Envy: The malaise afflicting the redeemed

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A friend asked, “Have you noticed that so many Christians seem to be discontented with their lot?  That they envy the rest of the world, and maybe even resent a little having to live like Jesus?”

If this is true–and I suspect it is–it’s not a new phenomenon.  The condition has been with us from early on.

The malady was voiced perfectly by the Psalmist:

“I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:3).

You and I suspect the Psalmist may have been a bit too selective of the ungodly whom he chose to envy. But that’s how we do it, after all.

Envy is selective.

All around the Psalmist were wicked people living wretched lives, filling the jails, fighting and killing, fornicating and drinking themselves into early graves.  Those people also are “the boastful” and “the wicked.”  But he focuses on none of those.  The ones he admires and even envies are the “up and out,” not the “down and out.”  Look how he describes them….

–There are no pangs in their death. (Psalm 73:4)

–They are not in trouble like other people. (73:5)

–They have an abundance of this world’s goods. (73:7)

–They speak against God and show no respect for sacred things, and seem to get by with it. (73:8-9)

–They are always at ease; they increase in riches. (73:12)

In short, those he envies have “got it made.”

After casting the envious eye toward his wealthy and ungodly neighbors, the Psalmist begins to wonder if he has wasted his own time serving God. “Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain.”  “All day long I have been plagued and chastened every morning,” he says, implying that it was all for nothing.

Let’s admit something up front: Serving God can often be tough. 

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A shepherd reports on that night in Bethlehem

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“Now there were in the same country shepherds abiding in their fields by night….” (Luke 2)

(What follows is a report from the youngest shepherd of that fateful night in the field outside Bethlehem, with the editor’s occasional remark in italics.)

I was not supposed to work that night, it being a school night. My friend Elihu asked me to fill in for him.  Now, my father is not real thrilled with me hanging out with some of these characters who work those night shifts with the sheep.  Shepherding is the ultimate unskilled labor and only those who can’t do anything else need apply.

But Father knows I’m a good student and agreed that we could use the money.

Anyway, that’s how it happened that I had the most amazing experience of my young life.

Did I say I’m only 15? So, it’s not like I have seen everything, but this is surely the high point of my life so far. I can’t imagine it getting any better.

Shepherding anytime is no fun, but at night it is the most boring work imaginable. The sheep are not grazing and not even wandering around. They’re asleep. Even dumb animals know night-time is when you shut down and get some rest.  But, I’m not complaining. It’s a job, and there aren’t many of those around for people my age.

Mostly, we were there to protect the flocks from the wild animals. Several small flocks were intermingled across the meadow. It’s too much trouble to herd the sheep back and forth from their farms each evening and morning, and labor being cheap, there we were.

There were four of us on duty there that night. What were we talking about? I ‘ve mostly forgotten. Something about Elihu’s real reason for missing work, I think. Yitzhak seems to think he has a girl somewhere and she sneaks out to meet him when her father isn’t looking. Since Yitzhak has done that a time or two, we teased him about being such an expert on the subject.

Scholars say shepherds in First Century Judea were notoriously dishonest and often disreputable. Their testimony was not accepted in court.  Interesting that the Heavenly Father chose shepherds as the first welcoming committee for the Lord Jesus. Clearly, the Heavenly Father is no Pharisee!

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Discovered: The secret to a great marriage

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God brought her to Adam.  And Adam said, “At last!”  –Genesis 2:22-23, pretty much.

Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another.  — Romans 12:10

In lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself.  –Philippians 2:3

My wife and I each think we got the better part of the deal.

That’s it.  That’s our “secret.”

After 52 years of marriage–she to Gary and I to Margaret–Bertha Pepper Fagan and I met on February 15, 2016. And we knew that week that the Lord had put us together. We were married the following January 11.  Next anniversary is number seven for us.

Everyone on my side of the family delights in my bride. And, as far as I can tell, Bertha’s side all seem okay with her pick of a hubby. So, we’re doing great.

We could wish every couple felt this way.

Have you ever known anyone who felt they married beneath themselves? That they could have done better?  I have. See below.

Not good.  That’s a relationship killer, to be sure.

Over the years I’ve seen that attitude ruin several promising marriages. And when it happens to a couple in ministry, it can destroy their ministry.

I’m thinking of one such couple. The husband told me this story after the wife abandoned him and their children for another man.

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What if your cross happens to be the one you married?

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And so it came to pass in the morning, that, behold, it was Leah.  (Genesis 29:25)

Jacob was neither the first nor the last to find that the person he married was far different from the one he had proposed to and thought he was getting!

I’ve known a few pastors over the years whose marriages were crosses they had to bear.  I thought of that while reading Heirs of the Founders by H. W. Brands, as he commented on the marriage of John and Floride Calhoun.

John C. Calhoun was a prominent political figure in America the first-half of the 19th Century.  A senator from South Carolina, he served as Vice-President under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. His home, Fort Hill Plantation, is located in Clemson, SC, and is open for visitors.  Calhoun was a fascinating character about whom no one back then (or now!) was neutral. His son-in-law founded Clemson University.

To say the Calhouns had a difficult marriage would be an understatement.  And yet, it had a romantic beginning, as most probably do.

Calhoun was some years older than Floride. While she was growing up, he cultivated her mother, who had been widowed when her daughter was only ten.   Calhoun wrote long letters to the mother on topics ranging from family matters to politics. Gradually, as the daughter matured he inserted references to Floride.  In time, he directed his correspondence to the daughter who was only too happy to return his affection.  His letters were flowery and affectionate.  “…I shall behold the dearest object of my hopes and desires.”  “To be united in mutual virtuous love is the first and best bliss that God has permitted to our natures.”

In time, they were wed.  Now, we fast forward a few years.  Dr. Brands writes…

The marriage of John and Floride Calhoun had unfolded without surprises but not without difficulty.  She bore one child after another, to a sum of ten.  Three died early, leaving painful memories but still a full house at the upcountry plantation…

Calhoun was busy in the affairs of state and had little time for the little things that wives often appreciate.  He paid dearly for the omission.

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Your marriage is similar to all the others, I betcha!

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“They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah” (Genesis 26:35).

No marriage is perfect.

The union of two godly well-intentioned disciples of Jesus Christ does not guarantee a successful marriage.

And even the successful ones–however we define that!–in almost every case had their ups and downs.

So, if you’ve been feeling like a failure because a) your husband spends more time at the church than at home, b) your wife isn’t nearly the cook or housekeeper your mom was, c) you and your spouse argue, d) you have each lost your temper and said/done some things you regretted later, or e) all of the above, then….

Welcome to the human race.

Let me refer you to William J. Petersen’s book 25 Surprising Marriages: Faith-building Stories from the Lives of Famous Christians. It’s worth the price, friend.

Petersen has chapters on the marriages of Martin and Katie Luther, of C. S. and Joy Lewis, and of Billy and Nell Sunday.  He writes about Charles and Susie Spurgeon, Dwight and Emma Moody, John and Molly Wesley, and Billy and Ruth Graham.  He has chapters titled “Grace Livingston Hill and her two husbands,” and “John Bunyan and his two wives.”

Personally, I wish he had included a chapter on Elisabeth Elliot and her three husbands.  But he didn’t.

I wish we had discovered this wonderful volume (written in 1997) when Margaret and I were in the thick of pastoring and she was chafing under the demands of the ministry, the expectations of the church members, and the absenteeism and/or distraction of her husband. (We married in 1962 and God called her to Heaven in 2015.)

These days, I tell young pastors’ wives that they have so much in common with one another, even across denominational lines.  The wife of the Church of God pastor, the wife of the Holiness pastor, the wife of the Presbyterian pastor, the wife of the Christian Church pastor, and the wife of the Southern Baptist pastor–to name a few–all fight the same battles.

What battles?

I’m glad you asked.  See if any of this sounds familiar….

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What true love looks like

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This is a special edition of this blog for my granddaughter Erin and her guy Ken as they become husband and wife in a couple of days.  This is a reprint from a couple of years back and I thought a nearlywed/newlywed couple would appreciate it. 

No one will ever convince me Solomon wrote the “Song” attributed to him in the Old Testament.

No one with hundreds of wives and a gymnasiumful of ready-made girlfriends can focus on one woman the way the writer of that poetic rhapsody did.  (If you love the Song of Solomon, good. I’m only saying there is no way it’s from the pen and heart of this Israeli king. See my note at the end.)

True love is not about being enamored by the sheen in her hair or the gleam in her brown eyes.  It’s far deeper than that.

I was preaching a revival in Elberta, Alabama, a sweet little community near the coastal resort town of Gulf Shores.  One morning, host pastor Mike Keech and I met for breakfast at a quaint little cafe called Grits ‘n Gravy. I’d brought along my sketch pad, so over the next hour we table-hopped and I drew all the diners, a dozen or more, as well as Patrick the owner and Megan the counter lady.  Everyone was friendly and the chatter was delightful, but no one was more memorable than the senior couple sitting in a corner booth.

The man had a long white beard. I walked over and said, “Folks, I’m a cartoonist and I draw people. And you, sir, are just crying to be drawn.”  “Oh?” he said. “Yes sir. You look like a character and I do love to draw characters.”

“I’m not a character,” he said solemnly.

His wife said with a smile, “He is most definitely a character.”

I sat down beside them and sketched both.

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When the pastor feels the sermon bombed

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My friend’s story could be told by every preacher in the land.

“When I stepped off the platform Sunday morning, I knew I had laid an egg. The sermon seemed to have been still-born. It just didn’t work. I felt awful.”

“But the most amazing thing. People were down at the altar praying, and ever since a number of people have come up to me saying how it ministered to them.”

Just goes to show, I said.

Goes to show what?

I raised that question on Facebook, asking pastors who have felt that they bombed and then heard that the sermon had special meaning to many, what they learned from the experience. The answers were all of one theme: “That God can use anything.” “God can speak through a donkey.” “How unimportant the messenger is.” “Christ is everything.”

A friend who was visiting in our home wanted to hear a certain pastor in the city.  I was happy to accompany her there. That day, the minister’s sermon was not up to his usual standards. He is normally one of the finest expositors anywhere.

In the car afterwards, my friend said, “That was a wonderful sermon. Just what I needed to hear today.”

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Lord, deliver us from our word-congestion!

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“Let thy words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2).

We preachers know how to “multiply words without end.”

Preaching is our occupation and wordiness is our occupational hazard.

Well-meaning friends call on us for a few words before a gathering of some type and half an hour later, they wish we would sit down and shut up.

When one preacher asked why his hosts had not called on him to say grace throughout the entire week they’d been together, the man replied, “Because we want to eat tonight!”  (I was there and I heard it.)

“Words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, while the lips of a fool consume him…. Yet the fool multiplies words” (Ecclesiastes 10:12-13)

We fill the silence with words, fill the air with our thoughts, try the patience of everyone around us with our wordiness.  Long prayers, wordy introductions, repetitive announcements, the list is unending.

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Why Mark 13 is so hard for me

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When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened.  These things must take place, but that is not yet the end (Mark 13:7).

I used to know a lot more about Bible prophecy than I do now.  –Warren Wiersbe in his mature years

They canceled Sunday School at my church for tomorrow morning. Some kind of issue with a busted water pipe in the fellowship hall area where construction people were doing something. So, we’ll be having church in the auditorium of a private school at 10:30 am.  And I am not unhappy at all about it.

The Sunday School lesson–which I was scheduled to teach–was really difficult to get my mind around.  Mark 13 is our Lord’s Olivet Discourse, with its counterparts in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.  Each of the three has its own uniqueness but for the most part they’re much alike.

Prophecy is hard for me.  And I don’t mind admitting it.  There is a little history to this.

As a college student, I worked for a preacher in downtown Birmingham. Reverend Jim Irwin owned the Upper Room Bookstore which I operated the summer between my freshman and sophomore years.  Brother Jim pastored a small church and had a radio program called “The Radio Bible School.” One night a week he held a Bible class in the bookstore for anyone wishing to attend. It was my job to type up his handouts, which is how I learned his views on prophecy.  On paper at least, he seemed to have it all figured out: The Lord was on the verge of returning and all the prophetic signs were being fulfilled even as we speak. Jesus was due to set foot on Planet Earth at any moment.

That was 1959.  Sixty-four years ago.

A big thing back in the day was the year 1948, the establishment of the nation Israel.  After all, taught the prophecy experts, didn’t our Lord say that “this generation would not pass away before all these things came to be”? That’s Mark 13:30. This clearly means, so they would teach, that within one generation of the establishment of Israel all these prophetic signs would be fulfilled. And how long is a generation?  Most said 25 years.  Some said thirty or thirty-five.

It’s been seventy-five years.

I learned early on that expounding on Bible prophecy was easy and easy to get wrong. As someone has said, “The graveyards are littered with the bones of prophecy experts.”

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The two sides of every resume

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“But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God:  in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of the truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying and behold we live; as chastened and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:4-10).

I can imagine picking up this guy’s resume’ and having it say: “In one of the two churches I served as pastor, I endured a four-hour deacons meeting in which some wanted to lynch me for preaching the gospel.  Not only did I frequently preach revivals in some outstanding churches and baptized hundreds of converts, but my wife became the target of a gossip campaign because she wore a pants-suit to church one night.  So, I think I’m qualified for anything now.”

A full resume’ would tell both sides of our story.

When we hand our resume’ across to a prospective employer, we want them to learn who we are and the ways in which we are qualified to fill the position for which we’re being considered.

This is who I am.  These are my credentials. Read this and even though you won’t know everything about me, you’ll know a great deal.

My accomplishments. I served these churches over these years, built these buildings, developed these programs, and achieved these things. I served on this board, led this organization, and participated in these works.

A prospective employer would want to know this.  Now, I would not–as many do–go into great detail tooting my own horn. Let those running their references on me hear someone say that “he didn’t tell the half of it.”  Best for my friends to brag on me than to do it myself.

My scars. Fully as much as my accomplishment, what confirms my identity as a minister of God is what I endured: persecution, hardship, suffering, and trouble. If all who live godly shall experience persecution as the Apostle Peter said, then that’s an essential part of my story.

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