responsible for the cake the following year.  OK, did you get all that?

Feel free to enjoy such celebrations.  Joyous feasting and somber fasts have a place in our interactions with our God and others.  You can choose the time and place or go with traditions developed by others.  Getting closer to God, however, is 24/7.  Being real with God and dealing with any distancing from Him, sins or failures are things to be dealt with on the spot and at the time not collected for a special time of year.  These kinds of traditions can remind us to get closer to God if we have wandered.  Even a Mardi Gras party can be enjoyed without going to excess or into sin in order to receive grace the next day.  God invented fun.  His kind of fun comes with joy in the morning and not hangovers or negative consequences.  Happy Mardi Gras, and keep getting closer to God.